The year of the 35th Sun.
Though it may be the year of the Sun, I pray full allegiance to the might and courage of the War god.
Me and my fellow brethren who are reaching the end of the juvenile season have now arrived to the day we become warriors.
Our trial, as follows, The extinction of the red abominations who crawl in the tunnels that reside beneath the surface of the clasping hills.
It is a hard trial indeed. Even the bravest and most stellar warriors and fellow believers of the War God have given us their prayers.
But it is no matter.
The holy prophet, the most enlightened Solvanne, is the visage of the War god. She has given us her blessings-
-And her blessings are the blessings of the War God.
We shall reign triumphant.
Klaus, son of War.
***
The year of the 35th Sun.
Through grueling obstacles and tribulations we have reached the outside perimeters of the vile abominations that live in their hollows.
Their bodies are covered in brilliant red armor that shines in the sun. They walk on six legs each similar to a red sword. They have two deadly pincers that could cut a cow in a single snap.
They are truly the most harrowing of creatures I have seen.
Yet I must not falter.
Me and my brethren have decided to gather information today and fight tomorrow.
May the War god lend even a drop of her might and power to us lowly mortals.
Klaus, son of War.
***
The year of the 35th Shadow
The Sun god had finished his duty. He has now spent 35 years looking over the mortal realm. How ironic that the brightest of the gods now gives his duty of protecting the mortal realm to the darkest of the gods.
I have spent a year in these tunnels with the abominations that dwell within them.
All of my fellow brethren who have taken the trial to become warriors are now dead. Though they fought to the very last breath, and the time they spent in the mortal realm wasn't in vain.
We have mortally wounded the Matriarch of these crimson beasts. Soon they will die out, with no way to reproduce.
But I am mortally wounded. My clothes have been painted red, my armor has become rusted, and my sword broken and dull.
Though I will prevail.
Though it may be the year of the Shadow, I shall show the Shadow god, that a warrior of the War God need not be taken to the Shadow god's realm of the dead
I will win.
Klaus, son of War
***
The year of the 35th Shadow
I do not have much time left.
I have been captured by the damned red beats. They cut off my legs with their pincers. Then it dragged me by my left arm to their den, in the process, ripping that left arm off as well.
I now write with my last remaining limb, my right arm--They have given me to their young.
The pale yellow larva is now gnawing on the bloody stump where my leg used to be.
Oddly enough, I feel no pain. The young seemed to have a venom that made me feel numb, a defense the young larva probably had in case they were attacked.
My blood has made its way onto my journal page
My vision darkens
Is the shadow god calling me
Never
I am K L A U S
SOn OF w
***
The journal ended there. I flipped back and forth between the delicate papers, seeing if I had missed anything.
There was nothing else I could find from the book. No small margin notes or things written on the weathered cover.
Though the information provided in the book was vital, I couldn't help but think more about the person who had painstakingly written the journal. Every day, for a year, despite the lethal conditions he was trapped in.
Klaus seemed to have been a follower of the War God, a devout one at that. A young person who was taking a trial to become a warrior that was probably tradition for people their age. He might have been the same age as me.
I held some admiration for the young warrior. I had been indiscriminately chosen by the spell randomly and was thrown into the first trial somewhat against my wishes. Klaus on the other hand had chosen to go with no hesitation. Even if he had gotten the help of multiple people his age, his situation was exponentially harder.
I couldn't imagine fighting hundreds, if not thousands, of Ironclad ants. I had trouble already with one, and my victory over it was mostly pure luck. The respect I had for Klaus was somewhat close to Mongrel, though slightly smaller—it was still close.
Anyway, the journal Klaus had left behind before his death had given me a multitude of information and combined with my own research of the Ironclad ants: I had a plan.
***
I've probably spent at least two days inside the dirt room which I now call the nursery room. This was because it was the yellow ant larva's room.
It crawled, screeched, rolled, and played whenever it wanted to--it was practically an infant inside a room-sized crib. Every now and then an adult Ironclad Ant would come inside carrying a corpse of a nightmare creature in between its thorny black pincers. I called that ant the hunting ant.
The hunting ant would drop the food and promptly leave, then another ant would come in. I called that one the nurse ant. It would rip apart the nightmare creature the hunting ant brought to smaller pieces so that the larva could eat it. The nurse would then use its antenna to brush over the larva while it was gorging itself. After checking over the larva the nurse ant would come back every few minutes to check in on the larva.
After feasting itself, the larva would curl up and go to sleep. That was when I moved from my spot in the farther corner of the nursery room and explored.
During the first day of my exploration of the nursery I stumbled across the journal. It had a brown leather cover and a pocket was stitched on the spine of the book. Inside was a hand-length silver needle. After playing around with it I realized it must have been a writing utensil.
I wrote down my notes about the ants inside the journal a few pages after the last entry from Klaus. Mostly about the ants' weak points and the habits of the ants that would enter the den. I also tried my best to note down any ants that would pass by the nursery room, though in this darkness they were barely silhouettes.
Speaking of the lighting situation, I was completely petrified when I realized that I was basically blind in this dark cave. The only glowing green mushrooms I found were grown near the entrance, and that was the one spot of the nursery room I seldom visited. Anyway, it would only put me in danger. The ants were mostly blind but it was most likely due to the fact that their reliance on pheromones were the reason they could easily traverse these pitch black tunnels.
It was also their complete reliance on pheromones to detect substances and life that allowed me to survive. I looked at my hand which had gripped the vial of the [Essence of Dirt]. The gold and brown dust was still inside, undeterred. I had been pouring the contents of the vial over myself every few minutes. It makes my scent entirely by making me smell and feel exactly like dirt. It practically made me invisible against the ants.
Though it provided a vital benefit to my survival, I couldn't help but feel a bit embarrassed about my current attire.
I had removed the shredded vest I had on when I was first transported into the first trial with. I also removed the shoes and ripped off half off of the pants, turning them into crude shorts that went past my knees. Though I was hidden by the [Essence of Dirt], I still sweated. In such a humid environment, being underground in a dirt room with dripping wet walls, I produced buckets of sweat. Though I could hide the scent of the sweat on my body with a quick dash of the vial, it would continue to build up in my clothes. The [Essence of Dirt] might have been able to mask the scent of sweat from my clothes as well, but I didn't want to take any unnecessary risks. I'd rather be half-naked on the dirt floor than be food on the platter of the ant larva.
Speaking of food, I had none. I relinquished my thirst by gathering the dripping water from the dirt ceiling of the nursery room into my cupped hands. While the water was in my mouth, I filtered the dirt and trash using my teeth, then I reluctantly drank it.
I hated doing it, but I needed to survive. But the real problem was the food. The hunting ant brought nightmare creatures for the larva to eat, and theoretically, I could just steal some portion of the carcass. The problem that plagued me though was if they harbored disease.
I sighed looking at the way the larva moved. It was slightly bigger than me, and could probably fit me inside itself…Klaus's journal mentioned that he had severely damaged the ant queen and now the colony would quickly die out with no way to reproduce. I didn't blindly believe the journal entries though, I thoroughly fact checked it for the past 3 days—and fortunately for both him and me, the colony was dying.
I took a deep breath, looking at the ant larva which was feasting on the scraps. I got up holding a red stick that looked like a sword. I had ripped off one of the ant's legs that I killed a few days ago. It had become my makeshift sword since I couldn't properly rely or waste the swings of the [Moribund Sword].
Glancing at the entrance of the nursery room to check whether the nurse ant would come in or not, I took a step forward towards the pale ant larva.
I will escape this nightmare.