There were six queerats in all. They came forward slowly.
"Satoru, get rid of the spear," I whispered in as normal a voice as possible. "They'll kill us if we resist."
Satoru shook his head, "They'll kill us anyway. Listen, run into the forest while I fight them."
"That's ridiculous. It's impossible to get away, but if we go quietly, they might not kill us right away. We can wait for help."
"No. They won't make it," Satoru replied stubbornly. "And I don't want to be locked up in a cage again."
"Satoru! Please, don't be rash."
The six queerats stopped four or five meters away. Were they still on guard against us? That's kind of strange.
"...wait a second," I said, holding back Satoru's spear-arm.
"Don't get in my way."
"I'm not...look, they're not the same ones as before."
"Huh?" Satoru replied dubiously.
Just when I thought the queerats would drop their spears, they suddenly all fell to their knees before us.
"What?" Satoru shouted.
I just stared with my mouth agape.
"Kikikiki grrr...k-gods," the queerat in the center raised its head and let out strange sounds that resembled speech. "sssh...Robber☆Flyy colony...∈∂Å. Ground Spider...★brrr...danger!"
I have no clue what it's saying. But I saw something that looked like tattoos on their foreheads.
"We're saved! It's a colony that obeys humans!" I said, my knees going weak with relief.
Satoru still looked doubtful, but approached the queerats resolutely, if somewhat nervously, stopping about three meters away and looking at their tattoos.
"'Salt 604', huh. Does that mean 'Robber Fly' colony?1"
"Kikikikiki...Robber☆Flyy! Robber☆Flyy!" the queerat who could somewhat speak replied to Satoru's words, nodding exaggeratedly like a longheaded locust. "Gro☆Spider★...danger...Ground Spider★danger!"
We learned later that at that time, the Department of Health had already acknowledged the existence of the foreign colony and had named it "Ground Spider". But compared to another foreign colony that had come over from the peninsula, called "Millipede", the Ground Spiders were considered a mild group and not much trouble. This turned out to be an underestimation.
Incidentally, during the Yamato period in ancient Japan (different from the New Yamato period during the Holy Cherry Blossom Empire), "ground spider" was a derogatory term that referred to the indigenous Jomon people. After all this time, the fact that it's now used as a name for a queerat colony, and a foreign colony at that, speaks to the ironic nature of history.
Anyway, we were led through the dark forest by the six queerats from the Robber Fly colony.
"We're in a bad situation again," Satoru sighed, looking grave.
"How come? We've been rescued. And these guys definitely won't take us captive."
"True, but I'm talking about now."
"Now?"
Satoru gave me a pitiful look, "Why do you think queerats worship humans as gods? Isn't it because we have cantus? They're only being subservient right now because they believe we have that power, but what do you think they'll do if they find out we've lost it?"
