The Unmaker

Little Dahlia sits by the desk, staring at her box of insect parts. Her parents aren’t home today. She’s all alone, she’s bored, her fingers are itching to do something—she decides to make her first Swarmsteel without guidance from anyone.

She lays out all the available parts in front of her: praying mantis scythes, scarab beetle chitin, charred weaver ants, multi-coloured firefly extracts, and a hollow ladybug shell. She decides a small pocket watch would be just fine for her project.

First, she uses her father’s forceps to carefully pry the scythes apart, unfurling them to their full lengths. Three scythes for the second, minute, and hour hand. She hooks the mandibles and stingers of the charred weaver ants together into circles, making interlocking gear systems. Then she carves out a recess from the scarab beetle chitin, shaping it like a small dome, before sticking the ladybug shell onto the back for a fashionable protective covering. It takes her an hour, two hours, three hours; eventually she plops all the individual parts down, fingers bleeding where she’d accidentally cut herself with her father’s gear making tools.

A simple pocket watch that could only count the time would be boring, though, so she also distributes the firefly extract evenly across the back of the inner casing before mounting the assemblage. This again takes her another hour, just trying to figure out how to get everything to stick, but once everything is aligned and calibrated, she turns the dial and lets out a soft breath.

When the second hand turns, it makes a pretty tick tock sound.

When the minute hand turns, it makes a loud ding sound.

When the hour hand turns, the friction of the movement stimulates the firefly extract and makes the watch glow.

“... I did it!”

Little Dahlia picks up the watch, squeezes it in her arms, and jumps onto the bed. There she stays hugging her first creation until her father comes home, asking what happened to the bedroom with all the insect parts strewn across the floor. He yells at her to clean up after herself, but she is too exhilarated to listen—he doesn’t see what she has made, and he doesn’t have to see.

This is her Swarmsteel; her one and only.

- Scene from Sina Household past

… Two hours before midnight.

After six hours of intensive, backbreaking labour, they’d all managed to scrounge together twenty-eight sets of bullet ant Swarmsteel for every student that’d be facing off against the lightning hornet. Dahlia allowed herself to feel a little bit of pride—her Swarmsteel had immediately started melding onto the students’ bodies the moment they slipped the bracers on, and though the first hour of letting everyone test her Swarmsteel by running around the New District had mostly been filled with complaints about how much the equipment pricked their skin, they came to the realisation just as quickly that they were moving thrice as fast as usual; courtesy of the robber fly pauldrons, of course. Now every student could run at least as fast as three average humans, not to mention the additional toughness, the heightened perceptivity, and the strength and sturdiness of their new mandible shortswords. Most of them had even thanked her for making Swarmsteel stronger than the ones they’d used in school, which… didn’t quite make sense to her. Surely personalised Swarmsteel would be better than general use ones?

She couldn’t discount the set bonus everyone gained from wearing the same Swarmsteel, though. She’d even made every single townsfolk at least one ant bracer to make sure nobody would be left out of the loop. The twins figured out how to use ‘long distance pheromone communication’ the moment they put their sets on—it wasn’t nearly as complicated as she’d worried it might be. All of it basically boiled down to being able to smell three ant-specific scents with the hairs on their bracers; the bracers made from the queen ant’s legs could emit the scents simply by tickling certain hairs, so it didn’t take Issam long at all to establish common orders they’d all know to execute the moment they smelled the scents only he would be emitting: the citrusy scent meant ‘attack’, the vinegar scent meant ‘retreat’, and the rotten scent meant ‘hold position’. Since Issam had also already figured out how to send specific scents in very specific directions, he could even command every student individually without risking overlapping orders.

Dahlia was sure, right about now, that the younger students were still training and trying to get used to their new form of communication. She couldn’t say she already had the hang of it, but it was also quite unnecessary for her to work well with everyone in combat.

Most likely, she’d be the only student not fighting the lightning hornet on the front lines.

“We’d need you to stay back and repair our Swarmsteel if they get damaged mid-fight,” Aylee had said, arguing against her fighting along with them.

“You can also do basic doctor work, so make sure your hands are in good condition to stitch if push comes to shove,” Amula had also said, and that was two out of the five fifth-years leading the attack arguing against her going on the front lines—basically, there wasn’t going to be any arguing over the subject no matter how hard she tried pushing for it.

