The Unmaker

The night of the third day of the exam was a raging, frightening one. Dahlia didn't have access to the raw numbers, but by Kari's estimation, at least a third of the participants had already fallen prey to the tag-team Mutant combo, and a few must've been blasted to shreds by the giant sun moth as well. Those sections of the fungi forest where the sun moth had fired upon were probably razed to the ground already—the arena was shrinking by the day. Not quickly, but not slowly. They still had a month left.

The bugs knew this, too. Though at least two-thirds of the bugs in the forest have already fallen by Kari's estimation again, the remaining ones were tenacious, evasive, and ferocious. Tonight was the first night the forest came to life. Even well after the sun had already fallen over the horizon, the sounds of blades clashing against chitin, screams and screeches tearing into the night came to Dahlia loud and clear. People were fighting outside. Dying outside. The bugs were making their move, and those who'd been so complacent as to believe they could sleep without a roof were now facing the consequences.

Said consequences didn't apply to the three of them, though, who'd dug a pit in the centre of their mushroom hollow and set it aflame.

Warm, she thought, sitting cross-legged by the edge of the pit with her palms facing the flames, orange light basking the hollow in a gentle glow. And I'd have thought nights in a humid forest like this would be a lot warmer.

[Well, this isn't a normal fungi forest. It's artificially seeded, artificially cultivated, and the Worm God must've pulled a few tricks to make this sprout in the middle of a desert as well. You must be glad you have a heater tonight.]

I didn't need it the past two nights.

[You didn't know you needed it. You'll have much better sleep with this fire pit around.]

It was true she felt a lot warmer in the otherwise cold and relatively unfamiliar hollow, and it was also true her tastes were changing. She'd thought about this before, but she was getting used to the scent of cooked insect flesh really, really fast. While she warmed her hands up by the pit, Muyang and Emilia each held a makeshift fishing rod, dangling de-chitined giant beetle legs over the fire. They didn't have salt or any seasonings to make their meals taste good, but still, there was a small mountain of empty chitin plates behind them—between the three of them, they must've cleaned out and eaten well over fifty giant bug legs already.

Muyang was one thing, big and strong and physically imposing as he was; the amount of meat Emilia could stuff in her tiny stomach made Dahlia feel inadequate.

[Name: Dahlia Sina]

[Grade: A-Rank Giant-Class]

[Class: Assassin Bug]

[Swarmblood Art: Recollection]

[Aura: 969 (+215)]

[Points: 128]

[Strength: 4 (+3), Speed: 4 (+1), Toughness: 5 (+3), Dexterity: 4 (+1), Perception: 4 (+1)]

[// MUTATION TREE]

[T1 Mutation | Swarmguard Deity Lvl: 4]

[T2 Mutations | Basic Chitin Lvl: 3 | Basic Antennae Lvl: 4]

[T3 Mutations | Basic Claws | Stridulating Throat | Basic Setae] 150P

[// EQUIPPED SWARMSTEEL]

[Assassin Bug Claw Gauntlets (Grade: C-Rank)(Str: +2/3)(Dex: +1/2)(Aura: +120/300)]

[Adaptable Desert Locust Greaves (Grade: E-Rank)(Spd +1/1](Tou +2/2)(Aura: +35/60)]

[Glasswing Butterfly Goggles (Grade: F-Rank)(Per: +1/1)(Aura: +10/10)]

[Adaptable Firefly Bracers (Grade: C-Rank)(Str: +1/2)(Tou: +0/1)(Aura: +30/250)]

[Adaptable Antlion Cloak (Grade: E-Rank)(Spd: +1/1)(Tou: +1/2)(Aura +20/120)]

… I'm sick of this, Kari.

[Want me to numb your stomach aches so you can eat a few more legs?]

I mean… the legs taste bland, she grumbled, reluctantly reaching behind her, hooking a fleshy bug leg onto her rod, and then dangling it over the pit. Uncle Safi's meals are a hundred times better. Seriously. How does he do it?

[I thought you got used to eating insect flesh?]

I think I got used to eating meat cooked by Uncle Safi. When it's gooey and slimy and bland like this, I… still want to puke a little, I guess.

