I woke up very small. As in, small enough to where the strands of hair littering my pillow were the size of steel cables, and the pillow itself was like a low-rise building. A soft one to stand on, but a building nonetheless.
And the rest of my room is no different. Stuffed animals are now big enough to dwarf even the real life stuff, and the clothes could fit a giant. A giant that used to be me.
Because, see, right now, I’m not exactly my normal perfectly-avarage-for-a-Swedish-human size. After all, I’m not a human anymore.
I’ve got six legs, a nose to rival Usopp, and a pair of wings. And to make things just slightly easier, I’ve got a system message floating in front of my eyes.
[Common Mosquito Lv.1/10]
[Status: Normal]
[Speed: 1
Senses: 1
Durability: 1
Succ: 1
Blood Capacity: 1]
…Right. If I hadn’t been struck by carmic irony, I might have wondered about how or why this is happening. Is it God? Is this a challenge of some sort? Why? How? For what reason? I’m not dumb enough to think that I’ve been cursed at random for my crimes against authorship and whoever’s-the-patron-saint-of-music. But the reasoning can wait. For now, I want to appreciate the fact that I have a system at all.
Also, even more gratuity-worthy: I can use my body well. I can move my six limbs about as well as a mosquito would, and also my wings and even proboscis. That’s nice. I don’t need them to mentally bring forth the details of these stats, though.
[Speed (1): Allows user to fly at
a max speed of 2 km/h.]
[Senses (1): Range of sight: 10 metres.
Range of scent: 40 metres.
Range of thermal sense: 1 metre.]
[Durability (1): Extremely low.]
[Succ(1): 0,000005 litres per bite.]
[Blood Capacity(1): 0,00001 litres.]
…Right, gotcha. From what I remember in my time writing that one mosquito story, this is pretty normal for a mosquito. I wonder if there’s a joke I’m missing in all of this?
Anyhow, two bites is enough to fill out my blood capacity completely. Great. Now, the true question is, how do I go about this properly?
Blood capacity suggests that I’m meant to drink blood specifically, which makes sense. However, I still want to check if drinking nectar really isn’t on the table. So, I take to flight, and… Hey. This is pretty nice. I was sort of expecting to feel tired after just a bit of this, but now that I’m going, it feels surprisingly nice. My own noise isn’t too annoying either, which can’t be said for any people who might hear me. Luckily, I live in a dorm, which means that not a single person will ever bother me, ever.
Once the excitement of flight has worn off, I fly over to my chair, or, more specifically, the bowl of fruit I keep at its side. I’m not brave enough to try to bite the apples, but the single clementine should be fine.
Landing on its skin, I stick my proboscis into the peel of it. Bleh. Yeah, no, that’s not going to work.
In that case, I guess there really is only one option.
I’ve gotta bite some dormmates.
Problem one: My door is closed and locked. Not sure if I’ll be able to get through, but I don’t want to try. Luckily, the window is open, as it always is. I could go outside, and assuming the dorm kitchen window (or any other dorm window) is open, I’ll be able to enter no problem. The issue is that I’m a mosquito. The wind could seriously just blow me away. Or I might get eaten by a bird. Or, if I get into the kitchen, someone could just smack me and I’d die.
…Well, it’s not like I have much of a choice anyways.
I exit through the window. The window doesn’t berate me as much as expected, so I enter the dorm kitchen sneakily. There’s someone here. I can smell them, sort of. My sight isn’t so good, but I think I can tell who it is. It’s… okay, I don’t know his name, but it’s the guy with the bald head. Great.
Going by what spot would be the least likely to be retaliated against, and various other factors… I decide to attack the back of his shin while he’s working on the food.
Suck, suck, suck. This feels… vaguely wrong. Not specifically because I’m relieving a dorm mate of his precious life juices, but just, you know… all of it, I suppose.
[5 points gained.]
[Blood Capacity at 50%]
I disengage just in time to watch him bend over and smack the back of his shin.
…That was a close one. Anyhow, I got five points. Hooray, I suppose.
Taking a small break, I fly up and that a seat on top of the copy of my book that’s in the kitchen. Looking up at it always makes me feel weirdly small, so now that I’m literally tiny and sitting on top of it, I feel even stranger than usual.
Either way, points. Considering that I sucked five millionths of blood, that would suggest I get one point per millionth. Hooray. So, what are points for, then?
[Points: 5]
[Increase stat]
[Increase level]
[Make minion (LOCKED)]
Aha. I see how it is. I can only make minions when I evolve, is that it? And I only evolve once I reach level 10. By poking around a bit, I find that increasing my level costs more points each level, while the stat cost remains the same. Happily enough, I don’t have any skills or anything to clog up my status screens.
And now, strategy. I can either invest in my stats to gather blood more effectively, or increase my level to make the distance to evolution closer. Harvesting blood on my own is… not good. Dangerous. But if I gather enough blood, I’ll be able to increase that level much faster, so…
I invest my points into succ and capacity.
