“The Arachnea produces new units to bolster its strength, but the same holds true for the Nyrnal Empire. They too skulk in the darkness, using the Gregoria’s heritage to augment their army with dragons. Soon the wyverns will not be the only thing to fear.”
What sort of forces would the Gregoria’s heritage produce that eclipsed even the fearsome wyverns?
“The war will continue. It will go on and on!” Samael said gleefully. “Let us resume the game with new units, new tactics, and new victims. Ahh, I can already taste the bliss it will bring!”
She laughed again, then picked up the map and left. The powers at war were currently locked in a stalemate, and the nations’ borders showed no signs of shifting quite yet. However, the number of casualties from here on out would only rise. Swarms would die to hold the borders, and so would Nyrnal’s soldiers as they tried to break through.
Blood would flow on both sides, and slowly but ever so surely, that crimson paint would stain the map of the continent.
But would things truly go as Samael desired? The Arachnea’s queen, at least, did not intend to let that happen. The Arachnea was all at once this world’s greatest hope and its deepest despair.
♱
Schtraut’s refugees were gradually returning home to the former Dukedom.
“This group goes to the first temporary residential complex. And this one, hmm...”
Roland was organizing and handling the refugees’ return. He worked with the hope that their homeland would be reborn, even neglecting sleep. With the help of some Swarms, he moved refugees into vacant houses and built temporary residences to accommodate those whose homes had been burned down.
“We’re finally home!”
“Ahh, it feels good to set foot on the Dukedom’s soil again!”
Relief washed over the refugees—well, the once-again citizens of Schtraut. They would be able to start anew, and this made them happier than anything else could. While they were in the Popedom, they had constantly lived under the threat of the inquisitors and feared that one day they might be branded as heretics.
Now they had left the cramped confines of the refugee camps behind and were allowed to live in their homeland once more. They were finally at ease.
“Are we really allowed to do this?”
“They won’t attack us, right?”
The only thing that made them uneasy was the presence of the Swarms. Right now, the Swarms were acting as Roland’s lackeys and helping with Schtraut’s reconstruction efforts. But in the citizens’ eyes, these creatures were the reason they had been driven out of this land to begin with, and they couldn’t forgive that so easily.
Parents hid their children, while older siblings hid their younger brothers and sisters as they made an effort to keep their distance from the Swarms.
“I suppose we can’t expect them to trust us in a day,” Roland muttered with a hint of disappointment as he watched them.
This hardly came as a surprise. The Swarm had laid waste to Schtraut once before, and even if they were allies now, the citizens couldn’t bring themselves to trust them right away. That trust would have to be earned, little by little.
And this was what the queen of the Arachnea wished for. If she kept the Swarm from killing civilians, she would keep hold of her human heart and respect the wills of the people she had lost. Her actions also doubled as a way to ensure the Swarm would be able to survive on their own without her.
After all, she wasn’t immortal. She, too, would eventually die; the fight with the Seraph Metatron had served as a grim reminder of that. Had things gone down even a little bit differently, Metatron would have slain her.
What would happen after her death? The Swarm would be left behind in this malicious world, and without a leader, they were weak. They would be reduced to a horde of insects incapable of strategy or tactics, and they would forcefully and incessantly try to overrun the continent with their numbers.
No units would be upgraded, no buildings unlocked. The Swarm would simply fight on and on. Roland couldn’t imagine them obtaining victory in that state. The only fate that awaited them would be extermination.
To prevent this, the queen was pushing them to form cordial relations with the citizens of Schtraut. If the Swarm had allies capable of creating technology and expressing independent thoughts, they might become capable of pressing on without her. Even if she were to die before the war’s end, the Swarm would be surrounded by human beings, so they wouldn’t be seen as mere monsters.
If the Swarm could live alongside mankind, they would not need to face extinction. They would become true friends to humanity, and society would eventually accept, if not welcome their presence. In that case, people would not feel the need to be rid of them.
But that would take time to achieve.
“All right, who’s ne—”
Just as Roland was about to transmit a question to the collective, however...
“Aaaah!”
A mother carrying her child of three or so years tripped as she tried to climb over the border wall. She went pale as the toddler slipped from her arms. But the boy didn’t hit the ground; one of the Ripper Swarms swiftly hurried over and caught him just in time.
“Eeek!”
The woman screamed in fear, likely thinking her child was about to be eaten, and prepared to snatch him away. But the Ripper Swarm made no signs of trying to eat the boy. It simply held him out toward her, patiently waiting for her to take him.
“You... You saved him?” she asked warily.
The Ripper Swarm said nothing and instead continued to wait with its forelegs outstretched.
“Um, thank you.” Bewildered, she gently took the child from the Ripper Swarm and stepped into Schtraut.
After seeing this chain of events, Roland sighed in relief.
“Perhaps the Swarm understands Her Majesty’s will better than I do.”
The Swarm obeyed the collective consciousness and the queen at its center. Though the queen thought being absorbed by the collective consciousness would put her on the path to indiscriminate slaughter, it seemed this wasn’t entirely the case.
Just as she wished, the Swarm were learning pity. They no longer sought to triumph solely through mass murder; they were now capable of choosing to accept others and show mercy. They did not simply reduce people to meatballs, but they had learned how to reach out and lend a hand—or scythe.
Coexistence with mankind... It might not have been entirely impossible. The Swarm had cooperated with the elves of Baumfetter, so perhaps they could cooperate with another nation, too. The Ripper Swarm that’d saved that child made the possibility seem real.