Chapter 3: The Strange Application (3)
“What’s up? Why does your face look like that? Didn’t you sleep?”
“…No, that’s not it.”
As soon as my close colleague saw my face, they immediately said something.
I hadn’t really lost sleep; however, there was something a bit worrisome.
“Now that I think about it, it’s frustrating.”
While everyone else was chatting and distracted by exams, I pulled out my phone and lamented.
“I’m being threatened and forced to continue that strange game, but what exactly do I gain from it?”
Surely this thing said it would be helpful to me, but after giving it a try, it didn’t seem so at all.
I’m spending money, and the time consumed is worth even more.
[Your units are still too underdeveloped.]
“Aha. So when these guys grow a bit, will they help me?”
[That could be possible.]
The answer that popped up was surprisingly normal, leaving me with nothing to say.
Of course, setting aside what exactly I could do with these things.
“I have a question. You mentioned that there are definitely others besides me.”
[That’s correct.]
“They all start like this… right? Do they all have different abilities?”
Given the circumstances so far, it’s clear that there are ‘Players’ like me.
So what exactly is the purpose?
Is it competition among ourselves? That seemed lacking in information.
[You will learn that soon enough. One thing to mention is that the types assigned to people like you are diverse.]
“So it’s not originally a game where you grow from a cellular level…”
“Good morning, everyone.”
My sentence was cut off by the professor who entered through the door.
The classroom fell silent, and as students who had been outside hurried in, class began.
[Scout operations in the area have failed 192 times.]
“…”
In the middle of the lecture, a notification popped up on my phone.
I clicked my tongue and secretly opened my phone.
This exam was doomed. To others, it would probably look like I failed due to a mobile game.
[With the current system, it is impossible to push through. Growth is necessary.]
I nodded.
I agreed with its statement.
The thing blocking our path wasn’t anything special.
It was just a huge spider the size of a king crab, and the web it had spun was quite dense.
It was a crazy web that exerted force on targets passing between the strands.
[For now, I believe it’s right to consume all the small vegetation on the lower levels.]
In my opinion, strengthening ourselves should be the priority.
For example, size or perhaps a different kind of weapon.
“Hey. Are you going home today… where are you going?”
“It’s just the midterm season coming up, so it’s a bit warm. Have you ever been disciplined at school?”
After class, I stopped my colleague who had come looking for me and asked.
My colleague seemed flustered by my sudden search for punishment and blinked in surprise.
[Our soldiers have modified themselves into their strongest forms. Ant jaws, flea legs, etc. They sought the most efficient and strongest models.]
“Yeah, yeah. You’ll do well.”
The only class had ended, but instead of going home, I rummaged through the bushes near the building.
At my age, insect collecting here was strange.
However, thanks to it, I was able to capture various insects on camera, such as beetles and butterflies.
[The strong jaws of the soldiers bit and dissected the butterflies and beetles. The meat became energy, and their genetic information became our asset.]
Feedback was immediate.
Now, slightly larger soldiers than ordinary ants flooded out of the continuously growing nest.
The bodies of fallen or dead comrades were just good nutrients.
[The soldiers began their actions. The priority was to gather food and hunt prey. Our first objective was the fungal colony nearby.]
According to the map, there was a cluster of mushrooms growing very close to the nest.
We weren’t the ones fighting against mushroom cells anymore.
Now we were targeting ‘vertebrates’ living in the fungal colony.
[That little salamander is the king of this mushroom colony. We will hunt it.]
“…To me, it just looks like slaughter…”
[Our proud legion began to march.]
Somehow, the one that had a strangely empathetic tone broadcasted the scene with enthusiasm.
In reality, it seemed to me that a horde of thousands, or rather monsters that could no longer be called ants, mobbing just to catch that tiny salamander wasn’t that impressive.
[This was the moment we hunted a vertebrate for the first time. This will be recorded in our history…]
“Yeah, yeah.”
I put down my phone and headed deeper into the campus.
If it wasn’t here, I was just going to go home.
[What are you trying to catch?]
“Bees.”
I simply answered.
I had thought about it once.
How to lure these little guys.
To me, it seemed best to maximize the collective consciousness.
So I just… thought about it.
In my common sense, the most social insects were ants and bees.
Especially with bees, they had both stingers and wings.
“In our country, poisonous ants are not that common… but ants are somewhat lacking.”
