“... My first question is simple, and it is purely for curiosity’s sake,” Zora said, raising a finger. “What is Nona, youngest of the Magicicada Witches, looking for in this academy?”
In response, the giant stick bug shimmied down the wall of the northern building, lowering its head to only about three metres above him.
“Do you know the history of the Magicicada Witches?” it rumbled, sounding very keen to exchange words with him. “The three sisters have been serving the Swarm since we first invaded your world sixty-one years ago—many, many decades before I was even born. There are many species of cicadas in the world, but only the three Magicicada Witches have the ability to cast ‘spells’ with their words… that is, until you Magicicada Mages stole their voices and their ability to cast spells.”
“I’m vaguely aware of the mages’ history,” he said, picking his words slowly, carefully, “they copied the Magicicada Witches’ abilities and even made wands out of cicada parts so they can channel and focus their spells. What does that–”
“I was there twenty-one years ago when the Magicicada Witches burned the mages’ research town to the ground,” it said, chortling with a raspy, ear-grating voice. “The three of them went after the mages because something of theirs was stolen: black chitin from their own bodies, shattered off their chests during a particularly difficult battle in the then-eastern continent. The mages back then stole the black chitin and turned it into three legendary wands capable of killing the Magicicada Witches, so of course the three of them could not take that standing. They wanted the wands made of their own flesh back.”
Zora narrowed his wands. “Wands that can kill the Magicicada Witches, you say?”
“Your wand is made of normal cicada chitin, is it not?” it said, looking pointedly down at the sword he was leaning against. “Because it is cicada chitin, it can absorb, charge, and focus any spells you cast on it, but the three wands made out of magicicada chitin can amplify any spells cast on them tenfold. They would be too dangerous in the hands of you mages.”
One by one, the pieces clicked together inside his head, and he tilted his head back with his eyes closed for a brief moment—gathering his thoughts, planning his next line of conversation.
“... Ah,” he breathed, “so I assume the two older sisters recovered their wands twenty-one years ago when they attacked the Magicicada Mages and forced them to scatter across the continent, but Nona didn’t recover hers. You didn’t kill all of the mages.”
“Precisely.” The bug nodded, clearly elated he was plucking its exact thoughts out of its head. “For twenty-one years, Nona has been wandering this continent, listening to the hums of her own wand—she could always hear it calling to her faintly, but she could never pinpoint its exact location. It was not until we finally exterminated every mage outside of this academy that the sounds became clear to her. The wand is here in this academy, where the very last Magicicada Mages reside, and once she shatters the wand, she will be able to piece the shards together and close the wound in her chest. Then, and only then, will she become truly invincible once again.”
For his part, Zora just waited, silent and still. It was a lot of information to take in, but he’d had his suspicions ever since that katydid said Nona was here to reclaim what was ‘stolen’ from her. Magicicadas weren’t particularly well-known for hoarding anything, so something that could be stolen from her could only be a piece of her actual body—in this case, a wand made out of chitin shards broken from her chest.
It can amplify any spell cast on it… tenfold?
If it truly is that powerful of a wand, then I can see why she’d want it back.
If it’s in the Headmaster’s hands right now, then maybe we do stand a chance against Nona after all–
“I’ve answered your question, haven’t I?” The bug clicked its mandibles together, evidently impatient. “My turn. Teach me a human tongue. Perhaps it is not only eating humans that turns bugs into Mutants. I must first act like a human, and then–”
“I still have a second question, remember?” he said, wagging his finger in its face. “This is a bit of a tough question, so may I be allowed to pull out my sword and draw it on the walls? It would be more time-efficient for the both of us.”
The bug stared at him for a moment before tilting its head to the left. “Make it quick.”
He bowed curtly and yanked his sword from the ground, making a big show of limping over to the cracked, weakened wall of the lecture hall.
Alright.
I’ve got its attention.
