The Insect People

Lynx moved quickly. He gave orders to the messenger and grabbed his weapons.

Then he looked at Sei and the others, whom he'd almost forgotten about. A somewhat reliable fighting force.

"… I won't force you, but I'd appreciate your help."

At those words, Sei nodded. Since Sei nodded, everyone else did too.

Helping Lynx and his people here wasn't particularly beneficial for Sei's group. Even if they left and the base was destroyed, it would hardly affect Sei's objective.

But if he had to give a reason, they owed Lynx for helping them escape from the pursuing army, and it was simply meddling.

Besides, shouldn't they unconditionally support the races fighting against demons and insect people?

Without such mutual aid, the races wouldn't survive on this continent.

He gave such reasons, but in the end it was just momentum.

While the group left the tent and headed down a beast trail through the forest, Lynx received new information and fired off orders in rapid succession.

"What should we do?"

Sei called out. If they carelessly used magic or spirit arts, they might catch the warriors facing the enemy in the crossfire.

"We'll decide when we get to the scene. Though you can't use magic that would destroy large swaths of forest. Actually, setting aside the dwarf and high orc, can you girls even fight?"

"We're armed, so of course we can fight."

There was even such a somewhat foolish exchange.

Given Lynx's people's fighting style, they needed to use the terrain to their advantage and hide as much as possible, or they'd be no match for the gods' army.

However, if they fought scattered throughout the forest, they still wouldn't be able to handle highly combative enemies.

In other words, they had to coordinate in small numbers within a narrow area.

Lynx's people were fighting in quite a difficult environment.

The battlefield was on the forest's edge. It was a battle between the races using trees as shields and the army attacking them.

Traps had been set near the forest entrance, catching monsters and insect people. Some had been killed by vicious traps.

But the traps weren't slowing them down that much. The monsters and insect people came into the forest without fear of death.

And once in the forest, the insect people would climb up the trees and fight in a special way.

Movement impossible for the races. Even among monsters, few could move so three-dimensionally.

"How many enemies!?"

"About 100. About 20 have entered the forest."

Lynx asked his surrounding companions for information, but it was Sei who answered.

"You can tell?"

"I have a Gift for that kind of thing."

Leaving questions for later and accepting it for now, Lynx nodded. Then he started firing off orders.

Meanwhile, Sei also gave orders to his companions. He saw that Lynx didn't have the luxury to give them directions. Without knowing their exact abilities, he wouldn't be able to utilize them properly.

"Laila and Kukuri, attack the enemies outside the forest from long range with low-destructive methods. Bungol and Gantz, protect those two. Mako, deal with enemies coming from above. Lavi… attack freely, just don't get in the line of friendly fire."

Sei himself checked the surrounding situation on his map while leaping toward a tree ahead.

"Looking at them up close again, they're gross. They won't say 'George' or anything, right?"

An insect person with a black carapace. Probably based on a cockroach, it was clinging to a tree. Incidentally, insect people basically had four limbs and were bipedal creatures.

Though sometimes there were insect people with four arms or four legs, so it wasn't absolute.

It tried to jump at Sei, but Sei also kicked an appropriate branch in midair, adjusting his direction.

The rest was simple work—cutting off the head as they passed each other.

While moving between trees, Sei began dealing with the insect people who had invaded the forest.

Insect people basically had troublesome athletic abilities based on insects, defensive power from their carapaces, vitality that wouldn't die from just having their chest pierced, and special abilities from their original insects, but that was all there was to them.

After all, insect people couldn't use magic. And they rarely used weapons or techniques either. Like the monsters in Kamen R*der.

The only troublesome thing was their vitality that wouldn't stop just from destroying their limbs, but other than that they were no match for Sei. To face someone above a certain level of strength, they needed more than just basic abilities.

Seeing Sei flying around freely like that, even the allied races stood with their mouths agape.

The cleanup inside the forest was completed in less than a few minutes. Allies were holding back enemies outside the forest with magic and arrows.

However, the demon leading these enemies stuck to commanding, as demons do.

… As demons do.

"Let's stop thinking about stupid things and take him down."

Sei took flight and burst out of the forest. Flying-type insect people came out to intercept, but they posed no threat at all.

Insect people given human size. While they seemed powerful at first glance, it also created weaknesses.

Their body weight increased, significantly reducing their flying ability. They couldn't fly freely through the air like Sei.

Also, because they gained a certain level of intelligence, they had a nervous system similar to a brain. If that was destroyed, even if they didn't die, they couldn't move properly.

"The gods aren't really omnipotent either. Earth's manga artists have more imagination."

He cut down a locust-type insect person that had lunged at him with tremendous leaping power, and approached the demon in the air.

The demon was a flying type.

