“Hah, finally.”
Ella flicked her fingertips stained with dark red blood and let out a long breath she had been holding for a long time.
By smearing the blood from her forehead onto the Pathstrider’s carapace, after several days a tiny figure finally crawled clumsily out from between the scale armor.
Its entire body was a pale gray-silver.
The outer shell was soft and not yet fully hardened.
Its size only reached Ella’s calf.
Short, thick jointed limbs supported a round, plump body.
It looked completely unthreatening, even a bit clumsy and ridiculous.
This was the first Worker Insect she had cultivated.
Its structure was simple, its intelligence low.
Aside from basic actions like carrying, gnawing, and simple construction, it could not understand even slightly more complex commands.
Yet Ella looked at it as if she had seen a rare treasure.
Her scarlet eyes brightened.
Where there was one, there would be two.
As long as the first Worker Insect was successfully born, it would not take long before dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of Worker Insects would spread like a tide.
When that time came, no matter how tedious or massive the project, this group of tireless little things would be able to pile it up.
Days passed one after another amid the sound of the waves.
In the blink of an eye, a full week had gone by.
The sea surface remained vast.
The Pathstrider, carrying a back full of the swarm and the wounded, stopped in a remote and calm stretch of sea far from any shipping routes.
Ella stood on the giant beast’s broad head and looked at the four who still remained unconscious.
Her brows furrowed tighter and tighter.
According to the normal process, wanting to forcibly create an Insect Nest suitable for habitation on the boundless ocean would require a huge amount of time just for laying the foundation, fixing the seabed rock layers, and building the basic framework.
But her companions’ vital signs were growing weaker and weaker.
Their wounds, eroded by seawater and gunpowder smoke, still had not received treatment.
If this dragged on any longer…
It would be over!
The insect maidens she had worked so hard to create!
Don’t die on me!
She had no time to follow the proper steps.
With no other choice, Ella could only take a crude shortcut.
“Pathstrider, sink. Fix your body in place.”
She chose to let the Pathstrider itself become the foundation.
“Sorry about this… Little Path… I’ll dig you out in the future… I promise!”
By this time the number of Worker Insects under her command had already risen to several dozen.
Gray-silver little bugs crawled back and forth across the Pathstrider’s back, carrying stone fragments and secreting mucus.
In reality she could have multiplied the insect population several times more without issue, yet Ella deliberately restrained the speed of expansion.
Every additional insect caused that cold, inorganic, emotion-stripped way of thinking to erode her consciousness at unexpected moments.
She had to keep the swarm population at the minimum line of “just enough,” never giving the nest will a chance to completely swallow her.
Another three days passed.
A treatment station so crude it was even a little ugly finally took shape on the Pathstrider’s back under the day-and-night labor of the Worker Insects.
There were no delicate decorations, no sturdy armor—only supports piled from insect shells and sticky pale-green nutrient fluid.
Ella carefully placed the four still-unconscious companions one by one into the nutrient fluid pools.
The pale-green liquid wrapped around their scarred bodies and finally preserved their lives.
“Ahh… I’m dead tired. It’s all that damn Alliance’s fault!”
Ella collapsed onto a bed simply pieced together from insect shells and soft vines as if all strength had left her body, and could not help cursing loudly.
“Dog bastards! Mongrels! Damn goods! A perfectly good transfer station and they just blow it up whenever they feel like it, chasing people and killing without stop! Do they really think the whole world should indulge them?! I won’t! I refuse to indulge them! I remember them! I remember them!”
After she had cursed enough, she sprawled on the bed and stretched out into a big “X” shape.
The next second she lazily lifted her chin and shouted toward the Worker Insects busily working not far away.
“Hey! You! Go get me a grilled fish!”
The Worker Insect paused.
Its short, thick jointed limbs clumsily turned, and it scurried off to the side.
There, stored from earlier, were the sea fish that Ella had ordered the Pathstrider to casually slap up from the ocean while she rested—fresh and plump.
One Worker Insect picked up the most tender one in its mouthparts, piled up a simple little fire with broken stones, and clumsily began to grill it.
Sparks popped.
The fish meat gradually turned golden.
Oil dripped and released a simple, fresh fragrance.
Soon a steaming grilled fish was delivered in front of Ella.
She grabbed the fish and took a big bite, narrowing her eyes in satisfaction.
The next second she wrinkled her face again.
“Damn it! If only there were seasonings! Salt, chili, sauce… nothing at all. It has no flavor!”
Even so, she still bit into the fish in big mouthfuls.
Maintaining her “human flavor” was what she considered the stupidest yet most effective method of resisting the erosion of the nest will.
Gluttony, laziness, throwing tantrums, pursuing the desires of the mouth and stomach…
The more she enjoyed herself like an ordinary living creature, the less easily she would be assimilated by that cold will.
Eating her fill, drinking her fill, then sleeping until the sky went dark was simply the most perfect form of resistance at the present stage.
“Ahhh~ so comfortable~”
Ella licked the oil stains from the corner of her mouth and contentedly stretched.
Her silver hair hung messily over her shoulders.
The wound on her forehead had already scabbed over, leaving only a light pink mark.
“Might as well brush my teeth before sleeping. Hey! Worker Insect! Come help me pick my teeth!”
She opened her mouth in a big, carefree grin and pointed at her own teeth, ordering the nearest Worker Insect.
The little bug froze for a moment, clearly not quite understanding the high-difficulty command of “picking teeth.”
It could only carefully approach with its soft front jointed limbs and clumsily clean the fish meat residue from between her teeth.
Oh—
Sunlight spilled across the Pathstrider’s broad back.
The sea surface was calm and windless.
Gunpowder smoke and the scent of blood had long been blown away by the sea breeze.
The Alliance’s pursuit, the destruction of the transfer station, the life-and-death fierce battle…
It was as if all of it had been isolated outside this tiny Insect Nest world.
The Insect Mother Majesty’s life of farming and fishing on the sea began in this absurd yet peaceful way.
Not long after, Ella heard several Worker Insects gathered together, emitting fine and monotonous hisses, as if communicating, or simply lowing out of pure instinct.
She immediately sat up, planted her hands on her hips, and pointed at one of them while shouting.
“Hey! That Worker Insect over there spouting who-knows-what nonsense! I’m talking to you! Go fishing right now! We don’t have enough fish to eat! No slacking off!”
The named Worker Insect trembled once, immediately abandoned its companions, and twisted its little short legs as it hurriedly crawled toward the seaside to prepare for a new round of catching.
I am a Worker Insect. I must go to work.
Today I must also work hard and satisfy all of Insect Mother’s demands.
See you tomorrow, everyone.
Oh—
Waves gently slapped against the Pathstrider’s enormous body.
The giant beast quietly lurked in the sea like an unsinkable solitary island.
Oh—
The Worker Insects each performed their duties and stayed busy without rest, while their Insect Mother Majesty gnawed on grilled fish and calculated how to order these little things around next so that she could live a little more comfortably.
Oh—
The crisis had not yet gone far.
The Alliance’s shadow still hung overhead.
Yet at least for this moment, this tiny Insect Nest on the sea was a short yet peaceful paradise belonging solely to Ella.
“Hey! Stop reciting poetry in that cheesy tone of yours! Do you think you’re literary or something?!”
“Damn it! Worker Insects don’t even have their own consciousness! I’m the one being crazy! I need someone to talk to me! Hurry up and wake up, you four!”