[Common Mosquito Lv.1/10]
[Status: Normal]
[Speed: 1
Senses: 1
Durability: 1
Succ: 4
Blood Capacity: 2]
There. Now my capacity is filled with a single suck, and my capacity has increased by double. In other words, with one suck, I’ll be able to gain a total of 20 points. Wonderful. The guy I stole from just now is still in the kitchen, so I might as well borrow his blood a bit again.
[20 points gained.]
[Blood Capacity at 100%]
I’m sure it’s far from safe to farm a single guy over and over, but that’s what I do. I don’t go at him constantly, of course. A few minutes in between each is enough to lower his defences. After a while, another one of my dorm mates enters, allowing me yet another target. Since it doesn’t hurt, I add the points to all of my stats liberally, increasing my level once every suck. In the end, my stats have reached this lovely shape.
[Common Mosquito Lv.9/10]
[Status: Normal]
[Speed: 5
Senses: 5
Durability: 5
Succ: 20
Blood Capacity: 10]
Increasing stats also costs more with each increase, but it’s worth it. The next level up costs 100 points, meaning that I just need a single suck more to do it. Let’s see… Oh, a new dorm mate. Perfect. I’ll go after her, then.
Buzz buzz buzz… I am a mosquito… I sit on your shin… I bite… Suck suck suck… Doing well—
[100 points gained.]
[Blood Capacity at 100%]
Smack!
“Did you get it?” a voice booms.
“Yeah, I think I got it,” someone replies.
[Warning:
Critical damage sustained!]
E—eugh…! It feels like every single bone in my body is broken… I’m stuck to her palm. She’s looking down at me. My legs are broken. I look up at her. She wipes her hand, and me, on her shirt. But I’m still alive. I think I’m dead, at least almost, but I’m alive.
[Emergency protocols activated.
Would you like to evolve?]
…That’s my only way to survive this, isn’t it?
Yes. Of course I will.
[Evolution activated.
Powering down…]
And so, everything goes black.
…
I wake up in a cool, dark, damn space.
This is…?
It’s her room, isn’t it?
I peel myself off the shirt and fly around a little. I feel much lighter now. It’s dark enough to suggest it’s night, something the soft snoring I hear supports. This feels… very intrusive. I don’t like being here. But, considering my situation, this might not be too bad. I evolved. I wonder how that turned out?
[Bloodsucker Lv.1/15]
[Status: Weak]
[Speed: 7
Senses: 8
Durability: 7
Succ: 25
Blood Capacity: 19]
Hm? My stats increased? Neat. I have no idea why, but that’s fun. It’s less fun that I’ll need more levels to evolve, but that’s part of it, I guess.
Now, let’s see here… First things first: I need some breakfast. I have no points left, and my dear dorm mate is looking mighty bloodful.
…When did I become like this? Oh, yeah, when I became a mosquito. Almost forgot.
As I take a seat on her forehead and start farming, I think about my future. I missed one of my group therapy sessions today. That’s a 200 crown fee, if I remember correctly.. If I miss another one, I’m pretty sure I will get booted from the course altogether. Not to mention that I’ve got my course in hebrew, too. And rehearsals with my orchestras…
…The heck will happen with all of that? My parents must be worried since I didn’t send them a goodnight or goodmorning. Hopefully they’ll think I just forgot it. My online friends will probably be of the same opinion. Still…
[175 points gained.]
[Blood Capacity at 65%]
…Might as well invest these points before I spiral too much.
[Points: 175]
[Increase stat]
[Increase level]
[Make minion]
Hm? Oh, would you look at that? Finally, the ability to make minions is mine. Hopefully, they won’t be yellow. Either way, this would be very useful.
[Make minion]
[Common Mosquito (100p)]
[Bloodsucker(Locked)]
Right, so, I’ll only be able to make the evolutions I’ve already been, huh? Makes sense. Either way, it’s a pretty fair price, so without much thought, I choose this option.
And just like that, I’ve got a mosquito soldier. My very first. Looking at it, I feel a very strange mental link. I can make it do basically anything without even thinking, but I can also dictate more complicated orders for it to follow, which it does without any complaint. Great.
I take some distance from my dorm mate. Alright, CM1. I’ll need you to continuously bite her forehead, suck, take a distance of one metre, and then suck again after thirty seconds. Got it?
It doesn’t answer, but I can tell it understands because it quickly starts following my directions. And just like that, my farming begins.
Each time it sucks, I get the following pop-up:
[100 points added.]
[Minion Blood Capacity at 100%]
[User Blood Capacity at 52%]
If I want to, I can choose to tune it out. Right now I’m interested though, so I keep it going. Each time it sucks, I either invest all of the points into my stats, or I create another minion. After a while I have officially created a swarm.
[Minions]
[Common Mosquito(43)
Blood Capacity: 0,00043]
Since I’m starting to pity my poor dorm mate, I decide to leave her room through the open window, keeping the swarm relatively close to me, just in case we get jumped or whatever. Let’s see, where’s my room… Ah, right there.
