The town that I’d thought in poverty before, was merely a façade, a patched up dress covering disguising the frail and sickly slums behind. Away from the main streets, there are no proper residences and houses are built on top of one another with what scrap the owners can scrounge or steal.
The people living here are much akin to the houses themselves. Thin, emaciated and struggling. It’s not a large portion of the town, all in all. Surprisingly small even, as it seems only a few people live here, but the overwhelming number of them are insectoid in nature. Only the occasional elvish features can be seen from those living here, and even hair and scales are rare.
My questions about it quickly fade as Grier informs us that we’ve arrived. A tall insect woman opens the door to the ‘store’ that I can only generously describe as a shack. She’s rather casual and ‘normal’ as normal gets around these parts. She’s not some warrior beast with blades and weapons growing from her carapace, Beetle and Roach make for much more intimidating appearances in truth.
Grier steps aside after a swift self-introduction, waving me and Leon forwards, as we were the two affected by this the most.
“You sell assassins?” Leon starts before I can get the chance. I’m on my back foot from the absurd, ridiculous, and outright unacceptable nature of events that have brought us here.
“I sell the service of my children, but not as assassins.” She replies firmly. “Usually they work as scouts, or fight with the slayers. If you want someone to kill for you, look elsewhere. I can’t ruin my reputation in this town by accepting jobs like that.”
“It’s a little late for that, isn’t it?” I ask, stepping forwards. “Two dozen were used for that purpose just recently, half targeting me, half targeting Leon.”
The insect lowers her head and spits visceral words at the ground. She calls back into the house and a few of the assassin bugs come crawling out towards us.
They’re all about the same size, reaching my knee normally but coming up to my waist if they balance on their back legs. Their bladed limbs and frail bodies are as I remember them, but this time they’re not fighting or hiding.
“I apologise.” She replies, bowing her head to us but not even so low as Irulei did when she found out about all this. “I didn’t agree to any such job. I can only guess that they accepted it on their own without telling any of us.”
“That’s all you can give us?” Leon asked. “Forgive me for thinking that you’re a little insincere…”
“Insincere?” The creature clacks out a few alien chuckles, looking back into her home she reveals a small swarm of young insects. “You’ll have to forgive me for lacking sincerity. I have my own problems at the moment, and I can’t find the energy to pretend to care. Now, is that all?”
“You don’t care?” I ask, stepping closer to her and meeting her steady gaze. “Your children are dead. Dozens of them, and you…”
“If you’re going to kill me for my insolent attitude, then do it.” There’s no hidden intention to her words, she genuinely means it. “I’m trying my best to ensure that a fraction of my children can survive here, and I honestly have no idea who gave them the stupid idea to try killing any of you, so I can’t help.”
“Maybe the group that hired them approached some of your other children?” Leon suggests. “If we can talk to them maybe we can find those responsible.”
“Is that safe?” Leon’s bald scaly guard asks.
“It’ll be fine.” Leon replies. “We need to know who is behind this, and what other schemes they have going. Lack of information could kill us, or worse start a war.”
The end result of his idea has us swarming in with little insects that are all eager to speak even if they have nothing to say.
While Leon and his guards struggle in conversation with their own little horde, Nel kneels down to talk to those approaching us, softening her voice.
“Has anyone come to you with jobs recently?” She asks.
“Yep, yep! The smith said that he’d pay me to fuck off, but he didn’t pay me when I left. Is that a job? Mom said not to bother him anymore, so I don’t know.”
“Oh, I was told to stop sneaking around and chased out of the Seeders place, does that count? They didn’t offer to pay or anything.”
“I got a job once; I was scouting for a slayer team!” The rest of the siblings all stare at him in wonder. “I survived, and I told them all about the dangerous monsters ahead, but they beat them all up real good.”
“Okay, okay.” Nel speaks up, trying to calm them all down. “Has anyone been asked about a job killing people here inside the town?”
“Mom says we can’t do that.” A smaller insect says, her bladed feet chipped at the tips. “It’s bad.”
“So, none of these bad people have talked with you?” Nel asks, and the little insects look between one another, but none seem to have anything to say. I don’t think that they’re covering anything up, but I can’t really be sure either.
“Did something happen?” Chipped feet asks. “You said something about assassins?”
“Your brothers and sisters were hired to kill us.” Nel says, and the others freeze up, looking between me and Nel.
