episode_0500
by admin
Finding the bug’s nest wasn’t that difficult.
As Maria expected, they started searching by flying in the opposite direction of the direction in which they had been moving forward, nibbling at the forest, and she was able to immediately see the nest with her own eyes.
“This is a nest. It’s quite an amazing scenery.”
“Ugh… It’s not a very nice view for me. There are so many bugs… ”
Maria looked disgusted by my muttering with interest.
There was a bug’s nest beneath our feet as we flew at a fairly high altitude.
The bug’s nest was located in a hollow basin, and if you looked closely, you could see that it was a crater created by a meteorite impact.
There was a structure installed in the center of the crater that looked like a giant cocoon. At first glance, the crater itself seemed to have been created by that cocoon falling.
According to Maria, that cocoon-like thing was the true nature of the nest.
“Cocoons are a mixture of metal and organic materials. Unlike ordinary tunnels, its strength is considerable and it does not collapse under most attacks.”
“What are those pipes connected to the cocoon?”
The cocoon was not the only structure visible inside the crater.
Tubes that looked like blood vessels extending from the cocoon were stuck in the ground.
“… According to the scan results, it appears to be an organ that absorbs underground resources. It is probably used to bring in resources needed for nest expansion and reproduction.”
“There are no real parasites.”
“It is a greedy parasite that sucks up resources until the host dies.”
Around the cocoon, bugs that looked like worker ants were moving around busily, carrying all kinds of items. The types of resources they were transporting were very diverse. Not only the trees that appear to have been plucked from the forest, but also the luminous moss commonly seen nearby, the corpses of indigenous creatures dripping with blood, rock debris, and even dirt.
Thanks to this, the terrain around the crater has become desolate, almost desert-like.
“By the way, this is my first time seeing a crater like this. Should I say that it is a space-scale work?”
“Really? There are several famous crater basins in reality.”
“Aren’t they all overseas? Although I’ve been traveling abroad a bit recently, I was a native Korean until recently.”
“It’s also available in Korea. It’s also large, encompassing two neighborhoods.”
“Really?”
This was a fact I had no idea about.
I have lived in Korea my whole life, but I felt embarrassed because I felt like I knew less than Maria.
While looking at the nest, something suddenly occurred to me and I asked Maria.
“So, how do bugs travel through space?”
In Star Capital, bugs are expressed as an army that covers countless planets.
Even though the territory of the human empire had expanded to the limit of its current population, the bugs were an alien race with the ability to harass the human empire. And that too in a wide range that almost encompasses the boundaries of the entire universe.
However, as I was looking at the nest like this, the bugs seemed no different from just bugs that were slightly harmful to the environment. The fact that the population of flying bugs was not as large as expected also contributed to this idea.
Since we can’t control the sky as well as we do now, we can’t even look down from above, so I couldn’t figure out how it spread across the universe to other planets.
I wasn’t very curious about what the background would be like when I was playing the game, but after entering the original Nova Empire, questions naturally arose.
“Surely they don’t have warp technology like humans do? It’s not some kind of super-powered alien.”
“There is no warp technology, but this nest here looks like that because it is a small nest. If the entire planet is invaded, not only the atmosphere but also the satellite will be swarming with bugs?”
As Maria said this, she pointed to the ground.
“That cocoon is a kind of seed. Bugs that have completely taken over the planet and depleted its resources store their genetic traits in cocoons and release them into space in order to spread. Even that cocoon is a kind of living creature.”
“You mean that shell is no different from a bug?”
“Because there is a separate queen for production, if I were to talk about it, that cocoon can be seen as a male individual storing genetic traits.”
As I listened to Maria’s story, the tubes extending from the cocoon began to look like the blood vessels of a truly bizarre alien creature.
“The cocoon that goes into space drifts for such a long time that it begins to become active when it arrives on a planet rich in organic matter. Scholars of the Human Empire believe that bugs are the oldest discovered alien race, having survived as long as the history of the universe.”
The more I heard the explanation, the more I thought they were really close to a virus.
“Still, I’m glad I don’t have warp technology. If bugs had known how to warp, they would have spread across the universe in an instant. They would have waged a guerrilla war even on the territory of the human empire.”
