The Sulfuric Scourge is looking for a beast to ride around the continent with. He has three criteria: it must be able to support both him and his niece, it must not be able to complain, and it must be resilient above all else.
Three towns before De Balla of the Rampaging Swarmsteel Front, where giant Swarmsteel are deployed to clash against titans, he is shopping for his ride. His niece is riding on his back, snoring lightly. As the Tamera tries to sell him every beast they come across in the caravan souk, he notices most of the beasts are frail and languid, bony and sickly; none of them will do for the journey his niece is about to undertake, and if he is paying hundreds of thousands for a beast that will never let him down, he wants only the best the Tamera isn’t showing him.
Just as the Tamera sighs and is about to give up on selling him anything, he hears chains rattling in the back of the souk. He trudges over and sees a giant empress cicada caged in with a hundred metal pipes. Its wings are clipped off, but it has the most vibrant golden chitin he has ever seen. Even bound in chains and forced to lay flat against the ground, it had to be at least eight metres tall, ten metres tall—the Tamera sees his brows arching curiously and immediately flies into merchant mode.
“It’s not tamed by any means, but if you’re willing to buy it off us, we’ll gladly give you a discount! Ten thousand only!” the Tamera says, walking closer to the pipes to gesture at the giant cicada. “It’s… well, it’s a giant cicada. We captured it when it was just a nymph out on the Rampaging Hinterland Front. It’ll keep growing, I assure you, and one thing you can do with a cicada that you can’t do with anything else: male cicadas have hollow abdomens for acoustic purposes, which means, if you’re planning on using it as a ride–”
“We can ride inside the cicada with a bit of cleanup,” the Sulfuric Scourge finished. He walks closer to the cage, and the cicada’s eyes moved. “By ‘untamed’, I presume you mean it’ll try to kill me any chance I get.”
A bead of sweat rolled down the Tamera’s face. “Uh… yes. That is correct. But we do sell Swarmsteel and equipment that will make controlling it easier, if not downright–”
The Sulfuric Scourge glared back at the cicada. It started straining against its bindings, ripping its chains from the ground, and the Tamera freaks. So does every other Tamera trying to sell beasts to small-time customers. He snorts and takes his hands out of his pockets, drawing his shell-splitting kitchen knife. They must be fools to think they could contain a giant insect; the Swarm are no mere bugs for humans to treat and keep as slaves.
It takes twenty seconds for the empress cicada to free itself, and another five seconds for it to rear its head at him. He doesn’t move. The Tamera raise their nailguns at once, but the cicada breaks through the cage with ease, charging straight at him with its forelegs sharpened and raised.
His niece wakes up, wiping her eyes groggily.
“... Uncle Safi,” she mumbles. “What time is it?”
“The time?”
The winds still. The Tamera are quiet. The empress cicada freezes a single inch before his face, for the tip of his kitchen knife is pressed right between its eyes, ready to carve and turn it into a dry-scalped dish—and he smirks to himself, finding the bug more than satisfactory for the price he was going to pay for it.
Any giant insect that can tell the difference between their power and choose not to attack is no mere slave, but an equal.
So he will treat the cicada as his equal.
He has found his ride.
“... It’s time to go,” he says, patting his niece on the head. “You have an exam to catch, no? The… Hasharana Entrance Exam, it’s called?”
His niece nods slowly. “Mhm.”
“Alright, then. We’ll make this guy walk overtime.”
- Scene from Sarana Balla Town past
----------------------------------------
… When Alice had said they’d be going to her uncle’s tavern, Dahlia wondered at first how the two of them—travellers not from the Sharaji Oasis Town—could possibly have a temporary business set up in the middle of nowhere.
It wasn’t until Alice dragged her to the eastern edge of town, where the morning sun was cresting over the horizon, that she realised her definition of a ‘tavern’ might not be quite the same as the surface world’s definition.