This is a good base to operate out of. Wonderfully enough, the night is young.
It feels a bit scary, but I decided to send out my minions. I give them a couple of guidelines, such as to mainly target humans, go for places out of reach, go for animals if possible, etcetera, but all and all, they’re on their own. A few remain at my side, but for the most part, I sent them out.
As the night continued, I created more and more mosquitos, eventually gaining enough points to increase my level enough to evolve.
With that, I was able to create stronger mosquitos with higher capacity, which I sent out as well. Taking a lesson from my own story, I commanded the stronger and weaker mosquitos to form squads under the leadership of the stronger mosquitos.
When morning rose, my stats looked something like this.
[Vampire Lv.7/20]
[Status: Normal]
[Speed: 40
Senses: 40
Durability: 40
Succ: 65
Blood Capacity: ]
[Minions]
[Common Mosquito (300)
Blood Capacity: 0,003]
[Bloodsucker (30)
Blood Capacity: 0,015]
In other words, I’ve got thirty squads of ten, and three squads of a hundred. I really want to evolve so that I can make leaders for the three big squads. At the moment, the three platoons each have their own purpose. One goes after birds, one goes after smaller animals, and one goes after humans. The human platoon is the most effective, but I prefer the ethics of attacking small animals.
And, boy, the amount of points I rake in… It’s a lot.
…I wonder how the chapters scheduled on royalroad are doing. A bunch of them should have released in this time I’m spending just being a mosquito. In a sense, this is kind of nice, but on the other hand, I am extremely worried. I still have courses to do and obligations to fulfil. My hope is that if I get enough mosquitos with a high enough durability, I should be able to make hands or something so I can use my phone. That way I’ll at least be able to tell my online friends about what’s happening. Not sure if they’ll believe me, but I really need to tell someone.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
The day continues. I evolve again, make more minions, make more mosquitos… Once I’ve succeeded in evolving for the fifth time, I decide to gather my forces.
[Minions]
[Common Mosquito (12 000)
Blood Capacity: 0,12]
[Bloodsucker (6 000)
Blood Capacity: 3]
[Vampire (1 000)
Blood Capacity: 2]
Nosferatu (100)
Blood Capacity: 1]
As for my own stats, they aren’t too shabby.
[Dracula Lv.40/50]
[Status: Normal]
[Speed: 3 000
Senses: 3 000
Durability: 3 000
Succ: 7 000
Blood Capacity: 12 900]
It’s hard to explain exactly how these stats correlate to real life, which is why I’m summoning one of my twelve platoons here. For one platoon, we’ve got a thousand common mosquitos, five hundred bloodsuckers, a hundred vampires, and ten nosferatus. I do actually keep a single platoon at my side as bodyguards, but having two feels like more, you know? Yeah. With these here, the tests can commence.
Test number one: hand. Can I, at this point, form a hand capable of lifting anything? Good question. Let’s test it out.
Using an entire platoon, I can actually form a hand, yes. However, since it’s mainly made up of common mosquitos, it isn’t too strong. To make up for this, I decide to use the other mosquito types instead. With this, I can make a hand capable of lifting a piece of paper. Wonderful. This means I’m getting somewhere.
I still can’t lift my phone or the lid of my laptop, but this does prove that we’re getting somewhere. I just need to keep making more stronger mosquitos. Simple enough.
Test number two: how durable am I?
Or, more specifically, how durable is each mosquito? Using the other mosquitos, I’m able to test it. The stronger mosquitos can take the force of a glass of water without dying, while the normal ones are, you know… normal strength. No surprise there. It hurts a bit to see them crushed, but by this point I’ve got enough points to where creating a single mosquito is beyond cheap.
…I just realised something. Today’s tuesday the twelfth. That means the second book of gamer’s guide has begun publishing, without me being there to update the cover. Heck, I don’t even have the new cover drawn and ready to update it with.
…I really need to get stronger, and that soon.
Using my bodyguard platoon, I remove Råttvald from atop the one book I’ve got lying around. Let’s see, I was pretty close to the ending, but I just need something to do right now that isn’t making mosquitos. And for now, that’s reading.
Every couple of pages, I pause to make more mosquitos, usually entire squads at a time, assigning them to one of the bigger platoons as I go.
After some time, I decide to just have a total of five distinct armies that’ll be standing firmly as time goes by.
Army number one: Human Relations. My bodyguard army, constantly at my side. Consists of predominantly higher-ranking mosquitos, with far fewer common mosquitos and bloodsuckers.
Army number two: Normies. These guys selectively attack humans and have been programmed with instructions that make doing so easier. Lots of common mosquitos under the leadership of higher-ranking ones. Not a lot of truly high-ranking mosquitos since they’re starting to suck a lot of blood with each suck.
