Mother of Wasps (4)
“Hnn…… Heh…… Mmph♡ Ugh, mmmph…… Ah♡”
I…… was alive with only the barest shred of reason left. Endlessly, my insides were being devoured by the young.
Even today, I could only let out cries soaked in ecstasy. As time rewound and my ruined brain slowly regenerated, fragments of my shattered consciousness returned—but only enough remained to understand the maternal love for cradling my young. Everything else had been carefully preserved from breaking.
In truth, the fact that my consciousness remained was a side effect I had never wanted. It would have been far happier if my mind had been destroyed beyond repair.
All I needed to do was rewind time just enough to offer my flesh to the young, to their young, to their young’s young…… In truth, they were all my children, grown by feeding on my organs like milk, so it hardly mattered if I simply called them all my babies. Yet my consciousness and intellect had uselessly survived.
I no longer knew how much time had passed since I was first dragged into this burrow and cocooned. There was no sunlight, no starlight, no way to count day or night in this pitch-black burrow, and my eyes had been covered as well. Whether they had given up on me or grown disappointed by my wretched state, the whispers had not come once during that time.
If I had known how long it took for an egg to grow into a full wasp, I might have been able to count, but…… I could not. I could not even count how many generations of young had grown inside my belly. I had been too busy thrashing in that suffocating bliss to manage it.
‘Ah……, ugh. Baby……, again, again……, coming out……. My belly skin……, being gnawed, my, my heart…… and aorta……, being wriggled through……, hnn♡’
An endless sense of fulfillment, like nursing a precious child, once again filled me from the crown of my head—wrapped in the cocoon—to the tips of my toes. The young’s venom was not as potent as the adults’, so my body, drunk on pleasure, could at least twitch and wriggle the toes inside my boots.
I felt my aorta rupture. The young lacked the intelligence to understand that I was an eternal feast that would never disappear. They only followed the instinct to kill their host and emerge to pupate. It did not matter. I held no resentment. They were my precious babies. And besides, I would not die from it anyway.
Only a few seconds remained, but I barely managed to succeed.
‘Rew……, rewind……, ah♡ Go……, back…….’
As always, everything rewound.
Something frustrating circled in my mind, as though there had once been a reason I must never rewind, but I could no longer remember any such wicked reason at all.
‘Aha……, ah…… Came……, out…… My, my belly……, again, a, a hole……, formed……. Eheheh♡’
The young poured out through the hole they had chewed through my abdominal muscles. They melted the cocoon slightly with their own secretions, then wrapped themselves in silk within the damp air of the burrow and became pupae.
How many generations was this now? I did not know. I could not know, but…… there was no need to know such things. No matter how many generations, how many years, how many centuries—if I could simply remain in this state, that alone was enough.
If that happened, then that terrifying figure and those dreadful whispers would never again be properly remembered by the transcendent, wicked existence that had once been my world…… and my precious young would never be released into this world where they lived. I was happy. Yes, that was all that mattered.
For the sake of the children, I would live like this forever……
The young that had emerged from my belly last time were finally ready to shed their pupae and crawl out of the burrow. I still could not see, could not hear, and had even begun to forget how to speak, how to eat, what the language of my homeland—the Empire—even sounded like, but none of it troubled me.
All I wanted was to wear a contented smile as I watched my children safely behold the light of the world.
Once the next generation existed, they would return to me once more, laying countless eggs inside my womb, my intestines, my belly, my mouth, and I would drown in bliss all over again.
‘Ah. They’re moving……’
The pupae of my young, which had spun their own cocoons atop the one I was bound in, began to shift slowly. I had experienced this many times; I knew without seeing. The next generation of mother parasites would soon be born.
Once grown, those children would each live their own lives, and someday return to this burrow to give birth to their own young. Inside my body.
“Huu……♡”
The moment I thought of having raised another generation of young, my body grew hot.
For me, who could never leave this place and no longer needed to, the satisfaction of safely sending the next life on its way was the greatest reward. The venom the young injected while gnawing on my flesh would eventually leave as time passed or rewound, but the memories warped by it could never be undone, even by rewinding time.
My very roots of memory had already been twisted into the Mother of Wasps. As a human, I was finished—but precisely because of that……
“Ugh……, mmph……♡”
No, that was exactly why I was glad. The happiness of having been so thoroughly ruined was not something easily found elsewhere.
‘I can’t even touch it, yet just thinking about it……, ah……, I’m, I’m coming…… Haah……’
While I was soaking the space between my legs all by myself like that, a distant voice reached my ears. Was it the whisper? It had been so long. Truly, so very long……
No, it was not the whisper. The being beyond did not produce a muffled sound blocked by thick earthen walls, nor did it speak in words blurred as though drowned by rain. It spoke directly into the soul itself—sharp, piercing, so clear it made my head ring with pain.
Though I had raised countless generations of young inside this burrow, I had never once felt even a single mouse enter. The entrance was probably well hidden, or sealed with wax or cocoon silk.
Then…… that meant……
And something grabbed my ankle.
“Hmph!?”
Not knowing what was happening, I cried out in fear and thrashed. Had some badger or fox or bear cub found the burrow? Was it trying to drag me out and chase me away? Chew on my bones and turn me into a corpse that could never bear young again?
