Building a Safe Zone with My Harem In The Post-Apocalyptic World

Chapter 199: "WE WILL ANSWER"

"It’s weird, why haven’t they found us yet?" Arthur asked as they stepped inside the equipment room, which was already covered in mushrooms.

The place had turned into some kind of cultivation chamber. Mushrooms as big as big dogs grew over the shelves, lockers, and equipment until they seemed fused together.

Some had even split open the metal surfaces, their thick white stalks twisting around broken machines while pale spores floated lazily in the damp air.

The rotten smell was even stronger than before, and patches of black sludge spread across the ground, making every step feel sticky.

It wasn’t strange. They did use meat and carcasses as fertilizer to cultivate their mushrooms.

"And why is this place so silent? Worker ants should be here carrying all the carcasses they find."

Otis groaned as his boots became stuck in the gooey black sludge. He quickly shook his feet, his face full of disgust.

"Isn’t that a good thing? Maybe this is still a new colony. They don’t have that many members yet."

Arthur shook his head. "Look at the eggs on the ceiling, that’s how much queen ants breed in a day. There are thousands of them, which means it won’t be hard for the colony to have thousands of members. And yet... they haven’t even smelled us."

He frowned and looked around the room once more. "Ants have an incredibly strong sense of smell. They’ll recognize anything that doesn’t belong to the colony and attack any intruder. Unless something is interfering with that instinct."

"Well, your suggestion is based on the real ant, this one is a mutated ant. They are as big as us, imagine if they are able to reproduce thousands a day, this world will be full of them. But they aren’t on the street colonizing us, right? So maybe the mutation makes the queen reproduce in small amounts."

Otis’ answer was surprisingly logical, considering how he behaves and thinks, but it was enough to make Arthur go silent.

While Otis and Jace searched the room for anything useful that had survived the catastrophe.

"I found night vision goggles," Jace said, tossing them over one by one.

"I found C4."

Otis’ words immediately made the other two stop. They exchanged a glance, already reaching the same conclusion without saying a word.

They packed ten blocks of C4 connected to a single remote before putting on the military-grade equipment they found: night vision goggles, tactical vests, gloves, masks, and helmets.

Fortunately, everything had been sealed inside waterproof storage cases, leaving the equipment untouched despite the mushrooms swallowing almost the entire room.

After leaving the room, they planted two blocks of C4 inside the egg chamber before continuing deeper into the building.

Unfortunately, they couldn’t avoid the next group of ants. There were too many to count, enough to kill them if a fight broke out. Their only choice was to throw the C4, run for their life before blowing up everything, maybe including them.

Arthur lowered his voice until it was barely a whisper. "Don’t do anything. Stay silent."

The ants at the front immediately lifted their heads and began to hiss.

Otis and Jace resisted the urge to move. It was a choice worth trying, their survival was small if they ran anyway.

The hissing quickly spread through the colony as the ants behind them answered one after another. Through the green glow of the night vision goggles, they could see the creatures searching for the source of the sound.

Arthur slowly realized something.

The ants relied almost entirely only on hearing. Several of them even bumped into the walls while searching, and one passed so close to Otis that its antenna brushed against his sleeve, stopping only an inch from his face and forcing him to hold his breath.

Arthur became even more certain his theory was correct.

He quietly reached into his trouser pocket, took out an energy bar, and threw it into the hallway on the right.

The wrapper hit the floor with a loud crack. Every ant hissed at once before rushing toward the sound.

Arthur didn’t waste the opportunity. He gestured to the other two, and they immediately ran in the opposite direction, searching for another place to hide.

When they finally found a suitable place to hide, the three of them leaned against the wall, trying to calm their racing hearts. It had only been a few minutes, yet they had already escaped death more than once.

"The ants..." Arthur finally broke the silence. "They’ve lost their sense of smell."

"Maybe it’s because of the parasite messing with their brains."