Army number three: Wildies. In contrast to the above, this army attacks animals predominantly, from wildlife to farm animals in the pasture. Birds, fish, rats… Anything somewhat large. I’ve programmed them to only suck blood in quantities where the animal whose blood is sucked isn’t damaged by it.
Army number four: Killers. I decided to make a group of mosquitos to act purely as an attack-force. Attacking what, you ask? Well, that’s easy. Other mosquitos. And also ticks, of course. Why, you might ask? Well… It’s a bit complicated, but I think it would be lovely if I could completely exterminate all mosquitoes save for myself. I read an article once on how mosquitos have such a minimal purpose in the wilderness that they could be safely made extinct, which I’m choosing to believe if only because it gives me a reason to exterminate all mosquito-borne illnesses. I’m not as certain on the ethics of eliminating ticks, but I think I heard something similar about how ticks are unnecessary, so I’m having those killed, too.
If you’re wondering about the specifics, it’s quite simple. Lower-ranking mosquitos (I’ll call them ‘soldiers’ from now on) harass the enemy mosquito while higher ranking officers use their superior speed to remove their wings, stab them through the heart—and if applicable, steal the blood they’ve stolen. From what I’ve seen, a single squad of about eleven individuals (one officer and ten soldiers) is enough to kill a mosquito without incurring any damages in turn.
Killing ticks is easier and only really requires a single officer, but a squad still takes care of it for the sake of simplicity.
However, they also have a second mission, which hasn’t gone into effect yet. You see, if a mosquito drinks from a diseased animal, they can at times get infected in turn, receiving the [Viral] status effect. In that case, the attack squad can step in to kill said mosquito. Yeah, it’s a bit brutal, but it’s necessary to avoid contamination and illness. But what about the blood carried by the viral mosquito? Well, see, that’s what we have army number five for.
Army number five: Plague Doctors. These guys also step in, removing the blood carried by the mosquito. They’re all high-ranking officer types, capable of carrying a lot of blood. And almost all of them have the [Viral] status effect. However, since they don’t drink blood from non-diseased animals and people, they aren’t any risk. Soldier mosquitos who drink diseased blood are typically killed, but officer types join this army. So far it’s pretty small, but I think it can have a lot of use in the future.
I’m considering the possibility of making these guys have an additional role in sucking dry those animals (and people?) with markedly severe diseases to avoid future spread.
Why the focus on diseases? Well… Mosquitos are the single animal responsible of killing the most humans. I’m a mosquito, and if I can spread my soldiers across the world, I could kill or limit the mosquito-spread pathogens enough to save a lot of lives. I’m not saying that ‘oh, this must be why I got transformed into a mosquito: to save lives!’ rather, it’s more so that I’d be a bit of an ass if I didn’t try to use this in the best way possible.
I really want to consult someone about what the best course of action should be, but for now, I don’t have the capital needed to communicate with humans properly. I’ve found that if I increase speed and use my HR department to vibrate at different frequencies, I can make noises that sound almost legible. It’s very difficult, but within time, I might be able to talk. Hopefully. I have no idea how I’ll handle this socially speaking, but just being able to talk would be very useful.
Back to the armies, this is what their sizes look like so far.
By the way, as you can see, I was able to rename the rankings of mosquitos. I don’t know why this is a setting, but it makes this a lot more manageable, I guess.
[First Army (HR)]
[Total members: 140 605]
[Soldiers:]
[Private (50 000)]
[Corporal (70 000)]
[Sergeant (20 000)]
[Sergeant Major (500)]
[Officers:]
[Second Lieutenant (100)]
[First Lieutenant (5)]
The other armies look similar, except for the sheer number of members. The second army has close to five million members, the majority of those being soldiers, specifically privates and corporals. The third army has the exact same amount since I’m lazy. The fourth only has a million, while the fifth has a little over fifty thousand.
My own stats look pretty good, too.
[Captain Lv.79/95]
[Status: Normal]
[Speed: 21 000
Senses: 21 000
Durability: 21 000
Succ: 80 000 (0,04)
Blood Capacity: 400 000 (0,4)]
Good stuff. And if I have the stats elaborated…
[Speed (21k): Allows user to fly at
a max speed of 740 km/h.]
[Senses (21k): Range of sight: 2 100 metres.
Range of scent: 50 000 metres.
Range of thermal sense: 10 metres.]
[Durability (21k): Somewhat high.]
[Succ(80k): 0,04 litres per bite.]
[Blood Capacity(400k): 0,4 litres.]
Good stuff. I don’t understand the physicalities of how my tiny body can hold four decilitres of blood, but whatever. All and all, though, I’ve got a feeling with this, I should be able to roam the outside world without getting brutally murdered for the crime of being annoying.
Taking a look around me, I find the first army looking at me with curiosity.
…I can’t bring all of these fellows. We’ll be noticed for sure.
But I still need security, so after a few minutes of deliberation, I decide that those of Sergeant rank and above will come with me, while the rest observe at a fifty-metre radius. Formation sphere, defensive version.
