WorldCrafter - Building My Underground Kingdom-Chapter 230: Information

Chapter 230: Information

The ant, paused at the edge of the crate, twitching its antennae. Like waiting for a order.

Then another appeared. Then five more. Then twenty.

Within seconds, a silent stream of insects poured from the cart’s underside, moving in tight, coordinated lines. They split off like water down stone, some crawling beneath nearby stalls, others disappearing into alleyways, vents, and drainage grates.

No one noticed.

These were the Krell Ants, Ben’s newest creation, a spy swarm designed for surveillance and information gathering.

Their bodies emitted no mana trace, as they ran purely on aether. Their light-bending, layered chitin cloaked every movement, rendering them almost invisible. They carried no stingers, no weapons, only eyes, ears, and a singular purpose.

Despite the name Krell, however, they weren’t connected to the Hive Mind.

The reason was simple: they were too small. Their cores lacked the capacity to maintain a Hive link over distance. Ben had to be in close proximity to connect directly, which made them more autonomous than the rest of his creation.

Instead, their data fed into something else.

At a quiet corner of the plaza, while Barrek was still charming crowds, Taleth sat with a thin, rectangular device in hand, the ants’ control panel. Lines of tiny, shifting script ran across the screen like rippling threads. Every sound, every recorded movement from the swarm passed through here.

Thanks to the parasite lodged inside him, Ben could view everything through Taleth’s senses, effectively making the tablet an extension of his own eyes.

‘To think he can even make something like this,’ Taleth mused. ‘T’zarek hides more than he shows.’

It all started weeks ago, over a casual drink. Barrek had floated the idea first: using common pests like birds, rats, and bugs as spies, a trick often used by slum thieves.

“Cheap, fast, everywhere,” Taleth had said. “You want intel? Send in something no one cares about.”

Taleth had used this method for a while, using an old branding artifact, he captured and marked animals with unique rune. Then, by channeling mana into the artifact, he could connect to the branded creatures’ senses, viewing and listening through their eyes and ears.

Ben hadn’t dismissed the method, but he didn’t trust borrowed tools, not when he could create his own. And so, after a brief but intensive disussion with Elvira, the Krell Ant was born.

Unlike branded beasts, Krell Ants had purpose-built bodies, optimized for stealth, resilience, and passive data collection. Every sound they captured was transmitted directly to the control panel, which housed a magical AI built by Elvira.

This AI sorted, filtered, and compiled raw audio into a structured database, identifying relevant keywords and voices for Ben to review later.

As for vision, it could be transmitted, but the problem was scale. Visual data consumed massive amounts of memory. Within hours, full-stream footage would flood the tablet’s storage.

Elvira’s solution was simple: only compile visual reports when asked.

With just a few-taps, the control panel, shaped like a thin, obsidian tablet, could shift modes, displaying a live feed from any Krell Ant selected. The UI allowed pinch-zoom, playback, even multi-feed overlays.

It wasn’t perfect. But for a swarm of ants no one would notice? It was more than enough.

Taleth sat beneath the shade of a rusted awning, the low buzz of the crowd fading behind him. His fingers moved deftly across the smooth obsidian surface of the control panel, screen shifting beneath his touch.

He exhaled once, then tapped the side twice.

Switch to Live Feed Mode.

The interface rippled like water, and a list of ant signatures appeared, over a hundred active Krell units already embedded throughout Gravenhold’s lower district.

[Krell-07] – Status: Active – Location: Under Forge Duct

[Krell-13] – Status: Active – Location: Merchant Alley South

[Krell-21] – Status: Active – Location: Basement Level, East Plaza

Taleth scrolled, eyes sharp. Then he selected one at random.

[Krell-13] – Activating Visual Feed…

The panel flickered, then stabilized. From the ant’s perspective, everything were gigantic.

The camera was low to the ground, weaving through piles of discarded slag and broken pottery. Booted feet stomped past overhead. The creature slipped between shadows, scaling a cracked wall into a narrow window.

Inside, a pair of black-market traders argued in hushed tones.

“…I’m telling you, the Varnak sigil’s fake. He’s trying to pass these prisoners as noble debtors, ”

“Shut up and take the deal. Do you want the Flame Wardens sniffing around? If we delay, we lose the shipment.”

Taleth tapped the panel again, tagging the voice signatures and location.

He moved on.

[Krell-21] – Activating Visual Feed…

A dim, grainy tunnel appeared. The ant had found a passage beneath a crumbling smithy, descending into what looked like a long-forgotten basement. Taleth adjusted the brightness filter.

Two cloaked figures stood over a table covered in parchment, a map of the southern lava routes spread between them.

“…T’zarek’s already claimed Krahal-Zir. If he connects it to Emberreach through this vein, Gravenhold loses half its leverage,” said one.

The other growled. “Varnak won’t let that happen. He’s already preparing a message for the Temple. We’ll paint him as a criminal if we have to.”

Taleth’s eyes narrowed. ‘So they’re preparing for a political strike.’

He switched again.

[Krell-04] – Activating Visual Feed…

This one was on the ceiling of a tavern kitchen. The view showed a wide storage room where crates of food and weapons were being quietly offloaded by men in red-tinted armor, armor with no city crest.

A third man approached. “Shipment’s from Ashmouth. No labels. Varnak says distribute half through the north barracks and dump the rest near the slums.”

Taleth frowned. ‘Off-the-book military supplies?’

That wasn’t just paranoia. That was preparation.

He pinched the screen, splitting the panel into four segments and activating multiple feeds at once.

One Krell Ant skittered across a noble estate’s outer balcony, listening in on a bored merchant talking about his lazy slave.

Another had crawled into a garden shrine, where a priest muttered to himself in Speech, part of a prayer to Ashking.

A third ant had crawled to the ceiling of a coliseum’s lower ring, its chitinous body clinging to soot-streaked stone above a bloodstained corridor.

From the Krell’s angle, the view opened down onto a dim holding chamber. Torches cast flickering shadows along the cracked walls.