Another month passed since Sparrow learned how to speak in his warping voice, and by now he felt the Worm Mages had eradicated half the Boreus living under the surface of the glacier.
“How many heads in total?” he asked, yanking his bayonet out of the last Boreus’ head as he did. “We killed eleven in morning, and ten after lunch. Seven here right now. How many you all kill?”
Of the hunting group of twenty, six of them were elders, and one by one they shouted their reports along a fifty metre line across the glacier.
“I got four!” Utu shouted, furthest away from him, five younger children helping him pluck his arrows out of the fallen Boreus in front of him.
“We got six!” Ammu, Nammu, and Immu shouted, triplet brothers always joined at the hip.
“Two for me!” Enli shouted, the youngest of the elders, just a couple months since she’d turned ten.
“And just one… for me,” Ninmah grumbled, sounding sorely disappointed as she warped over to him, dragging her five-metre class Boreus by the antenna across the glacier. “Guess I’m no good at being a good shot, huh? I’m breaking more arrows than I should be. Utu, give me one of yours so I can reach my daily quota.”
“Don’t wanna. If you can’t shoot, just run at them with your spear.”
“Scary! I don’t wanna be near them!”
“Then steal some from Sparrow’s carcass mound. He’s got lots to spare.”
As the sun fell over the horizon and the others warped back in to pile their carcasses together, Ninmah looked at him with wide, pleading eyes. He shrugged and kicked one of his four-metre class Boreus, letting her have it—they’d recently made a rule that designated hunting elders who couldn’t reach their daily quota of killing at least two Boreus per session wouldn’t get as much insect flesh for dinner, and while the Worm Mages were proficient enough at hunting Boreus now that he didn’t exactly need to be here with them every single day, sometimes, one or two of them wouldn’t manage to reach their quota. It could be because another elder’s warping voice was too loud and attracted all the Boreus over to them, or it could just be plain misfortune that they couldn’t get any hooks that day.
In any case, he’d hunted seven in the afternoon by himself, so he could spare one or even two or even three for Ninmah; it wasn’t like hunting more than two meant he’d get extra insect flesh for dinner, anyways. It just meant elders who hunted less than that would be taken out of the hunting group for more practice with their abilities, and they’d stay out of the hunting group until Sparrow gave them the okay to try hunting again.
Because while the Boreus hadn’t invaded since that night two months ago, the average strength of those living under the glacier was increasing gradually.
While he waved at the hunting group to disband and start hauling their carcasses back to the village for butchering, he knelt and placed his palm on the frozen sea, pushing his vibrational senses deep into the ice. The dusking sun cast a cosy, warm orange glow that reflected off the edges of the glacier like a wall of flames, but deep below he could faintly tell there were still hundreds of Boreus, thousands of Boreus running across the glacier—the average fifty or so Boreus they could lure to the surface and bring to heel daily weren’t even a fraction of their forces. The ones they could kill were only the surface forces. In that sense, they were making a difference when it came to increasing their own strength, but…
He closed his eyes and tried to push his senses even further down.
Their nest is most certainly somewhere near the very far end of this glacier, five hundred metres across and however many hundreds of metres below the ice.
Even if we can kill fifty a day and stop the surface scouts from claiming new territory, we cannot possibly wade into theirs.
He’d have liked to stay kneeling and continue trying to probe the ice for more information about their underground passages, but Ninmah tapped him on the shoulder from behind, tipping her head back.
… Well.
I can think about this later.
Reluctantly, he rose to his feet and began warping back to the village with Ninmah beside him, taking a relaxed and meandering pace that didn’t strain him particularly much. He seemed to have hit a soft limit of ten metres per warp, which meant unless he was dashing through his warps, it’d take him at least ten minutes to go between the glacier to the village compared to the five or so minutes for the rest of the Worm Mages—but nobody ever seemed to mind accompanying him on his shorter warps. They were more than happy to match his pace, and even Ninmah, humming with her hands crossed behind her head right now, didn’t seem as though she cared that the rest of the hunting group was most likely already back in the village.
For him, that was still a sore point.
Activate status screen.