At my silent command, the higher-ranking mosquitos swarm around me, and I fly into the air, a perfect ball of mosquitos around me. At any sight of trouble they’ll constrict around me to make an impenetrable sphere, but for now, they’re at enough of a distance to let me see the world well.
Alright, here we go.
I fly towards the open window, accidentally bonking into the windowpane.
…This was a calculated mistake. After all, now I can tell that not only can I withstand bonking into a window pane, but so can my bodyguards. Great. Okay, let’s go—for real this time.
The outside air opens up before me. It’s kind of warm, but since the evening is rolling around, it’s starting to cool off a fair bit. I hover above the trees for a moment, trying to come up with something to do.
…Might as well just fly around at random, I guess.
I go above the roads, above the rooftops, following the paths I usually take on bike. Across campus, through weird painted statues and things, around trees and buildings. At one point, purely for the sake of it, I go inside a library. Since it’s a library, I order my underlings to buzz more quietly.
There isn’t much of interest, but seeing other people feels both refreshing and weird. They’re super big, after all. And as I’m looking at them, I do a few calculations in my head. Considering their stats, I could probably kill someone using only the thousand or so mosquitos surrounding me.
That’s… worrying. On the other hand, being able to kill other people isn’t unusual for humans, so it isn’t extremely worrying or anything.
Once I’ve had my fill of looking at people, I exit the library. For the first time in two or three days, I was able to see the time. It’s sixteen in the afternoon. I need to contact my conductor soon so he’ll know I won’t be showing up for tonight’s rehearsal. With my current stats, it should be doable.
I head back to my room.
Time to give the ol’ mosquito hand a retry. I don’t trust being able to use my phone, so I’ll go with the computer. Summoning the entirety of the first army, I create a number of dismembered fingers. I might make a hand later, but for now, fingers is all I need. As is customary, the skin of the fingers is made up of officers while the inside is soldiers, creating a protective coating.
Now, if I just make a couple officers squeeze themselves underneath the folded laptop screen, and… push it up a bit. I’m almost surprised when it works, only barely remembering to make the other mosquitos grab the screen and pull it up completely. Here we go. While half the officers hold down the bottom of the laptop, the rest pull up the screen fully, leaving us with the computer open and clear. Wonderful.
Forming a finger, I push the power button, watching with screen-withdrawn awe how the lights flicker on. Thirteenth of September, sixteen-forty-two.
Since I don’t have a fingerprint I can’t use the fingerprint sensor, but I can still poke in my password. Beep-beep-boop. And there we have it. I can’t use the cursor pad thing, but there’s a little red button that can act as a cursor, so I use it to start firefox. In the meantime, a million random apps start up for no damn reason, exerting my poor laptop to the point where the fans almost start sucking in a few of my soldiers.
Apparently, I got pinged over ten times on discord while I was gone. Yare yare.
…I’m going to ignore that.
Instead, I open up firefox, type in facebook, log in, and find my conductor’s profile. Using mosquitos for all of this is kind of really difficult, but it works out in the end, so who cares?
Once I’ve got the chat up, I quickly type in “Hey, sorry, can’t make it tonight, got sick, been puking up my guts all evening. See you in two weeks!” and send it off. Perfect. And then… I go to the family group chat. “Good afternoon,” and send. After a few minutes a message dings in, “Good afternoon,” from my dad. Oh, yeah, my dad.
I go into my dad’s PMs. “Hey dad sorry I can’t make it tonight I caught the flu or something and feel really bad, but we’ll come up with something soon!” and then a pusheen sticker, and send. Man, that one feels horrible. I’d love to watch an episode of Poirot with him tonight, I’ve really been looking forward to it, but… I’m a mosquito. It’ll have to wait, unfortunately.
And now…
My eye slides over to the Royalroad tab. Damn it, I have to check the comments, don’t I?
I spend like half an hour reading comments and a few reviews, even writing an author’s note saying I’m okay. I don’t think the readers keep track of this kind of stuff, but if they do, I wouldn’t want them to worry. Then, I also check my email, just in case. There’s nothing much of interest though. Being in my email reminds me of my course, though, so I type up an email to my course handler, explaining why I missed the last lesson (puking my guts out) and that I’ll be there tomorrow, but without video or audio. Aaaand send.
And now for the slightly more dreaded aspect of this all: discord.
First up, I go onto my own server. People have been doing interesting stuff. I’m not really in a place to react much though, so I just say I’m sick as fuck and that’ll be good enough.
And then, once everything I can procrastinate on has been done and over with, I go onto a specific discord chat that just so happens to include the three people I would consider closest to me. Friends, even. If there’s anyone on earth I could imagine talking to about this, it’d be these three.
I go on and ping all three of them, typing up a message as I do. “Hey guys sorry for being gone for like two days uhhh it’s kind of an emergency can y’all vc?”
And now, we wait.
And wait.
And wait…
…Okay, I’ll just invest a few of my points, make a few more squads, send them out, and…
Ding.
I turn to the computer with incredible haste.