The problem was that the ones I had often seen were now hard to spot.
I decided to give up here and turned back home.
“…Where’s that drone flying from?”
It was then that I heard a buzzing sound, completely different from the annoying whine of swamp mosquitoes.
In that moment, I felt a chill run down my spine.
There couldn’t possibly be a madman flying a drone here.
[Take the shot.]
“AAAH!”
I raised my phone.
At that moment, something brushed past me.
A large buzzing mass.
If it’s the Asian giant hornet! it’s just a hornet, but if it’s a drone! then it’s indeed just a hornet.
It seemed that the hornet had aimed at me.
“Please no!”
Ever since I was stung as a child, I had been afraid of bees, even when handling other bugs with my bare hands.
I pressed the shutter frantically.
Then, as if the sky was on my side.
At some point, the buzzing sound stopped.
[Undeniably, this external enemy was formidable. However, we could not let that hornet escape.]
Towards the dispatched hornet, the specialized capture units rushed in.
Initially, hundreds tried, and only two or three managed to get entangled and pull it down.
However, some of them quickly died from its stinger and fell off.
[It is strong. However, now ordinary invertebrates cannot compete with us.]
The strongest soldier stepped forward.
It was a life-form resembling a salamander with a solid shell on its body.
Its strength was similar, and the stinger couldn’t pierce the shell.
No matter how fierce the Asian giant hornet was, it couldn’t block the ones swarming in from all sides.
[Disassemble and evolve.]
The wasp was torn apart on the spot.
The acquired genetic information was stored throughout the colony and transmitted to the manufacturing center—our nest.
The fungi that formed the nest rapidly developed, creating new soldiers.
[Soldiers with vertebrae, bee wings, and stingers are being created.]
“…Disgusting.”
I couldn’t even say it was good.
And the biggest problem was, my energy was running low again.
[All cave creatures have their own methods of acquiring energy, but this cave lacks sufficient energy to begin with.]
“Haaah…”
I had to feed them again.
No matter how hard I tried to find a method, the environment itself was far too barren.
“In the end, it means we can’t stop predation, right? The more we develop and grow.”
Now, the soldiers were only as big as three finger joints, and there was no way a piece of bread could suffice.
I was planning to feed them scraps of food temporarily, but now they opposed that too.
The reasoning was ridiculous.
[Digestion also requires energy. If more energy is used for digestion than what is absorbed, what does that mean?]
In the end, it was an issue of efficiency.
The only thing I managed to scavenge was the corpse of a pigeon that had died on the roadside.
“…That’s decent, right? But how is this any different from food waste?”
[That’s correct.]
Fortunately, it didn’t reject the corpse.
Acquiring pigeon genes was an added bonus, but producing such a large size was inefficient right now.
“Hey, the bread is…”
[Bread is quite a good nutrient.]
The door that my sister closed without a word slammed shut.
I was used to that scornful gaze, but I couldn’t believe it turned out like this over bread.
Sighing, I simply went into my room.
To soothe her anger, I would need to buy more bread again.
“I’m not giving you any now.”
[The bottom layer is now completely our territory.]
I didn’t know if it was listening or not.
In any case, the rate of expansion was steep.
Now, even the not-so-large underground lowest communal area had completely become our own.
In just a day, or even just two.
But with growth came side effects.
Despite having swiped everything from microorganisms and mushrooms, it was still impossible to self-sustain.
“In the end, is expansion the answer?”
If they don’t eat at all, they would starve to death.
And once a fire has started, growth is unstoppable.
The only answer left was to go all the way.
[Our growth does not stop. And to grow, we had to continue the war.]
The legion gathered.
The swarms I had seen in documentaries appeared cute by comparison.
In the air were multifunctional soldiers with shells, flapping wings, and stingers at the tail.
On the ground were crawling soldiers maximizing their strength.
There were at least thousands, no, tens of thousands of them.
[The situation improves gradually even when rising just one floor in the cave. Our objective now is the life forms on the upper level. According to reconnaissance, the strongest among those residing on the upper floor appeared to be snakes.]
“To be honest, I don’t think we’ll lose.”
Unless it’s that far-off upper layer inhabited by a king crab-sized spider, which we can’t reach.
Right now, we were undeniably a threatening legion.
It was clear that no small animals could stand in our way, no matter how much they flailed about.
