The Unmaker

[The ‘Empress Cicada’ is the largest cicada species in the entire world, and individuals with a head-body length of twenty metres and up are typically captured and tamed by the Tamera to use as giant caravan-pulling bugs. Because their abdomens are usually hollow, rooms and structures can be built within them as a sort of mobile fortress, which can also double as an efficient rain shelter given cicada wings are typically water-repelling, so the structure inside its abdomen can remain completely dry as opposed to other mobile fortresses where the structure is built above the carapace of the giant bug–]

I’m gonna hurl, Kari.

[Don’t do it in the tavern. Poke your head out the window.]

So Dahlia did as Kari instructed, leaning out the circular wooden frame as she dry heaved, trying her best to hold her stomach.

It wasn’t easy, after all, sitting by the window seat of a tavern that just so happened to be ten metres above ground… and swaying like a shoddy ship on a stormy sea.

Looking inwards, she was met with a brilliantly cosy sight: warm wooden walls and floorboards, little stools and round tables scattered throughout, and multi-coloured plush cushions and potted plants to break up the even earthly colours of the tavern. Multiple open doors behind the bartender’s counter led into Safi’s kitchen, the two bedrooms upstairs, and the single washroom in the back. Looking outside the windows, though, she was met with an endless desert—a sea of steaming, wavy golden sand—and it absolutely didn’t help that the giant cicada they were currently riding in was sprinting at thirty kilometres an hour like it was nobody’s business.

Suffice it to say, it was a bumpy ride. It’d been a bumpy ride the entire past week she’d been travelling across the desert. Stools and tables slid along the seams between the floorboards, rearranging themselves like levers following zigzaggy slits. The cushions were flying everywhere. The potted plants were, thankfully, bolted into the ground, but the firefly lanterns overhead were swinging and banging into each other and there was also an Arcana Hasharana laughing her ass off with a glass of juice in her hands—Safi was just humming as he prepared lunch behind the bartender’s counter, and Alice was comfortably seated across Dahlia’s window table, both of them completely used to the tavern shaking like a permanent earthquake.

I’m gonna die before we even get out of this desert, Kari.

[You’ll be fine.]

I can’t deal with this, Kariiii.

[You’ll be fine–]

“You’ll be fine,” Alice said, laughing as she threw a small cushion across the table to whack Dahlia in the face. “Emparatoria’s a good cicada. Uncle bought it, like, five years ago from the Tamera, and it hasn’t attacked anyone even once. It requires little to no sustenance, just a few hours of rest every night, and it can burrow underground to go into dormancy whenever we need to settle down somewhere. If we want it to, it can even fall asleep and not move a muscle for upwards of an entire year!”

“Really… impressive,” she mumbled, flinging the cushion away as she slammed all four hands on the table in front of her, leaning forward and trying to stabilise herself. Alice did the same, humming cheerily, and their faces were so close to each other Dahlia thought about headbutting the girl. Just for fun. “Can’t you tell… ‘Emparatoria’... to walk a bit slower, then? Are we in a rush? To where?”

“To the exam! It’s in a month or so, and if you don’t show up in time, the proctors won’t let you join the first stage halfway through!”

Dahlia wasn’t thinking that far ahead, of course. She’d like to just survive the next ten minutes, but it didn’t seem like that was going to be easy, either—her dagger antennae perked as her gut told her to stick her head out the window, so that she did, getting a breath of sandy air while she squinted at the distant storm they were going to run into.

“... Alice.”

“Yeah?”

“There’s a sandstorm in front of us.”

“That’s normal. The Sharaji Desert is mostly calm on the inside, but there’s always a nasty sandstorm blowing somewhere along the borders of the desert,” Alice said, shrugging nonchalantly as she gulped down the rest of her juice. “Getting around the desert is easy. Getting in or out the desert is gonna be rocky. No way around it, though, so just don’t open your mouth.”

“You’re free to put on your seatbelt if you want,” Safi called out from behind the counter, pointing at a belt underneath her stool. “Just don’t open your mouth. Seriously. We both ate mouthfuls of sand when we rode into the desert two months ago, and let me tell you, sand is quite unkind on your palate. You’ll be tasting sand on everything you eat for the next three days.”

“Yep. But there’s just no way around it. Even if I make silk traps to board up the doors and windows, sand’s still gonna find its way in.”

“Mhm. No way around it. It’s a violent but small storm, anyways. We’ll be in and out of it in three minutes.”