Milk: “Yeah I can vc, everything ok?”
Sad: “yeah I’m here”
Two of them are here. They’re alive. I count myself lucky I can’t sweat, being a mosquito and all. I’d like for all three to be here but one of them is really busy with school so this is good enough. Well, technically we’re all really busy with school, but it’s in variations.
Two yes. In that case, it’s time.
I start the voice chat. They drop in quickly.
“Hey man everything okay? What’s the emergency bro,” one of them asks.
“Did something happen?” the other says.
This is probably gonna be a bit of a shocker for them. To lessen the impact just a little, I write in the chat, “I’m okay but something’s kind of happened so uh just to preface I’m not pulling like a prank or something this is real,” and send it off.
For a second, there’s silence as they both read the message.
“Man if you’re a horse I’m leaving the chat,” Milk says jokingly, expertly alleviating the tension with an in-joke.
Sad chimes in, “Dude we get it just get it over with.”
Right, might as well.
Making a few mosquitos remove the privacy camera cover, I turn on streaming.
“What is this? Is this like a joke? There isn’t anythi—”
I gather a bunch of mosquitos as close to me as I can to form a shapeless, floating black ball.
“What the fuck is that?”
“Dude is this like a filter or—”
I form an X in the air and with a mental command make the soldiers around me buzz loudly. Using the mosquito fingers, I type, “I told you it’s not a prank or whatever,” and send.
“Okay, if it’s not a prank or whatever, then what the fuck am I looking at?”
Enough with the mystery, I suppose. Dislodging from the soldiers around me, I—that is, the single individual mosquito that I am—fly up to the camera, seating myself right in front of it. By consciously sharing the senses of my officer mosquitos, I can see that on the stream, I am blurry, but visibly a mosquito.
“...Is that a mosquito?”
I write in the chat, “I’m a fucking mosquito guys what the fuck is happening I’ve been a mosquito for like two days,” and send.
Silence. “No fucking way.”
“It’s why I’ve been gone,” I write. “I couldn’t fuckin use my phone cuz all I got for hands are these tiny pathetic pokers.” For effect, I waggle my legs at the camera.
“...So, uh,” Milk asks. “Are you still made in the image of God?”
I pause. “Dude I have no idea I’m literally a mosquito. I need to ask my priest,” and send.
“So you’re just a mosquito? Like, seriously?” Sad asks.
“Yeah that’s what I’m saying,” I type. “Except I can accrue like a whole mosquito army, so there’s that. I’m working on exterminating all other mosquitos btw.”
So, in other words, over the course of about thirty minutes, I succeed in convincing my friends that I’ve literally been turned into a mosquito. As is typical, a lot of questions are raised, but in the end, the VC ends with me feeling a fair bit more confident about this whole thing. I’ve got them to ask if anything happens, so for now, I can just focus on making more and stronger soldiers so I can maybe hopefully make a human-ish body to use on saturday. I’ve got a yearly meeting for one of my orchestras I really need to attend, and I need a body to be there.
On the other hand, now that I can use my computer… Why don’t I do some writing? No harm in it, right?
So, although it takes a while to get started, I resume writing my damn story, only taking breaks to allocate points and create new squads. Before the night properly begins, I’m able to avoid from Captain to Major, giving me a new officer to create.
I’m considering something interesting. For now, my operations are mainly based in the city I study in, but I should really spread out more. And not just to Sweden as a whole. No, I need to reach other countries. Most importantly, I need to get to Africa so I can usurp its mosquito population. And since all officer types are capable of flying at over five hundred kilometres per hour, I might as well send out a few battalions to all nearby countries.
The evening turns into night, and night brings with it that classic melancholy.
I sit at the windowsill, looking out at the darkness. A few captains sit around me, ready to act.
…I haven’t slept in days, but I don’t feel tired. In a sense, I haven’t eaten either. But i’m not hungry, or thirsty, or anything else. Do I still age? The internet said I’ll probably live a couple of weeks. But that’s only if my body is actually like that of a standard mosquito, which it isn’t.
And if I don’t age, what does that mean? If I don’t need to eat or drink and if I get my defences high enough and I don’t age, then that would make me effectively immortal. In other words, I’d effectively be banned from the afterlife. That’s… not good, I think.
No more medication, no more going to the gym, no more… no more studying? Will I even need to get a degree anymore? Is money necessary anymore?
The future is weird, but I can’t keep this a secret forever. Eventually, I’ll need to tell my parents. I’ll probably even need to contact the government somehow, though I’m not sure I want to do that before knowing I’d be able to escape any possible containment.
…Should I contact the vatican?
Well, for now, I just have to get… more.
So, that’s what I do. I spend the rest of the night grinding, using the free time to read and write. I try to start my ipad but I still can’t use the touch screen. Since the next day was pretty free in terms of things I had to do, I spent it grinding some more, and same with the friday. And then came saturday.