[Better bring him a few gifts of gratitude once you get back, then.]

She would. She'd been grossly underestimating how much of the legwork came from actually putting effort into how a dish was prepared, but as things stood, neither her, Muyang, nor Emilia could whip out anything even a fraction as good as Safi's dishes. In Emilia's words, the best she could do was 'half-decent', so they'd just have to make do with what they had.

And they had a lot of points just sitting behind them.

"I assume… we're going to do nothing but eat for the next two weeks?" she asked, reeling in the thin strand of an ant leg before forcing herself to gnaw on it, her tongue steaming from the heat.

Emilia shrugged, reeling in her leg as well. "We know what we're hunting. Two Mutant-Class ambrosia beetles working in tandem. The arena shrinks every time that sun moth fires and burns down another grove, so sooner or later, we will meet again. There'll be nowhere for us and them to run to." Then she plugged her nose and forced herself to chew on her leg as well, swallowing hard gulps. "Might as well bulk up our attributes instead of going on a wild goose chase across the forest. Where else can you hunt thousands of free-range Giant-Class bugs in a mostly enclosed area? It's a point heaven for those of us with insect classes."

"But if we just sit here and eat, people will–"

"They'll weaken the Mutants for us."

"They'll strengthen the Mutants for us," Dahlia finished, looking at Emilia sternly. "Bugs eat us, too. If we only hunt what we can eat, people will die, and that means the bugs—the Mutants, by extension—will also grow stronger. Worry. Aren't you afraid of that outcome?"

"Then we hunt more Giant-Class bugs that we can eat, but we cannot fight the Mutant-Classes as we are now," Muyang said, in between shoving fistfuls of crushed bug flesh into his mouth; quite an undignified manner of eating compared to his straight-laced sitting posture. "Both of you are correct, but Miss Emilia is even more correct. I sincerely believe we could each take on a Mutant-Class as we are now, but two of them disturbs the flow of battle. Their danger level has not doubled, but quadrupled. We must be vastly stronger than them if we wish to slaughter them."

"And it'll do nobody any good if we rush in to help another team against the Mutants, get hurt ourselves, and then die afterwards." Emlia sighed, tossing her rod behind her as she lay flat on her back, four arms crossed behind her head. "We'll help out the other participants by killing as many Giant-Class bugs as we can, but we're staying the hell away from those Mutants until we're more than strong enough to deal with them. That good enough for you, radish girl?"

Dahlia frowned. "I have a name."

"I know," Emilia said quickly, closing one eye to stare at her with the other. "But I still don't know what you are."

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

…

The mood in the hollow turned very giddy very quickly as Emilia shot upright, cross-legged, drumming the ground with her palms.

"What's your class?" she asked, grinning from ear to ear.

[Don't tell her.]

"I see the sharp antennae, so probably a predator insect," she said, stroking a pair of invisible antennae she didn't have, "but I also see four arms, black chitin with gold stripes, and your eyes… well, I don't know if you were born with golden eyes, but I'm assuming not."

[You assume wrong,] Kari huffed, crossing its legs on her shoulder defiantly. [You don't know anything about Dahlia. She's my master–]

"It's gotta be an extinct bug, then," she murmured, stroking her chin as she tilted her head left and right. "I should know what you are, but I don't. You're something rare. Something I haven't seen in the Amadeus Academy Almanac of Bugs before. Are you a–"

"Almanac?" Dahlia said, returning a head tilt in the opposite direction, eyes widening. "Is that… an encyclopaedia of sorts? About bugs?"

"Yeah. Uncle Julius wrote it."

"Does it have…" Her hands started moving around, shaping an invisible book as she licked her lips, trying to remember the feeling. "Black leather cover, two braided cords, ridged spine, and eight hundred pages with hand-drawn illustrations every two pages?"

Emilia raised a brow. "That's the one. What, did you–"

"My mom used to have it!" she said, clapping her hands excitedly. "She called it… um, she called it the 'Bug Encyclopaedia' because the title was worn off, but she must've gotten it from a travelling merchant who got it from… what'd you call it again?"

"Amadeus Academy?"