"Isn’t that a good thing?" Otis asked while adjusting the night vision goggles on his helmet. "At least we can see them properly now without using flashlights and accidentally alerting them. They aren’t blind, right?"

Arthur shook his head. "No. They found us just fine outside in broad daylight."

He paused, recalling what he had seen earlier. "And did you notice their condition? Some of them had broken legs, others were missing antennae, yet they kept moving as if nothing was wrong. We also only encountered worker ants when a colony should have different castes handling different jobs."

"So I’m right? It’s still a new colony?"

"Maybe... or maybe the parasite is affecting them too, forcing them to keep working like machines that never stop."

"Anyway," Jace finally said, "the General’s office should be close."

He was right. After passing several corridors, they finally arrived at a reinforced door that still had a faded metal plate hanging beside it.

GENERAL OFFICE.

Before entering, however, something caught Arthur’s attention.

A massive body lay motionless in the middle of the hallway. It was far larger than the worker ants they had encountered, with thicker armor, enormous mandibles, and a pair of folded wings attached to its back.

"This is a Major," Arthur whispered. "A soldier ant."

He slowly circled the corpse, confusion filling his face. "Why is it dead here?"

Jace carefully nudged it with his boot. The impact felt like kicking solid stone.

He immediately frowned. "Shit... make sure we don’t fight these things. I don’t think our bullets can penetrate that shell."

"Our knives would be useless too."

Sweat slowly rolled down Otis’ neck. If even a soldier ant was this terrifying, then what kind of monster had killed it?

Or...

Had it died because of something else entirely? None of them wanted to think about that possibility.

Jace quietly grabbed the office handle and pushed. The rusty hinges let out a long, creaking sound that echoed through the silent hallway.

The three exchanged a glance before slipping inside. Without wasting another second, they locked the door and dragged every cabinet, table, and shelf they could find against it.

If the ants had heard that noise... They would find out soon enough.

And they were right.

The sound of countless tarsi scraping against the floor echoed through the hallway, growing louder with every passing second. The three of them instinctively moved as far away from the door as possible, holding their breath while listening to the swarm outside.

Fortunately, the ants didn’t seem suspicious of the room. They simply continued on their way until the sound gradually disappeared into the distance.

Arthur frowned. There was definitely something wrong with this colony.

Ants possessed one of the most sophisticated societies in the animal kingdom. They worked together so efficiently that scientists often described an entire colony as a single living organism, a superorganism.

Yet the colony outside was a complete mess. The workers wandered without proper formation, many of them injured, and their coordination felt delayed, as if the connection between them had been cut off or severely limited.

When they were finally sure the danger had passed, the three of them switched on their flashlights and lifted the night vision goggles for a clearer view.

The office itself was surprisingly neat. Documents were still stacked on the shelves, furniture remained in place, and even the General’s desk looked untouched.

However, what immediately drew their attention were the words covering every wall. Written over and over again in dried blood.

"They called us."

"They called us."

"They called us."

The same sentence repeated hundreds of times until there was barely any empty space left.

Then Otis slowly raised his flashlight toward the ceiling. His hand immediately started shaking.

Unlike the walls, the entire ceiling was covered by a different sentence written in uneven, desperate handwriting.

"We will answer."

Silence filled the room.

Otis swallowed hard. "Do you think... they all became food for the ant queen? Or maybe for this Groove? Is that why those bastards disappeared?"

Arthur slowly shook his head. "I don’t think so. If that happened, we’d find bones everywhere. Instead, we’ve only seen a few carcasses used to cultivate mushrooms, and that’s nowhere near enough for thousands of people."

He looked around the room before continuing. "Even the Groove isn’t that greedy. Every ecosystem has a limit to how much food it can process in a week."

Otis stared at the bloody sentences again.

"Then... who are they? Who called them? And who answered?"

Arthur opened his mouth but couldn’t find an answer. For the first time since entering the headquarters, even his knowledge wasn’t enough to explain what they were looking at.