“Ugh……!! Mmph, u, mmph…… Huuub!!!”
Still trapped inside the cocoon, I writhed and tried to resist however I could. No. I did not want to leave. I had finally found a place to belong, finally discovered the one truly happy thing I had to do in this world—I could not die. I did not want to be driven out either.
But whatever was outside the cocoon refused to release my ankle, dragging me out with terrifying strength. The sensation through the boot and cocoon was hard. It did not feel like a human hand; it felt more like being seized by a bird of prey’s talons or metal pincers.
Beyond the cocoon that plugged my ears, the sound of rain grew steadily louder. Occasionally, thunder rumbled as well. Every time it did, I flinched, seized by an unbearable fear that pierced straight into my soul.
“Hkk……!!!”
Paying no mind to my terror, something dragged me out into the rain. The closer we drew to the burrow’s exit, the more moisture from the fog and rain that had seeped into the floor began to soak through the cocoon.
At last, my body was flung into the heart of the storm, where the sound of pouring rain roared.
‘If it were a bear…… it couldn’t fit into such a small burrow. It really must be something like a badger. Am I going to be eaten like this? Even if I’m eaten, it should be by my young, slowly…… Not like this…… I don’t want this……’
“Ugh……!! Mmph, mmph!! Hmph…… Mmmph!!”
While I was shaking my head and screaming like that, a voice reached me.
A human voice…… or at least, the voice of something that could speak like a human.
“How absurd. Are you certain? This is that ‘Mother of Wasps’?”
It was not someone from the Empire. Though they spoke the Empire’s tongue, no one from the Empire spoke with such a bizarre accent. Still…… even accounting for the unfamiliar accent, it was an alluring, feminine voice……
“Yes, Mother. It is the origin point of the pests we found after deploying every subordinate we could spare.”
A young man’s voice…… no, a boy’s voice—youthful yet extremely polite—answered the question.
“You saw it clearly just now, did you not? Ten full-grown parasitic wasps crawling out. Of course, the alchemist accompanying us burned them all away.”
“But…… no matter how I look at it.”
A shadow fell across my cocoon-covered vision. The owner of the voice was probably looking down at me from close by.
“She just…… looks like some girl who was traveling and unfortunately got captured. For a child like this to have given birth to over ten wasps and still be alive…… something feels……”
“Uuu…….”
“Well. She hardly seems like a threat at this size, so shall we cut open the cocoon and release her? We can interrogate her afterward.”
“Pardon me for a moment, Your Grace. This person, could she possibly be……”
A woman joined the conversation. This time, it was the voice of a young girl. Not merely young-looking…… but somehow, peculiarly familiar……
“Hm? A voice?”
The woman called Your Grace asked, but the girl’s voice did not answer.
A small hand touched the sticky cocoon covering my eyes. It was not rough or hard like the one that had grabbed my ankle—rather, it felt so soft I wondered if it was truly a human hand at all.
“If you can feel my hand, please answer. Since your mouth is covered, even a small sound will do. Could you let me hear your voice?”
Hearing those words, I did as she asked.
“Ugh……? Mmph, hmph…….”
“How can this be……”
“Y-You are……”
Short gasps escaped the boy’s and the girl’s mouths in turn. And the very next moment, something cold, soft, sticky yet pliant and damp wrapped around the entire cocoon surrounding my face.
The cocoon melted away instantly.
Beyond something transparent…… like jelly, I saw light I had long forgotten. Beneath a pitch-black sky—whether night or day was impossible to tell—violent rain was falling, so it was not bright light, but perhaps that was better for my eyes right now.
The transparent jelly covering my face was also quickly removed. It was an unbelievable rescue. To think the day would come when I could see again, when I could speak again. ……I…… had not forgotten how to speak properly, had I……?
I blinked several times. The first thing that entered my vision was someone wearing rags……
Dozens of…… standing, moving…… skeletons……?
“Hik……!!”
Seeing something straight out of a classic horror film, I shrank back inside the still-intact cocoon and drew a sharp breath.
“Do not be afraid. These are the corpses of the deceased whom we took in after properly completing their funeral rites. They are our hands and feet. Without them, we would never have found you.”
That was right. I had forgotten while trapped in the burrow feeding the wasps, but this was a land of death. A dreadful place where priests raised the undead under the name of funeral rites.
“Lady Kaira.”
How did he know my name? I turned my face toward the boy who had called me. It was a face I remembered. The young priest I had last seen before leaving the village alone after crossing the river……
“Ka…… rik……?”
As I stared blankly at Karik’s flustered face, something embraced my body. A girl who looked about ten years old hugged my cocoon tightly and rubbed her face against me. Perhaps because of the rain, her cheeks were damp and cold.
No, it was not the rain that made them cold. This was……
“Mama…… Mama, uwaaaah!!!”
Hair the color of freshly baked bread. Red eyes exactly like mine. Skin that looked human yet seemed to melt and soften whenever her emotions ran high.
……Not some parasitic wasp larva that had turned me into a wreck who found happiness only in becoming food for larvae, but my real child…… my daughter.
With dead eyes and a vacant expression, I weakly called the girl’s name.
“Rin……”