17. Village (3)
17. Village (3)
'Couldn't I kill her right now...?'
Yui, the mage of the B-rank Adventurer party who was trapped in the creature's Colony, observed Lea in front of her.
Lea was sitting in a chair, not moving a single finger.
She was so defenseless. She didn't react to her surroundings at all.
Earlier, Erina had tripped in front of Lea after returning from the restroom, but Lea hadn't moved a muscle.
'It's like her soul has left her body.'
If you just looked at her without thinking, she looked like an ordinary woman.
Black hair, pale skin that contrasted with her black dress, and a beautiful appearance that made one think she had been crafted by the Creator himself.
But her eyes proved that this woman was not human.
She sat still with her eyes open.
She didn't even blink.
They were eyes that were not human.
Inverted eyes? No, inverted eyes weren't the problem.
Hundreds, thousands of tiny eyeballs were rolling around in Lea's eyes.
Lea was currently inside the consciousness of the creatures that had gone to Deluta Village.
It was one of the Queen's abilities.
If she wished, she could share all the senses of any life form included in the Hive Mind.
Eyeballs appeared in Lea's eyes equal to the number of consciousnesses she had entered.
In other words, because she was entering other consciousnesses, her main body became defenseless.
Yui, watching from right in front of her, thought exactly that.
No matter how she looked at it, she was defenseless.
Yui had high talent as a mage.
She had the potential to become an S-rank Adventurer representing the country, and with luck, even an Archmage, if she only had the time.
Yui herself took pride in her magic.
Her Mana had fully recovered.
She hadn't used a single drop of Mana while being here. If she had thought her opponent was even slightly beatable, she would have used her Mana and prepared to run away at any moment, but that wasn't the case.
She had given up on everything from the start due to the overwhelming force. That was why her Mana had kept accumulating.
She was defenseless, far too defenseless.
This place was Lea's bedroom.
Except for the creatures that emitted light, which were weaker than bugs, there were no other creatures.
Amber, who served as the eyes for the creatures, had been dragged away by the Evolute to work on the Human Farm.
The light-emitting creatures were trapped in bottles and couldn't see anything in the light they emitted.
In other words.
There wasn't a single creature here guarding or protecting the Queen.
'This might be my last chance...!'
The last chance.
The last chance to save the world.
It was a carelessness only possible because the Queen didn't know about the Inventory. It was a defenselessness only possible because she still lacked knowledge about humans.
Sreuk.
Yui pulled her staff out of her Inventory. Erina, who had been watching from the side, was startled.
"N-no...!"
"Erina. Don't interfere. Are you trying to protect that monster right now?"
"That being is something we cannot kill...!"
"No. Every living thing has a heart as a weakness. I don't know where the monster's heart is, but right now, that being has a human-like appearance."
"B-but..."
"The more time passes, the stronger that being will get. This is the only chance to save this world."
She felt deep in her bones that this being was something that shouldn't exist in this world.
She hadn't known about the Queen's existence for long, but if that Queen gave just one order... it would be enough to destroy the world.
'I must kill her here, no matter what.'
When Yui had toured this cave with the Queen, she had seen them.
Thousands, no, tens of thousands of monsters.
Each and every one of them was powerful enough to wipe a city off the map.
Those monsters must never be allowed to leave this place.
There was a possibility that the monsters might go on a rampage if they lost their Queen.
But without the Queen, the monsters would be monsters without a head.
Even among monsters, there is a world of difference between mindless monsters and intelligent ones.
'If the Queen is gone, we humans will eventually win.'
Yui focused her Mana into her staff and raised it toward the Queen of monsters.
==
Gwen sliced through a small Ners that had lunged at her face with her sword.
As blood sprayed out and engulfed Gwen, a magic barrier blocked the blood that was trying to cover her.
Chwaaaaaak!
Chiiiiiiik!
'Acidic Blood...!'
Her Mana evaporated significantly in an instant.
Gwen quickly assessed the situation.
'I must not let the blood touch me.'
'The small monsters are suicide bombers. Clear them with ranged magic beforehand.'
'Ignore the large monsters. If I kill them, the citizens might die.'
'It's impossible to save everyone. If I push myself, it will lead to the worst-case scenario.'
'Save only what I can. And plan for the future.'
Gwen had become the first female Knight Commander in the Padix Kingdom.
Even though it was said that Mana was a power that existed regardless of whether one was male or female, the differences between a male and a female were clearly significant for any basic biological entity.
Even more so if they were human.
In this world, it was almost impossible for a woman to rise to a high position through strength, unless she was a mage.
But Gwen had overcome everything and risen to the position of Knight Commander as a woman.
She had excellent Mana, but her combat sense, intuition, and talent were once-in-a-century.
Gwen, who had risen to the position of Knight Commander through such natural talent and effort, struck down the Ners in front of her and moved forward.
