Chapter 2
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Chapter 2: “Laying Eggs”
Lin Yu couldn’t decipher everything on the panel; there was no instruction manual to guide her.
Her current situation was this: she had transformed from a weak, reclusive girl into an ant. She was in a round cave made entirely of sand. Inside the cave, there were only a pile of broken eggshells, the recently deceased ant that appeared to be her mother, and a tall, round tunnel. The tunnel seemed just big enough for the mother ant to pass through. With her current level of night vision, Lin Yu couldn’t see where the tunnel led.
What should I do?
First, she decided she needed to understand her situation.
Right now, I’ve definitely become an ant… No, not just an ant, a Queen Ant.
She sighed.
Suddenly, I’ve lost all motivation.
But then another thought struck her.
If this world is magical, maybe I can become human again! And if I think of my current situation as an immersive VR game… Oh wow!! Now I feel motivated!
The panel in front of her indeed felt very much like a game interface.
If I want to survive in this world, the first step is to raise my level. But I also need information. I know absolutely nothing about this world yet.
Still, she decided that information gathering wasn’t her main priority right now.
Leveling up should come first. If this were a game, I’d level up by defeating enemies.
Lin Yu glanced around the cave and finally focused on the dark passage.
But almost immediately, she looked away.
Never mind… If I run into an enemy I can’t defeat, I’d be in big trouble! I’m not scared at all! Nope, not scared!
Since venturing into the unknown wasn’t an option, she turned her focus to the skills listed on the panel: “Unique Skill – Queen Ant” and “Egg Laying.”
How do I use these skills?
Lin Yu thought for a moment and then mentally commanded, Activate Unique Skill – Queen Ant.
Nothing happened.
Is that not how to use it? Or is this skill passive?
The name didn’t make it sound like an active skill.
She decided to try the second skill.
Activate Egg Laying.
This time, it worked.
Lin Yu felt her abdomen begin to swell, as though it were slowly filling up.
I didn’t expect this to actually work… By the way, can a Queen Ant lay eggs without being fertilized? Truly, this is a strange new world.
She let out a sigh of relief, but the sensation in her abdomen—something slowly filling her up—left her with a strange expression.
After all, just yesterday, she had been a regular fourteen-year-old girl. And now, suddenly, she had to play the role of a “mother.”
Speaking of which, even in my original world, I never thought about marriage or having children.
It wasn’t because of her age. It was probably because she had played too many GL games and read too many novels. She liked beautiful women more than handsome men.
Yet, being quiet and introverted, she hadn’t made many close female friends despite being known as the school beauty. Her presence often made others jealous.
Her thoughts wandered for a while until she felt her abdomen reach its limit.
Something’s trying to come out!
She braced herself for it to happen, but nothing came out immediately. Instead, a white, semi-transparent magic circle suddenly appeared in her stomach area. The intricate magical patterns on it were so complex they made her head spin just looking at them.
The magic circle lasted only a moment before disappearing.
Then Lin Yu noticed ten white, rough-surfaced eggs, each about half the size of an ant’s head, lying beneath her abdomen.
Is that it?
Just as Lin Yu was about to closely examine her eggs, her stomach suddenly tightened, and an overwhelming feeling of hunger surged through her.
Hunger swept away all her thoughts and consumed her mind.
I’m so hungry, so hungry, so hungry…
So hungry, so hungry, so hungry!!!
I’m going to die! If I don’t eat something, I will starve to death!
Her already red eyes deepened to a blood-like crimson.
If Lin Yu had opened her Status Panel at that moment, she would have seen that her Health Points, initially at ten, had already dropped by one.
But right now, there was no room in her mind for anything other than finding food.
Her scarlet eyes fixated on the ten eggs. Drool dripped from her sharp mouth as she slowly leaned toward the eggs she had just laid. Her appearance was eerily similar to the lifeless body of her mother beside her.
Just as a drop of drool fell onto one of the ant eggs—
Tap.
The soft sound brought a sliver of her sanity back.
Oh no… What am I doing…?
I’m so hungry… No… I can’t… This is so hard… I just gave birth… But I’m so hungry…
She fought with all her might to suppress her hunger and struggled to turn her head away from the ant eggs.
Her gaze landed instead on the broken eggshells from her birth and her mother’s lifeless body.
The eggshell…
Right… I can eat the eggshell…
Her hunger made her body feel weak, and even her movements were sluggish and heavy. It might have been just a few breaths or perhaps many minutes; for Lin Yu, each second dragged on like an eternity.
Finally, she reached the pile of broken eggshells.
With a soft “thud,” she sat down on the ground. Trembling, she reached out and took a bite of an eggshell.
Crunch, crunch, crunch…
To her surprise, the eggshell wasn’t very hard, and some egg liquid still clung to its insides. The taste reminded her of potato chips, though the only flavor was the faint smell of egg.
It’s not tasty… but at least it fills me up.
After eating about a tenth of the eggshell, her hunger began to subside until it finally disappeared.
Phew—
With a relieved sigh, Lin Yu collapsed onto the ground. She extended her front leg, instinctively trying to wipe the cold sweat from her forehead.
A moment later, she realized that not only could her front right leg not wipe any sweat, but she wasn’t sweating at all. Embarrassed, she awkwardly lowered her leg.
Suddenly, a thought struck her, and she reopened her Status Panel.
/ Health Points: 3/10
/ Magic Points: 8/12
The significant drop in her Health Points took her by surprise.
Losing seven points of Health wasn’t just normal hunger—it was a real danger of death.
Hmm? Could it be that Mom also starved to death like this?
Lin Yu turned to look at her mother’s body nearby.
Now that she thought about it, her mother had died while trying to eat one of her own eggs.
Maybe she ran out of Health Points before she could eat anything and starved to death…
As for her Magic Points…
The skill “Laying Eggs” had consumed four points of Magic, meaning she could use it only two more times.
Do I have to… lay more eggs?
She hesitated, then glanced back at the eggs—or rather, her children.
Hmm… I should go check on them first.