He controlled his breathing and slowed his heartbeat to a crawl—he needed steady hands for what he was carving into the stone wall, and thankfully, the giant bug was relatively patient with him. Even as he ‘accidentally’ messed up the drawing, cursed, and dropped his sword, it didn’t deny him his silent request to carve the drawing on the right wall of the lecture hall instead.
In another life, the bug could’ve been a pretty decent human.
“... What is this bug called?” he asked, letting out a heavy, tired breath as he finished his carving, turning around to show the giant bug. “It’s a moth species even the smartest, wisest physician in our academy can’t identify. As traits manifested on a human child after consumption, the moth gives the child black claws, red eyes, hairy comb-like antennae, and white-crimson wings. Since you are of the Swarm, do you know of any moths that fit those descriptions?”
The giant bug thought for a moment, humming deeply and making the lecture hall reverberate.
“There are tens and hundreds of moths in the eastern Mori Masif Front alone that fit that description,” it said, shaking its head slowly. “Does it have any patterns on its wings? On the back of its abdomen? Is it hairy, fuzzy, or smooth-scaled?”
“The human child has the Hexichor Art to produce glowing blood threads from their nails,” he said, watching its eyes closely. “I was under the impression that only spiders can produce threads, but apparently not. Does this moth species ring a bell, then? A moth that can–”
“Ahhhhhhhh,” it breathed, exhaling so loudly it made the lecture hall reverberate again, and Zora had to stab his sword into the ground just to stay on his feet. “You should have led with that, Fabre. There is no bug in the world that does not know the abilities of the Black Witch.”
Zora’s heart skipped a beat, and he yanked his sword out to turn it back into a wand, a small grin on his face. “You know what that moth is, then?”
“Of course I do.”
“What is it called?”
“It is a ‘Silkmoth’—and the Greater Insect God of the East, the Black Witch, is one herself,” it said plainly, leaning forward and moving its head dangerously, uncomfortably close to him. “That human child you were running with… she is a Kin of the Black Witch. Give her to me. Silkmoths are amongst the rarest and most powerful bugs in the entire world, so the Black Witch usually keeps a watchful eye on all of them to prevent them from getting eaten—I do not know how your child managed to eat enough to develop silkmoth traits, but I do not care.”
Zora backed up the stairs slowly, his heart pounding with excitement. “A silkmoth, you say? I’ve not heard of it before, but I assume the ‘silk’ it produces are the glowing red threads?”
“Yes. And if a human has consumed enough silkmoths to develop its traits, she must be a human worth consuming herself,” it said, its two colossal forelegs reaching into the lecture hall, stabbing into the ground. “This is called ‘human trade’, is it not? I will let you and the others live. Leave the northern building and never return. In exchange, leave the girl here and let me consume her. I will certainly evolve into a Mutant… perhaps even a Lesser Insect God if I am allowed to tap on even a fraction of the Black Witch’s power–”
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
“Emilia is not up for grabs,” he said coolly, twirling his wand before pressing the tip before his lips. “But thank you very much for the information, indeed. It’s just a darn shame that a wall that outlives its usefulness should just be struck down and shattered.”
The giant stick bug blinked at him, but by then it was too late to move; he whipped his wand at his messy carvings on either side of the lecture hall, ‘shattering’ the already weakened walls with two blunt strikes. Immediately, the section of the wall the bug was clinging onto began falling, and it was a big, sluggish bug after all.
If it didn’t want to plummet a hundred metres down to its demise, the only thing it could do was crawl inside the lecture hall—and that was exactly what it did with an irritated growl, squeezing its massive, spiky frame into the building.
“Is this part of your question, too?” it snarled, wings trying to unfurl and flap to no avail; it was still slipping, falling, and while he raced to the top of the lecture hall, it crawled up after him in an attempt to cling to solid ground. “Teach me a human tongue! Make me a Lesser Insect God! If I can rival that Magicicada Witch, then I can be my own bug, live my own life–”
“In human culture, we tend to lie during negotiations,” he said, standing in the doorway as he glanced back at it for a brief moment. “Catch me if you want to learn a human tongue. My kids come to me for extra classes, anyways. I don’t go to them.”