"Yeah! And I read that book all the time!"

"That's a lie," Emilia said, yawning as she kicked back again. "What's the bug on page seven hundred and eight–"

"It's not a singular bug! It's the beginning of the cicada section that goes over all three thousand species of cicadas within just ten pages! Most of those pages were allocated to the 'magicicada' genus, though, since they're really powerful bugs on the surface or something?"

"... Huh." Emilia closed her eyes, humming faintly. "Do you think I have a some sort of Cicada Class, then?"

Dahlia blinked at her, then at Muyang, then came to the long overdue realisation: in actuality, she knew next to nothing about her teammates.

"I… think so?" she said, tilting her head quizzically. "Back there in the clearing, when you summoned your instruments–"

"I have the Symphonic Cicada Class," Emilia said plainly, tapping her throat. "My mutations are weak and unimportant compared to my Swarmblood Art, which is 'Symphonic Array'. Basically, I can turn my voice into physical sound waves, and the effects vary depending on how I manipulate my voice." Then she looked in the direction of a tree at her side before clicking her tongue loudly. Dahlia physically flinched when she saw the sound wave turning into a physical ripple, shooting past her lips and striking the bark of the tree with a solid thud. "If I make clicking sounds like that, I strike my target with a sound wave. If I suck in my voice, I can produce a sucking force that can drag things to me. If I can hum in the same frequency as a certain object and achieve a phenomenon called 'sound resonance', I can even weaken that object and destroy it with pure amplitude of sound alone. There's a ton of other applications, but... that's about it."

Dahlia blinked again.

She can.... what?

She can turn her voice into physical sound waves?

Isn't that–

[She's one of them,] Kari mused. [Remember the Cicada Musicians of the Long March patrolling the outskirts of the City of Feasts? She has a Cicada Class.]

[I do not know what a Cicada Musician of another bug-slaying organisation is doing taking the Hasharana Entrance Exam, though. She is already a qualified bug-slayer in her own rights.]

Muyang raised a curious brow just as Dahlia did, and he rapped the giant beetle head he was leaning against with a knuckle, making hollow thuds against the hard chitin.

"And I have but a humble Stag Beetle Class, unworthy of any particular mention," he said, dipping his head at Emilia. "I am purely strong, tough, and fast. Please feel free to use me for manual labour as you please. If there is a wall you need to be bash through, I will don my beetle head and charge forward without question–"

"You're anything 'but' a simple man with a Beetle Class," Emilia muttered, waving him off dismissively. "You're hiding your real strength, and so is radish girl—so does anyone feel like sharing what they're really trying to get out of taking this exam?"

The mood turned tense and sour very, very quickly again. Dahlia could say what she wanted to get out of this exam in heartbeat—she just wanted Kari to be officially registered so she wouldn't have to live the rest of her life with a dangling knife over her head, fearing persecution by the Hasharana—but was being a Hasharana not the end goal for other participants as well?

[Not exactly,] Kari murmured. [While being a Hasharana comes with great benefits—the Archive is ninety percent of that—it's quite rare that people participate in these high-risk exams for the sole purpose of being better at slaying bugs.]

What do you mean?

[If all you want is to slay bugs, you could join any other bug-slaying faction in the world. The militaries of the Swarmsteel Fronts would be glad to take anyone in. They'd actually train you, they'd actually house you, they'd actually give you… well, a relatively stable job. They'll recognise you for your deeds, give you a steady income, and allow you to start a family with a proper household. They wouldn't put you through an exam where ninety percent of participants die in the first round.]

And how's the Hasharana different from them?

Kari raised a pointed leg. [The Hasharana may be an organisation of wandering bug-slayers, but for all intents and purposes, the Hasharana are individualistic people. They don't often work with each other because they're almost always sent out on solo missions. That means you don't get any help on the field, but in return, anything you obtain is all yours—you don't have to give it back to the organisation.]

… The points.

Kari nodded. [Most other factions make their soldiers share any points they obtain with each other. They are, after all, proper armies and militant factions. They value strength in unity, coordination, and strategic formation. Sure, their generals and high-ranking warriors would usually be allocated more points than the rank-and-file grunts, but if a battalion of three hundred soldiers wipes out a brood nest of three hundred bugs, each of them would only get a single bug's worth of points.]

