A man standing at the very front of the group—likely someone of fairly high rank—tapped his foot and let out a sigh. His round, cute eyes contrasted sharply with his tightly sealed lips and a coarse, square jaw that gave him an uptight, rigid appearance.
“I’d appreciate it if you didn’t ride us so hard over every little thing. We’re not exactly lounging around with nothing to do.”
“Tch, listen to these cocky little shits. What, you think you’re so busy? You’re just ants, crawling around in the dirt.”
At the insult, the ant who seemed to be the captain twitched slightly between the brows. But that was all. He said nothing in return and simply exhaled deeply, as if trying to rein in his temper.
“Is he an intruder?”
“Don’t worry about it. Just cut off his legs and wings and toss him on that bed over there.”
“Your Majesty!!”
Blaine let out a sharp, horrified cry, but the Queen didn’t even flinch. She snorted dismissively through her nose and spoke coldly.
“Ah, and stop the bleeding properly. I don’t want the bed getting dirty.”
“The manual says intruders are to be eliminated immediately.”
“Fuck, you got a death wish or something? Since when do you question every damn thing I say?!”
“……”
Captain, please. It won’t help to escalate things. Another ant standing just behind the captain whispered quietly when the captain’s face scrunched up even further. With a loud click of his tongue, the captain nodded.
“Make it quick.”
At the flick of his finger, the ants gripping Blaine’s shoulders sprang into action with perfect coordination. They grabbed the back of his neck and began pressing him down, yanking at his limbs like they were about to rip them off. Blaine’s face went pale.
“Let go of me! Let me go—ahhh!”
A searing pain shot through his shoulders and the insides of his thighs. Surrounded by more ants than he could count on his fingers, his limbs were tightly bound, completely immobilized. In that moment, Blaine remembered something he once read in a book—about an ant’s jaw strength. The color drained from his dusky face. If this kept up, they really might tear his arms off in seconds.
“W-Why are the ants obeying the Queen Bee? What the hell is going on…”
“You used to look better when you kept your pretty mouth shut. But today? You’re yapping too damn much. What, want me to cut your tongue out too?”
Blaine, sniffling as tears streamed down his face, whimpered for Hurel like a lost child. But when he found himself truly at the edge of the cliff, alarm bells went off in his head. Thoughts surged and vanished like waves crashing against rocks. His vision spun. Desperate to break free of the ants’ grip, he thrashed wildly and screamed the first name that came to his tongue.
“A-Antony! Antony, wait—let’s talk this out, please!”
Dozens of hands had been tearing at his arms and legs—but all at once, they stopped.
Footsteps echoed across the silence, heavy and deliberate, sending a tremor through his eardrums. Through his tear-blurred vision, Blaine saw a pair of astonishingly small feet come into view, followed by a deep and deliberate voice—calm, commanding.
“…How do you know my name?”
Wait—Anthony is real?! Blaine thought in utter disbelief, his eyebrows sinking like collapsing arches.
***
“How do you know my name? I’ve never seen a creature like you before.”
At the cold, clipped tone, Blaine’s jaw dropped. In a blind panic, he’d just blurted out some random ant’s name that came to mind—and now this?
“Shall I torture him until he talks, Captain?”
“Gah…!”
What kind of extreme, hot-blooded psychos are these?! Blaine scrambled to defuse the situation before it got completely out of hand.
“Jin D!! Jin told me about you! He really misses you a lot!”
Anthony’s face remained unreadable, his silence stretching on. Blaine swallowed hard. Does he… not remember Jin?
The tense stillness stabbed into him like needles. Just when Blaine thought he couldn’t bear it any longer, Anthony finally murmured softly:
“…Is Jin doing well?”
“Jin…? Oh, y-yeah! He’s doing great!”
Thrown by the unexpected familiarity in that nickname, Blaine was momentarily dazed. But it was like spotting a frayed old rope dangling in front of him—and he grabbed onto it without hesitation.
A flicker of emotion—faint but undeniable—passed across Anthony’s stern face. In a voice heavy with what sounded like regret, he muttered:
“I see… so he’s doing well. It’s been a long time since I left the Salvia Flower Field.”
Though his tone remained composed, something about it was clearly different from usual. The ants standing tall behind him like elite guards began to stir. Perhaps they sensed the unusual tremble in their unflinching leader—someone more like an ice sculpture or a carved block of wood than a living being.
“Captain… when are we finally going home?”
“It’s been months. I’ve lost count. We can’t keep doing this—I’m about to give up.”
“I came all the way out here just to feed my family, and I’m working myself to the bone in this godforsaken place. I can barely remember my kids’ faces.”
“I signed up for this gig to get my kids into private kindergarten. At this rate, they’ll forget their dad even exists!”
Once one ant voiced his frustrations, the others followed like a dam breaking. One after another, their complaints spilled out.
Anthony stomped once, silencing the uproar, then walked over to the pitiful heap that was Blaine, lying like discarded trash. He grabbed Blaine’s arm and hauled him upright.
“You brought me news about Jin. Just this once, I’ll let it slide. But there won’t be a second time.”
“Captain??”
“He won’t make it far anyway. The wasps’ll catch him soon enough. Doesn’t matter.”
“Well, that may be true, but…”
Blaine was vaguely astonished at how fast he was reacting to everything now. Before the captain had even finished speaking, he’d already fumbled to pull up his pants, straightened himself up, and clutched the doorknob. He didn’t even feel the pain in his ankle anymore.
“…Hey. Just what the hell do you think you’re doing? Are you defying my command?”
The Queen’s sharp, incredulous voice made Blaine freeze mid-step. But Anthony didn’t even blink as he calmly replied:
“Not sure what you’re imagining, but we’re not your subordinates. I don’t care what deal you made with the wasps. We were hired to handle this building’s repairs and security. That’s it.”
If the ants are fixing it and it still looks this awful, what the hell did it look like before? Blaine was having oddly irrelevant thoughts—until one particular word caught his ear and snapped him back.
“…A deal?”
At first, he’d been furious—How dare they imprison the Queen Bee in a place this grim and squalid! These monsters! But now… it looked like they’d actually given her the best they had. And the way the ants treated her—it was strange.
“Pfft, what deal? A deal’s supposed to go both ways. Give and take. What kind of deal is it if they just throw me in this shithole?”
Disdain dripped from every syllable as she glared daggers at Blaine. There was no trace of the kind and gentle Queen he once knew. He couldn’t find her, no matter how hard he searched her face.
“Don’t think for a second you’re safe now, Blaine. Just because you’re a worker bee doesn’t mean you can defy your monarch and live in peace.”
“……”
His face was streaked with tears, his nose running, his entire appearance a mess. Blaine slowly turned his head.
“…So this is how Your Majesty has really seen us all this time. I understand now. Still… even so… I…”
His voice caught in his throat. Limping away, Blaine couldn’t finish what he wanted to say. The Queen scoffed behind him. Watching him go, Anthony looked almost pitying as he opened the door himself.
Blaine gave only a small bow and stepped through the cursed red room at an unhurried pace.
Only then did he feel the full pain in his ankle—like it was about to snap in two. He could barely walk, but he gritted his teeth and forced his legs to move. It was almost self-punishment. He wanted the physical pain to blot out what he felt inside.