The tavern was built into a particularly out-of-place dune, sand dug out to create the impression of a cave hollow. There was no ‘building’ on the outside, but a small wooden sign weathered by the elements stabbed into the ground to invite visitors in; a single circular archway was the means of entry into the hollow. Dahlia stood outside the dune for a good second, wondering how it was possible anyone could build a tavern underneath a dune—where the winds could blow away all the sand at any given time—but Alice didn’t give her more than a second to ponder. Sunlight was blaring hot, the Hasharana evidently wanted to get under a shade. She was pulled in, almost tripping over the little sill at the bottom of the archway as she did.
Inside, Dahlia immediately smelled the aroma of spiced meat and strong, dark coffee. The tavern was incredibly spacious within. She’d thought it would be small like a prison cell for how unassuming the entrance was, but the tavern was hung with giant firefly lanterns on metal hooks, the five metre tall ceiling arched and vaulted with intricate plasterwork. Soft rugs cushioned the warm wooden floorboards and there weren’t any windows, but the heat wasn’t stifling. Low tables were scattered throughout, potted plants taking the place of stools here and there, plush cushions surrounding the dark wooden walls to invite patrons to linger. And there were patrons here. Mostly kids, sure, crowded around the bar at the back of the tavern, but their cheerful chatter with the man behind the bar blended quite gently with the… ‘noise’, coming from all around.
Dahlia froze again at the doorway, her arms spreading out as she found herself struggling to keep her balance.
Her eyes weren’t deceiving her.
The walls, the floorboards, the firefly lanterns and the little stools and potted plants—they were swaying, ever so slightly, as though she’d entered the belly of a giant beast.
…
… I don’t really want to know, do I?
It was true. She didn’t really care to know. Not right now, at least; not while Alice was pulling her straight to the bar, shooing the children away and out of the tavern. They were surprisingly giddy seeing Alice wave all four of her arms, as though they found her more intriguing than terrifying to stare at, and neither did they protest as they raced out of the tavern laughing.
That left only the two of them and the old man chopping leeks in the tavern, and he had his back turned, so Dahlia couldn’t get a good look at his face. She assumed he was Alice’s uncle, though. The same ashen grey hair. The same lighter-toned skin. He had on a gilded apron tied snugly around his waist, and for whatever reason he was wearing a wide-brimmed metal hat though they were indoors, undaunted by sunlight—it reminded her a little of the bug trader’s strange manners of dress.
Alas, she was pulled onto a high stool before Alice jumped on an adjacent stool, the Hasharana tapping her nails on the bar in a sharp, rhythmic pattern.
“Uncle Safi,” she started, laying her upper body flat against the bar with her arms sprawled out. “I’m hungryyyyy. Can I have–”
“Two Marebian Fire-Roasted Beetlelash coming up.”
Safi didn’t turn back to even glance at her before disappearing through a door at the back of the bar, and it was only then that she realised the tavern was far, far bigger than she’d thought. Maybe it was the entire size of the dune. Maybe Alice could pull a cord and stairs would drop down from the ceiling, revealing a second floor. She started shifting and shuffling in her seat when the whole tavern ‘rumbled’ again, almost as though something were breathing underneath their feet, but Alice grabbed a tuft of her hair between two fingers and made her turn—two gourds of water already placed in front of them.
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When had Safi even served them drinks?
“... I don’t know how much you undertowners know, but I assume you’re clueless about everything that has happened on the surface,” Alice said, taking a swig of her gourd and beaming at her the entire time. “How about it? Wanna hear everything there is to know? Promise I won’t bore you. I bet you people thought there was nobody living on the surface, eh?”