[// STATUS]
[Name: ‘Sparrow’, Human]
[Class: Worm]
[BloodVolume: 5.3/5.4 (98%), Strain: 272/1077 (25%)]
[Unallocated Points: 165]
[Strength: 6, Speed: 6, Dexterity: 8, Toughness: 5, Perceptivity: 5, StrainLimit: 1077]
[// MUTATION TREE]
[T1 | Wormhole Core]
{T1 Branch Mutations | Warping Step | Wormhole | Warping Voice}
[T2 | Vibrational Senses | Wormic Bones]
{T2 Branch Mutations | Frost Immunity | ???}
[T3 | Segmented Setae | Rigid Annuli | Sclerite Jaw] 150P
{T3 Branch Mutations | ??? | ??? | ???}
As they warped back to the village in silence, crossing boulders and plains of snow and blackrock mountains as they did, he wondered if it was about time he unlocked one of his tier three mutations. He’d learned what each of them would probably do from Ninmah—she’d said the words were quite complicated even to someone who could read, so she wasn’t entirely sure—and the fact that he’d spent all but ninety-five percent of his points on increasing his strain limit the past month meant his stamina wasn’t so terrible now. He could make two small wormholes a day, though it was still horribly inefficient, and he could consistently speak in his warping voice throughout the entire day as long as he kept his sentences brief and curt. No extraneous words.
Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.
Before, he’d have thought unlocking his mutations would be far more rewarding and efficient for growing stronger, but knowing what he knew now—that the amount of times he could warp, make wormholes, and speak in his warping voice all scaled with his strain limit—made him just that much more inclined to single-mindedly focus on increasing his strain limit. That wasn’t to say the other attribute levels or the mutations weren’t important, but his biggest limiting factor, at this point, was by far still his strain limit. The main strength of the worm system revolved around those three abilities; if he could get his strain limit to two thousand first, then maybe he could comfortably go up to his tier three mutations without having to worry about malicious side effects.
I can hold off on the mutations for now.
Unless I really need one of them in a pinch, I can just put my points into even more stamina–
“You seem worried recently,” Ninmah finally said, dumping a few snack worms on his shoulder as he stared at his status screen the entire way back. He paused his command to increase his strain limit with every free point he had and turned to look at her. “Are you… rushing, for some reason, to get even stronger than you already are?”
“...”
Crossing a crystal river stream and balancing across a fallen pine, he debated, for a moment, whether to tell her about his thoughts on the Boreus.
But this was her home, and she had a right to know.
“... The Boreus grow stronger, still,” he said sternly, averting her eyes and looking straight forward at the distant village as he did. Columns of smoke were billowing out of small stone chimneys; dinner would be served in about half an hour. “We are getting stronger, but they are stronger faster. They are Swarm. They adapt. Evolve. I do not know why they are not attacking us if they know we live in village.”
Ninmah furrowed her brows. “Are they supposed to be smart? Maybe the rest of them don’t know where we live because you killed the eight that invaded us two months ago?”
He was about to say that wasn’t how the Swarm worked with their pheromones, but recently, he’d been wondering if that might actually be the case. “There is… chance. But low. This area called Hagi’Shar, north of Attini Empire. Most Swarm in Attini Empire territory are colony insects, so they share information with each other. I thought maybe the eight I killed gave off pheromones that told the rest where we live.”
She blinked pointedly. “Colony insects? What are those?”
“They have strict hierarchy,” he explained. “Different in other Six Swarmsteel Fronts. Here, in Empire, Swarm like… ants. Don’t act individually. ‘Swarm’ is big name for all giant insects, enemies of humanity, but there are many levels of Swarm. ‘Boreus’ is just name for all giant insects in Hagi’Shar region only. Outside Hagi’Shar, no Boreus.”
“O…kay?”
“So when we came to Hagi’Shar with Empire, we know little about Boreus,” he continued, trying to get to his point; Ninmah was evidently not following. “We thought Boreus weak. Small. After all, they only live Hagi’Shar… but we wrong. Boreus big number. Knew where we were building forward outpost, attacked before we could solid defence. Most likely, Boreus have Mutant commander controlling them, and Mutant knows how to war.”
She blinked again, but with even more confusion. “And… a Mutant? What’s a Mutant?”
“... Three types of insects,” he said, raising three fingers, plucking her snack worms off his shoulder and dangling it between them. “First, ‘Critter’ insects are small insects. Get in houses, hide in corners, be annoying. They are scouts and spies for Swarm. Can’t fight, are stupid, but still must kill on sight. Immanu cold and high up, so very few Critters here, but if snack worm is insect, then these would classify as Critters.”
She nodded. “The second?”
“Second are ‘Giant’ insects. Like Boreus. Can range two to one-hundred-metre classes. They are soldiers of Swarm, and most common type of insects we fight. The Boreus we hunt past two months are all Giants. Can fight, are stupid, and dangerous to untrained people.”
