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Translator: 8uhl
Chapter: 3
Chapter Title: The Strange App (3)
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"What's wrong? You look awful. Didn't you sleep?"
"...No, that's not it."
A close friend from my class commented the moment he saw me.
It's not that I didn't sleep. There's just... something on my mind.
"Now that I think about it, this is so unfair."
While everyone else was chatting, their minds on the upcoming exam...
I pulled out my phone and sighed.
"I'm being blackmailed into playing this weird game, but what's in it for me?"
It definitely said this would benefit me too, but after playing for a bit, I'm not so sure.
It costs money, and even more than that, it costs time.
[Your children are still too feeble.]
"Oh. So if they grow a little, they'll be useful to me?"
[That could be the case.]
The response that appeared was surprisingly normal, leaving me with nothing to say.
Setting aside, of course, what I could possibly do with these creatures.
"I have a question. You said there were definitely others like me, right?"
[That is correct.]
"They don't all start like this... do they? Are their abilities different?"
Given the situation, it was clear there were other 'Players' like me.
So what's the objective?
A competition between us? There wasn't enough information to assume that.
[You will learn soon enough. For now, I will say this: the species assigned to those like you at the start are varied.]
"So, it's not normally a game where you raise them from the cellular level..."
"Alright, good morning, everyone."
My sentence was cut short by the professor who opened the door and walked in.
The lecture hall fell silent. Students who had been outside hurried back in, and the class began.
[Scouting in the target area has failed 192 times.]
"..."
Right in the middle of class, a message popped up on my phone.
I clicked my tongue and discreetly opened my phone.
I'm screwed for this exam. If anyone saw, they'd think I was failing because of a mobile game.
[The current system cannot break through. Growth is necessary.]
I nodded.
I agreed with it.
The creature blocking our path was a simple one.
It was a giant spider, about the size of a king crab, and its densely woven web was formidable.
It was an insane web that actually exerted a gravitational pull on any target that tried to pass through its strands.
[For now, the correct course of action is to devour all the small ecosystems on the level below.]
I agreed. Building up our strength was the priority.
Like getting bigger, for instance. Or developing new weapons.
"Hey. You heading straight home... Where are you going?"
"It's getting warmer now that midterms are approaching. Have you seen any bees on campus?"
After class, I grabbed the friend who came to find me and asked.
My friend, taken aback by my sudden search for bees, just blinked.
[Our soldiers have modified themselves into their strongest forms. The mandibles of an ant, the legs of a flea... all to find the most efficient and powerful model.]
"Yeah, yeah. I'm sure you'll do great."
My only class for the day was over, but instead of going home, I started searching the bushes near the building.
Collecting insects here, at my age.
But thanks to my efforts, I managed to capture several insects on camera—beetles, butterflies, and the like.
[The soldiers' powerful mandibles tore the butterfly and the beetle to pieces. Their flesh became energy, and their genetic information became our asset.]
The feedback was immediate.
Soldiers, now slightly larger than common ants, poured out madly from the ever-expanding nest.
The corpses of fallen or discarded comrades were nothing more than excellent nutrients.
[The soldiers commenced their assault. The highest priorities were gathering food and hunting prey. Our first target was a nearby fungal colony.]
According to the map, there was a patch of mushrooms growing right near the cavern that housed our nest.
We were no longer the same creatures that fought mere mushroom cells.
Now, we were targeting a 'vertebrate' living in the mushroom colony.
[That small salamander is the king of this fungal colony. We will hunt it down.]
"...Looks more like a massacre to me..."
[Our glorious Legion has begun its march.]
The app, which had grown strangely emotional, narrated the scene with passion.
Frankly, a swarm of thousands of ants—no, creatures that could hardly be called ants anymore—ganging up on one tiny salamander didn't seem all that impressive to me.
[This was the moment we hunted a vertebrate for the first time. It will be recorded in our history...]
"Right, right."
I put my phone down and headed deeper into a wooded area on campus.
If I couldn't find one here, I was just going to go home.
[What are you trying to catch?]
"A bee."
I answered simply.
I gave it some thought.
How I should guide these creatures.
In my view, making the most of the Hive Mind was the right call.
So, it was just an idea I'd had.
After all, as far as I knew, the most social insects were ants and bees.
Bees, in particular, had stingers and wings.
"Venomous ants aren't common in this country... and formic acid just doesn't cut it."