But if a Hasharana wipes out a brood nest alone, they get everything.

[And so the Hasharana grows much stronger, much faster,] Kari finished. [Now, what type of person do you think this sort of growth appeals to?]

[People who wish for stability, or people with ambitions so grand they feel they can't achieve it without an Archive nagging them in their heads?]

She gulped, stealing a glance at her teammates. Muyang sat stoically with his eyes closed, his hands clasped in his lap as though he were meditating, while Emilia continued humming a gentle song to herself.

It was true the two of them seemed rather sane compared to the other two teams she'd seen earlier this morning, but…

[... Aren't you the same?]

[Becoming a Hasharana is just a stepping stone for you to eventually make your own home—your own destiny—and 'free' yourself from the Swarm.]

[You're trying to destroy the Swarm.]

A pause.

Then Kari shrugged, laying to rest on her shoulder.

[They may be secretive, but I don't believe you have to worry about them.]

[Somehow, I doubt both of their ambitions combined are half as delusional as yours.]

…

Dahlia laughed quietly, shaking her head in dismay.

"I already have my hands full trying to understand Alice, and now you're telling me I'll need even more hands to understand the two of them?" she whispered under her breath, making both Muyang and Emilia look at her pointedly. She returned them a steady, unwavering gaze; neither denying nor accepting. "I'd love to get to know the two of you better, but we can share our backstories after we pass this first stage. I don't think not knowing what we each want out of passing this exam means we can't work together. Even if I don't want to tell you my class, I… I want to trust you guys, and I want you guys to trust me as well."

Was it a lot to ask?

Sure it was.

But they'd already gotten through one chaotic mess of a fight together, and if nothing else, Dahlia thought they worked pretty well to survive together.

She extended two hands—one to Muyang on her left, the other to Emilia on her right—and dipped her head in a show of gratitude.

"I'm Dahlia Sina of the Alshifa Undertown. I'm here to kill bugs, and… um, if you can't tell by the Swarmsteel I'm wearing all over, I'm also good at making stuff," she said, closing her eyes softly. "Let's all go out after this exam and talk."

Her teammates looked at her for a long time, their mouths grim—then they both shook her hands again, and unlike their first time doing so right after stepping through the wormhole, they were all on board with her 'going out afterwards' idea.

"I am Muyang, fourth son of the Firegourd Wu Clan, and I like to dance with my giant beetle head," Muyang said, the slightest of smiles curling his lips. "External motivations to pass the exam aside, I, too, am here to kill bugs. We can always agree on that."

"And I'm Emilia, Cicada Musician. I'm just here to pass the exam," Emilia muttered, shooting Dahlia a lazy wink. "But I will figure you out before the end of the month. I swear this on my pride as a student of Amadeus Academy, the very best academic institution in the world."

Dahlia grumbled. "Get in line. Alice says the same thing over and over–"

"Who's Alice?"

"And who are you?" Muyang countered, tossing an empty leg shell at her head. "Miss Dahlia introduced herself properly. Given name and household name. You are Miss Emilia of which household?"

Emilia scowled, leaned back, and made a big show of yawning. "Just Emilia. What's my household name matter to you? You're Muyang—that's also one word."

"But I introduced my household to you. I am the fourth son of the Firegourd Wu Clan–"

"None of your business. Don't care. Not telling you. If Dahlia tells me her class and you show me your real strength, I'll tell you my household name."

Disagreement. Argument. While Dahlia stood up and tidied the mounds of hollow chitin shells with a broom, Emilia drew a slow note with her viola to knock the big man back with a sound barrier, and the two started squabbling at the back of the hollow. For her part, she was actually just a bit tired—she'd eaten more than her fill of insect flesh today, and if they were going to be hunting and eating the exact same things over and over again for the next two weeks, she might as well go to bed early and prepare for tomorrow.

She had tons of Swarmsteel she wanted to try making, after all.

[... You have strong teammates.]

She paused mid-sweep with her broom, glancing at Kari with a small smile.

That's the fourth time you've said that.