Chapter 69
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Translator: 8uhl
Chapter: 69
Chapter Title: Monster of the Abyss (8)
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"How is he? What's he doing? Is he happy?"
[...Of course, he is currently reviewing the video you sent. He must be very busy. Yes, he is quite overjoyed.]
Faced with the Legion's barrage of questions, the Observer finally spoke.
"I worked so hard to optimize it for Oppa."
Kang Do-yeon grumbled beside it.
In truth, it was Kang Do-yeon's achievement to take the new 'Mind Method,' which the hyper-intelligent Legion had improved and developed, learn it through the Legion's ways, and then understand and optimize it from a human perspective.
Thanks to the Legion maximizing her brain function during the process, she was now in a state of extreme fatigue.
"But the new Resonance Method we created is ultimately only half of the whole."
However, the Legion deemed the new Mind Method for wielding Form Power to be incomplete.
"Because it's a technique made strictly for humans, or rather, humanoids."
"But all the superior species are humanoid... aren't they?"
Kang Do-yeon asked back, unable to understand. The Legion nodded in response to her question.
In fact, all the superior species the Legion produced to operate Form Power—humans, orcs, and the like—had limbs and used weapons.
"I've never seen a beast that uses Form Power yet."
The reason was simple. The Legion had not yet encountered any other type of creature that used Form Power.
Wary of the inefficiency of creating something from scratch, the Legion had not bothered with such an adventure.
"Ultimately, because they are humanoid, they have no choice but to rely on other techniques."
However, these all-purpose combatants had a fatal flaw: without weapons, their lethality—their ability to instantly kill an enemy—was lower compared to other types of soldiers that had developed size, fangs, or claws.
That was why they were given things like thorny tails, but in the end, if you were born with arms and hands, it was best to hold something and swing it.
"We need swordsmanship. Spearmanship, martial arts, all of it."
The Legion's eyes glinted behind its mask.
Weapons could be made, that was simple enough. But those weapons were not part of the body and required a method to be used.
Only then would they be more efficient. It had experienced this firsthand in its battles with the Moonlight Elves, who had developed a rather systematic form of swordsmanship.
This was the basis for the Legion's judgment that the Resonance Method it had developed was only half-complete.
"Well, that solves it then. The martial art Ji Chang-hyun said he'd teach Oppa was swordsmanship."
"Tch."
At Kang Do-yeon's words, the Legion made no effort to hide its feelings.
"Tch?"
"It's not that learning from him directly through a video is bad, but he's happy when I'm the one who teaches him."
[...]
"...You're really honest about things like this."
Shaking her head at the Legion's utterly unpredictable reaction, Kang Do-yeon cautiously watched it.
This was not the same Legion as before, which had learned about emotions and how to express them from her.
Now, it understood and expressed its own emotions without hesitation.
'I think I get why Oppa is so concerned.'
Being bound together as a single existence, she understood it even better now.
The truth was that this creature, which at times seemed ordinary, peculiar, or even like a younger sibling, could transform into an endlessly cruel and horrifying being.
[Scouting up to the 68th floor is complete. At the same time, the trail ends here.]
"There's only one possibility."
The Legion turned its gaze.
That location was more than ten floors above where they were.
The scouts it had dispatched long ago were already active up there without any interference.
"It's the golem's trail. Don't tell me that child was taken by a golem?"
"The trail that was cut off leads upward. The golem took the living individual up."
Even when processing the same information, the Legion, capable of seeing, hearing, and processing countless things in the city, refuted Kang Do-yeon's reasoning and pointed upward.
The Legion already knew about the Moonlight Elf survivor, Yelson. It had even learned of the boy's mission from the mouth of the chieftain it had already digested.
"Humans."
The entire nest flinched slightly.
Startled, Kang Do-yeon habitually placed a hand over her chest, where her heart no longer beat.
She couldn't bring herself to speak. The Legion was already planning to hunt the humans on the surface.
And for the Legion, a hunt meant only one thing: the complete devouring and annihilation of the target species.
"Legion Commander."
"Mmm..."
"Right now, we ascend to the surface. To take everything they have."
The reorganization was complete. The Legion had decided to go to the surface.
[All floors have already been cleared by the humans' golems. Naturally, there is no one left who could be our enemy.]
