It didn't take me very long to reach Blue Water City, since we had portals now and from there it was just a short walk to the coast.

I thought for a second that I would have to swim down there since she wasn't expecting me, but the second I reached the bank, the stairs once again began to form.

How nice of her.

A few moments later and I was once again seated across from her.

"Didn't expect a visit from you so soon."

Honestly I didn't expect to visit her so soon either, but this was important.

"I came to ask for a bit of assistance if you have time."

She smiled slightly before responding.

"Time is the one thing I happen to have more than what I could do with. What do you need help with?"

Well. She isn't called an Immortal for no reason so I guess that makes sense.

"There are a few hundred million people on this planet that appear to be missing. Do you have any insight as to where they might be?"

Her facial expression seemed to shift to one of slight interest. As if the happenings of this planet were of no real consequence to her. Only finding the situation slightly amusing. Which was true I guess. She was just a visitor here, and she likely wouldn't be here at all if it wasn't for my presence.

"So you aren't aware."

Before I could ask what she meant by that, she pointed one finger straight down.

"They are below us. Underground. Deep underground. There are some still spread out all over the place above ground, but the vast majority of them are underground."

Interesting…

I mean I suppose that's fine and all, but really? A couple hundred million people were all underground? How were they surviving? How did they even get there. Why are so many of them?

There were plenty of questions to ask and I couldn't make sense of any of them.

The Princess before must've sensed the amount of questions whirling around in my head and decided to relieve the burden.

"I wasn't here during the return of your Tutorial, but I could tell you for certain, that most of the people who now dwell underground, were simply taken there.

"Though I wouldn't rule out that some of them had the unfortunate fate or perhaps fortunate depending on your viewpoint, of being teleported there upon the return to your planet."

Did she just say taken? By what? Demons?

"Taken by who or what?"

"Hm, I don't believe I've seen this exact variant before and I do think it is local to this planet, but ants are the 'whom' you are looking for."

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I almost fell out of my chair.

"Did you just say ants? Like the little bugs that can be accidentally stepped on?"

"Yes I said ants. Is the System Translation not working quite right perhaps? And to answer your second question, they are far too large to accidentally step on. In fact most of them are much larger than even you."

Giant ants.

Who would have thought. Not me.

And they were kidnapping people.

"Do you know what they are doing to the people they take?"

"It's simple. They are food."

There it is.

It makes a lot of sense when you think about it, everything needed sustenance of some sort, and depending on how big or small you were, would likely determine the size of the prey you sought out.

The ants were apparently massive, meaning they would need much larger prey…but humans weren't the only big things on planet.

I wonder it's a taste thing…or maybe a nutritional value thing. Pretty sure there was anime that had a similar concept in it, so maybe there's some truth to that.

Either way, the fact is ants were hoarding humans for food.

Now what am I going to do about it.

Nothing? Well that's not entirely bad now is it. Earth vs invading forces, sure I'll defend it. Humans vs the local wildlife, I'm not too keen on helping out.

But this isn't a normal situation. Hundreds of millions of people here. All being kept underground as livestock with massive ants as their breeders.

And I am the Lord of this Planet. This is probably the type of thing I'm expected to deal with.

Alright the decision's been made, I'm going to go kill some ants.

"Is there any more information you can give me on the situation?"

"Telling you everything is no fun, but I can share a few more things. While the humans are being kept as food, they are treated fairly well until it is time to be consumed. It seems the ants care for their food supply.

"And although the ants rule the underground, they aren't the only powerful species who dwell down below. In fact, there are even a few pockets of humans who are not living as livestock."

"How strong are the ants?"

"They are strong, but it's not their individual strength or even their immense numbers you should be worried about. It is their intelligence. You have not seen a single ant near your Citty or any other City right? You should ask yourself why."

Hm.

The situation doesn't look all that promising honestly.

Giant ants who are also smart.

I'm sure this is type of situation where I'm supposed to feel worried about going up against these ants, and worried about all the people being eaten, or even all the people that might die to rescue everyone down below, but I can only feel excitement.

That sounds like a lot of fighting.

And I would be fighting strong opponents.

Yeah, I'm definitely excited and I can't wait to share the news with the Clan. I'm sure they'll all be excited too.

But this is not the type of fighting I wanted to do with second hand spears. I mean nothing's wrong with at all, but it's just something about the fact that they are just loanees that don't quite make them feel like mine.

Probably because they aren't but lets move on.

"Thank you for your help Princess Laviesa. It's appreciated."

She then gave me the type of smile that could cause accidents before responding.

"You are always welcome to visit Patriarch Raizen."

I shook the vile thoughts making their way to the front of my mind out of my head and calmly left the same way I came.

Of course Vrusha was waiting for me on the shores. As a dutiful body guard should. Which of course includes the other 25 Infernals not too far from him. All of which who were now my officially official guard detail.

Now that we organized the Clan into departments, my guard detail needed to be organized as well.

They were a small and elite division or would be over time. The current name for the division was the Pyreveil Guard. It was supposed to mean something about shielding the core of the flame or something along those lines.

They all liked it, and the boys was apart of the process of coming up with a name so I was down for it.

"Let's go home Vrusha, we're about to be very busy, very soon."

He nodded and walked a half step behind me as he always did.

Then my thoughts drifted to the future since my plans have changed slightly. A war on ants huh.

Probably would usually need a lot of people for something like that…but I'd rather not put thousands of people at risk needlessly.

My Clan alone will handle this, and there's a good chance the people we save will be able to join the fight against the ants.

Well it's time to put our fledging military department to work.

This is already shaping up to be a good time.

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