The giant bug bellowed an inhuman, incomprehensible speech, and he dashed down the hallways of the second floor while it tore through the hall behind him. It was still much too big, its colossal legs too unwieldy, but it was crawling and squirming through the tight chambers with wrath like never before.
For his part, he was just running wherever which way, dodging the webs of thin, glowing threads—barely visible to the naked eye—as he lured the bug deeper and deeper into the building.
“Liar!” it screamed, its every step shaking the walls, cracking the floor. It was just a few dozen strides behind him, ripping through every web of threads in its way. “We were right to exterminate the Fabre Household! Silver-tongued devils! Hundred-tongued deceivers! I will make you spit out your tongue and chew on it, like the Magicicada Witches did to your fathers and mothers–”
It hissed as it ran its eyes into a web, blinding it momentarily, and he whirled to stick his tongue out. That made the spikes across its body ripple with anger; he resumed running frantically immediately after, flapping his hyaline wings once for a short burst of explosive speed.
“The Witch told me to guard the northern building, but she will not fault me for bringing it down, will she?” it bellowed, cleaving mindlessly through every wall and room as he lured it down the darker, tighter chambers. Even without its full range of movement, it was still monstrously strong. “I will… get my human tongue… and eat… that Kin of the Black Witch… and then… I will be–”
“Out of breath much?” he called over his shoulder, grimacing as he noticed the dead end hallway thirty strides in front of him; he whirled around once more and slid to a halt, dragging his sword across the ground to kick up a bunch of fiery sparks. “You know, people cannot see the faces they’re making when they’re alone, and you look mighty riled-up right now. Is that the sort of face a human-like bug should be making?”
He slid backwards, heel touching the wall. The giant bug encompassed the entirety of the chamber in front of him, and it was still charging straight at him, mandibles pried wide open, but… it was slowing down. And not just because it was large, or sluggish, or clumsy without being able to use its full range of motion inside the cramped corridors.
By itself, it realised what was going on when the faintly glowing threads stuck to it started hissing and steaming, melting its chitin armour and making it screech in pain.
He shot it a weary, triumphant grin as he repeatedly cast ‘spinning strike’ on his blade, waiting for the bug to reach him headfirst.
Emilia’s threads are laced with Julius’ poisons.
They’re impossible to dodge for something that massive, but dodging them myself isn’t really a problem.
And now that the bug had run itself through dozens upon hundreds of poisonous threads—melting its chitin, sapping its strength, disorienting its senses—he charged forward, running his vibrating blade straight between its eyes.
The ‘strike’ spell immediately rippled as his blade still struggled to pierce the chitin on its head, but he didn’t let up. He didn’t back off. He’d been listening to their footsteps from behind the many walls of the second floor, and all at once, they came out of hiding to jump the bug alongside him.
Marcus charged through the wall behind him, body strengthened with countless self-enhancing spells, and he let go of his sword to duck. The muscleman immediately punched the pommel, driving the blade halfway through its chitin. Fits of rage, bloodcurdling screeches—the bug flailed its colossal legs around and swiped in every direction, trying to force them away, but Emilia had already climbed onto its back, spitting and throwing and tying its legs to any solid surface with her threads. The threads alone weren’t strong enough to bind its limbs, of course, so Cecilia and Julius suddenly collapsed through the ceiling above and landed atop its head, a dozen brass instruments falling alongside them with a loud clatter.
Cheeks puffed, ears burning red, the music teacher roared a skull-shatteringly loud tune through her trumpet, simultaneously casting ‘Da Capo’ to make the other instruments bellow right in the bug’s ears to disorient it even further. At the same time, the physician jabbed half a dozen syringes into the top of its head, injecting another whole dose of poisons straight into its veins.