Dahlia scowled as the uncle and niece combo nodded proudly, completely indifferent to the fact that the sandstorm was churning and roaring and literally annihilating the entire horizon of sand just a few hundred metres in front of them. Even if Emparatoria could survive the storm and emerge through the other side unharmed, the fact that they weren’t even bothering to close the front door and board up the windows was making her really, really anxious—they’d live alright, but then they’d have to spend the entire rest of the day shovelling hot and sticky sand out of the tavern.

… Nah.

How many points do I have again, Kari?

[// STATUS]

[Name: Dahlia Sina]

[Class: Assassin Bug]

[BloodVolume: 4.8/4.8 (100%), Strain: 960/1452 (66%)]

[Unallocated Points: 165]

[// BASIC ATTRIBUTES]

[Strength: 7 (+8), Speed: 8 (+2), Dexterity: 8 (+5), Toughness: 5 (+7), Perceptivity: 5 (+2), Strain: 1352]

[// MUTATION TREE]

[T1 Core Mutation | Nymphal Metamorphosis]

{T1 Branch Mutation | Recollection}

[T2 Core Mutations | Base Chitin Development | Dagger Antennae]

{T2 Branch Mutations | ??? | ???}

[T3 Core Mutations | Stylet Claws | Stridulating Prosternum | Segmented Setae] 150P

{T3 Branch Mutations | ??? | ??? | ???}

[// UNIQUE SWARMSTEEL LIST]

[2x Assassin Bug Claw Gauntlets (Quality = C)(Str +6/12)(Dex +5/5)(Tou + 2/5)(Strain +395)]

[2x Desert Locust Greaves (Quality = D)(Spd +2/2)(Tou +3/4)(Strain +216)]

[4x Firefly Bracers (Quality = C)(Str +2/12)(Tou +2/4)(Strain +223)]

[Butterfly Goggles (Quality = E)(Per +2/2)(Tou +0/1)(Strain +66)]

… You know, my status screen is getting harder and harder to read.

[Such is life.]

Dahlia clicked her tongue irritably as she rose from her stool, trying not to fall as she stumbled to the centre of the tavern like a drunk.

[Considering Safi has butchered Madamaron and its brood of antlion nymphs—the parts he could butcher, anyways—you’ve been steadily gaining fifteen points a day for the past eleven days, which is already a bit more than you should be consuming,] Kari muttered. [A reminder that ten points a day is the healthy limit. Fifteen is already pushing it. Eat any more than that and you’ll eventually succumb to the effects of ‘point poisoning’, which includes headaches, stomach aches, muscle fatigue, bone fatigue–]

–okay, okay, I won’t go more than fifteen a day–

[–slow and steady wins the race,] Kari finished. [With Madamaron and the antlion nymphs properly stored and preserved in the kitchen, you can easily gain fifteen points a day every single day for at least eight months. You don’t have to rush. For the time being, you have secured a steady supply of easily digestible insect flesh for your daily meals, and that’s the biggest hurdle to progression already crossed.]

… The biggest hurdle? she thought, kneeling and placing all four palms flat on the floor as she did.

[You may think ten points a day is easy to come by, but the unfortunate truth is, even in the Swarmsteel Fronts where the battles against the Swarm are the fiercest and tens of thousands of giant bugs die every day, most soldiers won’t be able to gain ten points a day,] Kari said plainly. [Generally speaking, insect flesh requires intense processing to make edible. Most soldiers don’t eat it raw on a consistent basis. It requires tenderising to make it digestible, neutralisation to remove the toxic components, and cooking to make it slightly delectable. This means, on the battlefield, that most common soldiers don’t get the luxury of eating ‘gourmet’ insect flesh. They settle for normal human food instead.]

She glanced over at Safi, her eyes twinkling with amusement. He must be a really good chef, then.

[He’s an abnormally incredible chef. To be able to prepare exactly fifteen points’ worth of insect flesh for both you and Alice every single day in palatable, savoury-looking dishes is no easy feat at all,] Kari agreed. [I… don’t know who he is, actually. My records do not speak of a man who travels with ‘The Hangman’ on her bug-slaying missions, and whenever I try to look deeper, I get a {REDACTED} warning telling me to stop prying. I imagine he is no normal human being—do pay close attention to him for me, will you?]

[Alice is somewhat predictable in her unpredictability, but I cannot tell what that man is thinking at all.]

[He could be dangerous.]

…

So she let out a long, heavy sigh, closing her eyes as she focused on the tingly sensation in her arms.

They are dangerous, Kari.

They’re trying to run Emparatoria into a sandstorm without even boarding up the doors and windows.

So deposit all of my points into strain limit.

[Strain: 1352 → 1517]

[Unallocated Points: 165 → 0]

[Indeed, you should prioritise raising your strain limit to two thousand before doing anything else,] Kari advised, nodding on her shoulder as she inhaled coolly, trying to focus. [Not only because your gradually growing list of Swarmsteel is straining you more and more, but also because of your tier one branch mutation.]

