As Zora stepped into the vast indoor botanical garden and cast ‘silence’ on all their shoes, a wave of warm, fragrant air enveloped him.

Bright and resplendent sunlight fell onto the garden through the distant glass walls and ceiling. As the ‘bridge’ between the northern building and the rest of the academy, the garden was at least ten times as large as any auditorium hall, and the mages had spared no effort making it look as pretty as possible: alien trees with shimmering silver bark rose from small, rolling hills, their thick canopies glowing faintly with golden veins. Waterfalls tumbled into crystal-clear rivers by the faraway walls. Flowers blooms of various shades of deep rosewood and blue irises brought a fresh, vibrant look to the garden, and at some point, Zora had to ask—what part of this was a ‘garden’ instead of a full-blown artificial forest a mad physician had decided to build in the middle of the academy?

A garden implied there’d be a path winding through the flora, taking them around the garden so they could actually do garden-related activities, but there wasn’t a hint of a cobbled road anywhere in front of them. Zora couldn’t even see the greenhouse that was supposed to be a giant building in the middle of the garden; that was just how thick the trees and vines and blooms were.

At least the birds and critters are making a real good time out of it, he thought, scowling as flocks of starlings chirped by overhead, accompanied by muted tree frog croaks, lizard clicks, and a bunch more background noises he couldn’t make heads or tails of. It’s almost like the garden isn’t even aware the rest of the academy is getting overrun outside.

There was an actual, non-zero percent chance Julius had no idea what was going on outside, and he was just extending his biological science class to an extreme degree. That’d be the worst case scenario. If, at any point, he led his class 2-D outside and came face to face with a giant bug…

…

But somehow, Zora wasn’t too worried about that happening.

After performing a cursory scan of the clearing in front of them, Marcus nodded at them to start wading straight through the thicket. The greenhouse should be dead centre in the middle of the garden, but Zora wasn’t entirely sure. Despite the lush greenery around him, there was an unsettling quality to the artificial forest that always made the hair on the back of his neck prickle. Walking hand in hand with Emilia, he eyed the towering silver-barked trees, glared at the giant twisted and knotted roots, and twitched an eye every time an opalescent fish jumped from the rivers to make a tiny splash—he’d never actually visited or explored the garden since Julius had it renovated a year ago, so he was letting Marcus and Cecilia lead the way.

For her part, Emilia had never been in the garden, either. Her fingers trembled with excitement as her antennae swirled in circles, her ears perking and nose sniffing around.

“Mister Zora! Look! That one!” she whispered, jumping and pointing at an eight-pointed iridescent flower dangling from an overhead vine. “Can I touch it? It looks… soft! Pretty!”

Before he could even open his mouth, her small feet skipped a few steps ahead of him, dragging him towards a glowing patch of mushrooms nestled by the trunk of a silver-barked tree. She crouched, still gripping his hand as her other hands stretched out inquisitively. “Mister Zora! These ones look soft, too! Can I touch? Can I eat?”

Marcus and Cecilia glanced back at the two of them while he let Emilia play around a little, allowing her to tug him around pulsing fruits, web-like vines, and even to one of the cold river streams where she dipped her hand in the freezing water—she squealed and giggled at that one, her every movement full with unfiltered delight.

Zora did his best to guide her along the path to the greenhouse, but they were inevitably taking the slower, less-walked path, and… he wasn’t so sure that was an entirely bad thing. He’d already cast ‘silence’ on all their shoes, so she wasn’t making that much noise. Besides, it’d do none of them any good if she was tensed-up; she’d be more prone to not listen to them if she were constantly unnerved.

“... Hasn’t she been here even once the past two weeks, skellyman?” Marcus mumbled several metres in front, but Zora heard the man loud and clear with his Acute Tympana. “She’s playing like she’s never seen a flower before. Have you been locking her inside her room after her afternoon classes all this time?”

Zora smiled weakly as Emilia whirled and laughed, trying to get him to look at a dangling star-shaped fruit. “It’s a working theory, but since eating bugs without a system gradually turns humans into frenzied insects, the Headmaster said putting her in a floral environment where an insect would feel at home might… hasten the takeover. Weaken her humanity,” he whispered back, shaking his head slowly. “I’ve not let her attend Julius’ classes the past two weeks, and I’ve kept her away from any sort of flowers or trees she could possibly climb onto. Until we know the exact type of moth she ate so Julius can brew an antidote, I don’t want her engaging the insect side of herself.”

