Chapter 2

Our Discord Server: https://discord.gg/PazjBDkTmW

This chapter is edited by eldar aziz. Thank you for your contribution!

Chapter 2: “Laying Eggs”

Since there wasn’t an instruction manual, Lin Yu had no way of knowing exactly what the information on the panel meant.

Her current situation was as follows:

She had been reincarnated from an ordinary, powerless shut-in into an ant, now residing in this place.

The surroundings were a roughly circular cave composed entirely of dirt.

Inside the cave, aside from herself, there was a pile of broken eggshells and the corpse of what appeared to be her mother ant, who had likely died shortly after laying her.

There was also a large, circular tunnel that her “mother” could barely fit through, but with her current night vision, she couldn’t see what lay beyond it.

What should I do?

First, I need to accept the situation… I am indeed an ant now. No—an [Ant Queen].

Sigh…

Suddenly, she felt unmotivated.

But if this world had magic, then maybe I can transform into a human one day! And if I treat this situation like an immersive VR game…

Oh! Now I’m excited!

Come to think of it, this screen really had a video game-like feel.

To survive in this world, she first needed to level up, and then gather information… She still knew absolutely nothing about this world.

But for now, gathering information wasn’t her priority.

Leveling up should come first. If this was like a game, then leveling up should involve defeating enemies.

Lin Yu looked around the cave and eventually focused her gaze on the dark tunnel.

Then, she quickly looked away.

Nope. Nope. If I ran into an enemy I can’t beat, I’d be done for! I’m totally not scared!

That left her with only one option…

She reopened the panel and examined her two skills, [Unique Skill—Ant Queen] and [Egg Laying].

How am I supposed to use a skill?

She thought for a moment and mentally commanded:

‘Activate [Unique Skill—Ant Queen]?’

Nothing happened.

Is that not how it works? Or is it a passive skill? Judging by the name, it doesn’t seem like an active skill.

She then tried mentally activating [Egg Laying] as well.

This time, it worked!

Lin Yu felt her abdomen slowly swelling.

It felt… full.

I didn’t expect it to actually work… Wait, can an [Ant Queen] lay eggs without fertilization?

This really is another world.

Lin Yu let out a breath of relief.

But the sensation of something gradually filling up inside her abdomen made her expression a little complicated.

Just yesterday, I was a normal fourteen-year-old girl, and today, I’m already becoming a mother?

Come to think of it, I had never even considered marriage or children back in my old world.

Not because I was too young to think about it, but probably because I had been exposed to too many yuri games and novels. Compared to handsome men, I preferred beautiful women.

But in the end, I was still just a quiet, introverted homebody. Even though people called me a school beauty, I didn’t have many beautiful female friends—if anything, I often attracted jealousy.

After some absent-minded thinking, Lin Yu realized that her abdomen had reached its limit.

Something was about to come out!

She could feel it, but nothing actually emerged.

Instead, a white, semi-transparent magic circle suddenly unfolded beneath her abdomen, inscribed with intricate magic patterns so complex they made her head hurt just by looking at them.

The magic circle lasted for only a moment before disappearing.

Then, Lin Yu saw that beneath her abdomen, ten rough-surfaced white eggs had appeared, each about half the size of her ant head.

That’s it?

Before she could examine her “children” closely, her abdomen suddenly contracted, and an overwhelming hunger overtook her.

Hunger consumed her mind, sweeping away all other thoughts and filling her ant brain with a single impulse.

So hungry…

So hungry…!!!

I’m going to die! If I don’t eat something, I’m going to starve to death!

Her already red eyes darkened, turning the color of blood.

If Lin Yu had checked her status panel at that moment, she would have seen that her HP, originally at 10, had already decreased by 1.

But in her current state, she had no time to think about that.

Her crimson eyes locked onto the ten eggs she had just laid.

Drool dripped from her sharp mandibles as she instinctively moved closer to the eggs, her movements eerily similar to the dead mother ant beside her.

Just as a drop of saliva landed on one of the eggs—

Tap—

A faint sound snapped her back to her senses.

Crap… what am I doing…

So hungry… No… I can’t… I just laid them…

But… so… hungry…

She fought with all her might against the hunger gnawing at her, forcing her head away from the eggs.

Then, her gaze landed on the broken eggshells and the corpse of her mother ant.

Eggshells…

Right… I can eat the eggshells…

But the hunger had weakened her. Her whole body felt drained, and every step felt like a struggle.

It might have been only a few seconds, or perhaps several minutes, but to Lin Yu, it felt like an eternity of torment.

At last, she reached the pile of shattered eggshells.

Her ant body collapsed onto the ground with a soft plop.

Trembling, she reached out with her mandibles and bit into an eggshell.

Crunch, crunch…

Surprisingly, the eggshell wasn’t as hard as she expected. Some residual egg fluid remained inside, giving it a texture similar to potato chips. Other than a strong eggy taste, there wasn’t much flavor.

It was disgusting… but at least it was filling.

After consuming about a tenth of the eggshells, her hunger gradually subsided until it was gone.

Huuu—

Lin Yu let out a long breath and collapsed onto the ground, raising her right foreleg as if to wipe away cold sweat.

Then she remembered—her foreleg couldn’t wipe sweat, and she didn’t actually sweat. Feeling awkward, she lowered it again.

Then, as if remembering something, she opened the status panel.

________________________________________HP: 3/10

MP: 8/12

________________________________________

Seeing that her HP had dropped by 7 points startled her.

So that hunger earlier wasn’t just normal hunger—it really could have killed me.

Wait… could my mother have starved to death like this too?

Lin Yu suddenly turned to look at the dead mother ant. Now that she thought about it, the mother had died in a posture that suggested she had been trying to eat me in my egg.

She must have run out of HP before she could eat me… and starved to death.

As for my MP…

Using [Egg Laying] consumed 4 MP, meaning I can activate it two more times.

Should I… do it again?

Ugh… Maybe I should check on those eggs—or rather, my children—first.