Brand New Life Online: Rise Of The Goddess Of Harvest

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A car-sized ant suddenly appeared from the giant canyon, rushing towards us while clicking its giant jaws, which created a loud, metallic sound. Its crimson eyes glowed brightly, and its antennae twitched, while letting out a loud hiss. Enjoy exclusive content from empire

"SHIEEEEHHHH!"

"Olivia! Watch out!"

I ran towards her and quickly took Irene from my inventory, loading it with my Mana and swinging my shovel down against the incoming Ant.

"{Great Elemental Resonance}!"

FLUOSH!

The shovel was covered on Spiritual Light, glowing bright gold and white, as I quickly attacked the incoming ant, hitting it in the head with the strongest blow I could muster in this form.

"{Great Spiritual Explosion}!"

BOOOM!

The explosive attack hit the ant directly, as the shovel's end slammed the ant's head and quickly shattered its metallic exoskeleton, the head then exploded accompanied by the scream of agony from the insect.

"GRYYAACK!"

The creature then fell from here, reaching down and rolling over the stone like a lifeless corpse, for a moment, I sighed in relief.

"That thing was tougher than I imagined, my hands hurt from just hitting it…" I sighed in relief. "Olivia, are you ok?"

"Why yes! Thank you for protecting me, Elayne," Olivia smiled. "It seems you're quite strong, I didn't expect that from your small height. But a shovel? Haha! I have never seen someone fight with such a tool…"

"Ugh, well, it is magically enchanted," I explained. "It is a shovel I had in my childhood, so when I enchanted her, she gained a lot of power, and she aligns well with my abilities."

"I can tell," she nodded. "With a mere glance…"

Her starry eyes glanced at Irene with great interest.

"It's an incredible tool, a magical weapon without a doubt!" she said. "But in the simple shape of a shovel, so it's easy to make people underestimate you, hm? Quite smart."

"You finally called me for some battle, Elayne! I was getting bored waiting there," sighed Irene, suddenly speaking.

"Oh my! Not only you possess that Inventory Ability that Rose told me about, an incredible pocket dimension where you can save objects, but your weapon talks?!" Olivia gasped, covering her face. "This is amazing, how long has it been since the last time I saw an Intelligent Weapon?"

She quickly approached me, looking at my weapon with fervent obsession, even gasping heavily.

"May I inspect it, Elayne? I promise I will not steal it, I am a woman of my word," she smiled.

Uhh, should I?

I guess that could earn me a favor from her.

"A-Alright…"

"Wait, what?!"

Irene gasped as Olivia grabbed her.

"H-Hey! Don't touch meeee!"

Irene started moving angrily, but Olivia had a surprisingly strong grip, without even being bothered about the living shovel movements.

"I see… So complicated, this is a Runic Engravement you made, Elayne?"

"I… Uh, yeah, I used a special… artifact, and that's all I can say."

"Huh! Could it be one of the artifacts that have begun appearing inside of Gates? They have incredible powers that cannot be easily understood, as if they worked below the laws of another world."

"Um, maybe… I can't say much, sorry. It's a secret."

"You've said enough! Don't worry, here, thank you for letting me have her, Elayne."

Olivia gave me the crying Irene back quite quickly, I checked her and there wasn't anything weird in her, so she was panicking and crying for nothing.

"Stop crying so much Irene, nothing bad happened!"

"Yeah but I don't like when others grab me, it's like… yucky! Though, she's a very pretty lady… Hm, I guess I can forgive you for now."

"Uh-huh…"

As I sighed, I heard Mark speaking.

"Olivia, do you know what those monsters were?" Mark asked. "Elayne did kill it with one blow, but I doubt it'll be the same for the rest of us, so knowing a bit would be useful."

"Oh, well, at first I wasn't sure if it was an otherworldly monster, but it seems to be a mix," nodded Olivia. "It must be a subspecies of Myrmekes Indikoi, giant ant monsters that originate from India but that spread all over the world. It didn't originate from the Gates, but the Gates affected their growth and powers due to the surplus amounts of Otherworldly Mana."

"Myrmekes, huh?" Mark wondered. "Do you know any weakness?"

"Hmm… It is said in their original myth that they guarded large mines of gold," said Olivia. "So they're easily attracted by gold or shiny things similar to them. I think it ran here because of the jewelry and gold I'm wearing."

"So it can be baited with valuable-looking jewelry and gold!" I nodded. "Interesting. Okay! Anything else, Olivia? Don't you want to join us?"

"Oh no, I would only get in your way," said Olivia. "I was already paid anyways, so I don't mind if you wipe them out for me, an easier job."

As she shrugged, she smoked a little more from her pipe.

"Hmm~ About weaknesses, I think it could probably be weak in the joints like any insectoid monster," she said. "Just don't get closer to their jaws and you'll be fine."

"Seems not so complicated, they're just huge," said Rita. "It shouldn't be too hard, I believe."

"Indeed, we should give it our all," nodded Lily. "Let's go then! Before more try to sneak out."

"Alright, we're going Olivia!" I said.

"Very well, once you enter, I will close the Runic Formation, so don't get too confused if everything seems weirdly… endless," she giggled. "Once you're done, just call me and I'll open it. There's approximately… two thousand ants here, including a Queen. I'm sure you'll do just fine."

"W-Wait, two thousand?!" asked Mark, before the Runic Formation was closed.

FLUOSH!

Then, as it closed, the world around us began to twist and turn strangely, the sky seemed normal and so the ground, but whenever we tried to look past this canyon, we only saw an endless… canyon.

Its like it never ended, the forest and everything was gone, it was all just labyrinthian paths and holes. So this is what she meant with being weird and confusing. But we can easily tell its an illusion, the ants can't, so they're trapped on their own perception.

"SHIEEEHH!"

And then, as we looked around dumbly, a bunch of them emerged from the hole, rushing towards us.

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