Cecilia furrowed her brows, scratching her neck as she hacked through another wall of vines to clear the path. “So you still haven’t figured out what kind of moth she is? I’ve heard a bit from grand… from the Headmaster that she only has a month or so left as a human. That was two weeks ago, right? How long–”

“Counting today, seven days.”

Both Marcus and Cecilia glanced back at Emilia, their faces scrunched with silent, anxious worry.

“I will be honest with you, muscleman,” Zora muttered, nudging Emilia along as she picked a particularly pretty star-shaped flower from the ground, “I considered looking for Julius first instead of you, because if nothing else, Julius is the only man in the academy who can possibly brew an antidote for Emilia.”

Marcus narrowed his eyes. “Why’d the two of you go for me, then?”

“Because you were closer,” Zora said plainly, quietly, “and because class 2-C is bigger than class 2-D, so–”

Then the muscleman stopped and slapped him on the back, making him stumble forward a few steps. Emilia didn’t even seem to notice the commotion. She was still skipping and humming along, looking around the vibrant garden with ‘awe’ written all over her face.

“... Fucking idiot,” Marcus grumbled, putting Zora into a painful headlock as the muscleman scrubbed his hair. “Next time, if you have to choose between your kid and mine, choose your kid. Class 2-C is mine to deal with. Like I needed your help with that haze moth or whatever the fuck that thing was.”

Zora groaned and tried waving Cecilia over for assistance, but the music teacher simply sighed and took Emilia’s hand, talking to the little girl about flowers and mushrooms in a world of their own while Marcus continued scrubbing his hair.

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

…

He thought about blasting the big man away with a spell, but he neither felt like wasting his physical stamina nor his mental energy over a decision he’d already made. The fact was, Marcus was here with them right now, and he was glad Emilia had a meatshield to hide behind—he didn’t regret not going after Julius first.

Besides, if he’d come to this garden yesterday without Marcus in tow, he felt something very, very bad would’ve happened.

“You hear it, don’t you?” he mumbled, as all three of them teachers lifted their heads and looked to their left; past the thicket, through the canopy, and into the shadows of the artificial forest, there was something stepping on branches, crunching on fallen leaves. It was quite a fair distance away—twenty metres or so—but they all heard it moving loud and clear. “Does that sound like a human to you, muscleman?”

“Hell no. What’s it sound to you, Cecilia?”

“Not a human,” Cecilia breathed, pressing a finger to Emilia’s lips to shush the little girl as well. They all looked warily at the shadow in the distance, but they’d been relatively quiet this entire time; it shouldn’t notice them when they’re this far away. “Just keep going. The lab’s not that far off. If Julius is there, he can barricade us in while we–”

The crunching noise turned into a sharp whistle, and it was only Emilia’s tingling antennae that gave it away.

Marcus let go of Zora and dashed forward at the same time, slapping the two spear-like antennae that flew at Cecilia’s head at the speed of a blink. Zora flinched as the two segmented antennae slammed into two silver trees, before curling around the bark like wrapping ropes around a stick, and then—the antennae tensed up, slingshotting whatever was standing twenty metres away over their heads.

Zora blinked, catching what seemed like the shadow of a human soaring over them for the briefest of moments, and then the sharp whistle came again—it released its two antennae from the trees and whipped them in, slicing off Marcus’ left arm and Cecilia’s left ear in one swift motion.

By the time it landed ten metres to their right, Marcus and Cecilia had already crumpled to the wet earth, groaning in pain.

“... Barrier!” he shouted, whipping his wand forward just as the two antennae darted at his face. The antennae bounced off the wall of rippling waves, and the human-like shadow standing in the distance tilted its head curiously.

It didn’t immediately attack again, instead choosing to hover its antennae a few metres away from his barrier as it studied his wand—so he ‘struck’ the ground between them as hard as he could while Emilia picked up both the fallen teachers and the severed appendages, kicking up a wave of wet soil that splattered everywhere.

By the time the antennae cleaved through the soil, the two of them were already bolting straight for the greenhouse, vaulting over bushes and ducking under vines.

“Rustle!” he snapped, letting the spell explode around him in an area, and a fall of silver leaves obscured the bug’s vision as Emilia glanced worriedly behind her; he clicked his tongue and pointed at the giant greenhouse sitting in the middle of a small clearing in front of them, beckoning her to go ahead. “Get Miss Sarius and Mister Evander into the lab first! Don’t look behind you! Get Mister Tadius to help them!”

Emilia looked at him with quivering lips—and she certainly looked funny herself, a little girl with inhuman strength carrying two grown adults with four bony arms—but he wasn’t about to hear ‘no’ for an answer now. There was no doubt about it: the way Marcus and Cecilia were groaning and turning incredibly pale by the second, the antennae were laced with venom or something of the sort. The severed appendages weren’t the worst of their injuries. They needed venom treatment now, and only Julius could help them.

