77: Chapter 77 Locals

"They've retreated! They've retreated! All those beasts have retreated!"

Duan Linhai was so moved that his eyes filled with tears, his voice choked with emotion.

Just a moment ago, the Ant Swarm had completely left the attack range of the crossbows and turned to attack other Fortresses.

Those survivors' Fortresses were just ordinary flats; even though they had long reinforced their doors and windows with bed boards and heavy objects, how could they possibly withstand the gnawing of the Ant Swarm?

"Boom!"

The durability of one Fortress dropped to zero, and the reinforced concrete walls collapsed with a roar, turning into several swirling clusters of light.

"Ah! Get away! Get away quickly!"

A young man in his twenties shouted at the top of his lungs, attempting to use his voice to drive away the Mutant Ant swarming over.

The Ant Swarm paused for only an instant before rushing forward with even greater speed!

"Ah!~"

The man's screams were instantly drowned out by the noisy sounds of insect limbs rubbing and carapaces colliding, leaving only the sound of incessant gnawing.

Duan Linhai stared fixedly at that tragic scene, witnessing with his own eyes his fellow humans being devoured before him; goosebumps instantly covered his entire body, and a bone-chilling coldness shot straight from his spine to the top of his head.

"Waa!~"

He could no longer suppress the churning in his stomach and began to retch violently.

Both children had also seen the entire horrific process; the younger daughter was so scared that she covered her eyes on the spot, her body trembling uncontrollably as she hid tightly behind her brother, not even daring to cry out loud.

"Dad! Dad, are you okay? I think we must tell Uncle Li Yunlong about the situation here."

Although the older brother was only fifteen and his whole body was trembling uncontrollably, his mind was much calmer than Duan Linhai's.

"Right! We must hurry and tell Li Yunlong!"

Duan Linhai quickly opened the private chat.

40-year-old Uncle with Two Kids: "Big Boss, the Ant Swarm has retreated, but they are still attacking other survivors' Fortresses. I saw with my own eyes them eating people alive!"

When Chen Ze saw the message, he didn't feel much at first.

Mutated Beast eating people—isn't that normal? Otherwise, what do you expect them to do, play Fighting the Landlord with you?

But immediately after, the uncle sent another private message, every word filled with extreme terror.

40-year-old Uncle with Two Kids: "Big Boss, they don't seem to be planning to leave at all. I see many ants have already started digging; they seem to want to build a nest here!"

"What? Build a nest?"

Chen Ze frowned, pondered for a moment, and then looked at Fatty and Wang Yalan, asking abruptly.

"Do ants change their nests at will?"

Wang Yalan shook her head, indicating she didn't know. Before the apocalypse, she hated these little bugs the most; even if she stumbled upon them while scrolling through short videos, she would immediately swipe away, fearing the algorithm would think she liked watching them.

Fatty, however, became interested immediately.

"Brother Ze, you asked the right person. When I was bored in the past, my favorite show was Animal World."

He paused and continued.

"Let me tell you, except for army ants, most ants are very stubborn. A colony can live in one nest for a long time, at least a few years, and up to a dozen or more! As long as there isn't a catastrophic disaster like flooding, nest collapse, or being besieged by natural predators, they would never move house easily, let alone rashly run to an unfamiliar area to build a new nest."

After saying this, Fatty realized what it meant, and his face instantly froze.

"That's not right... Why would this group of Mutant Ant leave their perfectly fine forest nest and insist on running to a human gathering place to dig and build a nest?"

"Could it be because humans are too easy to capture? Or maybe they think humans taste better?"

Wang Yalan spoke up.

Fatty waved his hand upon hearing this and said.

"Probably not. Ants are omnivores; they don't think meat is anything special. Besides, they are E-rank Mutated Beast. How much energy is there in those ordinary humans? It can't compare to the mutated plants and animals in the forest at all!"

Chen Ze listened to their conversation and suddenly slapped his forehead.

"How did I forget about this? Isn't Xingzhe Sun a Mutated Beast? We're all here guessing back and forth; why not just ask a local?"

He immediately opened the system panel, projected the image of the Mutated Giant Ants, and turned to look at the one-eyed Big Male Monkey beside him.

"Xingzhe Sun, you've stayed in the forest for so long; have you seen this kind of ant colony?"

Xingzhe Sun was originally sleeping, but after being woken up by Chen Ze, its one eye was still groggy. It stared at the picture for a long time before it started "squeaking."

Chen Ze could naturally understand what it meant.

"I've seen them. These bugs are on the other side of the forest, and there are so, so many of them!"

"Do you know why they came out of the forest?"

Chen Ze continued to ask.

Xingzhe Sun subconsciously wanted to scratch its head with its paw, but after looking at its paw, which was wrapped in gauze like a rice dumpling, it finally gave up.

"Squeak, squeak, squeak!~ (I know... it's their natural predator, the anteater!)"

"An anteater?"

Chen Ze was a bit confused.

"Squeak, squeak, squeak, squeak, squeak!"

Xingzhe Sun gestured while squeaking, sometimes digging with its claws, sometimes baring its teeth as if it were chewing something.

"You mean a particularly powerful anteater appeared on the outskirts of the forest, and that guy specializes in destroying ant nests and hunting this group of Mutant Ant?"

Xingzhe Sun immediately nodded frantically and squeaked a few more times.

"(That anteater is super, super big, covered in thick fur. One dig with its claws makes a big pit, and one flick of its tongue catches dozens of Mutant Ant. It's super, super powerful!)"

Must say, having a local makes things easier.

Chen Ze finally understood everything this time.

No wonder I encountered the Ant Swarm on the outermost edge of the forest last time; it turns out they were forced out by their natural predator, and that's why they abandoned their nest to come out and forage.

"It looks like I must bring the uncle's family over as soon as possible!"

His willingness to expend effort to save Duan Linhai's family was primarily because he valued the S-rank counter-damage talent that came with the durian fortress.

As for the extra consumption of supplies for three people, now that he had plenty of survival coin in hand, he didn't care about such a small expense at all.

He couldn't just take their heart of the fortress and then turn around and leave the family in the wilderness to die, right?

To be honest, Chen Ze hadn't reached the point of being purely cold-blooded and unscrupulous to achieve his goals.

But before setting off, he had to get a few more "Affiliation Scroll"s for them to use so he could feel completely at ease.

He opened the system panel to the Trading House.

To Chen Ze's surprise, there were quite a few Affiliation Scrolls for sale here; not only that, but there were also several contract scrolls.

It must have a direct relationship with the increased drop rate last night; perhaps the system hoped more survivors would group together to survive.

The price of the Affiliation Scrolls wasn't cheap, basically around 500 survival coin each.

Chen Ze felt a bit of a sting, but in the end, he still contacted the profiteer Lao Gao, who still gave him a 20% discount.

Three Affiliation Scrolls, for a total of 1200 survival coin.

"I bought so many living supplies this morning and only spent 500, yet these few crappy scrolls cost me 1200! It seems I'm still too poor!"