At the moment, I have close to five hundred million soldiers and officers in total, with half being within Sweden’s borders and the rest being spread across the world. Most corps have been able to reach their designated countries, where they’ve begun their standard operations. To simplify the way all of this works, I usually only use my points once per hour, where I invest heavily in new troops. For the sake of simplicity, I’ve only got about five million mosquitos in the first army, with few of them being lower than sergeant. Most are high ranking.
The bodyguard unit operates by the officers, now at a total of a few hundred thousand, being with me in my room or hovering close by if I ever leave my room, while the rest are outside my window, hanging around the dorm building and keeping an eye out for threats.
With this many members of HR, I am now capable of finally creating an entire human body in my former likeness. The skin is made out of Captains since they happen to be a rather pale shade, but since it’s obvious if you look closely that I’m not made of normal human materia, it’s a bit needless. I don’t entirely like it, but if I cover myself completely, I look… somewhat normal? The hair can’t really be replicated, but by wrapping the head-portion in a scarf, it works well enough to seem human.
More importantly, by making certain officers buzz at a certain pitch and frequency while other officers contract a throat-part in a certain way, I’m able to create human-sounding sounds. It takes a lot of effort and concentration to uphold a human throat, tongue and lip portion, but it’s worth it. Since it only barely sounds human I’ll have to pretend I’m sick, but it’s good enough.
Should I make up a story about going muslim?
…No, that’s a bit much. This will have to be enough.
Alright, so, with this, I should be able to exist in the outside world. I think. Currently, I’m inside the skull of this humanoid amalgamation, my senses shared with those of the entire thing. I can see perfectly. I’m wearing all my clothes. I put my phone and keys and wallet in my pockets, even though I probably won’t need any of them. And now, we get going.
The meeting went… fine, I guess? A lot of people were worried about me, but a simple “I’m sick” in my scraggly mosquito voice was enough to dissuade any suspicion. I sat at the meeting, I voted for the things, and then I went home with a newfound appreciation for having a flesh-and-blood human body.
I was able to muster the courage to attend vigil mass afterwards, keeping in the back, not singing or talking along but keeping the words in heart. I tried not to think about the implications of my situations any more than I already do. Had my normal priest been there I might have tried to talk to him, but in the end I got cold feet and went home, walking the whole way there even though I could have flown if I’d wanted to.
The days tick by slowly.
My armies increase in size exponentially. At some point, I considered the possibility of having one mosquito per human in the world, but after only a few days, that goal becomes miniscule. Now, there are hundreds of thousands of battalions roaring the world. Mosquitos in the billions under my command. With my current evolution, I can hold as much blood as there is in a human being.
[Colonel Lv.139/150]
[Status: Normal]
[Speed: 72 000
Senses: 72 000
Durability: 72 000
Succ: 960 000
Blood Capacity: 4 880 000]
My armies are immense. The first army is now spread across a thousand-kilometre range around me, with the closest within a hundred-metre range of me numbering in the hundreds of thousands, each being of the officer rank. I can now construct a body dense enough to act as a proper human. At one point I tested its strength and durability, finding that I could lift several tonnes. I’ve got good reason to assume my current body can take an explosion and make it out unscathed, though I don’t have the resources to test this. Or, rather, I don’t want to risk my current anonymity by trying to get my hands on such things.
The second and third army are both spread evenly across the world, both numbering in the trillions each. The fourth and fifth army are smaller, at a total of less than a hundred billion together, but since they operate as a concentrated attack squad, this is fine. On that note, going by what my officer mosquitos have reported, I have currently wiped out about forty per cent of the world’s mosquito population.
On another note, the fifth army, the plague doctors, now have the split purpose of both slurping diseased blood from dead mosquitos, and also slurping blood from confirmed diseased humans and animals. Of course, they only suck from individuals whose illness correlate to what the mosquito themselves are sick with, so the chances of contamination are low.
However, with this, I’ve met a small problem.
See, uh… Not all of the people the mosquitos suck from know that they’re sick. They could just be hanging out, and they get bit by a mosquito, and then I can see that said mosquito is sick with this or that, and then I just sit on that information. Which, frankly speaking, is a bit lacking.
I want to somehow be able to tell people about this. You know, knock ‘em on the shoulder to say “hey dude, you’ve got HIV. Maybe get that checked out bro,” but that would involve me having to go public about this whole thing.
I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I don’t want to do that. I don’t want to be in the public consciousness, and I don’t want to have to make speeches, and I don’t want my parents to know I turned into a mosquito. A pretty rational desire, if you ask me.
However, being a person of some sort of intelligence sometimes, I have a plan.
I can just not introduce myself.
I can show up, tell my thing, say “Hey guys it’s me, Mosquito-Man, I control all mosquitos in the world. Don’t fear me I promise I’m nice,” and then people will be totally okay with it and nobody will have any issue with me sucking their blood or whatever.
Yeah, I’m sure that’ll work out swell and won’t have any unintended consequences.