And, in truth, she wasn’t… too keen on fighting the lightning hornet, anyways.

Right now, two hours before midnight, while the townsfolk of Alshifa were busy getting the students ready for the attack, she was sneaking away from the shelter to get back to the Southern Marashon Street.

… It’s quiet here, too.

No bugs.

She’d left a note on her stool, of course, detailing where she was going and how long it’d be until she returned. She didn’t want to give everyone a heart attack thinking she’d been picked off by a giant insect while nobody was looking. It was just that this journey back up to the Southern Marashon Street was important to her, because she’d promised to do it three days ago when she’d first climbed out of the sewers here—and that there were no giant insects crawling around right now, like in the Southern New District, was simply the greatest fortune she could ask for at this time of night.

The flowing rivers of blood had already dried, or drained into the grates. The mangled corpses had been cleaned off the streets by giant insects, not a single bone left behind. New vegetation was already poking stubbornly through the broken cobblestone tiles, cold winds kissing her skin with icy brushes, moonlight falling gently on the slope leading up to the hole in the ground she’d climbed out of. She kept her eyes focused as she peered down the ladder, placing her cricket and ant bracers flat against the ground. Eria had told her replace all her current Swarmsteel with the bullet ant ones since they were of higher quality, but her cricket bracers were already far too melded with her skin to be removed without significant risk of injury, so begrudgingly Eria had let her increase her strain just a little bit further by wearing both her ant bracers over her upper arms instead. It wasn’t ideal, of course, and her body did feel all the more heavy for it; she’d just have to deal with it for two more hours.

Afterwards, she’d rip all her Swarmsteel off, dangerous and painful or not.

She probably wouldn’t want anything to do with insect parts for at least a few months or years after the past three days.

There’s… nothing waiting for me down there, right?

Eria waited a moment before answering, observing through the hairs and bristles on her bracers. [I do not believe so, no. You are free to descend.]

Alright.

After dropping the satchel in her hands onto the ground, she gripped both sides of the ladder and flung herself over the hole, sliding over ninety-five of the hundred metres down into the sewer room. Just before she reached the bottom, she stopped for a final check with her bracers; no giant insects nearby. She hurried, then, by falling the final five metres and landing hard on her heels—thankfully she was getting some overall toughness from them to do something so reckless—before flicking the firefly cage dangling on her waistband to bring some light and warmth into the room.

It was just as dark and dreary and foul-smelling a place as she remembered, but still she managed a small, wistful smile when she saw the corpse of the bug trader lying half-submerged in the rushing sewage waters.

… I didn’t need to be so worried after all, she thought, as she stepped in and dragged him backwards by the arms, noting how light he’d become even clad in a dozen foreign, completely unrecognisable Swarmsteel. The giant insects didn’t touch his body because he was wearing so much of their parts. He really has to be someone well-versed with the surface.

[Considering he was the one who brought me to you, he must have been one of their affiliates.]

She struggled to sling his arms around her shoulders, heaving and groaning as she did. His ‘affiliates’? Who are you talking about?

[... Not quite important at hand. Are you planning on carrying him all the way back up the ladder?]

I am.

Grunting, she started climbing back onto street level with the bug trader on her back, and, at her request, Eria popped her status screen open so she could have something to look at while she climbed.

[Name: Dahlia Sina]

[{Temporary} Class: Hemiptera]

[BloodVolume: 4.2/4.8 (88%), Strain: 739/837 (88%)]

[Unallocated Points: 0]

[// BASIC ATTRIBUTES]

[Strength: 1 (+0), Speed: 1 (+2), Dexterity: 8 (+0), Toughness: 1 (+2), Perceptivity: 3 (+24), StrainLimit: 837]

[// MUTATION TREE ]

[// UNIQUE SWARMSTEEL LIST]

[Bullet Ant-fuse-Pine Sawyer Beetle Chestplate (Quality = E)(Tou +1/5)(Strain +89)]

[2x Bullet Ant-fuse-Robber Fly Pauldron (Quality = E)(Spd +1/4)(Tou +1/4) (Strain +144)]

[2x Bullet Ant Bracer (Quality = E)(Per +8/20)(Tou +0/4)(Strain +134)]

[2x Bullet Ant Greave (Quality = E)(Per +8/20)(Tou +0/4)(Strain +72)]

[2x Cave Cricket Bracers (Quality = E)(Per +8/17)(Tou +0/1)(Strain +186)]

[Pine Sawyer Beetle-fuse-Robber Fly Mantle (Quality = F)(Spd +1/1)(Tou +0/1)(Strain +93)]

… Looks like I’m not melding with my own Swarmsteel that well, she thought, looking down glumly. And even the younger students are getting at least two levels in speed from my bullet ant pauldrons. Guess I’m just no good when it comes to having affinity with what I make, huh?

