22. City (3)
22. City (3)
[ Ready. ]
At Dagos's words, Lea disconnected from the Hive Mind and stood up.
She took the Pipe Tobacco that Amber naturally handed to her, put it in her mouth, and headed to the place Lea called the living room in the Colony.
About 20 knights were tied up, their limbs bound by Ners silk.
These were the elite knights who had endured the Ners' suicide attacks and held out until the very end.
The knights who had lost their ankles were scheduled to have their semen collected and then be fed to the Creatures.
The man serving as the Knight Commander was bewildered by the two women walking toward him.
Women were walking into a space where women should absolutely not exist.
A woman in a black dress and a woman in a maid outfit.
As soon as the women appeared, the surrounding Spider Monsters bowed their heads and cleared a path.
Those ferocious and terrifying Spider Monsters bowed their heads without a single inch of error, just like trained knights, and the mud monster that had been fiercely attacking him rubbed its head against the woman in the black dress like a puppy.
'That is the entity.'
As soon as the Padix Kingdom Knight Commander saw Lea, he realized she was the Queen of these monsters.
Lea ignored the Knight Commander, approached the knight closest to her, and thrust her hand into his heart.
"Gyaaaaaaah!"
The mana the knight possessed was absorbed by Lea, and as the knight had everything from his mana to his life force absorbed, his whole body convulsed. The moment all his mana vanished, his heart couldn't take it and stopped right there.
Slump.
The knight collapsed to the floor, powerless. The knight, who had been convulsing just a moment ago, showed no movement at all.
Just as Lea was about to thrust her hand into the chest of the next knight, who was shaking his head vigorously.
"Stooooooop!!!"
She paused.
Lea looked at the Knight Commander, who had suddenly shouted while she was trying to absorb the next knight's mana.
'Stopped...? Can we communicate?'
Seeing Lea stop after hearing his shout, the Knight Commander tried to check if his assumption was correct, but Lea spoke first.
"What is it?"
'They use our language...?'
"If you have nothing to say, I'll continue."
"W-wait a minute!"
"..."
Lea stared at the Knight Commander, who had interrupted her twice.
"N-negotiation. I want to negotiate!"
"Negotiation?"
"That's right!"
"Why should I negotiate?"
"Ugh...!"
"I intend to kill everyone here except for my children, so is there anything you can offer to satisfy me?"
There was nothing he could do.
He knew. He had no words because he knew from the start that any proposal would be useless to that entity.
But the Knight Commander, who still had a heart that wanted to save his subordinates even a little, spoke in a desperate voice.
"If there is anything I can do, I will do it all. So, I would like you to spare the subordinates here."
"Hmm... Alright."
"Huh? R-really?"
"Queen-nim?"
Both the Knight Commander and Amber were taken aback by Lea's action of nodding and accepting the Knight Commander's words without even much thought.
Anyone could see this was an absurd exchange.
When you think about it, it was a proposal to exchange 19 lives for 1 life, excluding himself.
Yet, she accepted it after only that brief moment of thought.
It was impossible not to be suspicious.
'What on earth are you thinking, Queen-nim?'
No matter how she thought about it, even if that Knight Commander was strong, there was no reason to spare the knights behind him.
The Colony was currently always in a state of food shortage.
She had created a Breeding Farm to solve that food shortage, but it hadn't been long since it was built, and she thought it would take at least 20 years for the Breeding Farm to run properly.
To survive that 20-year period, the more human food there was, the better.
Furthermore, it wasn't just human food, but food that was full of mana.
'Sometimes when I think about it, she's not just a monster, she's like a girl.'
When she first saw Lea, she just looked like a monster itself, but after sticking by her side 24 hours a day, she felt that she also looked just like a woman.
The fact that her appearance was a human woman played a big part, but she knew nothing about this world, and her actions were no different from a human's.
Of course, there were times when she showed extreme actions that one wouldn't call human, but the moment Lea thought of someone as her ally, she treated them more carefully and lovingly than anyone else.
So, was it because the Knight Commander showed such a cool demeanor that she was moved by it and said that?
'I feel a sense of dissonance again.'
Amber shivered slightly at the chilly, eerie sensation she felt at Lea's behavior, which looked kinder than anyone else's.
"Then please die. If I kill you, I won't touch the others."
"Understood... And thank you..."
The Knight Commander had no basis to believe Lea's words, but he had no choice but to believe. And he decided to trust Lea because of her serious, yet Queen-like appearance.
Lea walked elegantly and thrust her hand into the Knight Commander's heart.
"Cough."
The Knight Commander's massive mana and life force were sucked into Lea's hand, and like the knight who died earlier, he trembled all over and died just like that.
And Lea naturally approached the knight who was shedding tears while looking at the dead Knight Commander and thrust her hand into his heart.
"Ah...?"
