Swarming Sovereignty

Rose hurried to the field near the burrow where the Queen always hunted. She felt…elated, more than she ever had in her memories or in her short period of true awareness. The Queen had called her important, and she had not only given Rose a name, but the vital task of bringing more sisters into the swarm.

A part of her still yearned to be on the front lines, protecting the Queen directly, but she understood the importance of the task she had been given. Their war with the goblins would bring corpses to be made into modeling wax, items to help bolster their army, and, most importantly, many new sisters.

Their burrow, modest as it was, was not prepared for that. Nor was it a fitting dwelling for someone like the Queen. She should be given plush seating on a throne like true royalty, her every order obeyed by legions of followers, not forced to live in a hole in the ground while she fought on the front lines.

That gave Rose pause. Where had that come from? She was reasonably sure she had never seen a throne in her life as a rat, nor had she had any concept of what “true royalty” was. And she got the feeling that those ideas weren’t instincts her conversion had given her, either.

Wait, how did she know what instincts were? No…how did she know what anything was, save for the little she could remember from before her enlightenment? She knew that, usually, sapient beings had a period of time where they were still learning everything and didn’t grasp things right away like she did.

So, why did she know these things? The question nagged at the back of her mind, like there was something important she had forgotten, and she was on the cusp of remembering it. Every little turn of phrase she thought of, every question she had just seemed to intensify that feeling. It built and built until, finally, something snapped, and the feeling vanished, leaving in its wake a set of windows in front of her.

 

 

She was…reincarnated? That made sense, all people were, but in the vast majority of situations, those reincarnated didn’t keep their memories.

Wait, no, that didn’t make sense. She hadn’t been a person, she had been a rat! Those didn’t have souls, she had read the paper on that when…when…she couldn’t remember. There was a paper on it, and she had read it – all non-sapient creatures had no souls, and that had been scientifically proven.

She…she had been granted sapience, likely been given a soul then and there, and then had somehow been able to preserve some of her memories. It was an act that was…divine. There was no other word to describe it; people had never come close to anything like this, despite years of attempts.

That only reaffirmed what her instincts were telling her. The Queen was someone worth devoting her whole life to, someone who would lead the world into a new golden age.

And, in order to best serve her, it was imperative that Rose regain her memories as fast as possible. A quick search of her memories revealed that she…didn’t have anything specific, not yet, it was mostly just vague knowledge. But she knew she had something of value waiting therein, because she remembered reading that paper about souls.

If the world was still the same as it was in her past life, education wasn’t something that most people had access to. Most people could read or write and had basic schooling, but the number of people who were able to read academic papers was a small one, and those who had that much education tended to be those that had shown themselves to be exceptionally gifted as children. Even nobles wouldn’t put their children into colleges unless they had great talent, preferring instead to hire tutors and teach the kids things more directly related to their station.

There was a good chance things weren’t the same now, depending on when it was, as there had been movements to make higher education more available, but that hardly mattered. What mattered was that Rose had been someone important, someone with enough talent to be worth putting through a college. That meant that within those memories laid a great deal of experience that could be used to the Queen’s advantage.

A part of her was afraid that those memories would spark rebelliousness in her, but the very thought of such a thing was so repulsive that it almost physically hurt

. No…she was confident that, even if her past self was unbelievably rebellious, her current feelings were stronger. She couldn’t imagine a single thing that she wanted to do more than serve the Queen, it was a concept that seemed engraved into her very being.

So, with that decided, it was time to figure out the best way to make more sisters. That was a simple enough order on the surface, but making it efficient was another thing entirely. She had to manage her modeling wax carefully, which had all sorts of complications.

Was it best to get a little pile moved out of the burrow so she didn’t have to walk as far back to refill? Would she find rats fast enough to even make it worth using the premade modeling wax? If things were too slow, then it would be best to convert modeling wax as she worked, just to get things processed faster.

And she had the ability to take one of her sisters with her, too. That sister would be one she converted herself, so she wasn’t taking away from the work the Queen had already assigned, so with that in mind, she set off into the field in search of rats. She could figure out what to do with the modeling wax once she had someone that could do the labor for her while she focused on finding more rats.

It took her two minutes to find her first. That seemed like a rather short period of time, seeing as how she had no detection Skills, but she wasn’t going to question her good fortune. The moment she laid eyes on the rat, she began to pursue it, and began to gain ground quickly. She had been uplifted by the Queen herself, so there was no way she was going to be slower than a member of her old race.

She caught the rat and began to coat it with modeling wax. When she was done, she took a look at her available options for conversion, checking to see if she could convert it into a burrower like the Queen had wanted.

So, no burrower, that was good to know. She was about to convert the rat into a drone when she hesitated, glancing over the options one more time. The Queen had told Rose to make them “all” drones, yes, but she had also told Rose to make conversions in the way Rose felt was most efficient.

And that had to be the foot soldier. In terms of raw stats, the foot soldier would be just as good as she was, and it would potentially up to double the rate at which she could find and convert rats.

Yes. She’d choose the foot soldier first, and go from there. The Queen was a benevolent ruler, Rose knew; she would understand if the letter of her orders was not followed so long as the spirit was. The Queen wanted as large a workforce as possible, and that was exactly what Rose would give her.