The problem was that the bees I used to see all the time were nowhere to be found.
I decided to give up and started heading back.
"...Is someone flying a drone around here?"
That's when I heard it—a deep buzzing, completely different from the annoying whine of a mountain mosquito.
A chill ran down my spine.
Who in their right mind would be flying a drone out here?
[Shoot.]
"Aaaargh!"
I raised my phone.
Just then, something zipped past my head.
A huge, buzzing mass.
You know the saying? If someone yells 'Hornet!' it's probably just a wasp. If they yell 'Drone!' then it's a giant hornet.
And it looked like that giant hornet had made me its target.
"Oh, come on!"
I'd been stung once as a kid, and ever since then, even though I could handle other bugs bare-handed, I was terrified of bees and hornets.
I mashed the shutter button like a madman.
Then, as if by some miracle...
The buzzing suddenly stopped.
[Make no mistake, this external foe was a formidable one. But we could not afford to let it escape.]
A capture squad, bred for powerful legs, rushed toward the transported giant hornet.
Hundreds attempted to swarm it, but only two or three managed to latch on and drag it down.
But many were killed instantly by its stinger, their bodies dropping to the ground.
[It is strong. However, most invertebrates are no longer a match for us.]
The strongest soldier stepped forward.
A creature resembling a salamander, but covered in a hard carapace.
Its strength was comparable, and the stinger couldn't pierce its armor.
Even for a giant hornet, there was no stopping the swarm attacking from all sides.
[Deconstruct, and evolve.]
The hornet was dismantled on the spot.
The acquired genetic information was stored throughout the hive and transmitted to the nest, our production factory.
The fungus that formed the nest developed rapidly, creating new soldiers.
[Soldiers are being created with spines, hornet wings, and venomous stingers.]
"...Disgusting."
I couldn't bring myself to call it a good thing.
And the biggest problem was, once again, we were out of energy.
[All cave dwellers have their own methods of acquiring energy, but this cave is fundamentally energy-deficient.]
"Sigh..."
I had to feed them again.
No matter how I tried to find a solution, the environment itself was just too barren.
"So in the end, we can't stop consuming. The more we develop and grow, the more we need."
Now that soldiers the size of my finger were being produced, a few crumbs of bread wouldn't cut it.
Desperate, I tried to feed them food scraps, but this time, the app objected.
Its logic was absurd.
[Digesting food also consumes energy. What is the point if more energy is spent on digestion than is absorbed?]
It all came down to efficiency.
The only thing I managed to find was the carcass of a pigeon on the street.
"...So this is okay, you're saying. But how is this any different from food scraps?"
[Correct.]
Thankfully, it didn't reject it just because it was a carcass.
Acquiring the pigeon's genes was a bonus, but mass-producing a unit that large was inefficient for now.
"Hey, about that bread... I was..."
[The bread was quite a good nutrient.]
The door slammed shut. My sister had closed it without a word.
I'm used to her looks of contempt, but to think it would be over a piece of bread...
Sighing, I went back to my room.
To get back on her good side, I'd probably have to go buy her more bread.
"I'm not giving you any more."
[The lowest level is now completely our territory.]
I couldn't tell if it was listening or not.
Regardless, the expansion was rapid.
The entire cavern of the not-so-large lowest level of this underground space was now our territory.
In a single day—no, in just two.
But growth comes with side effects.
Even after devouring every living thing in the cavern, from microbes to mushrooms, they couldn't even come close to sustaining themselves.
"So expansion is the only answer?"
If they go even a short while without food, they starve.
And this explosive growth, once started, couldn't be stopped.
The only choice left was to see it through to the end.
[Our growth will not stop. And to grow, we must continue to wage war.]
The Legion assembled.
The swarm of bees I saw in a documentary looked cute in comparison.
In the air, all-purpose soldiers hovered—armored in carapaces, beating their wings, tails tipped with venomous stingers.
On the ground, crawling soldiers bred for maximum strength.
There were thousands of them, no, tens of thousands.
[The conditions in the cave improve with each level you ascend. Our targets are now the lifeforms on the floor above. According to our scouts, the most powerful-looking creature inhabiting the upper level is a snake.]
"Honestly, I don't think we can lose."
That distant upper level, the one where our scouting was blocked by king-crab-sized spiders, might be a different story.
But right now, we were a formidable Legion, even at a glance.
It was obvious that a few small animals rampaging about wouldn't be able to stop us.