I Became an Ant Lord, So I Built a Hive Full of Beauties-Chapter 199: Nest for the Fallen

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She flushed violet, antennae flicking in panic.

"No! No, Sha! We’ve guarded our virginity for years! We sister made a pact to stay pure until we found the perfect one—someone strong, respectful, with killer abs and the confidence of a ten-horned stag beetle. Wait. Wait... that is him!"

She slapped her own cheek lightly.

"Snap out of it! You’re supposed to be the sensible one! What if he turns out to be a pervert who licks antennae while whispering sweet nothings into your thorax?"

Her brain paused.

"Actually... that doesn’t sound awful."

She glanced at her sisters— they were sneaking glances at Kai too, and even Naaro had adjusted her thorax plating for maximum curve. Treason! Betrayal! The queen hadn’t even said yes yet and the hive was already wobbling!

Sha took a deep breath, clenched her fists, and muttered under her breath:

"Fine. If we join him, I’ll protect us. I’ll guard the queen, defend the sisters... and if one of us must fall to his devilish charms... It will be me! I’ll take one for the team! For the future of our clan! I won’t let him touch others... I will only moan on behalf of my sister."

Her cheeks burned. "Goddess, he’s so handsome. And that voice! He could command a tidal wave just by saying, ’COME!’"

She made a small squeaky noise, then slapped her mandibles shut.

Naaro tried not to squeal. Her face was glowing a dark red under her exoskin. "If he talked to us. Directly... I could feel my thoracic nodes melting."

She nervously poked the dirt with a poisoned blade. "I’ve never even held hands with any man. Do we hold hands in the mountains? What if he wants to hold antennae? I’m not ready for antennae-touching!"

She crouched and clutched her knees. "Oh goddess, he’s going to mate with us all, isn’t he? Will he do it one by one, or all at once?"

Then she faintly whispered to herself, flustered: "After Queen...I hope I’m second."

But Akayoroi did not answer at once. Her antennae lowered, brushing the back of one wrist in thoughtful circles.

"I can’t decide in a breath. It doesn’t matter even if I am in love with him." she admitted to herself. "These five are all I have left... and the eggs. We must heal."

The heat of battle had faded, but a strange weight lingered in the damp forest air—neither grief nor relief alone, but something dense and tangled between.

Akayoroi stepped forward. Her regal bearing returned, though her antennae still dropped faintly from exhaustion. The glow of the sun’s rays shimmered on her soot-speckled carapace, and her beautiful eyes reflected Kai like twin mirrors.

"Kai," she said at last, her voice low, even. "You’ve done more than words can repay. But this choice you’ve given us... isn’t one I can answer lightly."

Kai nodded once. "I understand."

Then she says to Kai, "We need time to think."

Kai dipped his head once. "Fair. Let me know when you made a decision."

She took a step closer, still keeping a royal distance. "Stay. In the nest. Just for a day—or two. Let us rest... Let me and my sisters think. You deserve that much comfort before you return east."

Her words felt calm. But beneath them was an unspoken invitation. Not a command, not a plea—but a quiet gesture of trust.

Kai crossed his arms, looking over the battlefield still littered with carcasses, broken gear, and slowly seeping green-black blood. He could smell old pain here. And the earth still hummed with the rage he’d released earlier.

After a pause, he replied, "Fine. I’ll stay."

Akayoroi tilted her head. She bowed her head slightly in agreement. "Then allow my sisters to begin the retrieval. I need to make a grave for the fallen."

She raised a hand, antennae flicking to signal her command. "Vel. Naaro. Sha. Xxx, Xxx You know what to do. Bring them, let them reunite with others..."

Vel saluted with one arm across her chest. "Yes, my queen."

Sha added with her usual serious tone, "We won’t let any be left behind."

Before they moved, Kai turned to the side, eyes landing on a familiar smirking face wiping slime off her thighs.

"Azhara."

"Hm?" she hummed lazily, dragging a ripped sash across her leg and sniffing it with a wince. "Still smells like frog tongue. Tragic."

Kai gestured toward the retreating assassin squad. "Help them. They’re five, but the terrain’s brutal. And you’re fast."

Azhara straightened and gave a mock salute. "You want me to play babysitter to five traumatized women and dig through blooded soil?"

"Yes."

She sighed dramatically. "Fine. But if I get leeches in my underwear, I want to personally remove it."

"Stop your perverted thoughts. You don’t wear underwear," Kai muttered.

"Exactly." she winked and vanished with a swirl of mist.

Akayoroi turned toward him. "You command strange allies."

Kai watched Azhara vanish with others. "I know."

The five assassin sisters moved in near-silent formation across the devastated battlefield, now stained in ash, poison, and gore. Black mist covers the corpses of frogs and fallen ants alike... all poison.

One ant scouted ahead, tossing glances for movement. Sha and Vel flanked the edges. Naaro and another ant behind them, searching the fallen, tagging the limbs with scented pouches so they could be carried back later for burial.

"Forty-one confirmed dead found so far," Sha reported grimly. "We’ll bury them before sunset."

"Wait—" One ant’s voice rose suddenly, breaking the grim quiet.

They turned to see her crouched beside a half buried corpse with fallen tunnel walls, until the "corpse" twitched.

Sha rushed forward. "Pulse?"

Another ant pressed her antenna to the buried ant’s chest. "Faint! But there. Breathing."

The ant was broken, abdomen crushed under rubble, one antenna torn off but her thorax still trembled with life.

Naaro immediately dropped her pouch and pulled a vial from her satchel. "Venom stabilizer. Don’t move her yet—she’s been poisoned."

Vel reached into her own belt and pulled out an emergency honey injector. "Here."

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