“Um… no,” Dahlia mumbled back, looking left and right before picking up her water gourd with both hands. “I… I knew. I was told. Not long ago. People still live on the surface, and you’re fighting the Swarm on seven–”
“Right! The Seven Swarmsteel Fronts! Did your Archive tell you that?” Alice interrupted, but she wasn’t waiting for an answer. She looked all too happy to begin rambling by herself. “We’re on the last standing continent in the world, and yes, the Seven Swarmsteel Fronts are humanity’s final bastions against the Swarm, but never mind them for the time being. We’re in the Sharaji Desert right now, which means we’re far and away from any of the big fronts… but that doesn’t mean giant insects don’t sneak past the borders sometimes and make it into the continent. That’s what we’re here for!”
Dahlia frowned as she took a big, long sip from her gourd. “We? Who’s… we?”
Alice clasped all four hands over her chest, smiling proudly. “The Hasharana, of course. We’re an independent bug-slaying organisation headed by the Worm God of the Genesis Glade Front, because he alone is capable of holding the southernmost end of the continent without needing people to support him. We get sent out on missions all across the continent—most are bug eradication missions, but sometimes we’re ordered to reinforce a particular front, and other times we’re ordered to just perform a bit of investigation for the Worm God. My point is–” She jabbed a finger at Dahlia’s throat, her smile turning into a dangerous smirk “–you’re not supposed to have an Altered Swarmsteel System.”
…
Dahlia didn’t know what to say.
She barely caught everything Alice had said.
“... I’m not… supposed to have Eria?” she mumbled, pointing at herself as she tilted her head. “Why… not?”
“I don’t know how you got it, but the 'Altered' Swarmsteel Systems are private property, made only by the Hasharana’s most talented Makers,” Alice explained. “You don’t know how they’re made, and I don’t, either. They’re super private property. A single Altered Swarmsteel System can sell for hundreds of thousands of silvers, and that’s because the only legitimate way to get one is by taking the Hasharana Entrance Exam hosted once every year—it’s a big festival, really, that fighters and warriors from all across the continent can participate in. Anyone who passes the three stages of the exam gets the title of ‘Hasharana’ alongside an Altered Swarmsteel System. From there on, they can increase their rank within the organisation until they earn the title of an ‘Arcana Hasharana’, who are basically the strongest Hasharana on the continent."
Dahlia blinked. “You say 'Altered' like there's a normal version. There’s different types of systems, then?”
“Just two. The ‘normal’ one is just called a ‘Swarmsteel System’, which lots of people across the continent have,” Alice said, raising a single finger. “Every soldier in the Attini Empire has one. Every Plagueplain Doctor in the Plagueplain Front has one. Basically everybody in any military has one, and those ones are relatively… eh. They serve their purpose just fine. But the difference between a normal Swarmsteel System and an Altered Swarmsteel System—the one that sells for tons— is the presence of a little assistant that is connected to an archive of information. The ‘Archive’ you can talk to in your head is the most valuable part. It’s instant information you can access anywhere you want, whenever you want. A normal soldier with a Swarmsteel System may not know how best to attribute their points, but the Archive of an Altered Swarmsteel System will teach you everything you need to know to start a prosperous business. Massive difference.”
“I… see,” Dahlia muttered, glancing at Eria perched on her shoulder as she did. “So… overall, Altered Swarmsteel Systems are just rare?”
“An average of one thousand people register in the exam every year.”
“How many people pass all three stages?”
“Mm… Twenty people every year?”
“And how many Arcana Hasharana are there?”
“The organisation was founded thirty years ago, and there are currently twenty-one Arcana Hasharana,” Alice said plainly, bowing with a wide grin as she did. “So that’s basically it. We, the wandering bug slayers, are the Worm God’s foot soldiers—and the Worm God sent me here, to the Sharaji Oasis Town, to carry out three duties.”
Without warning. Without signal. Invisible threads wrapped around her neck and Alice pulled her close, almost making her lurch out of her chair. She was stopped right before she could fall into Alice, but by that point it was already too late; the Hasharana had trapped her in an invisible web again, and she couldn’t budge an inch as Alice reached around her shoulders to caress her nape.
Her skin tingled as the worm in her spine shivered.