It had bluish-black skin with horns and fangs, using its long claws as weapons. A template demon.

"A mere human dares to stand against me…"

Demons who understood human language had high intelligence, used magic, and above all were strong.

Well, a mid-level demon, one could say.

Level-wise, it was no match for Sei anyway.

It created fireballs with a short chant and fired them at Sei in rapid succession. Sei didn't even try to dodge them.

If he wrapped himself in the fighting spirit emanating from his body—the so-called 'dragon fighting spirit'—magic of this degree couldn't get through.

When he got close, it frantically swung the claws on both arms, but their cutting ability fell far short of Sei's katana.

"Yo."

Lightly putting spirit into it, he cut off the arms along with the claws, then slashed diagonally upward through the torso.

Having lost their commander, the insect people began to flee.

The races' soldiers tried to pursue them, but the flying-type insect people evaporated from a breath that pierced through space.

Without even looking, it was an attack from Lavi, who had returned to dragon form.

Sei flew just above the ground pursuing enemies, while Mako ran alongside swinging her spear.

Mako on the right wing, Sei on the left wing. And Lavi and Laila in the sky. With this pursuit, almost all the enemies were annihilated.

"That's amazing. You guys are ridiculously strong."

More than admiration, faces lined up in bewilderment. Especially Lynx and his people's gazes were focused on Lavi in dragon form.

"Normally, high orcs and dwarves would be stronger though…"

Among the races, if you were to take the role of a frontline warrior, humans weren't particularly suited for it.

Physical abilities were on average superior among ogres, dwarves, and beastkin.

"I can't believe a dragon appeared…"

Was that the biggest thing after all?

"I can kind of accept that you're looking for heroes now."

Had they thought it was nonsense until now?

Now then, they'd defeated the enemy.

Next was mealtime.

The food was the monsters they'd just defeated, and the insect people.

"Bugs… bugs huh…"

To Mako who was agonizing, Sei said casually while eating monster meat himself.

"There were regions on Earth that ate bugs too. I think there was talk that caterpillars are high-protein, low-fat quality food."

"Then Sei, you eat some too."

"But I refuse."

There wasn't actually that much need to eat bugs. There was plenty of monster meat left over, so most of the races were eating that.

However, in Mako's case, with the effect of gluttony, there was a high possibility of acquiring the bugs' unique abilities. So she needed to eat the bugs.

"I'd eat normal bugs too, but insect people are a bit of a high hurdle. Though they do seem to have a good amount of meat."

Apparently bugs were one of the food sources in Kukuri's village.

Well, on Earth there were regions that happily ate cheese infested with maggots, so it wasn't that unnatural.

Incidentally, though he was no longer here, Chaos had normally eaten bugs too.

"Ugh, can't be helped. Women need courage!"

Saying that, Mako ate the insect person's meat.

The bug meat was bland and surprisingly delicious, apparently.

"It would help if you could stay here for a while…"

Lynx said that and extended his hand to Sei.

"Sorry. But we'll reduce the gods' forces as much as we can."

Gripping hands firmly, the two parted.

Just as Lynx fought the gods here, Sei's group also had a mission.

It was in a sense more important than fighting the evil gods, and they didn't have the luxury to solve every threat that people were facing.

Walking on foot through the forest, Sei's group headed east.

There should be one hero there.

"… What does this mean?"

"What indeed?"

Ria and Ars, the two were in the Temple of the Stars on the Dragon Wing Continent.

The only others there were Lieselotte, Carla, and Sage.

But until just a moment ago, there had been two other divine dragons.

The Water Dragon Rana and the Wind Dragon Teru.

The request from those two divine dragons was something that should normally be impossible.

"Setting aside not interfering with the heroes' return, to even avoid fighting the evil gods…"

Ria furrowed her brow. Because they had created the insect people as servants, it had been decided that the gods would be destroyed by the divine dragons' hands. Whatever the reason, they should at least seal them.

However, Rana and Teru had withdrawn that policy. They decided not to deploy dragons in the battle between the races and the gods.

And that interference had extended even to Ars.

Against divine dragons, even Ars couldn't win one-on-one. He couldn't use the method he'd used to destroy the previous golden dragon 3000 years ago.

It was fortunate that it was after sealing the Ferocious God of the Dragon Wing Continent, but who else could defeat the remaining three powerful evil gods?

"If we had Siegfried and the others with support, maybe they could manage somehow…"

At Ars's words, Ria made a bitter face. Zeke wasn't a battle maniac, so he wouldn't deliberately think to fight the gods.

And the problem was that among those here, only Ria and Ars had been stopped from fighting the gods.

Sage, Carla, and even Lieselotte hadn't been stopped.

"You, haven't you heard anything?"