What the syringes contained exactly didn’t matter. All five of them working together was what was keeping the giant stick bug down, and as Marcus grabbed his blade to drive it deeper and deeper into the bug’s head–
The bug let out its loudest roar yet, unfurling its wings in an attempt to shatter the building from the inside-out, but all it managed to do was throw its uneven weight around and shatter the floor once again.
This time, though, the five of them were prepared. While the stick bug plummeted down to the first floor, Emilia leapt to the nearest wall, clinging onto it with her sticky limbs. Cecilia grabbed Julius, Zora grabbed Marcus, and they fluttered back onto the edge of the hole with their hyaline wings before they could fall through it.
And, together, they knelt and stood by the edge as they watched the giant bug smash into the ground ten metres below, raising a cloud of dust and smoke as it did.
…
Zora waved the dust away and scowled down at the giant bug lying flat on its back, legs upturned. Shrapnel and metal debris bathed its body in blood, and bright moonlight flooding in through the destroyed walls on their right revealed just how broken it really was. Its armour was cracked all over, four of its six legs were torn from its body, and his sword that Marcus had punched into its brain was still embedded in its head.
It may still be heaving and rasping for breath now, but it was already done for. Not even Julius would be able to ‘heal’ injuries like that.
Maybe.
But he wasn’t interested in knowing.
“... Sword, to me.”
While Marcus smacked Julius’ back for a job well done and Cecilia checked on Emilia, giving the little girl ‘good job’ headpats, Zora roared his spell in every direction—and his sword tore itself out of the stick bug’s head, shooting back into his hand with a clean whistle.
Without a word, he turned it back into a wand and flicked a dozen spells at the largest, sharpest debris lying around the giant bug, ‘raising’ them as high into the air as his strength would allow him to.
“Fabre… traitorrrrrrr,” the giant bug mumbled, and all five of them save for Zora flinched. It still had a bit of vocal strength to spare. “Dead or not… you Fabres are always a thorn in someone’s side. All of you lie… as easily… as you breathe.”
Cecilia grabbed his free hand from behind, and he heard someone saying ‘don’t listen’, but frankly, the anger he’d been suppressing for the entirety of their conversation in the lecture hall was becoming too hard to bear. Gritting his teeth, he ‘raised’ the debris higher and higher, straining his throat to the limit–
“You ran from the Fabre Household… not because we attacked it, but because we found it,” it rasped. “It was even more hidden than this academy, but… you realised, did you not? You realised there were Fabre traitors in your mix… who revealed your manor’s location to us…in hopes of allying themselves with us in humanity’s losing war… and so you ran, just as we arrived to exterminate the rest.” It managed to tilt its head upwards, its two bloodshot eyes glaring at him. “We killed the traitors, too… but do not forget, child of the hundred-tongues. You hail from a household of traitors.”
“...”
“A hundred-tongue deceiver is no match for the Magicicada Witch,” it sang, relaxing every muscle in its body. “The Witch is here, the Witch is here, and when the cicadas sing at dawn, the academy will fall–”
“I don’t negotiate with bugs,” Zora said, “and I’ll rip out my tongue a thousand times before I even think about sacrificing a single human.”
Then he cast ‘drop’ on the debris, and Cecilia covered Emilia’s ears as the giant bug’s head was pulverised and crushed to bits.
The bug must’ve landed on oil or some sort of easily combustible chemical as well, because a few seconds after its head went squelch, a massive flame roared to life beneath them, consuming the entirety of the first floor with a wave of heat.
Of the five of them, only Emilia knelt and shuffled over to the edge of the hole, holding out her palms as the warm, orange light glistened off her pale face.
“Fire,” she whispered. “So… warm.”
And that was the rest of their cue to sigh a breath of relief, all of them falling over backwards as they watched the giant stick bug burn.