System didn't know anything about how ghosts were born in this world or their habits, but everything that existed must have had a reason for its existence. This ghost had appeared inside the nest and harassed his ant subjects for three consecutive days. There must have been a reason for this.
This ghost might be scaring the ants for fun, and watching the annoyed ants react was all part of a game that it was pying. It might also be doing it for sustenance or to gain strength, first emitting its strange mental fluctuations to affect the ants mentally, then absorbing their negative emotions...
Or it might be the situation that System was most worried about. This ghostly spirit could be simir to the ghosts in some horror novels from his previous life, and it wanted to possess the body of one of the insects that lived in the nest.
As soon as he had this thought, System started making preparations for when the ghost made its appearance today.
He no longer let the ants move separately and go about their work on their own. Instead, he gathered all of his ant subjects into several chambers that were close together. Even Aura and Meatball were included.
However, because even System couldn't get the zy butterfly to move, all of his subjects had been gathered together near Aura's chamber. With the help of Little Strong, the soldier knight with the [Strong Body] talent, even the immobile Queen Linda had been brought along.
...
The ghost showed up a little ter than it had in the previous few days. System had to wait for more than ten minutes before the white spirit appeared and emitted its usual gloomy and desperate mental fluctuations.
Because his ant subjects were so close together this time, System was able to arrive quickly when the ghost showed up, and he finally saw what it looked like in person.
Although he'd already seen the ghost's appearance through the worker knight's eyewitness image, the ant's intelligence wasn't very high, so she'd only been able to send a blurry image over the [Mental Network].
The white spirit floating in front of System was about one meter tall. From its appearance, which was a bit blurry and distorted, he guessed that it was the ghost of a ratman.
When the ghost saw the ants gathered densely around, it started sending out its usual frantic and desperate mental fluctuations.
System quickly used [Probe and Analyze] to inspect the other party.
...
Species: Ratman Ghost (renameable)
Height: 1.1 metersWeight: 0.5-10 grams
Estimated Combat Power: 0.1-20Special Talents: -
...
"Hessian betrayed us! He shouldn't have done that. He will definitely be punished."
"The Abyss Lord won't let us go."
"Lance, why isn't Lance here? He should be here. Do you know where he is?"
This ghost didn't seem to be able to send mental messages. Instead, it used mental fluctuations to simute the ratman nguage, but this method of communication was very confusing and hard to understand.
If System hadn't already mastered the ratman nguage out of boredom during his long pupation, he thought that it would have been difficult to understand what the ghost was saying with its mental fluctuations.
After System sent mental messages to inform Shava and the other ant knights not to act rashly, he carefully observed the ratman ghost as it floated through the air. He noticed that it seemed to have trouble maintaining its shape.
This ratman ghost seemed to be behaving simirly to how the evil-god-worshiping ratman that System had once captured behaved. It appeared to be a bit unstable mentally.
System didn't know whether this ratman ghost was also one of Rafael's believers, or if it had only become mentally disturbed after turning into a ghost.
The ratman ghost seemed to regain some level of awareness. It looked at System and his ant subjects with a bnk expression, then started to panic.
"No, you aren't ratmen! What are you? Who are you? What kind of monsters are you?"
The ratman ghost became flustered, and it seemed like it might run away at any time.
System responded in a hoarse voice, "Lance Corisius, is he the ratman you're looking for?"
Lance Corisius was the ratman wizard who had blown himself up before his death to cast the [Severance Curse] on System. Later, System had learned the wizard's name from the books that he left behind.
System still couldn't forget that name.
Now that he heard the familiar name of the ratman wizard, System naturally had some questions that he wanted to ask.
After hearing System's reply, the ratman ghost that was preparing to escape through the wall was stunned for a moment. It suddenly floated in front of System and said, "Do you know Lance? Where is he, where is he, where is he...?"
It seemed like the ratman wizard that Shava had killed was very important to this ratman ghost. The ghost seemed frantic as it floated in front of System and urgently asked questions.
System didn't answer the ratman's question. Instead, he started asking it questions of his own.
"Who is Hessian? Why did he betray you? What did he do?"
However, the ratman ghost didn't answer any of System's questions, either. It just kept floating in front of him, staring at him while repeating the previous questions over and over.
"Where is Lance? I want to find him, I want to find him, I want to find him, I want to find him..."
System stared into the ratman ghost's eyes and calmly continued to dig for information, "Tell me who Hessian is first. Then I will tell you where Lance Corisius is."
But the ratman ghost still maintained its crazy state and only repeated its previous words.
"Lance, I want to find him, I want to find him, I want to find him..."
...
'Are all ratmen mentally abnormal?'
System's mandibles twitched gently. Since coming to this world, all of the ratmen that he'd caught or encountered were more or less mentally unsound. He just didn't know if every ratman in the world was like that.
But just as System was thinking about how to continue asking the ghost questions, his blood trembled slightly, and his [Intuition] suddenly sent out a burst of inexplicable uneasiness.
Because of the reminder from his [Intuition], System soon felt a very weak killing intent and excitement hidden in the ratman ghost's crazy mental fluctuations.
System's [Mental Transmission] ability wouldn't usually be able to sense the ghost's emotions, but his skill at using mental communication had gotten much better over time, and the ghost was taking the initiative to send out its mental fluctuations.
Because of this, System was able to immediately notice the abnormality in the ghost's mental state.
Suddenly, a white shadow fshed in front of System and sshed the ghost in half like lightning. It was Shava.
As soon as System had noticed the ghost's abnormality, he'd decisively used [Mental Connection] to notify the nearby Shava so that she could deal with the ghost.
However, the ghost wasn't affected too much by Shava's attack. Although the ghost had been sliced in half, its body quickly recovered.
Perhaps because it had noticed that System's group of insects weren't easy targets, the ratman ghost stopped acting crazy. As soon as its spirit body recovered, it quickly started floating toward the nearest wall.
It seemed to be trying to escape.
After seeing that her first attack didn't work, Shava quickly rushed up and repeatedly sliced through the ghost with her twin bdes. System also sprayed the fleeing ghost with his [Frost Breath], but neither of their attacks had a significant effect on the ghost.
Even though it had been chopped into more than a dozen pieces by Shava's sshes, the ratman ghost still floated slowly toward the wall. The only difference was that its floating speed had gotten a little slower.
However, just as the ghost was about to escape through the wall, a ball of red fme the size of a grain of rice suddenly appeared and struck the ghost.
Like a spark meeting gasoline, the ghost was instantly encased in fmes.
The red fire burned the ghost to ashes in less than a second. It didn't even have a chance to scream...
