Black Beetle (10)

"Wait, hold on! I—"

There was no room for excuses, and no chance to run. Lena seized him by the nape and, with the skin of her back splitting open as she unfurled her wings, she rocketed into the sky with him in tow.

The place she carried him to, after flying on and on through the air, was the middle of the fief. True to a frontier domain, it was still undeveloped—an isolated forest spread wide and dark in the heart of the land.

That place, now no longer their territory, became the spot where Lena landed and, the moment her feet touched the ground, hurled him away as casually as if she were tossing aside rubbish.

"My arm... nghk!"

He had no time to tend the arm he’d broken before he was staring in horror at the spear she pressed to his throat, his whole body trembling.

"You'd better answer nicely."

She, she talked?!

Frozen in place, he broke into a cold sweat as Lena—whose body below the face looked no different from a monster, no matter how you looked at it—opened her mouth and spoke.

More than anything, the fact that the being who had just carried out that horrifying massacre could communicate at all only made the madness of it feel even more obscene, and that was what sent a chill crawling down his spine.

"Answer... answer what, exactly, ma'am?"

"I don't know either. He told me to bring you back. I'm just following orders."

"H-he... him?"

At Lena’s sneering attitude, he stammered, flustered. From her words alone, he instinctively realized there was some being above her, someone giving her commands.

A cave. And spiderwebs.

While Lena stood there motionless, he stole a glance around and finally understood what lay behind him.

It was a cave with a vast entrance gaping open. There was no doubt it had formed naturally, yet the thick webbing stretched over the surrounding area made it clear this cave had been seized by someone.

Within the sticky webs—webs that only the body of Ascalas, which secreted a special substance from its surface, could pass through freely—an eerie chill leaked out openly.

"Please... spare me."

From the darkness of the tunnel, where he could not make out a thing, he sensed something terrible and, with desperate boldness, crawled along the ground to clutch Lena’s slender calf, sheathed in hard carapace.

"I don't even know who you are, or what you've done. That's not for me to decide."

But Lena looked down at him and kicked his hand away without mercy. At the same time, only Lena could see the enormous tentacles slowly slithering out of the tunnel and creeping up behind the man, whose face had gone white with terror.

"Aaaah! Aah..."

The tentacles wrapped him up in an instant and hauled him into the tunnel at terrifying speed. Lena did not even wait to hear the echo of his screams before turning away again.

One mission was over; now she would simply throw herself into the next one that was assigned to her. To grind down her body and soul in devotion—that was, in her own mind, the purpose of her existence.

"Now then, it's time to interrogate the prisoner we brought back. This is a first for me. Until now, we’ve focused on devouring our enemies rather than prying information from them, haven't we?"

"Perhaps that's something we'll keep needing. Going forward, as well."

The instant the spy ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Lena had captured was dragged into the cave.

There were eyes watching him through the screen, a man already on the verge of fainting from sheer terror.

Hajin’s gaze remained calm as he watched the prisoner he had chosen to bring into the cave for a so-called "direct interrogation."

"He looks like he could use a little calming down. If we leave him like this, he might go into cardiac arrest."

Agares sneered at the man, who was trembling in the Great Lord’s tentacles.

He really did look ashen and bloodless, as if he might collapse any second. In a dark cave, facing a spider the size of a house wrapped in an aura of pure terror, a normal person whose will had already broken simply could not withstand that fear.

"Is the setting a bit rough?"

With a wry smile, Hajin directly controlled the Great Lord to set him down on the ground and then stepped back.

After the hive had expanded at a dramatic pace, he had stopped bothering to personally roam around as the Great Lord and had focused instead on fortifying and expanding the hideout that would serve as their base, and this place was the result.

At the same time, choices for the interrogation appeared.

The enormous spider leaned close to the man, who was thrashing helplessly in ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the spiderwebs on the cave floor.

"Let's start easy."

In that situation, Hajin chose option one.

***

"From what I hear, it seems Baron Waut was plotting to raise an army while Baron Brant was in trouble."

"That much makes sense."

I set the phone in my hand down on the desk and muttered, frowning.

On the screen, the spy Paul—already half out of his mind after only a few questions—kept giving the same dazed answers over and over. For an ordinary man to keep enduring the Great Lord’s mental waves while fully conscious was enough to eventually damage his mind.

"If we maintain things at about this level, there shouldn't be much to worry about. Not for now."

Of course, it wouldn't have mattered even if Paul could no longer answer. I'd already heard everything I needed.

But even after hearing all the answers, it wasn't easy to draw a conclusion. The surrounding political situation, the flow of the world, and power politics were all tangled together in a mess.

Honestly, even after hearing all that, I couldn't think of a brilliant solution. I was just a gamer, and not even a well-educated one at that—I wasn't a politician. It wasn't easy to find the answer to what action would put us in the best position.

"Of course, governing a group in the cracks of a chaotic world is extremely difficult. But as its ruler, you must do it. Don't worry too much. That is precisely why this Pandemonium exists—to assist you in doing just that."

Agares caught my hesitation and offered help. And as he said, the game system did have functions that supported proper judgment.

Choices that narrowed countless futures into a few possibilities, and information revealed through insight. If I used those, I could eventually make a decision.

"The nearby lords all understand that our existence is serious enough to have ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠turned one barony into a wasteland. But overall, the other powers don't seem to care about us all that much."

People always talked about an age of chaos and disorder, but the problems the rulers who governed those people truly felt were apparently even greater than that.

The powers of the northwest part of the continent, where we happened to be, were more concerned with the massive orc host that had appeared in the north than with us, a mere frontier nuisance harassing a small domain.

Apparently, after crossing over from the Demon Realm not long ago, their numbers and strength had exploded severalfold, making them the highest-priority threat.

"Could those orcs be like us?"

"That can't be known yet. Not until we clash with them directly."

We had to keep all possibilities open, but Agares gave no definite answer. In the end, after hours of deliberation, I made my choice.

"We need to swallow up this entire northwest if we can."

"Do you believe you have enough grounds to support that decision?"

"We're no different. We don't have the luxury of time, either."

In a place like Earth, where you couldn't take in the state of the world at a glance, the information I’d finally gained after so long had widened my perspective considerably.

And as a result, I realized that despite our rapid rise so far, we were not nearly as secure as I had thought.

There were already powers far larger than ours. Native forces that had built their strength here for hundreds of years at least, and on top of that, my greatest rivals—people pursuing the same goals I was.

Even hearing the story made the shape of things clear. We still lacked ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the strength to push past them. And yet, ironically, to fight and defeat them, we had to fight them first.

"Still, the method remains the same as before. We keep nibbling away at the surrounding powers that are checking each other, strengthening ourselves as we go, so long as they don't band together because of us."

"Then will you attack Waut now?"

"...They don't know our objective. How should we move in order to split them apart?"

My head felt ready to explode, but I still tried to find a method. Was the best course simply to launch offensives in every direction, fight everything, and devour everything?

Of course, our strengths came out when we fought that way. If we were in the position of the "bottom of a deep labyrinth," with the only path being to smash everything and claw our way upward, then maybe that would be right.

But with prey and enemies lurking in every direction, we couldn't move with such a brutal method.

"Then make your choice. In my opinion, this moment may be extremely important for us."

Another set of choices appeared, reflecting my thoughts.

I chose the north, where Baron Waut’s domain lay.

"How about Lark? Is that boy growing well?"

The moment I made my choice, I shifted my attention elsewhere as well. Another talented one I’d personally met and asked to join me.

If he could prove he had room to grow, there was no reason not to invest the experience points I’d earned through my real-world achievements into him.

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