[You are good enough. In the meantime, what do you plan on doing with the bug trader’s body?]

Eventually, she managed to drag herself back onto street level with the bug trader, and the first thing she did afterwards was sprawl out on the ground for a few moments to catch her breath.

I was... thinking about burying him somewhere... but I really just need to sit still and–

“He still looks exactly as terrifying and powerful as when we’d split up on that carriage, huh?”

She whirled, having not been paying attention to the warning tingles her bracers were sending her, and Issam caught her completely by surprise by flicking her on the forehead. She reeled with a pained yelp, he chuckled and took his seat next to her, right in the middle of the street—with the bug trader’s mask facing the ceiling and his hands folded over the hole in his torso, it was almost like they were just three friends sitting and watching the sky on a moonlit night.

…

Come to think of it, she couldn’t remember the last time she’d hung out with him, just the two of them. It must’ve been years ago, before her mom passed away.

What did she talk about with him back then?

What had she done with his back then?

And while she scrambled and fidgeted and racked her brain for something interesting to say–

“Did you get to send your dad off, facing the sky just like you’re doing for the bug trader?”

A quiet voice.

A knowing voice.

Her awkwardness from earlier vanished in the blink of an eye and she nodded, a pale red flushing on her cheekbones.

“... Mhm,” she said. “He was clad in tons of powerful Swarmsteel as well, just like the bug trader, so I’m sure… no giant insect will dare wander by and devour him.

“After this is over, I’ll see to burying him next to my mom.”

Issam closed his eyes and let out a soft breath. “Sounds good. And tell me if you need any help with that, because I almost didn’t catch that note you left behind on your stool. What if you came out here alone and encountered a giant bug?”

“I’m sneaky.”

“I know that, but still. Tell someone if you’re planning on leaving. Nobody’s going to stop you.”

“You would’ve tried.”

“I would’ve tried, sure, but you know I would’ve gone with you if you’d just argue your case. The bug trader saved all six of us too.”

“I thought since you’re taking the lead in the fighting in two hours, you’d want to spend more time going over battle formations and tactics with the younger students.”

“And I would’ve done that at the cost of risking you getting caught by some giant bug all alone?”

He had a point, as usual. It could’ve gone very wrong if she’d encountered something on her way here, but the first thing she wanted to reply with was the fact she wasn’t the same Dahlia as the one from three days ago. In terms of physical strength, she was thrice as strong as before. In mental terms, she wasn’t as deathly afraid of giant insects as before. In toughness, in strength, in perceptivity—with her father’s claw gauntlets as well, she was feeling even a little confident that she could maybe take a few of the younger students from three days ago in a fair one-on-one fight. In that sense, she wasn’t completely defenceless anymore.

The second thing she wanted to reply with was a question.

“Hey, Issam.”

“Hm?”

“Why do you always hang out around me?” she asked, looking him straight in the eye. “Did I… do something for you? Maybe it’s because my dad always visited your orphanage? Amula told me about… um, all of you. About how my dad always brought you guys candy.

“Is that why you always hang out with me?

“Because I’m Doctor Sanyon’s daughter?”

He raised his eyebrows, and she tried to find some sort of answer there, but there was only surprise, hints of confusion, and… she could’ve sworn he thought she was joking. Why he thought she’d be joking, she didn’t understand—so when she pursed her lips and averted her gaze, looking slightly embarrassed for having maybe asked a stupid question, he laughed and shook his head quite dejectedly.

“You don’t remember?” he mumbled, scratching his head as a pale pink flushed onto his cheekbones. “And I thought you’d been just as scared as I’d been, too. That it was only a core memory for me and not for you… hah. That’s just what I deserve for never telling you what I’d always wanted to tell you.”

She blinked, head craning slightly to the side. “Um. I don’t really know what… you’re talking about?”