Receiving Ria's gaze, Sage let out a deep sigh.

"I've heard. I was there after all. Basically, the divine dragons are aiming to raise the power level through battle with the evil gods."

For Ria and Ars, defeating the evil gods wouldn't be difficult.

But with the three of Sage, Carla, and Lieselotte, it would be quite difficult. No, he could assert it was impossible with three.

"Raising the power level… It reminds me of the Great Collapse."

There was a tone of self-mockery in Ars's words.

3000 years ago, the world of Nears was about to collide with Ria's Earth world.

At that time, to fight Earth's gods, Ars had created Machine Gods and trained elites.

"Could the Great Collapse be approaching?"

To Ars's question, Ria clearly shook her head.

Ria was a divine dragon. She could understand to some extent what state the world was in.

Because 36 heroes had been summoned from Sei's world, that world and Nears's space-time had drawn closer.

But many of the heroes had already returned, so that influence was minimal.

Or perhaps signs of the Great Collapse could be seen in the distant future. A dragon's sense of time was on the scale of tens of thousands of years.

But if that were the case, it wouldn't be a reason to raise power levels now.

"Let me hear the details."

Ria approached Sage with intimidation for the first time in quite a while. Sage nodded in response.

"The story starts with the sealed Space-Time God Trado calling Rana and Teru."

The Space-Time God Trado. A god who came from another world, not Nears. Or rather, most gods that arose in Nears were descendants of gods from other worlds.

Trado was told to be one of the good gods, but essentially was a neutral god who freely manipulated space-time magic.

"He's lived a shorter time than the divine dragons, but he's seen various worlds. Among them was the Root World."

The Root World.

That existence was something the now-deceased Valis had taught Ria about.

"And well… the world of Nears is about to be integrated with the Root World… apparently."

Perhaps Sage himself didn't grasp the meaning, as his words lacked power.

"Sage… your space-time magic exceeds level 10, right? Can't you understand a bit more precisely what's going to happen?"

At Ria's words, Sage shook his head. That wasn't a denial meaning he didn't know what would happen, but rather a denial precisely because he knew what would happen.

"The Root World also has gods… apparently."

Everyone nodded at Sage's words. It wasn't unusual for a world to have gods.

"And among the Root World's gods, there are gods stronger than divine dragons… apparently."

Silence fell.

Divine dragons were the strongest existence. The previous Ouma and Valis had destroyed worlds in exchange for their lives, but just destroying wasn't actually that difficult.

Like during the Great Collapse, they needed to burn through their lives to carefully destroy only one of the adjacent worlds.

"… I see. So there's certainly a need to prepare our forces."

Ars spoke in a calm voice, but the other members couldn't hide their agitation.

Lieselotte was particularly bad, her gaze wandering everywhere.

But the other two quickly recovered from their surprise.

"It's not like it's the first time we've fought enemies stronger than ourselves."

Ria's single statement spoke for everyone's will.

"So how much time is there until integration with that Root World?"

At Ria's question, Sage shook his head again.

"I don't know. Just, I don't think it's 10 or 20 years. It's further ahead… by god standards, it might be on the scale of thousands of years."

But if signs appeared, Sage would know.

"We should wake Chrys too."

His wife and great witch was in cryogenic sleep like Ars.

She was one of the world's leading experts in magical theory alongside Carla.

"Well, that's true. If Thor-san or Alvis-san were still alive, we could have prepared a better structure."

Sage, muttering the names of lost heroes, seemed unusually depressed.

"It's a difficult matter. Setting aside that the dragons' forces haven't fallen that much, we need to strengthen and develop the Machine Gods, and then fundamentally strengthen the races as a whole."

Ars also had a difficult expression.

The world of Nears's forces were at their maximum 6000 years ago and 3000 years ago. Both times, those forces were reduced by the Great Collapse.

However, new powers had been born too.

The divine dragons that had once numbered five were now seven.

There was much to discuss. But it wasn't a conversation that could be settled just among those here.

"Shall we have another round table conference?"

"I don't like being manipulated as you please again though."

"No, this time I think it will really be a serious discussion."

Ars answered so, but what crossed his mind was the figure of the hero boy summoned 3000 years ago.

If he were here, he would have been quite a fighting force. Though 3000 years ago, they'd needed to drive him out of Nears.

"Lieselotte, if you can, gain combat experience in labyrinths and demon realms. Well, most monsters won't be any match for you though."

Ria said that and teleported together with Carla.

"I'm going too, to wake Chrys."

Sage also teleported. For Chrys sleeping in the Sacred Mountain.

And Ars remained.

"Well then, Lieselotte, let's talk a bit about the future."

At Ars's words, Lieselotte nodded silently.