“The first duty is to track down the cocoons that landed across the Sharaji Desert, and to exterminate all giant insects that might arise as a result,” Alice said, and Dahlia squeezed her eyes shut as the Hasharana started feeling her spinal protrusions one by one, down her back; eventually she gasped and failed to suppress a shudder, the Hasharana finding the worm’s exact spot halfway down her spine. “The second duty is to find the source of ‘system disruption’ around this area, which, by the way, means there is an unregistered Altered Swarmsteel System nearby. You must’ve tried to access redacted information from your system’s Archive a while ago, so not only did you fail to access it back then, you’ve also flagged yourself as someone using something you shouldn’t be using. That’s why the Worm God sent me here to check it out.”
Dahlia gulped. “And… what happens to people who use an unregistered Altered Swarmsteel System?”
Alice peeled away from her to stare at her blankly.
“They die,” she said matter-of-factly. “There’s too much risk in letting someone get an Archive without being vetted by someone at least on the rank of an Arcana Hasharana, so, by rule of law, I’m supposed to kill you and retrieve the stolen system. I don’t really care how you got it in the first place; the investigation of recent proliferation in stolen systems is The Wheel of Fortune’s job.
“However, as you can see, we are in the middle of nowhere.
“So if you just hand over your Altered Swarmsteel System to me, I’ll let you live.”
…
A firm ultimatum. There was no lie in Alice’s eyes, no hint of hesitation—if she refused, she’d really be killed, and surely the young Hasharana wouldn’t even lose a wink of sleep over it.
But… the idea of parting with Eria just didn’t sit well with her.
And her reasoning wasn’t anything ‘logical’.
[It is true that, according to Hasharana protocol, all unregistered Altered Swarmsteel Systems must be retrieved once a Hasharana comes in contact with one,] Eria said in a cool tone of voice. [If your desire… is to live a peaceful life, then it is worth removing me from your body. You will have to take care not to let your mutations get the better of you, but in time, you… you will–]
“I don’t want to,” she said out loud, gritting her teeth. Alice raised a brow, but didn’t look particularly surprised. “Eria… has gone through what happened in Alshifa with me. She’s seen everything with me. She’s experienced everything with me.
“She’s more than just a ‘system’ to me.
“She’s… she’s my friend–”
“I knew you’d say that, so I wasn’t planning on asking you for it back right now.” Alice shrugged, as Safi suddenly appeared behind the bar, dumped two plates of steaming roasted meat in front of them, and swung away before Dahlia could even see his face. For her part, Alice pulled her plate closer and simply started chowing down on the meat. “Besides, I have… things to test with you… about your insect class. So… until I get my answers… and everything I want out of you… you can keep your Altered Swarmsteel System.
“Good… deal?”
…
It was uncanny seeing a perfect replica of her own face eating so ravenously, but her stomach was growling about now, too, and she couldn’t hold it any longer.
Tentatively, she picked apart the upturned beetle with its abdominal chitin removed, scooping out what seemed to be tough and gamey meat with her claws.
It wasn’t as strange now, but to think just a few weeks ago she’d have puked even at the thought of putting insect flesh close to her lips—now, she didn’t like to admit it, but the fire-roasted beetle meat tasted exactly like the luxurious lamb she’d had only once back in Alshifa, on her tenth birthday.
In other words, it was delicious.
“... Before I let you go back to sleep and rest, I wanna show you something,” Alice said in an unusually quiet voice, sneaking glances at her between bites. “After this meal, of course. And you’ll probably want lunch. And dinner. I’ll bring food over to your room, so just follow me after this, alright?”
Dahlia couldn’t help but purse her lips and sulk. She didn’t want to hear Alice pestering her to let go of Eria.
Even though… Even though she knew she probably wouldn’t be able to persuade the Hasharana, she wanted to try.
She wanted to try.
“Okay, Dahlia?
“Go with me?
“... Fine.”