“That’s stupid.” One of them replies. “They couldn’t kill you. We’re sneaky, but we’re not that strong.”
“Put your mana into those bladed feet, and you can cut pretty deep.” I say.
“Maybe…” He replies hesitantly. “But you beat them, so not really.”
“So, if they couldn’t do it, then why would they take the job?” I ask. Tightening my hand into a fist, ignoring the itching, and the swirling patterns that aren’t really there.
“It’s a job…” Chipped feet says, looking up at me. “If someone told me that I could have a job, I might accept too.”
She seems so… innocent, but desperate.
“This is worthless.” Leon says, returning to my side. “They don’t know anything. If any of them saw anything they’re too stupid to know it, it doesn’t seem they were even paid for the job. There’s no reason to pay them now that they’re dead, after all.”
I want to berate them all. Tell them how fucked this all is, but I’m not stupid.
I can see the problems piling up, even without knowing them for more than a short meeting.
It’s insanely rare for a single mother back on Earth to be forced to feed and raise even ten kids on her own, and there’s an insane struggle with those situations, but this… there’s at least a hundred of these little bug children. She has a small swarm, and she has no chance of feeding them all.
The reason a species would produce so many children is because so many of them will die before reaching the stage of reproduction for themselves. That’s fine with flies and frogs, but with intelligent species…
“Look, I can offer you a deal.” The mother says, stressing out as she looks between Leon and myself, her earlier bravado slowly crumbling. “My children are good scouts, and they’re not awful in a fight. Take twenty, or thirty, they’ll serve you well, and… it is what it is. We forget it all.”
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She sounds defeated. The strength and indifference she held moments ago are gone, worn down.
She’s treating her children like disposable tools, and no one thinks anything of it.
I wish I didn’t get it.
I wish I could just kill her, raise the swarm, and think nothing of it, but I’m not stupid. The situation’s not that simple.
There are no good options here, not for her. There are just too many of these little buggers, and no work, no opportunities. It’s so bad that she’d probably even struggle giving them away as slaves. This isn’t right, but I don’t know how it could be made to be right, not without an overwhelming amount of food and houses to just hand out. I’ll leave an invitation to my city when I leave, but even I have my limits and if she ever has another swarm… If others do?
Maybe there’s a way to limit their reproduction. Make sure that they only have a few kids, if that…
I don’t like the idea of forcing my people to conform to such rules, but this situation is…
“I have no use for them.” Leon says coldly overlooking the insects that crawl at his feet. Not months ago, I’d see the same helpless kids as monsters, but I know better now… They’re not enemies that I have to fight, or beasts that can’t understand me.
“I’ll accept your offer.” I say firmly, holding down my tongue to stop myself from saying anything more. I don’t like what’s happening here, but I don’t have a solution, and until I do there’s no point in judging them. That won’t stop me from helping how I can for now.
In short order I’ve been gifted the service of thirty of her young spider babies who are frighteningly talented at hiding and lashing out with fast blades. For a moment, the thought runs through my mind that they could turn on me, attack Nel, perhaps even kill her.
I push the thought aside and press on down the street and away from the mother of these new kids that I’ve adopted.
“I can’t figure out who’s behind this and exactly what they’re scheming.” Leon moans from just behind us. “It’s an amateur plot at best, and I can’t find any separate arrangements or hidden purposes behind it. Maybe it really is someone local, a gang or a merchant with something to gain from the fighting…?”
“Well, I’m out of leads.” I admit. “I’ll keep searching, but Nel and I do have other business to attend to while we’re here, so I think we’ll be going now. If you find anything out, tell us.”
“I will.” He replies, surprised at something, though he’s quick to suppress the expression.
“I apologise.” Grier says, bowing his faux insect body at us. “My town has caused you issue. It’s not usually so unkind as this.”
“It’s not your fault.” I reply. “Just keep doing the best that you can. It’s all any of us are doing.”
“Thank you, but I think I will continue searching for answers as well.”
“I’ll keep you informed then.” I say, and he bobs his body up and down. A nod of some sort, Chip tells me.
“I too, will share any information. Be well.” Rather than walking away, he sinks into the soil at our feet, the tendrils and roots spinning and swirling about into the earth leaving behind only small holes in the dirt road.
As soon as he’s gone, Nel speaks up. She’s been biting her tongue since I accepted the thirty little adopted kids, new students for our school.