'It's hard to move forward because of the Acidic Blood...!'
The acidity of the blood was much higher than expected, and her Mana was being consumed much faster than anticipated.
She was being thoroughly worn down in a war of attrition by monsters that clearly used strategy and tactics, not mindless ones.
'Damn it... I wanted to save at least one person...!'
"Gwen-nim!!!"
"Dra— Drake!!!"
As soon as Gwen spotted a giant monster behind Drake, who was trying to hand her a return scroll, she shouted.
It looked like a slime made entirely of mud, but between the mud, there were countless teeth capable of killing a person.
It was a completely different monster from the Ners she had been seeing until now.
For a very brief moment, even Gwen felt a primal fear that made her body freeze as the monster, Gluttony, swung a tentacle toward Drake.
At Gwen's shout, Drake noticed Gluttony's attack, twisted his body urgently, and raised his shield.
Kwaaaaang!!!
"Ugh!?"
He gritted his teeth against the shock and pain that made him feel as if the arm holding the shield was being ripped off along with the shield itself.
But he endured it.
"Uaaaaaaah!!!"
Forcing his pushed-back body forward, he gathered all the strength and Mana in his body, deflected Gluttony's tentacle, and shouted.
"Gwen-nim!"
Drake, who had worked as a Vice-Knight Commander alongside her and had coordinated with her countless times, pushed his shield, and Gwen immediately lunged at Gluttony.
She swung her sword, which was glowing with Mana gathered to a level visible to the naked eye, at Gluttony.
Kwadik!
"!?"
"Gwen-nim!!!"
'Even if it was an emergency sword, it was a sword coated in Mana...?'
Gwen was shocked to see her sword bitten right through, but she immediately pulled her body back and dodged Gluttony's attack.
'Where did a monster like this suddenly come from?'
"Gwen-nim! We can't go on like this!"
"I know..."
Gwen bit her lip and used the return scroll with Drake.
=
Ha...
What was that again?
Cool!
The female knight I was trying to catch, along with the person who looked like her subordinate, were enveloped in a blue light as if protected, and then Shoong! they disappeared just like that.
It was probably Return Magic, something like teleportation.
Amber had told me that moving the body instantly was a very difficult thing to do.
This was a bit unexpected.
If there's a human I want, and they keep running away like that, it would be quite unpleasant.
'I'll need a way to stop that. Surely there's a way.'
I caught every single one of the Deluta Village citizens alive.
I had tried to catch the knights who looked like a Knight Order too, but it was a bit of a shame that I missed them, though the first sortie ended safely.
I harvested the first humans needed for the farm for human breeding.
It's a shame that the ratio of men is higher than women.
Still, men can be used as food right away, so it's not a big problem.
I stopped paying attention to the ones returning to the Colony and returned to my original body.
"Hmm?"
The first thing I saw with the consciousness that returned from the battlefield to the room was Yui, who had wet herself, holding a staff I didn't know where she had gotten, pointed at me.
Yui was frozen, trembling all over with the staff aimed at me, and the floor was soaked with the urine she had leaked.
Next to her, Erina was clutching her head and trembling on the floor.
No matter how oblivious I might be, I could understand the situation well enough.
While I had moved my consciousness to another creature, they had probably tried to kill me.
Too bad, that would have been impossible.
I had spent more time on my own information than on learning about the creatures, even more than the time I spent identifying the creatures as the Queen.
It's true that when I move my consciousness to a creature, my consciousness disappears from my body, making it defenseless, but that's only if only my consciousness was there.
I clearly have two consciousnesses.
The consciousness from my days as a human male and the consciousness as the Queen.
The Queen's consciousness is very kind. To be precise, it's kind only to me.
It helps me a lot to act in accordance with my position as Queen.
There are times when that potential consciousness of the Queen emerges.
It comes out to help me when I can't handle things.
Like in the situation just now.
They probably made eye contact with the Queen's consciousness and got scared like that.
I had left her alone without laying a finger on her because she was a magic teacher... and she tried to kill me?
I made my fingers sharp and slowly approached the frozen Yui.
"W-w-wait a m-moment!"
Erina, who was no longer facing the Queen's killing intent directly and had become a normal person again, bowed her head toward me.
"Yu— Yui is a, really gr-great m-mage! U-unlike us, she took the A-rank t-test, she's an a-amazing m-mage!"
I certainly know that it's not easy to meet a mage like this.
Among the village citizens being dragged in from the village right now, not a single one has Mana.
Not one out of over 100 people.
Of course, that might be because it's a village, but it also means that there are few people who possess Mana.
"Hmm..."
However.
No matter how smart or cute a pet is, a pet that bites its owner is no longer a pet from that moment on.
I had let Yui and Erina run too freely until now.
'Can't be helped. If they bite the owner, I have to put a muzzle on them.'