70. The Saint (5)
70. The Saint (5)
"There really is a village?"
Viviant used her Status Window on the people in the village visible from a distance.
'Pregnant, pregnant, pregnant. Everyone is in a state of pregnancy.'
She dug deeper through the Status Window just in case, but it turned out that all the pregnant people were carrying humans, not Creatures.
"Something is strange."
Viviant asked at the Captain's words.
"What do you mean?"
"There are no men."
"Huh?"
At the Captain's words, Viviant quickly scanned the village.
"There really are no men..."
The scarier part is that there are Ners in the village.
Ners of various sizes were wandering around the village, and the people were walking around with the Ners as if it were nothing.
What's even more chilling is that it looks like the women are giving orders to the Ners.
"No way. Were the Ners actually being controlled by people like us...!?"
The Captain's theory seems plausible enough.
The Ners are listening to the people's orders.
The women tell them to move objects, manage the fields, or tend to the animals, and the Ners move accordingly.
Anyone here would see this scene and think the women are controlling the Ners.
However.
"That's not it."
Viviant, who has the Status Window, realized the truth of this village.
<Information>
Name: -
Race: Ners
Affiliated Country: -
Affiliated Group: Dagos
Gender: Male (-)
Height/Weight: 321.2cm / 105.5kg
Alignment: Chaotic Evil
<Stats>
Strength: 90
Durability: 68
Agility: 89
Stamina: 98
Mana: 0
<Information>
They are creating food that humans can eat in order to farm the humans.
"What did you see?"
The Captain, who knows about Viviant's Status Window, asked her quietly.
"Those monsters are currently farming humans...!"
"Farming...? Farming, you say.... Do they have that level of intelligence...!?"
Viviant clicked on the word 'Dagos' in the affiliated group section, which she was seeing for the first time.
<Dagos>
Ners Queen entity.
Possesses very high intelligence and exceptional mental power, enough to dominate thousands of Ners.
As long as there is enough food, its reproductive rate is high enough to multiply thousands of Ners in just a few days.
No matter how many Ners you kill, if you cannot kill the Queen, the Ners will always increase.
"There is a Queen."
"To that monster?"
"Yes. If we can't kill the Queen, those Ners will keep appearing."
"It will be important to know where that Queen is."
"That's right. Probably..."
Viviant's gaze landed on the entrance of a huge cave behind the village.
"Viviant-nim."
"Yes."
"Please check your Return Scroll again."
"I have it. But I will make sure we don't have to use it."
"That's reassuring. First, we will deal with the Ners in the village."
"Wait a moment. We only need to deal with the Queen."
The Captain shook his head at Viviant's words.
"There is a significant number of Ners visible in the village. If we enter the cave without dealing with them, we will be attacked from both front and back, making it a very difficult battle."
"Ah, I see."
"In a fight like this, we must eliminate variables as much as possible."
"I understand."
The Captain gave detailed instructions to his subordinates.
It was obvious that the fight in this village would be quite difficult.
Because there were pregnant people in the village.
And not just women, but pregnant women.
In a situation where just fighting is hard, they have to fight while protecting many people.
"Viviant-nim. Please."
"Don't worry."
Viviant closed her eyes and pressed her palms together.
The Holy Power in her body began to move and started to harmonize with the Mana in her heart.
"Protector."
Viviant's trademark barrier magic, which she was confident would win this fight, enveloped the Holy Knights.
==
"Everyone, run away!!!"
The Holy Knights, buffed by Viviant, raided the village.
Some Holy Knights marked the Ners, while others tried to help the people evacuate.
However, the women in the village didn't budge at the Holy Knights' words.
Instead, they moved to the side of the Ners.
"W-what is thisㅡ!"
"Are the Ners using brainwashing or something!?"
"No! Ners cannot use brainwashing! And there are no traces of them being brainwashed!"
Viviant couldn't understand at all why the women weren't coming to them.
To the women currently in the village, the Holy Knights looked like a path to hell, not salvation.
The women living in the village outside the Colony, not inside it, are all women who have completely submitted to the Creature legion.