“Kyra. I understand that you’re concerned about these insect children, and I love that part of you, but we can’t save them all.” Nel says. “They can’t be raised like our children can.”
“What do you mean?” I ask, trying to keep the concern out of my voice. It sounds like racism, but in this wider universe there’s actual differences that cause actual issues.
“Us insects are different.” She starts, and with a small jump I realize that she has shared features with those very beings. “Not just insects, either. Any species that produces many young suffer from this issue. The competition for resources can be tough for all of us, but it’s even worse when you have to compete with your siblings. Only a small fraction of them are even meant to survive to adulthood.”
“I don’t like it.” I reply, unable to find anything better to say about this. “I just… I don’t like this.”
“Neither do I.” Nel nods slowly, her expression tense. “Elvish features among insectoid peoples are not uncommon, but… we tend to reproduce less young, and we rarely survive the competitive environment of youth to begin with.
“My family… my great, great grandparents, they broke away from that. They chose their partners seeing elvish features, even using magics when it was available, all so that we could escape a life like that, so that we could join the Unified States. It was supposed to be so much better in the Unified States.
“But then…it’s not really that different there either…”
I hug Nel around the shoulder as she lets it all out. We walk along a lonely street back towards the manor house. The bugs that we’ve taken in are shadowing us quietly, trying not to be seen. Their eyes make my vision of this area so much clearer, but also reveal the thin shining trails down her cheeks.
“In the wild, the weak are food to the strong, and in the Unified States it’s the beastly that are food to those who are ‘civilised’. Is that really so much better?”
“No.” I answer her, though she wasn’t looking for an answer. “I hate it too. I hate all of it.”
“We have power now, Kyra. Power to protect our family, and ensure that things are good for us, but it’s still the same cruel world. We’re just standing in a slightly better position. We’re still…”
“Even the carrots can become intelligent little beings if raised right.” I say, closing my eyes and taking a deep breath. The fact that mana can help substitute the need for a brain, can really fuck up our perception of what’s ethical and not.
Heck, a blow-up sex doll could become conscious if it survives the swirling mana long enough. In a world like this, morals are much more difficult to come to terms with.
Everything has the potential to be something, and wild animals have more in common with underdeveloped children than any animals back on Earth. Gardens could become debate assemblies if you let their culture develop, though they often have a long development period to reach that stage of intelligence.
“What do we do about it?” I ask, rubbing at my head. “Is there even anything we can do?”
“We eat what we kill, and we limit how insects can breed.” Nel replies easily. “We do what we must, so that we can raise our family in a good society.”
“I want better.” I say. “Hopefully Adler can give us some advice on maintaining a moral society, if not, Red is sending for some experts on empire building, and I’m going to nab a few off of Earth when I visit. A few phycologists too wouldn’t go awry.”
“For now, let’s find out who’s trying to kill us.” Nel says. “It’s something of a more immediate issue. That and trade. We can survive, even with all the pressure the Arch monarchy is putting on us, but that doesn’t mean we should just accept this.”
“So, you want to go on a date and check out the town before we go back to our room?” I ask, “I can apply tags on people as we pass and add them to my network of eyes. It’ll help us with everything, I’m sure.”
“Yes. Mixing business and play. Efficient.” Nel says with a laugh. “I would like that.”
“Then let’s see what else this town has to show us.” I suggest. “Oh, and I’m considering taking over this town. I’m not going to rush things this time, but I think we could do more with this place, and these people. We could give them more opportunities and a better life for those too weak and young to support themselves.”
“You can attempt to take this cavern only after submitting a proper plan.” Nel says firmly, meeting my eyes. “And let’s put that conversation away for when we return. I want to enjoy the rest of today, at least for a little while before the next awful thing comes along to ruin tonight.”
“Who knows, something good might happen to us instead?” I suggest.
Nel snorts a brief laugh. I didn’t mean it as a joke.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Skills & Stats
~Mana Form:
Current mana density: 18488 units
~Mana distribution:
Category Current Max. Defence 20% 100% Offense 20% 100% Mana Sense 20% 100% Recovery 20% 100% Gluttony 10% 100% Misc. 10% 100% Efficiency 100% 100%
~Favourited Skills:
-Tag and Film
-Trapping
-Stealth
-Mana surge movement
-Annihilation defence
-Annihilation flame burst
-Annihilation net
-Eyes of an Empire
Adaptions:
-Quick perception mind
-Annihilation Heart
-Clean bowels