29. Colony (1)
29. Colony (1)
"Narim-nim's shop door is open?"
A voice, both strong and feminine, drifted quietly through the early morning air.
"It's not opening time yet, is it?"
The owner of the voice was Gwen, the Mederon Knights Commander.
She had snow-white hair, white eyebrows, and even her eyes were white, as if she were an albino.
Unlike the last time she wore armor to save the village, she was patrolling the city in light attire.
Once a knight commander gains enough seniority, they are no longer assigned to city patrols, allowing for comfortable rest and training. However, Gwen had not missed a single dawn patrol since joining the Knights Order.
She had done this consistently to keep her beginner's spirit and to ensure the citizens felt safe, even if just a little.
The citizens were especially terrified recently due to the annihilation of the Kingdom Knights unit.
It wasn't that the entire Kingdom Knights Order had been wiped out, but rather a single unit, yet the fact that even the Kingdom Knights couldn't defeat those spider monsters was what mattered.
Furthermore, not a single one of the kidnapped villagers had returned. Yet, the Knights Order and the adventurers had no intention of rescuing the kidnapped people. Consequently, the city's vitality was disappearing at an uncontrollable rate, the slums were taking advantage of this to grow their influence, and the city was in more chaos than ever before.
However, from the perspective of our Knights Order or the adventurers, it was too dangerous a gamble.
Because these monsters possessed high intelligence and were clearly following someone's orders, moving rashly would put the city at risk.
For now, we had deployed personnel to monitor the surroundings of the Forbidden Forest. Since they could suddenly disappear like last time, we were operating in pairs.
The citizens, the knights, and the adventurers were all in a state of confusion.
The person who calmed that chaos was the suddenly appeared Saint, Rhea.
With Rhea's appearance, both the slums and the city were regaining their vitality, and as the Knights Commander, I felt genuine gratitude toward her.
However, that chaos had only quieted down; deep in the hearts of the people, anxiety still lingered.
That was why, while patrolling diligently today, I noticed something strange at Narim's shop.
"Narim-nim?"
Gwen, who was close enough to Narim to come and eat tonkatsu on her day off once a week, felt it was strange that the tonkatsu restaurant door was open at this early hour.
She cautiously entered the tonkatsu restaurant.
The restaurant was dark and quiet, so Gwen called out to Narim again in a loud voice.
"..."
Feeling that something was wrong in the silent restaurant, Gwen hurriedly shouted and went up to the second floor.
"Narim-nim!!!"
As soon as she went up to the second floor, the smashed door caught her eye.
"Wait, this is..."
Gwen gently placed her hand on the ominous mana traces felt from the smashed door.
"Ugh!"
As soon as the mana trace touched her hand, goosebumps broke out all over her body, and she hurriedly pulled it back.
"No way..."
An ominous mana that felt dark, sticky, and like being dragged into hell.
She had seen this mana in person before.
To be precise, she hadn't seen the mana itself, but she had seen the manifestation of the mana she just felt.
A monster that was dark, sticky, and whose entire body was a weapon.
A monster that devoured everything.
Gluttony.
"That monster is in this city...?"
Although the Mimic Creature and Gluttony were completely different species, it was enough for Gwen to mistakenly believe that the source of their power flowed from Queen Rhea.
"But why on earth Narim-nim...?"
Gwen couldn't understand.
The Gluttony she had seen was chaos incarnate, devouring everything in front of it.
It was a monster that seemed impossible to stop, eating everything even when its own allies were right in front of it.
Yet, it was strange enough that such a monster was in this city without anyone noticing, but to come into this restaurant and kidnap a human?
'Did it just devour her, leaving no traces? But there are too few traces for that.'
If it were that monster, there would definitely be more blood or traces left around. But it was too clean.
"That's not what's important."
What was truly important was that a monster, which was both terrifying and evoked discomfort and fear just by looking at it, was in this city.
==
Yui was bathing in the bathhouse that Rhea used, along with Erina.
"Yui..."
Erina, seeing the severed cross-section of Yui's cut-off arm, called out to Yui cautiously.
The cross-section of Yui's arm was already becoming creature-like, to the point where it could no longer be called human flesh.
It was dyed black, and eyes and teeth were moving kirik-kirik in that black flesh.
Even though she had been living in the Colony full of creatures, Erina still found it hard to look properly at Yui's severed limb.
"Don't worry. I'm fine."
Yui, on the contrary, was feeling a sense of ecstasy at her changing body.
As her body was gradually being encroached upon by the creature, her physical body and mana were becoming noticeably stronger than ever before.
No matter how much talent she had to become an S-class adventurer or an Archmage, blooming that talent was a completely different matter.
Yui had been in a slump until recently.
Once mana reaches a certain level, it becomes very difficult to grow further.