The eyes of the knight, whose mouth had been sealed with Ners silk, widened as he stared at Lea's hand that had pierced his chest.
"Mmmph...!"
"Mmph!!!"
The knights around them shouted loudly as if to resist Lea's actions, but from their sealed mouths, there was only a Mmph sound.
"Queen-nim...?"
Amber also questioned Lea's actions.
"I just lied so he could go comfortably. It's too sad if someone's leader thinks everyone they lead died because of them."
Lea, who killed the knights without a care.
This was it.
This was the dissonant feeling she had been watching from Lea's side.
Lea was clearly kind.
But that kindness was somehow strange.
That consideration was clearly for when a person with a kind personality comforts someone or tries to ease their worries.
Yet, she was killing the knights while breaking the promise she had made without a care.
Her way of thinking was so human, yet she was not human.
It wasn't that a human was acting like a devil, but that a devil was pretending to be a human.
Regarding the Breeding Farm, there were many things she had said that seemed strange now that she thought about it.
She had even told Evolute to raise the humans well, saying she wanted the humans to live like livestock happily without stress later on.
Looking at her actions, it was clearly absolute evil. But that was absolute evil from a human's perspective.
She had already been infected by a creature called a Creature and had become a partial creature, so it felt even closer.
From the Creatures' perspective, Lea was their child. In other words, she was a mother who would do anything for the Creatures. She was a perfect life form, worthy of being called a Queen.
'Is the very fact that I'm thinking this a sign that my mind has been infected?'
A Hive Mind that felt like tens of thousands of creatures crawling in her brain.
A body that was slowly changing.
Now, she wasn't particularly afraid.
Come to think of it, if Lea-nim hadn't helped her, she would have already been killed by the mercenaries and raped while in a corpse state.
And her head would have been cut off and passed on to that trashy noble, stuffed while in a decapitated state for life, and used for that trashy noble's masturbation.
Thinking about that future, she thought being by Lea's side was a better future.
"Phew... My mana has increased quite a bit."
Amber, who approached Lea as she stretched her waist after killing all the knights, immediately wiped Lea's dirty hand clean.
'She wants a bath.'
Amber said she would go take a bath immediately at Lea's desire, which she felt through the Hive Mind.
"Alright."
Lea nodded and went to take a bath with Amber again.
==
I am currently in a serious dilemma.
It's a dilemma about the Human Farm.
Honestly speaking, the Human Farm is too inefficient. I proceeded with it knowing it was inefficient, but it's even more inefficient than I thought.
I have to feed the humans and manage them, so there are too many things to worry about.
It's not that I'm the one worrying about it, but I can feel that the Creatures are having a very hard time through the Hive Mind.
There is delicious food right in front of them, so it's understandable that they are having a hard time having to endure and hold back.
I'm considering whether I should just eat all the other humans and only breed specific humans who possess mana and Holy Power, instead of running a Human Farm.
Humans will continue to be produced in human cities anyway.
So, I thought about showing overwhelming force instead of eating Medherun City itself, and negotiating with humans like that knight I negotiated with earlier.
To tell them to send humans periodically.
'Or it would be nice if there were drugs that rapidly grow humans or drugs that shorten pregnancy time...'
Wait, wouldn't they exist...?
If it were the real Earth, they would absolutely not exist, but this is a fantasy world.
Then, wouldn't it be possible for them to exist?
I should ask the kids. They are adventurers, but since they are quite high-ranking adventurers, there is a chance they know.
==
"I don't really know either."
"Hmm... Is that so?"
Unfortunately, none of my pet humans knew about such drugs.
They said that only mercenaries who had dipped their feet into the underworld or people in that field would know about it.
Then, it seems I have to go to Medherun City again.
I need to be sure about this part.
Because I need to decide how to operate the Human Farm.
"Wouldn't it be dangerous?"
I told Amber, who was worried, that it was fine.
No matter how I think about it, I am an irrational life form right now.
I have zero combat experience, but that's just lacking the human mind from when I was a man; the Queen's consciousness is different.
I am suppressing the Queen's consciousness to maintain my human mind, but if I put my mind to it, I could just grow the Queen's consciousness.
I just don't do it because I'm afraid my mind itself will merge with the Queen's consciousness if I use it often.
"It's fine. Let's go and eat something delicious."
"Understood."
Since we made all the ID cards and passes when I went into Medherun City with Amber last time, we should be able to enter without any problems.
"Th-that... we, too."
Just then, Yui and Erina, who were listening to our conversation from the side, looked at me.
"Aren't Yui and Erina currently in a dead state?"
"Ah..."
Their appearance, looking sullen at Amber's words, looked a bit pitiful.
At that moment, a brilliant idea occurred to me.
"What if we peel off your face skin and use Heal a bit to reshape your face so nobody recognizes you?"
""..........""
No one reacted to my words.
Why?
I think it's a good idea.