He shrugged lightly in response. “You probably won’t believe me when I say this, but I didn’t used to be all that strong and talented–”

“–no, I know that–”

“–ouch. But I really, really, really wasn’t strong and talented at all, especially after… I started living with Amula and Jerie and the others,” he said, as he stared off at the moon and sighed, gaze unfocused. “For the record, Raya was already the godsent talent at the age we all arrived at the orphanage. We were… five, I think? Mm. Raya was already swinging around sticks for spears, Amula was already jumping across rooftops with Jerie and her brother, and the twins were already impossible to tell apart without them purposefully shifting their voices. I’m pretty sure you’d have found them just as interesting as they are now. They haven’t really changed that much in that regard.”

His wording brought her back to her senses. “And you… weren’t as interesting as they were?”

“Mediocrity doesn’t shine,” he said, his smile a ghost of one. “When your father told all of us in the orphanage to try for the Bug-Hunting School, I didn’t want to do it. Out of everyone in our class, I was least suited for it—I wasn’t particularly big, particularly strong, particularly fast. Middle of the road in everything. I guess I had the slightest interest in cooking back then, but really I just liked the cutting ingredients part. Not so much the cooking part. That’s why, for the first two years of primary school, I didn’t go through the Bug-Hunting School’s foundation year like everyone else did.

“I knew I’d struggle if I did.”

“... What changed, then?” she asked, pulling her knees up to her chest and glancing at him sideways. “You transferred back to the Bug-Hunting School in the first year, didn’t you? Why’d you come back if you knew you weren’t going to have an easy time going through five years of training?”

He continued looking at the moon for a long time, his mouth grim. He looked crestfallen, his brows were knitted, his lips were twisted—but then he cleared his face and laughed, a joyful, boisterous sound.

“The night before I had to choose whether to go to the General School or the Bug-Hunting School, I fell through a sewer gate on the way home to the orphanage.”

“...”

“...”

“... Did you hit your head–”

“I didn’t have a firefly cage with me, and I must’ve fallen pretty far down. I don’t remember being able to see a single thing in front of me,” he said. “In hindsight, I would’ve died for sure the way I wandered around in the dark, trying to look for an exit by feeling the walls with my hands. In my head I thought I was nearing the surface minute by minute, but also… maybe not? I wasn’t really thinking right at that point. I was tired from school, if I went back to the orphanage I’d just get into another fight with Raya, and then I’d get no sleep because the twins will never let me do that without playing a few rounds of bug cards first—at some point I just felt really, really tired, so I sat down and didn’t try to move anymore.”

“...”

“That’s when you found me, by the way,” he said, chuckling as he flicked her on the forehead again. “I knew you were Doctor Sanyon’s daughter by your voice, but I’d never talked to you before. He’d never brought you down to the orphanage. I just knew it was you because you had that same… soft, gentle cadence your dad had. And you were also lost in the sewers that night. Tripped in without a firefly cage, just like me—what a bunch of idiots, am I right?”

She frowned, but not for long; the tone of knowing in his voice showed he wasn’t lying, and now that he mentioned it, she did remember that night.

There was a boy she’d sat with and talked with, until she was able to muster the courage to attempt finding her way out of the sewers again.

That boy… she never did end up learning his name, did she?

“... I also knew you were the same age as me, but in the dark, only hearing my voice, you must’ve thought I was way younger than you,” he continued, letting an amused smirk touch his eyes. “I could tell you were scared. You were shaking even more than I was, and I was half a head shorter than you at the time.

“Still, you stayed with me.

“I told you about the orphanage, about Raya and Amula and Jerie and the twins, and how I didn’t have much talent for being a chef or a bug-slayer either way.

“Then I asked you what you think I should do.

“Chef or bug-slayer?

“Sit there and die, or get up and walk?

“Do you remember what you told me, Dahlia?”

She didn’t answer.

She didn’t know the answer.

“... You said, and I quote, in your best attempt at mimicking your dad’s voice, ‘If you can’t make a decisive choice, then take both options and deal with the consequences later!’” he said, and she immediately giggled; his mimicry was horrid no matter how she tried to judge it. He laughed in return, grabbing his mantis scythes like satchel straps. “And then you started regurgitating these random… quotes? Sayings that you learned from your dad? Half of them didn’t make any sense in that context, and the other half, well, I don’t think your memory was quite as good as you thought it was. Sorry.