For now, though, I want to complete my takeover. I’ll do the whole presenting-myself deal once I’ve exterminated all other mosquitos. Then I can prove the truth in my words by, like, making mosquitos stop biting for a day or two. That’ll work, maybe.
Unfortunately, I might not have time to procrastinate much further.
See, a few minutes ago, one of my online friends sent me a video. A video of a mosquito being ganged up on and brutally murdered by a squad of mosquitos. Specifically, Squad Delta-five of the Brazil battalion. I didn’t recognize them, but a quick mental commando to all five-member squadrons of the forth army gave me a response pretty fast. Even worse, when I went into the comments for the video, a bunch of people were commenting about seeing similar things, one of them even giving an anecdote on the workings of another of my squads.
That’s… a bit problematic. I’d prefer to give myself away rather than getting found out.
On the other hand, could I be found out? Hm. If they somehow tag the mosquitos I produce, and then follow them back to my room, I suppose they could find me. But why would they do that? On that note, who is them even?
…Yeah, before I show myself or get found out, I really need to be as strong as possible.
I feel like if I hadn’t been a massive fucking dweeb, I would probably have gone to the authorities straight away. But because I’ve read and written so many dumb novels, I’ve got this stupid notion that the authorities will try to SCP me or something.
As it is, though, I’ll just keep spreading my influence, and hopefully never have to face the truth of my situation. Denial at its finest, of course.
And so, the days keep passing peacefully. Once I evolve to general, I’m able to finally create a voice that sounds similar enough to my own to be usable. Skin is still too strange-looking to be viable, but the people in my vicinity have gotten used to it. I just say I’ve got a bunch of rashes and they accept it. More importantly, by carefully attuning the vibrations of the mosquitos on my face-part, I’m able to actually play the trombone again. Combined with the purchase of a pair of touch-screen gloves, I’ve finally returned to normal status.
I can go play with my orchestras, I can draw, I can write, I can study, and…
And do I really need to do all of this?
I don’t need to eat. I don’t need to sleep. I can’t make a family and I can’t find a lover like this. With this last evolution, I don’t think I can die by human means anymore. The description for my durability says “extremely high.” With over a hundred trillion mosquitos under my command across the world, I could do anything. End wars, bring about a revolution in how illnesses are treated, exterminate social injustices…
I’ve found that if I make a high ranking officer fly as fast as they can at a piece of steel, they pass right through, more effective than a bullet and completely unscathed.
…But I don’t want all that. I just want to live my life, enjoy my hobbies, learn new things, get a job… Not that there’s any point what with not being able to make a family anymore.
I don’t want a life as extraordinary as this.
…Not that I have a choice anymore. I’ve made my bed, now I have to lie in it.
It’s late in the night and I just woke up in my new form.
[Alert:
Final evolution reached!]
…I see. And as for my stats?
[Master General Lv.1]
[Status: Normal]
[Speed: 110 000
Senses: 110 000
Durability: 110 000
Succ: 11 000 000
Blood Capacity: 17 500 000]
This is it, then. Normally, a character might feel a bit mellow about reaching the end of evolutions, but I feel content. Like this, I no longer have any excuse to procrastinate anymore. Now, all that’s left to do is… something.
Talk to someone. Tell someone that, “hey I turned into a mosquito and I would like to help the world, is that cool with you?” and then get on with it. Which is, you know…
…Okay, yeah, I’m still really uncertain about this. However, I’m starting to think we might be getting into saw-evil-and-ignored-it territory. Like, I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it, but I have mosquitos everywhere. Most mosquitos not belonging to me have been killed. Across the world, I can see everything. I can, with some effort, move my consciousness to that of a lesser mosquito, albeit briefly. As of lately, I’ve been using this to check out the world as a whole. As I said, I’ve got mosquitos everywhere.
Russia. China. Uganda. Rwanda. Brazil. Greenland. Philippines. North Korea…
Unless it’s an ultra-sealed room in a research facility, there’s probably a mosquito there. It’s been a bit of an effort of mine as of lately, making sure that across every hundred-metre square kilometre of land on Earth, there’s at least one mosquito squad. So I see it all. I see starvation and corruption and disease and war and laughing politicians and crying mothers and dying fathers and the bodies of children and animals killing animals and people killing people and bodies, bodies, bodies, everywhere.
I also see children’s birthday parties, and balloons and artists showing off their latest pieces and cats purring against hands and laughter and love. But that doesn’t need changing. There’s nothing I need to do about those wonderful things.
But the horrors, and the pain and the death… Can’t I help? There has to be some way for me to help. Some place where I could assist and make things easier, if only for a few people.
In that sense, it’s awfully selfish of me to not help if I can, letting people die just so I can hesitate one more day. It’s awful. I don’t think I was made for these kinds of deliberation. Nobody was. And yet, some people still find themselves with their fingers on the trigger, forced to choose between hesitation and death. I should count myself lucky that it’s not my own life on the line.
All things considered, I should be happy that when it came down to it, I didn’t have to make the choice myself.