With an eerie silence, the Legion's soldiers began their march. They left the lush vegetation of the labyrinth as it was.
The nest's expansion, which was consuming the entire labyrinth, continued without rest; it could just eat everything slowly later.
The only obstacles were the golems the humans had deployed for maintenance, but they all crumbled as their cores were shattered by the swords of the superior species.
[Scout location, 78th floor. Traces of them have been found here. However, the tracks are quite old.]
[88th floor. Scouts are being attacked and damaged by what appear to be cave bats.]
[96th floor. Artificially carved passages and spaces are visible. A massive door blocks the passage, but there is a minuscule gap.]
[99th floor. Up there, a light is visible.]
'Found them.'
The entire Legion stirred.
The 100th floor. The Legion's scout had found humans there.
The 100th floor was a rather massive facility.
A large number of humans were gathered in this facility, each holding one or two strange crystal orbs.
The surviving scout cautiously approached a few of them. It was, after all, just a slightly large insect.
The humans, chattering among themselves, didn't notice the scout.
Dressed in robes, they were engrossed in their idle talk, paying no mind to the crystal orbs.
"Are they... some kind of mages?"
Kang Do-yeon, who already knew the golems operated by some special method rather than a scientific one, muttered blankly.
The Legion also knew what magic was.
Not the fictional magic learned from Earth's knowledge, but the magic of this world's humans, learned from the testimony of the Moonlight Elf chieftain.
"The gazes reflected in the crystal orbs. It's the scenery of the cave. They're looking through the golems' eyes."
The Legion confirmed that the images displayed in the crystal orbs showed similar landscapes from numerous angles and identified their true nature.
"It wasn't automatic... Then doesn't that mean they saw us? But they're too quiet for that."
"There are a total of 69 crystal orbs, and 38 human individuals. They aren't watching all the golems in the first place."
Having quickly finished its calculations, the Legion began a new set.
Although a Moonlight Elf survivor had slipped through a loophole, it was certain the humans had not yet discovered their identity. This could be used to conduct a more efficient battle.
"First, I want to see the outside."
The Legion, having paused its march for a moment, moved a single scout separately. On the way, it snatched and devoured an insect to replenish its energy.
The small scouts had fully functional digestive systems to procure their own energy.
[Were you that desperate, to accept such inefficiency? Then, how is it, seeing the outside you so longed for?]
The scout then advanced toward the ever-brightening light.
And finally, the scenery changed.
Completely different from the cave's glowing stones, which were like captive prisoners, a clear sunlight imbued with the power of origin and life illuminated the entire world.
The wind, carrying true freedom, could now go anywhere, a world apart from the stagnant air that was forced to flow through the underground labyrinth.
The soil, and the life force of the countless beings living upon it—all of it.
Everything that those who lived here and saw it every day would not feel was entirely new to the Legion, which was escaping the underground for the very first time.
It was like a child opening its eyes and seeing the world for the first time. The Legion's world, which had begun in a single cavern, expanded once more.
[Did you not already know? What is outside, what the sun is, what this world is.]
'No... it's completely... different.'
It was true that it knew, thanks to the vast knowledge it had acquired while growing. But that was, in the end, just knowledge seen and heard.
The scenery witnessed and experienced directly through a part of itself was a sight so shocking that its transcendent brain momentarily froze.
'The sky. Where the gods live, and at the same time, a window to the vast universe beyond.'
The Legion's gaze turned upward. The sky was something it had wanted to know about for a long time.
An endlessly unfolding blue. The scout's specially developed vision transmitted that blueness with perfect clarity.
'Beautiful.'
In this moment, it saw the azure sky for the first time since its birth.
The wide-open scenery of this world under that sky was something that even the largest cavern could not dare to compare with.
The Legion, which had not yet clearly defined its standard of beauty, established that standard for the first time.
[Then what are your thoughts, seeing that sky, this world?]
'I want it.'
Its obsession with that faded for a moment, and the Legion's already unhesitating voracity was ignited even more fiercely.
It was a natural result. If there is something it wants, it takes it. That was the Legion's common sense.
The entire Legion trembled violently with the intense, innate instinct to devour all of this and stain it with its own cells.