[‘Recollection’.]

[A unique ability of the assassin bug that allows you to draw on the abilities of Mutants you have devoured.]

Then, she pried her eyelids wide open and exhaled—and her palms shook the tavern, making the tails of her cloak beat like wings the moment Emparatoria waded into the sandstorm.

The desert outside the tavern became a dark, blurry mess of wind and sand grains. Window shutters slammed closed and open, floorboards groaning and lanterns threatening to snap off their chains. Alice had the gall to grab another glass of juice from Safi the moment the storm hit, so the uncle and niece combo immediately screamed as clouds of sand smashed them off their feet, ragdolling them around the tavern.

For Dahlia’s part, though, her entire body was vibrating so fast it formed an ultra tiny ‘bubble’ of wind around her, protecting her from the sand and any small shrapnel flying around the tavern.

[... So far, you have eaten the firefly, which allows you to summon lightning, and bits and pieces of Madamaron, which allows you to vibrate your body like an antlion nymph can to make sandpits,] Kari remarked as her teeth chittered, her skin and flesh feeling like they were going to slide off her bones for how violently she was vibrating in place. [Using ‘recollection’ burns through your stamina, though, so it’s a wise idea to increase your strain limit… especially if you’re going to be using your assimilated abilities in stupid ways like this.]

Can you not… talk to me… while I’m… trying to–

[‘Recollection’ is a powerful ability, Dahlia. You must master it as soon as possible. Even I’ve got no idea how this ability truly functions, considering no human has ever had the assassin bug class while possessing an Altered Swarmsteel System where the Archive has been combined with the Bloodline–]

I eat… Mutants, she thought, gritting her teeth as she tried to hold on for another two and a half minutes. I… take their abilities… and the strength of their abilities… is based on how much of their flesh… I get to eat.

Isn’t that… all there is… to it?

A pause.

She wished the pause would last forever, but then Kari reappeared on the bridge on her nose to stare straight into her eyes.

[Even I don’t know for sure, and I’m both the bug-slayers’ Archive and the assassin bug Bloodline.]

[You may not yet understand how terrifyingly powerful this assimilation ability is, and that is only because you have not seen the strength of the Mutants beyond the Sharaji Desert.]

…

One minute. Two minutes. Three minutes. For a few more moments, she wondered if they were ever going to pass through the storm or if Safi had just said three minutes to calm her down, but then the howling winds died as quickly they’d come to live—and she stopped tensing her muscles, letting herself gasp for breath as furniture, sand, and Alice fell from the ceiling, Emparatoria resuming a leisurely walking pace across the desert.

While Alice groaned and Safi stood up behind the counter calmly, she clawed to her feet and looked around. Bluntly speaking, she couldn’t even see a tavern anymore. Everywhere was just sand. She did see the window seat, though, so she trudged over and plopped herself down after swiping the mounds of sand off the furniture, sighing aloud.

While Emparatoria continued marching across the endless sea of gold outside, Alice eventually joined her on the other side of the table, sand in her hair and wings and slipping between the seams of her silk-woven face—Dahlia’s face, of course. She’d yet to change to a different mask, and at this point, Dahlia didn’t even know if she wanted to see a different Alice anymore.

People would probably mistake them for twins, but… well.

That was a problem she’d just have to deal with once they reached the exam venue.

“You really can use the abilities of the bugs you eat, huh?” Alice grinned, sputtering clouds of sand as she leaned on the table, plopping her chin in her hands. “I’m not gonna let you run from me until I figure out just what, exactly, an ‘assassin bug’ is. Once I figure out how to replicate your ‘weapons’ with my silk, I’ll let you leave, so do show me all of your interesting abilities, okay?”

She coughed the clouds of sand back in Alice’s face, scowling mightily. “I’m not running away. Not… anymore.”

Alice’s grin grew even wider. “Good! I won’t let you, anyways! I’ll tie you up and stuff you in a barrel before I let you–”

“Where’s the Hasharana Entrance Exam venue, anyways?”

Kari and Alice pointed out the window at the exact same time, and her gaze followed their fingers.

She squinted the moment she noticed a faint silhouette on the far horizon.

From afar, it looked like a desert city built under a gargantuan ribcage.

“The City of Feasts!” Alice said cheerily. “We can be there by tomorrow morning, or we can be there by noon, so… Emparatoria! Go full speed!

…

And as the giant cicada screeched in response to its master’s command, Dahlia simply sighed again.

I’m gonna hurl, Kari.

[Don’t do it in the tavern. Poke your head out the window.]