So, while Emilia continued spring full-speed ahead, he whirled and cast another ‘block’ to deflect the stabbing antennae just in time. One of them bounced into a nearby tree, ripping through the bark, but the other was barely deterred. He hissed as he threw himself to the right, the antenna missing his earlobe by inches.

Skidding to a halt right at the edge of the clearing, he backed towards the greenhouse slowly while keeping his wand poised in front of him.

He couldn’t see the bug quite clearly, but the fact that it was human-sized, walking on two legs, and swinging its four arms as it meandered forward with a human gait told him everything he needed to know about it.

… A Mutant-Class.

A bug that has eaten enough humans to learn how to emulate human behaviour.

His mind scrambled for ideas on how to get out of this situation, but his thoughts were interrupted as the Mutant suddenly screeched in the distance, and the forest rumbled in response.

If his blood wasn’t frozen enough already, it sure was rock solid now.

That’s a brood summoning call.

Mutant-Classes are like the generals of the Swarm. No matter what any Critter-Class or Giant-Class bug in the vicinity is doing, they’ll all obey the Mutant-Class the moment it calls for them, no questions asked.

Is there even a way for me to beat a Mutant-Class right now?

He backed into a shallow river running around the greenhouse in a wide circle, chewing his lips. He could hear them coming now: a dozen, two dozen, maybe even three dozen giant bugs crashing through the forest on all sides, converging on the clearing he was in. So they really were just lurking around here, huh? He would've preferred if they were all coming from the direction of the slowly-approaching Mutant—he could've tried making a gigantic ‘barrier wall’ to keep them all at bay—but they wouldn't be the Swarm if they weren't hard to pin down.

Maybe I can do something with the river and the water?

If I ‘gather’ all the water and send it flying straight at the Mutant-Class, maybe I can…

…

He scowled, glancing down at the shallow river he just backed across.

The ‘water’ was dark, muddy, and clung to his heels like oil—because it was oil, and he heard a dozen burning arrows volleying over his head from behind.

He saw only the Mutant’s armoured beetle head as it slingshotted itself forward, but the flame-tipped arrows stabbed into the river of oil right before it could reach him, turning the river into a wall of poisonous green flames that roared into existence. The heat made him reel and stumble back with a hiss, but so did the Mutant and the dozens of giant beetles that charged into the clearing; the smoky fumes rose towards the ceiling like a physical barrier around the greenhouse.

Through the wall of fire, the Mutant-Class beetle clad in oil-black chitin glared at him, and its black compound eyes on the sides of its head blinked slowly once before it backed off into the forest. It dragged its twenty-metre-long antennae along the ground, and while the other giant bugs seemed to want to try jumping through the fire, another screech from the Mutant made all of them shudder. They were its soldiers, it was their general; they’d rather regain control over the rest of the garden than to brute-force their way through the flames.

…

And no words could describe how relieved he was as he whirled around, seeing the kids of class 2-D waving at him from the greenhouse’s front gate. Emilia stood amongst them looking confused and dumbfounded, and he couldn’t blame her for it; they were all armed to the teeth with makeshift bows, glaives, and knives, and a few of them were still holding flame-tipped arrows as they gulped at the retreating horde of bugs.

Quickly, he sprinted into the greenhouse with Emilia and the injured teachers in tow, class 2-D immediately pulling the double gates close behind them. The wall of flames didn’t look like it’d extinguish anytime soon, and the children looked like they’d done this a few times before, so he allowed himself to run past all of them and nudge Emilia into the heart of the greenhouse. 2-D could probably handle the locking of the gates by themselves.

More importantly, he’s alive.

He’s here.

Much to his relief once again, the moment he barged into the centre of the greenhouse with Emilia—yet another dome-shaped room with multi-coloured flowers blooming on vines across the glass walls—was the moment he spotted the scrawny, skeleton-looking man in a lab coat twice his size, standing behind the second floor railings with binoculars fitted over his eyes.

The man was looking out at the artificial forest near the top of the dome, and it wasn’t until he confirmed the bugs were leaving them alone that he tossed the binoculars away, whirling down to blink at Zora.

… But before Zora could jab a finger at the injured Marcus and Cecilia, the man started screaming, the railings as he jabbed a wand back at Emilia.

“Mutant!” Julius shrieked, a sound wave swirling around the tip of his wand. “Kids! Help! Get that thing out of here!”