Usually, in this world, they say mana is talent, and efficiency is effort.
They say that even if you have little total mana due to a lack of talent, you can become a strong mage if you put in the effort, but everyone knows.
That people with talent also put in that effort.
Yui, who had been putting in effort for a long time, was also feeling impatient at her mana that wouldn't increase and her efficiency that wouldn't improve.
She had continued to work hard, thinking that her growth limit wasn't here.
But since there was no progress, it was natural for her to fall into a slump.
In that situation, as her body gradually became creature-like, she began to grow noticeably.
Feeling a power as if she could do anything, Yui was actually envious of Amber.
As she was encroached upon by the creature, she could understand. How strong Amber was, and that the reason for that strength was because she was completely encroached upon by the creature.
Right now, she was also aware that this thought was one she was having because she was being encroached upon by the creature.
But that wasn't it.
Since Yui's body was slowly changing but her brain remained the same, Yui currently thought it was fine even if she turned into a monster, solely because of her thirst for power.
But while she said monster, her appearance was the same as a human.
How should one even define a human?
Are they not called human because they have the same appearance and structure as a human, but just think differently and eat humans?
If that were the case, there are many crazy people in this world.
While working as an adventurer for a long time, she had seen countless crazy people. Among those crazy people, there were some who ate humans.
That human was especially crazy, a lunatic who only ate infants aged 1 to 5.
Such a creature is also called a human. But is Rhea not a human?
'But Rhea doesn't do that.'
Rhea does eat humans, but her thinking itself is good.
The farm created to raise humans was a much better-made space than she had thought.
It wasn't an environment where livestock lived, but a truly livable environment for humans.
In fact, they were being raised more abundantly than the people in the slums.
Food for 3 meals a day was provided, and there was exercise time, leisure time, sleep time, etc.; it was just a small village.
The kidnapped people also trembled in fear at first and couldn't do anything, but they adapted quickly.
What was even more absurd was that in the farm where there were no adult men and only children and women remained, factional fighting broke out.
The women now were under a huge delusion.
Unlike what they thought—that they would die immediately after being kidnapped—they were thinking that this life was okay because of the peaceful daily life.
At first, everyone was horrified by the explanation that they would be impregnated by tentacles, but in the end, they were relieved when told that the pregnancy was just collecting male semen.
Furthermore, after getting pregnant, they weren't treated badly, but rather received warm care.
It wasn't that the creatures took care of them directly, but the quality and quantity of the food they ate changed, and they ended up eating more abundantly than when they had unbalanced meals in the village.
Those meals were made by the kidnapped people themselves, but the ingredients were all being received through Rhea.
Rhea was buying ingredients in Mederon City and always distributing them through the underground passage.
'Funny people.'
They were fighting and forming factions among themselves, not knowing that the moment they became bodies that couldn't give birth to humans, they would immediately become food.
Seeing these humans, Rhea was actually more human-like.
Even if her actions or expressions could be extreme, there were many times when she looked more like a person than others.
Honestly, I don't know if I should say this to the Queen, but there are times when she looks like a baby kitten.
When she dozes off while bathing and being washed by Amber, or when she sleeps hugging Amber with her face buried in Amber's chest, or when she is a picky eater, if you didn't know about Rhea's information, she would look like a spoiled princess.
It's just that under such a princess, there are tens of thousands of monsters that use humans as their staple food.
"Kkii-ik!"
While she was having various thoughts, the Mimic Creature that was turning into the limb she had temporarily detached squirmed and moved.
"It looks like Rhea-nim is coming. Let's get ready right away."
"O-okay!"
Yui naturally attached the limb created by the Mimic Creature in front of her to her body and stood up.
Since her brain was fine, she didn't enter the hive mind, but as the Mimic Creature encroached on her body, she came to be able to exchange thoughts to some extent with the limb Mimic Creature.
"Why did she suddenly return to the Colony?"
"Y-yeah, why..."
Erina, who confirmed that Rhea was coming, began to tremble again and be gripped by fear.
Yui, who had actually suffered the terrible act of having her limbs cut off, began to put on clothes to greet Rhea calmly.
'Come to think of it, Erina did have her heart burst.'
But even so, it was hard to understand why she still trembled in fear when she saw Rhea.
Honestly, the Rhea that Yui felt right now was just a cute Queen.
She could have killed her, but she spared her, gave her food, gave her power; there was nothing she didn't give.
Yui, who was thinking completely differently from the person who was trying to kill Rhea just a month ago saying she would destroy the world, was thinking of Rhea as her Queen more than anyone else.
Yui vowed that if she couldn't stop Rhea anyway, she would use Rhea's power to clean up the humans who couldn't be called humans in this world.
'To do that, I need more certain power like Amber.'