Chapter 25 – The Beast on the Frontier (5)
“Enhanced Awareness 4-3”
“Flesh Enhancement 4”
“Breeding Enhancement 4-1”
“Very good…”
The reward for successfully raiding and occupying an entire city was enormous, just as expected. The result is now manifested in the trait points flickering before my eyes.
All the elements have broken through to the 4th stage. Even though no special traits have been unlocked, the act of leveling up itself holds significant meaning.
After all, there are other rewards as well.
[You can now analyze higher-level beings.]
This was the most pleasing factor of all. My analyzing power, which was previously stuck at the level of 4th Tier Mana Beasts and Low-tier Demons, has been enhanced.
Now, I can analyze even higher-ranked Mana Beasts and Demons, and utilize their abilities in return.
“Analyzable Demons include Orcs, Lizardfolk, Hobgoblins, Kobolds, and the like?”
Of course, I can’t replicate the abilities of especially talented individuals. It’s limited only to the average abilities of their species…
However, that is enough. First of all, I’ve managed to improve the performance of my Auxiliary Brain several times over.
[Your Auxiliary Brain is being upgraded.]
I turned around while still seated on my chair, and the massive brain behind me was in the process of altering its internal structure by absorbing the nutrients being sprayed upon it.
Its size has been growing so much that it’s necessary to use the specialized Worker units that I’ve excavated to keep expanding the space.
“Now I can control more soldiers, and more quickly.”
The Auxiliary Brain is essentially at the core of my operation, which controls the swarm.
My soldiers don’t possess any sense of self. Without being connected to the swarm’s consciousness, they merely stand frozen, unable to move.
The most crucial resource for expanding the collective consciousness is my Auxiliary Brain, a kind of database center. It has now been upgraded, allowing me to control even more soldiers.
[It is no longer a challenge to produce new soldiers.]
It is now possible to create new soldiers.
Previously, it would have been a strain on computational power to increase the number of types of soldiers, but now there’s some room.
“Fortunately, the shortcomings revealed themselves during this battle.”
The previous war serves as important data for creating new soldiers and remodeling the existing troops.
Excluding special individuals like Syla and myself, the troops I mobilized in this war consisted solely of numerous standard soldiers belonging to the scouting and combat divisions, and a small number of assault soldiers.
“We need units specialized in long-range attacks.”
The absence of long-range attacks was the first thing I thought of.
So far, the standard soldiers had compensated for long-range attacks by spitting acidic poison from inside their poison glands, but the range is too short.
Watching our allied soldiers get decimated helplessly by the arrows and spells our enemies rained down made me realize that we needed long-range attack methods with greater range.
“Find a way. How do we combine the genetic information we currently have to create the most fatal attack at the furthest possible distance?”
Closing my eyes, I entered a meditative state and began contemplating what kind of soldier I should create by manipulating the universal cells.
Of course, the use of poison is a fixed factor.
Without the ability to use gunpowder or cast spells like our enemies, the most lethal way for us to attack multiple enemies is through the use of poison.
[A new soldier, the Thrower, has started growing.]
That’s how a new experimental soldier started growing inside one of the artificial wombs connected to the collective.
It looked like a giant earwig.
Only its tail was able to spray poison bombs, and its bones and muscles, designed to bend to their limits, enabled it to hurl those bombs far like a catapult.
Of course, it was a chimera created by combining the genetic information I’ve extracted so far from various types of Mana Beasts.
“What do you think? Of course, this body is specialized only in producing and throwing bombs, so it has almost no ability in close combat. You must coordinate it with other soldiers.”
“Even the thought of creating such creatures directly… I would not have imagined it.”
After I informed her about the Throwers, Syla could only stare with a blank face and marvel.
Of course, though she is connected to the collective, she doesn’t know everything.
If I try to tell her ‘everything,’ her small brain might explode.
It’s all about division of labor.
As the Queen, I can manage the collective and create soldiers, and the Knight, her, can simply focus on fighting.
“If we’re making new soldiers… do you have any plans to create soldiers similar to us?”
Still, Syla has gathered some information.
Since we have now acquired the information of even relatively high-ranking Demons, she’s asking if we’re not going to create new soldiers based on them, and I smirked.
“The reason Demons are superior to Mana Beasts is because they can handle magic in addition to having higher intelligence. However, our army’s standard soldiers cannot wield magic. And I don’t intend to waste my magic by sharing it.”
A Demon without magic is not much different from a human. They’re just peculiar looking non-human races.
Even Orcs, the innate warrior race with a height of over 2 meters and muscular bodies, are the same.
If their enemies were Earth’s mountain beasts, they might be monstrous enough to defeat a tiger with their bare hands, but this is the Demon Realm.
It is a world where even an ordinary Mana Beast can rip through steel with its claws and spew deadly poison.
“The Mana Beasts possess much stronger physicality. That’s why our standard soldiers are made into synthetic Mana Beasts. To utilize their strong bodies to survive in this Demon Realm even without magic. And they have already proven their strength in this war.”
“I understand your point.”
Syla nodded as if she understood after hearing my explanation.
She herself knows how hard it is to fight against Mana Beasts without using magic, so she understands.
“In that case, what do you plan to do with the magic you’ve amassed from this war? You must have absorbed the magic from the bodies of many magical enemies you’ve killed.”
That’s why she could now ask such a question.
“With our current power, it’s impossible to transfer all the accumulated magic solely to us two. But still, it would be a waste to let the substantial amount of magic gathered in the nest go to waste… so, shall we make a new type of soldier this time? Ones who can wield magic.”
Grinning, my eyes sparkled.
“It’s absurd to think that I’ll monopolize all the magic we’ve gathered between the two of us. Maybe if we found a new Knight who was worth the investment, but not this time.”
We’ve killed several thousand enemies, among whom more than a few hundred could wield magic.
After turning all of them into nutrients via the digestive organs, the gathered magic amounted to a quantity that was incomparable to anything we’ve amassed before.
While conserving resources is important, holding resources without using them diminishes their value.
I must strengthen the collective using this magic.
‘With magic, we can create entities that defy common sense.’
I recalled the protective spell the survivors had cast in their final resistance at the city center.
The only reason I could overwhelm that barrier by reshaping my massive body into something that could bear the weight and stress of joints without collapsing was due to the power of magic.
[It would be wise to keep the types of soldiers as uniform as possible to reduce operational difficulty.]
“We don’t have much choice.”
It’s impossible, after all, to wildly increase the variety of soldiers.
Ultimately, the method I chose was creating a special type of enhanced soldier, much stronger than the existing ones.
Filled with magic throughout their bodies, they belong to a different class altogether.
Anyone underestimating them and engaging in combat will be easily crushed by the amount of magic they possess, even exceeding that of most Demons.
[As a result of entering the territory controlled by the Demons, encounters between our scouts and new factions are increasing.]
And this is where our new soldiers will display their prowess, in the new and increasingly violent battlegrounds to come.
Transferring my consciousness to a nearby scout, I smiled as I observed several towns and cities in the distance.
“It would be preferable if we can encounter relatively small factions.”
One of the most crucial abilities required of a Player in this game is diplomacy.
While players start at the level of a village or a settlement, there already exist established factions in the world that repeatedly form and break alliances with one another.
Players must exploit the gaps in these alliances, increasing their allies and driving wedges between enemies to gain an advantage.
Though I’ve now become the Queen of a horrifying swarm of monsters, this is a task that applies to me as well.