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Lia decided to survey her army once more before she set off for their first real raid. The others had been more…scouting attempts, testing her strength and trying to determine how much she was capable of.

Right now, her army was looking better than it ever had before, not that that was a high bar to clear. She had ten rat foot soldiers, two goblin foot soldiers, two lightborn, and six ironclads, a force she felt was more than enough to take a few patrols head-on, even if she assumed the number of goblins per patrol increased to four.

Satisfied, Lia took another moment to consider any other things she wanted to do before they left. Rose was working, the army was filled up with modeling wax…actually, wait. She had about thirty blood money from the last patrols she had killed, which was probably more than enough to get something from the Dimension of Discounts.

That’d take a lot of her Mana and Stamina to open, but the result would…probably be worth it, right? And she could always just wait for those resources to regenerate, it wasn’t as if she needed to go to the bazaar now.

Yes, she was definitely going to do that. So, she ordered her army to store their modeling wax in the burrow and get more of the corpses converting into modeling wax. It wasn’t strictly necessary, but it felt like a waste to have them rotting away there waiting for conversion while her army had the ability to convert some more.

She turned her attention away from her army and opened up the Dimension of Discounts.

Lia frowned. The Skill sounded nice, but it was also quite expensive, and she wasn’t even sure how necessary it was. Her storage didn’t need a search, and the picks the Dimension of Discounts had shown her last time were more than sufficient for her needs.

Yeah, it really wasn’t necessary at the moment, not that she could even afford it. She shook her head, informing the…shopkeeper that she wasn’t interested at the moment. She might buy it later, if she had more Blood Money, but not now.

 That was…less than promising. She couldn’t even afford the first two, and those “spices” sounded like they were useless in battle and were of very dubious origins. It would…probably be wise not to eat anything seasoned with those if she could avoid it.

She flipped through the other two pages and was met with similar results. The items were either too expensive or had such niche utility that she felt her Blood Money would be best spent on…almost anything else.

Curiously, though, like with the Goblin Slayer, there were several items that weren’t “DD-Brand”.  She couldn’t quite find any pattern as to what was “DD-Brand” and what wasn’t, so she went ahead and asked the shopkeeper about it.

Lia shook her head. She didn’t have the Blood Money to buy anything good, so she decided she might as well just close the Dimension of Discounts and wait for her resources to regenerate.

It took about ten minutes for her to finish regenerating. That was…honestly not that bad when she considered she just spent almost three-quarters of her maximum to open the Dimension of Discounts. For people, regeneration rates were based on their Class, so she could only assume that regeneration rates were now based on her race.

She stood back up from where she had been resting and confirmed that her army had finished converting their meal into modeling wax. Satisfied that they had, she had them form up and began to march towards the bazaar.

She first noticed something wrong when she was about halfway there. The bazaar, at least the sections near the edge, was bright. It was a flickering, uneven brightness, but it was still bright enough to be noticeable. That could only mean one thing – the goblins were out in force, and they had something a little more permanent than a few lanterns.

The best case scenario was it just being a camp. Those were typically poorly defended, and if you could take them over, any goblins that were away when you took the camp would be too stupid to realize something was wrong if you kept well hidden. They would just waltz right back in and make themselves easy targets.

The worst case scenario was the goblins beginning to build fortifications. That would mean goblins were committing themselves to actively defending the area, and they would likely have some sort of commander among them.

There really just wasn’t a way to tell without getting closer, so Lia led her army in anyway. And, once they were closer, Lia’s fears were confirmed; the goblins had piles of wood and were beginning to put up crude barricades, using the stalls as part of their wall.

It didn’t look like it covered every single part of the entrance to the bazaar, but it was big, and that meant that even those areas it didn’t cover would be guarded much better. Frankly, the whole thing looked like it was liable to become a huge thorn in her side if she didn’t deal with it, and deal with it fast.

Or…no, perhaps not. The barricades were poorly put together, but, more importantly, they were built to keep out things the size of goblins. They were not built to keep out rats, and Lia could already see several holes her and her swarm would be able to fit through.

She could use that, and she could use it well. The goblins were already here in the numbers they would be in after the fortifications were finished, most of them were just focused on building. The moment they heard combat, they would drop what they were doing and join the fight. A frontal assault would be bloody, and even if she did achieve victory, it was a lot harder for her to build her forces than it was for goblins. After all, the dungeon would spawn more goblins, but it wouldn’t directly spawn more members of her swarm. She would have to hunt for those herself.

No, a frontal assault was out, but she would probably be able to do much, much better. If she played her cards right, she could invade the fortifications from the inside, convert a bunch of goblins before they knew what was happening, and then take the fort over. She’d not only gain a larger swarm and more materials for conversions, she’d gain a base she could use as a stronghold in her war.

But, to do that, she needed more rat foot soldiers, more modeling wax, more…everything. The goblins worked quickly, so their fort would probably be done by nightfall, and then they’d go to sleep and leave only a minimal guard.

That was the best time to strike, which put Lia on something of a time limit. She needed to get everything ready as quickly as possible, so she withdrew her army and headed back towards the burrow. Hopefully Rose would have some new recruits, but, even if she didn’t, Lia could work with that. She would have to work with that, she didn’t have time for anything else.