The protagonist leaves the entrance of the cave with his ten soldier ants and walks south.
There is a small patch of bushes to the south. The area of the bushes is only enough for humans to traverse in a few minutes, but for ants, it is a lush dense forest.
Because these shrubs are relatively low, they are not bullied by strong winds like trees, so their branches and leaves appear very lush. The protagonist didn't know what season it was now, and the sun's light seemed very fierce, so he felt much more comfortable after hiding in the shade of the bush.
There are also many worker ants acting alone in the shrubs. They are either searching on the ground or climbing up the branches of the shrubs. The protagonist leads his subordinates while observing the actions of the worker ants.
These worker ants mainly collect grass seeds and some fungi from plants and bring them back to the nest. There are also some full-time worker ants that look after aphids on some plants. When the protagonist was still a human, he read some books that introduced ants to herd aphids like cattle and sheep to protect the aphids from being eaten by natural enemies in order to obtain the honeydew secreted by the aphids.
The protagonist noticed that, except for carrying back the bodies of some dead insects, the worker ants basically did not take the initiative to hunt small insects. The protagonist analyzed the reason why the worker ants did not go hunting. It was probably because the worker ants' vision was too poor. They could only see moving objects at a very short distance. The insects could easily avoid the ants that were groping forward. Even if it is accidentally encountered by a worker ant, the insect will still have enough power to escape before the worker ant has time to notify its partners to come for support.
"It seems that hunting is not an easy task for other male ants!" The protagonist thought to himself. Although the other male ants have better eyesight than the soldier ants, they can only laugh at a hundred steps.
However, this difficulty is nothing to the protagonist. The protagonist has as good eyesight as the human period, or even better. At least in the low-light environment underground, the protagonist is as comfortable as a night owl.
As long as you can see the insects in advance and arrange for your subordinates to complete the siege and raid, it will be difficult for ordinary insects to withstand the attack of ten wolf-like soldier ants. When it comes to group warfare, no insect is more powerful than ants.
At first, the protagonist was worried that he would encounter some natural enemies of ants, such as pangolins, anteaters, etc. But after being out for so long, the protagonist has seen no other creatures except various insects, snails, and earthworms. All large creatures seem to have disappeared, and there is not even a shadow of a bird in the sky.
The protagonist and his party shuttled on the ground in the bush, and the soldier ants dutifully left pheromones on the ground along the way. The protagonist, as the commander, occasionally relied on the sun to correct the direction of progress.
It was morning when he first came out of the cave. The direction assigned to Gun was southeast, and he was facing the sun. So every time the protagonist sees the direction of the sun, if it tilts a little to the right, it will be roughly south.
After leading the team alone for half an hour, there were fewer and fewer worker ants in the same nest living alone around him, but the protagonist never found anything worth hunting. The aphids on the trees are basically taken care of by the worker ants in the same nest. The snails and earthworms that are occasionally discovered also make the protagonist uninterested. The hard shells of snails are definitely not something that the soldier ants under his command can chew open. The sticky shells of earthworms The body also makes the protagonist feel queasy. Although he knows that ants are willing to eat meat, the protagonist has no intention of hunting snails and earthworms.
There are also some extremely tiny bugs that are not even looked down upon by the protagonist. Since it is a hunting exercise, you have to seize the opportunity to exercise. It is best to bring a fat insect back and show it off in front of other male ants and the nervous old king.
After walking for a short distance, deep in the bush, the protagonist finally found a suitable target-a caterpillar.
This caterpillar is green and chubby, with many stinging hairs on its soft body. It looks like it should be the larvae of a moth or butterfly.
The protagonist did not discover it at first. The protagonist's eyes were searching on the ground. This was a human empiricist error. The protagonist simply ignores that there may be a worthy target above his head.
The protagonist was concentrating on searching the ground when he was suddenly startled by a "snap" coming from not far away. When he looked up, he found this unlucky caterpillar.
The caterpillar fell from a leaf that was almost eaten to another plump and juicy green leaf. The sound of landing attracted the protagonist's attention.
The reason why this caterpillar is said to be unlucky is because ordinary ants are not sensitive to sound. Even if they feel vibrations, they cannot have such good vision to see the target.
But the protagonist is not an ordinary ant, this is the body of the soul that has been appointed by the God of Time Travel. The sharp sight like humans quickly locked onto the caterpillar on the leaf about two meters away from the human.
For caterpillars, their greatest secret is their ability to camouflage. The skin color is very close to the color of the leaves, allowing them to avoid most dangers. But now, having been locked by the protagonist, Caterpillar's biggest reliance is gone.
After all, it was the first time to hunt, so the protagonist was more cautious and carefully searched his mind for all kinds of knowledge about caterpillars. At present, it seems that this caterpillar is still in trouble with only the bristles on its body, and it is not known whether it has venom. Without venom, these bristles alone are not enough to harm the smaller soldier ants with their strong carapace.
In the end, after evaluation, the protagonist felt that he was still quite sure to capture the caterpillar without any casualties.
So, the protagonist gathered ten soldier ants and conveyed his hunting plan one by one. After the transmission is completed, the protagonist shakes his abdomen and issues the "attack" command through vocalization and dissipation.