She nodded again, but with more enthusiasm this time. “So the last type is–”
“Last are ‘Mutant’ insects. They look like humans,” he said plainly. “Four arms, two legs, human-shaped head and body. They have strange abilities. Mutants can fight, but not typically on frontline; if there is Swarm infesting a land, like Hagi’Shar, usually at least one Mutant commanding them deep inside nest. They smart. Can strategise. They always strongest as well—a hundred Giants cannot fight one Mutant.”
Surprise and incredulous passed over her face. “You think there’s a Mutant controlling the Boreus, then?”
“Not think. Know.” He shook his head. “If there no Mutant, I would not be here. Attini Empire would have taken Hagi’Shar by now. If we want defeat Boreus, we must find nest and kill Mutant, who can breed and spawn more Giants and Critters.”
“... And can we beat the Mutant as we are now?”
He pursed his lips.
It was a difficult question.
There was still much he wasn’t telling her about the Mutants, and he couldn’t really bring himself to tell her that there were still ‘Lesser Great Mutants’, who could speak in human tongue, and ‘Great Mutants’, of which none of the six known and named across the continent had even come close to being slain in the past six decades. Owing to her taking time out of every night teaching him how to read, he felt he’d about figured out the extent of her knowledge—and, by extension, the rest of the Worm Mages—regarding the Swarm and the outside world.
That was to say, not a whole lot outside of the very basics.
Maybe telling her that there was a chance, no matter how slight, that the Boreus Mutant might actually be a Lesser Great Mutant would do nothing but dash her hopes.
It wasn’t like they could control who their enemies were, anyways.
The Worm Mages wouldn’t leave Immanu, and that was that.
“... Maybe,” he replied curtly. “If we continue growing stronger, then… yes. Worm system strong, after all.”
Ninmahs’ eyes lit up at his answer, and she reached into her cloak for more snack worms, humming in delight. “That’s reassuring to hear! Hey, teach me more about the outside world tonight! I’ll teach you how to read again!”
“Goes without saying–”
He caught a blur of motion from the village they were quickly nearing.
A child warped up and was hanging off the top of the bell tower, ringing the chimes to get everyone’s attention.
Scowling, he grabbed Ninmah’s hand and warped forward with her, speeding up until they were right beneath the belltower. A small crowd had already gathered alongside half of the elders, all of them standing horizontally on the walls of the bell tower, shouting at the child to get down and stop playing with the chimes.
In response, the child only pointed south, shouting something incoherent—and then the rest of them heard it as well, all but Sparrow flinching at the sound of a bullet being fired.
His face turned from a neutral expression to dark, cold grimace.
… What?
While there was silence from the crowd, and Ninmah snapped her head over to stare at his rifle—likely recognising the sound of a bullet firing herself—he warped in the direction of the disturbance and landed himself on a particularly high roof, looking out the borders of the village to see if he could spot anything.
Nothing.
The disturbance came from much further away.
Ninmah and Utu and all of the elders tried to follow, shouting at him to wait for them, but he was in full sprinting mode; he dashed, jumped, and leaped through his warps, passing the kitchens and newly built storage houses and river streams and gardens and fences, even passing by his old cabin that he’d moved out of a month ago on his way to the very edge of the mountain range.
The last time he’d been there, it was when he’d first woken up after realising he wasn’t dead and tried to escape. Back then, the only reason why he’d hesitated at any point to go any further was because of the sheer intimidating factor of the slope’s steepness—but now that he wasn’t half-dead and was several times stronger, he found himself not particularly afraid as he skidded to a halt near the edge, looking down at the sea of fluffy clouds that stopped him from even finding the surface.
Now, if he wanted to, he felt he could easily warp down the terribly steep slope of snow and eventually reach the surface—and the moment he descended past the sea of clouds, he’d probably figure out which direction the Capital was in—but that wasn’t what he was trying to do.
His eyes were firmly locked onto the dozen or so tiny figures three hundred metres below him, trying to climb the slope as they fired their rifles behind them.
A small group of forty or so Boreus were chasing after them, struggling just as hard to claw up the slope.
…
But even from a distance, he could clearly see the glint of silver on the sleeves of their uniforms, and he recognised the whizzing, low-calibre sounds of their bullets.
Ninmah, Utu, and the elders warped in next to him, kneeling and peering over the precipice as they looked to him for an answer.
“... Silver Ant Battalion,” he said, narrowing his eyes. “Scouts of the Attini Empire.”