“But you told me you believed in me, and that I had potential to be great no matter what I did—that the ‘path’ I’d make with my own two hands would be the path that is best for me, and only me.

“So I took that with me and ran.

“I transferred out of General School and enrolled into the Bug-Hunting School just to see if I could make it through the first week of training.

“I did.

“I didn’t give up on cooking at the orphanage just to see if some of my bug hunting training will carry over to my knife.

“It did.

“When Instructor Biem was suggesting personal Swarmsteel for me to start training with, I worried it’d take me months, if not years to find one I could properly use during my fifth year.

“I found my mantis scythes that’d sharpen my blades for me on the first try.

“And day by day, night by night, as I tried harder and harder and got stronger and stronger, I… wonder, still.

“What, exactly, did you see in me that made you say what you said to me on that night, down in the middle of nowhere?”

It was yet another question she couldn’t answer, because she didn’t know the answer.

She still couldn’t remember that night.

And Issam knew, because he waved it away with a light-hearted laugh, rising slowly onto his feet.

“... That’s why you’re the Make-Whatever,” he said, his smile returning in full force. “I don’t know what you see with those eyes of yours, but if you see potential in people the same way you do for insect parts, then… you know, I’ll be more than happy to continue hanging out with you for the rest of our lives.

“So what do you say?

“Wanna be friends with me?”

…

He was the last person in Alshifa she’d expected to hear that from, but if he was saying it now with a face incontrovertibly embarrassed, breaking eye contact—she was sure if she looked back at him now, she’d see nothing more than the reflection of her own embarrassment staring her right in the face.

And if that was the case… she didn’t need to answer him.

Not conventionally, anyways.

She slung her satchel off her back, unwrapped it on her lap, and dumped out all the leftover insect parts she didn’t get to use for her bullet ant Swarmsteel: the extra large queen ant mandibles, a few beetle leg tubules she’d joined together previously thinking she could make something useful out of them, and the very last few pieces of robber fly wings she couldn’t use for wrapping the shortsword handles. The standout pieces had to be the queen ant mandibles—they were tons sharper than the normal ones she’d used to make the shortswords, so she picked them up and twirled them around for a bit, ignoring Issam staring at her blankly from the side.

Alright.

This… could be a good idea.

Running her hands through her hair, she turned the dial on her pocket watch and stopped breathing. Stopped thinking. By now she’d made over twenty shortswords and generally knew how to cobble a weapon together out of insect parts, but for the queen ant mandibles she wanted something different. Something lost, something robust, something only the strongest of the strong could wield, something she could never dream of wielding—she popped a piece of candy into her mouth before her hands moved with the intent to make a Mutant-killing Swarmsteel.

She didn’t need to equip her claw gauntlets for the next minute. All the parts were already laid out in front of her, holes preemptively drilled, edges already smoothened. Putting them together in a comprehensive manner was almost child’s play for her, yet still she made sure each of the tubules were perfectly aligned as they slid over each other, and that each of the mandibles were screwed on so tight she’d never be able to remove them without breaking the weapon outright. Quickly then she realised the weapon was maybe a bit too long to be wieldy, so she split the tubule handle down in half and essentially made two weapons, one the length of a normal sword and the other more akin to the length of a swordstaff.

In the end, it didn’t even take her a minute to finish fashioning the queen ant mandible weapons. She slapped the dial on her pocket watch before it could ring, wrapped both hilts with the last few pieces of robber fly wings, and then held the sword out to Issam—her own cheeks dusting with red as he took the sword from her, their fingers brushing for the briefest of instants.

“... According to the Altered Swarmsteel System, this sword has a strength level of eleven,” she mumbled, pulling the mandible swordstaff onto her lap as Issam held his new sword over his shoulders, letting his mantis scythes sharpen them before throwing out a sharp swing; the blade arced into the ground and cut through the cobblestone like paper. “It might… be useful against the lightning hornet, if we’re… assuming its chitin is stronger than the usual giant insect. Effective. With your mantis scythes sharpening the blade, you might even be able to get its strength up to twelve or thirteen, which would be–”

“You really are the Make-Whatever, huh?” He laughed, patting her on the head as he held out his hand, offering to pull her onto her feet. “Truth is, I came out here looking for you because I had something I wanted to give you as well, but… hah. It’s not nearly as useful a gift as yours, so now I don’t really wanna give it to you.”