Most of them were women who were in even more miserable realities before being kidnapped by the Creatures.
Rather, they preferred this place, where they could live more comfortably than ever before, as long as they got enough sleep, food, and were pregnant.
Furthermore, these are women who, when they tried to run away, saw with their own eyes hundreds of Ners eating someone starting from the skin, then flesh, muscles, and bones, as an example.
For women who have seen such horrific scenes, the word 'escape' has already completely disappeared from their minds.
That is why they build a village in the forest outside the Colony.
Dagos and Evolute were confident that these human women would not run away.
True to that conviction, the women did not follow the Holy Knights' words.
Because they had seen firsthand what kind of end they would meet the moment they listened to those Holy Knights.
"Damn itㅡ! There's no other choice! We have to knock them out by force and gather the women in one place to protect them!"
""Understood!!""
The Holy Knights all answered the Captain's instructions and moved to protect the women.
"We must deal with this as quickly as possible!"
It might be one thing if they were only dealing with Ners, but the Holy Knights, who had to fight while protecting pregnant women, started to struggle.
Because the Ners' blood is Acidic Blood, they had to separate the women from the Ners first.
However, the women were terrified that they would be eaten by the Ners just by being touched by the Holy Knights, so they absolutely refused to leave the Ners' side.
Even if they tried to knock the women out and pull them away, pregnant women are very, very important resources in the Colony.
Therefore, the Ners also had to protect the pregnant women.
Squelch
"Kieek!"
As the Holy Knight's sword cut off the Ners' large foot, Acidic Blood spurted out.
At that moment, both the Ners and the Holy Knight moved to ensure the Acidic Blood didn't reach the nearby pregnant woman.
The Captain, witnessing this, eyes flashed.
'The Ners are reluctant to let the pregnant women get hurt...!'
This changes things.
They had restrictions in fighting because they were afraid the women would get hurt, but the Ners are trying to protect the women first.
"All Holy Knights who were protecting the women, attack the Ners!!!"
The Holy Knights didn't argue with the Captain's words and moved immediately.
There was no fear in their movements.
Because behind them was Viviant, a Saint Candidate chosen by the Goddess.
The trust built up while subjugating various Monsters together was stronger than anything else.
The Ners had to fight without causing harm to the pregnant women, so they ended up in a very disadvantageous fight.
Since they couldn't attack freely, they had no choice but to retreat.
The Holy Knights, having made the Ners retreat without much damage, quickly gathered all the women in the village into one place.
"Everyone, don't worry. We will take you to safety."
Viviant made eye contact with the Captain and nodded.
It is very dangerous to take these women to the Colony now.
But it is also too dangerous to let only the women go to the city.
They came here to subjugate the Ners, but the pregnant women are more important.
The reason for subjugating the Ners is also to protect people. But to ignore the pregnant women and subjugate the Ners?
That makes no sense at all.
They decided to return to Mederun City with the pregnant women first.
The Holy Knights supported the pregnant women.
Dagos, who built a village on the outside to grow the food needed while running the human farm.
Dagos had anticipated this kind of thing in advance.
That they would attack in this way because they received strong hostility from humans by attacking human villages and cities.
Dagos had women whose bodies and minds had submitted live in the outside village to prepare for such events.
And it had attached finger-sized Ners to all those women.
It was to monitor them in case they tried to run away, just in case, but the biggest reason was this.
To carry out the orders that the pregnant women had been brainwashed with—not by magic, but by the power of words they had consistently heard from Dagos—they pressed their hands against the Holy Knights' bodies.
Ners crawled out from the sleeves of the clothes the women were wearing and settled onto the Holy Knights' armor.
The Captain, who has keen senses, realized something was strange when he heard the sound of bugs crawling simultaneously in many places.
While looking around to figure out where the sound was coming from, he confirmed that a small Ners was attached to his subordinate Holy Knight's body.
"Jim Treㅡ"
The moment the Captain called that Holy Knight's name to warn him to be careful.
Boom!!!
The Ners that were attached to the bodies of all the Holy Knights who were supporting the pregnant women exploded simultaneously.