“There are already cocoons scattered into space, so it’s not much different now.”
“Hmm… Anyway, how do I deal with that?”
I looked at the cocoon and worried.
In the game, you deal with each tunnel you see by throwing a grenade into it or requesting a ship to bomb it.
Even though bombing was difficult, I thought about throwing a grenade, but Maria shook her head.
“The only way in the game is to ultimately collapse the entrance to the tunnel, so grenades could do it, but that’s a temporary solution. Master, you saw it earlier, right? In this group, there is an entity that specializes in breaking rocks, so it digs into intact ground and pops out.”
“Ah, was that the setting? I thought I could just destroy the nest with a grenade.”
“Most missions in the game were about recovering resources rather than eliminating bugs.”
Maria was right. In the first place, exploration is an activity undertaken to discover something and make a profit. In the game, users repeatedly took advantage of the brief pause in bug support to complete missions, shake off the bugs that came, and escape.
I don’t remember any missions like driving bugs off the planet.
It was not the exploration team that was waging an all-out war against the bugs, but the noble families and the imperial family.
“But the grenades aren’t enough, the owner can easily clean up a small nest.”
While saying that, what Maria pointed to was the cocoon-shaped structure in the center of the crater.
“Kill the queen and wipe out all the remaining individuals when they are in confusion.”
“Is the queen in that cocoon? For some reason, that part seemed the hardest.”
“According to data from the Human Empire, these small nests provide the queen’s egg-laying room just below that cocoon. Because of the size, digging a deep and complicated tunnel is not efficient, so we just trust the durability of the cocoon and the bugs that are crowded around it.”
After saying that, Maria looked up at me from her hugged position and asked.
“It fits perfectly, right?”
I smiled coolly and agreed with what she said.
Sigh-
“That’s right. It feels like bursting a bug egg nest.”
“You said you only plan to explore this time and then return, but if you report your success in killing the queen, it will be helpful the next time you visit another planetary system. There is a reward provided by the empire to the exploration team.”
In reality, it seemed like a similar system to the government paying rewards if you hunt some harmful birds. Did you know that there is someone who hunted nutria for several years and won close to 100 million in reward money?
Compared to simple rodents, the risk of bugs is quite high, but it could be roughly considered a similar case.
“For now, Maria goes back to Manta Ray. It seems like it will take longer than before to sweep everything out of here, but we can’t throw it into the air again, right?”
“… I guess I should make a flight suit.”
I flew to where the manta ray was and let Maria in.
And for the first time since returning from Tuseonhyeophaengrok, I used full surrt mode.
———!
My body slowly grew larger with a blinding light. The blood and flesh that made up the body turned into burning flames and began to cover the sky.
Suddenly, the eyes of the bug swarm turned to me due to the enormous heat and light overhead.
Crumbling!
Kyaaa!
The disgusting bug’s cries that tormented my eardrums echoed throughout the basin.
Unlike when I first entered this state, my reason did not waver. There was no particular reason to be immersed in enlightenment right now, so it was natural.
I flipped over and started falling toward the ground.
Hehehe…
Quaaa!
A simple flight created a shock wave that caused the atmosphere to tremble and explode. Even when he became a giant, the effect of [Yggdrasil’s Dew] was still maintained. As the flame was sprayed with all its power and fell toward the ground without any air resistance, it quickly broke the speed of sound.
I arrived on the surface in an instant and struck the cocoon where the queen was hiding with my fist.
Kkkdeudeudeuk-!!!!
It seemed that the strength of the cocoon was not normal, and it resisted for a while, making an unpleasant roar, but the time it gained was only a moment.
The cocoon fell flat on the floor and shattered.
At the same time, the queen, presumed to be inside, seemed to have been crushed to death, and disgusting yellow-green sticky bodily fluid was seen leaking through cracks in the cocoon.
‘Ugh, it’s dirty… ‘
The bodily fluid evaporated and disappeared in an instant, so I didn’t have to worry about anything getting on my body, which had become a ball of fire, but it didn’t feel very good.
Kwaaa!!!
The shock wave generated by the giant hitting the ground at a speed exceeding the speed of sound caused all the bug entities that were filling the basin to fly away. Those that were nearby turned into powder and scattered without leaving a trace.
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