Her face puffed as she took his hand, letting him pull her up. “I don’t… like waiting. What is it? What do you wanna give me?”

“Nothing. Just Ignore it.”

“Issam.”

“It’s really nothing special,” he muttered, covering his face as he sheathed his new sword over his back, still refusing to let go of her hand. “It’s… well, I’d wanted to give it to you three days ago in the Bazaar, but now the timing’s all off and I’ve already missed my chance. Maybe I’ll just wait until next year.”

“Issammmmm.”

He looked shy and awkward enough for the both of them, so she took the lead as she started heading back to the shelter, hand in hand with the boy who’d come all the way out here looking for her.

“... After all this is over, okay?” he said, looking unabashedly thrilled as she pulled him along, his eyes glimmering with amusement with a smile magnifying by the second. “Really, if you want something from me so badly, you could’ve just pleaded super hard with tears in your eyes and you know I’ll give it to you right now. And right now we have to find someone who can use this swordstaff you’ve just made–”

A shadow leapt at them from the side, dashing right next to her left arm, and suddenly she wasn’t holding onto her swordstaff anymore.

Her bracers tingled a half-second later, and then she blinked.

“This weapon… is better than mine.”

The voice moved through the street like a quiet morning breeze, but when they whirled with Issam unsheathing his blade in the same movement—his free hand still locked with hers—the boy inspecting the swordstaff he’d stolen from her looked anything but a gentle elemental soul.

His bug-hunting shawl was in tatters. There wasn’t a single inch of his body not covered in blood splatters or sticky insect bits. Once, he may have exuded utmost poise in the lax but guarded stance he took with his honey bee spear and wrist-mounted crossbow, but both Swarmsteel were nowhere to be seen now and he was looking more… feral. His nails were sharper, his back was slightly hunched, he looked entirely out of breath just getting here from wherever he’d been the entire past day—and then the rest of the surviving students from the Bug-Hunting School started shouting, Amula and Jerie and the twins leading the group as they ran up at the three of them from the bottom end of the street.

Eria, Dahlia felt, was just as dumbstruck as she was.

“... Oh. It’s just you, Raya,” Issam muttered, as he sheathed his new sword once more and glanced back at the other students, scowling. “The hell have you been the past day? We could’ve used your help with the ants, and if you were there, maybe we wouldn’t have had to lose a third of the students–”

“I killed the rest of the Swarm.”

Dahlia blinked again.

So did Issam.

So did the rest of the students as they finally caught up to them, the twins grabbing Dahlia and hitting her over the head for sneaking off without a word to anyone—Amula kicked the back of their knees and told them to stop. At least now they were all together, and now Raya was here as well, having said something so preposterous Issam had to tilt his head before asking again.

“... What?”

“I killed the rest of the Swarm,” Raya said, shrugging as he twirled her swordstaff in his hands and let the blade cut gaping chasms in the ground; his weapons-handling expertise showed, still, even in his utterly bruised and battered state. “The weight on this weapon is unevenly distributed. Good. The blade must be heavier than the handle for any polearm, else you lose out on power and momentum for more precision that isn’t entirely necessary for hunting giant bugs. Against giant insects, all you need is power–”

“See?” Amula mumbled, whispering in Dahlia’s ear. “I told you he’s still alive. He’s like a cockroach.”

“Of course I’m alive,” Raya snapped back. “While you lot were struggling to take down a bunch of ants, I killed the rest of the Swarm in Alshifa barring that lightning hornet in the Bazaar. My spear and crossbow broke around five hours ago, so I had to kill the last giant insect with my bare hands.”

“...”

Nobody said anything, least of all Dahlia as she looked at her shoulder, staring pointedly at Eria.

[... Great Makers. What a monster.]

You don’t think he’s lying?

[Well, it would certainly explain why Alshifa is quiet right now.]

He was looking feverish, still—certainly nobody had thought he'd be able to kill all of the remaining giant insects in the northern end of Alshifa, but here he was, only looking weary and exhausted and ready to fall over at any moment. If it weren't for him leaning against his new swordstaff, he might've fallen over already; whether that meant her weapon was sturdy or his knees were still impossibly strong, she didn't know. Nobody cared to guess.

He took a step forward, heading in the direction of the Bazaar, and immediately stumbled. Amula and Jerie slipped a curtain-made stretcher under him just before he could hit the ground, and with his face planted in the fabric, he mumbled something unintelligible.

It sounded like ‘kill lightning hornet' to her.

“... This guy came stumbling to the shelter ten minutes ago, looking for you,” Amula said, looking at Dahlia's as she lifted the stretcher with a loud heave, Jerie helping her out on the other end. “He probably wanted you to fix him a new weapon, but when he found out you weren't there he started running all over, saying ‘the air smells dangerous’ and ‘not much time left’. We couldn't give him any medical treatment before he ran off, so we chased him here and… well. We'll take this guy back to the shelter so he can get some rest–”

“Fuck off,” Raya grumbled, as he rolled over and swung his swordstaff at the two seniors, making them drop his stretcher. Somehow he managed to flip himself onto his feet before his spine could even touch the ground. “That lightning hornet… is planning something. I smell it. I can tell. If we don't kill it now, then it's gonna kill all of us.”

“We already know,” Issam said, nodding at the younger students all around. “That's why we’re here, no? According to Dahlia, that lightning hornet will start giving birth to an entire army of giant insects in two hours—so don't run off by yourself now and go at it alone.

“We're ready.”

Raya scoffed, a mocking tone in his voice, but evidently it irked the younger students enough that they unsheathed their shortswords all at once.

…

Dahlia shuddered alongside Eria as she noticed Raya's half-lidded eyes twinkling with excitement.

It's only been a day since we last met.

Could he have gotten that much stronger already?

[He might be one of those adaptive types that grow exponentially stronger by surviving fights to the death,] Eria said. [I wonder if he can actually beat all of you as he is right now.]

That wasn't quite a reassuring thought to think about, but Dahlia wasn't quite afraid of Raya, either.

She'd not known him for a very long time—she’d not known anyone here apart from Issam for a very long time—but Raya especially had always struck out to her as someone who could make the logical decision.

He’d already tried going at the lightning hornet alone once, and he'd failed.

He wasn't going to make the same mistake again.

“... Fine,” he said, clicking his tongue and tapping his swordstaff against the ground as he did. “But I'm taking the lead on the operation. Tell me everything you know. And what the hell are you guys wearing? Are those Swarmsteel made of ants?”

The tension in the air wasn't completely gone, but at least it'd been transformed from ‘potential infighting’ to ‘arguing over whether Issam or Raya would be best-fitted as the leader'. Amula threw insults at Raya, the twins started herding everyone back to the shelter for their final two hours of preparation, Jerie mediated the arguments with his flute, and for Issam… throughout the entirety of Raya's arrival, he'd not let go of Dahlia's hand even once.

Dahlia didn't quite want to let go, either.

… Eria.

[Yes?]

Do you want to be with Issam or Raya or Amula instead?

[Why would I want that?]

Because they're stronger than me, and if you go with them, you'll actually be able to help them against the lightning hornet.

The little black bug was silent for a moment.

[If I may be allowed a word of my own–]

Of course.

[–we, of the Archive of Altered Swarmsteel Systems, are incapable of forming emotional connections with our users,] Eria said plainly. [While we cannot disclose our origin or our Great Makers, we always make it an imperative order that our users understand we are not the person our voices mimic. We simply pick our voices and bug form to hasten the melding process. Once we understand everything about our users, we can take on any other voice or form as the user desires.]

[Above all else, we are Swarmsteel created for war against the Swarm.]

[Our capability to emphatize with our users extend only so far as to ensure perfect synchronisation in and out of battle. We cannot afford true ‘companionship’ as humans are able to do for each other. Our voices can never be given physical form, and to establish sentimental connections with our users is fundamentally impossible given the nature of our design parameters.]

[So you can believe me when I say you are the bug that cannot be crushed under the boot—and you are no less worthy than those you hold in high regard.]

[I am glad to have served you these past three days, Dahlia Sina.]

…

The little black bug could say all that without batting an eye, so while she kept on walking, she dipped her head and allowed herself a tiny smile.

… Thank you, Eria.

I think… I’ll give you a new name after this is over.

You wouldn’t want to stay as ‘Eria’ for the rest of my life, right?

Eria tilted its head curiously. [I do not particularly mind, but I do appreciate the implication.

[Now, go forth and defeat the lightning hornet.]

[End this invasion once and for all.]