Crunch, crunch, crunch—
"Hmm…? Rather lacking in nutritional value, isn't it."
The sounds of hard skull being crunched apart, soft flesh being torn asunder, and mastication echoed through the air.
Isla, using her auxiliary limbs with deftness to devour some humanoid creature, tilted her head slightly as if a sommelier evaluating a wine, then with a look of disappointment, hurled the corpse—the Flame Knight—aside.
"It has a crude flavor with no cohesion to the taste… Plus, it’s tough and has strange little bones that get lodged unpleasantly in the throat."
Threads with the strength of steel were strung between the trees, suspending parts of the slain monster.
At the tips of the twisted branches, what were once parts of living beings were impaled like shrikes' early prey, their dripping blood seeping into the cursed earth.
Conversely, viscous, mucus-laden eggs were laid everywhere on the ground and branches, each pulsing with a throbbing presence that signaled new life.
If a scene of hell existed in this world, those present would say this place was precisely that.
Or perhaps, somewhere in the world, there might be a madman who would insist this very place was heaven.
What could be said with certainty was that every monster of Brave Questus that once existed here had become fodder for the insects.
"Lord Takuto said the enemy was rather formidable—so I was expecting more, but I must confess, Your Majesty, I am somewhat disappointed. In terms of both resistance and chewiness."
With a sigh resembling disappointment, Isla elegantly wiped the blood from her mouth and turned her massive body to one side.
Just when it seemed all foolish enemies had perished and overreaching ambitions had been crushed, the only man to arrive later and survive stood there, tongue-clicking with undisguised irritation.
"Is it true then that monsters who have only faced humans are weak at times like these? As food—yes, I'd give them about a 30, wouldn't you?"
The inhuman insect's gaze fixed upon one man.
From his appearance, he seemed to be a character originating from Brave Questus, but even before this hellish scene, he showed no signs of losing his composure.
Yet his palpable frustration was clear.
"They were your subordinates, you know?"
The man was the Flame Demon Fremain.
"Oh-ho, what a cheerful face you've got there, monster. Looks like my subordinates didn't quite meet your approval—kehehe."
The man let out a mocking laugh.
His appearance was that of a gaunt figure.
Yet from a body so starved it seemed on the verge of collapse, flames and shimmering heat constantly rose, and his vertically slit red irises were fixed sharply on Isla.
Against the backdrop of a grating, discordant sound—the larvae hidden amongst the trees, their rustling clicks serving as a morbid melody—the two maintained a strange silence.
"..."
The reason for the silence was obvious. Each was gauging the other's strength.
Fremain, by the dense, oppressive aura of demonic power emanating from his opponent, and the scattered corpses of his followers...
Isla, by the man's appearance—a deduction that he was some kind of boss character—and by the unexpectedly severe toll taken on her own larvae...
...This encounter was something utterly unknown to both, who had spent so long in a familiar world.
You could tell an opponent's power without even seeing it, just by their presence.
Both had concluded the other was not to be underestimated.
"Identify yourself."
Fremain, wreathed in flame from some unknown skill and ever vigilant, demanded.
His forces were already annihilated. Having entrusted the bulk of his army to his strongest subordinates—the Flame Knight and the Flame Archmage—his own personal guard and retinue were severely depleted.
His caution stemmed from the thought that a surprise attack would leave him utterly vulnerable, but his opponent, Isla, showed no need for such petty tricks, instead declaring her name with booming clarity.
"I am Isla, Queen of all Insects, one of the heroes of Mynoghra, the nation ruled by the great Takuto Ira, King of Ruin."
"One of the Demon Lord's Four Heavenly Kings, the Flame Fiend, Fremain."
Strangers to one another.
And visitors from worlds unknown to each other.
Isla, of course, understood that the other party was a visitor from another game world—an existence equal to themselves. Even Fremain, who still possessed no information regarding this world, felt a strange sense of incompatibility toward the other and an unshakable conviction that they could never coexist.
"The Four Heavenly Kings? Come to think of it, I heard that name in Atou's report as well. It was—Ice Rock, wasn't it?"
"Yeah, that guy's dead. Well, he was just a muscle-brained idiot with nothing inside his skull anyway."
Fremain deliberately avoided specifying the outcome of the clash, but with that phrasing, he understood that his comrade had been defeated by these unknown monsters and gritted his teeth.
It was too anticlimactic.
Fremain hadn't thought the opponents would be that troublesome either.
The Four Heavenly Kings held positions that were nominally equal, but there was a clear hierarchy in their power.
Certainly, Ice Rock had been the weakest among them.
Even compared to Fremain, there would have been a gap in their abilities.
But they were the Demon Lord's army.
They were the malevolent horde whose name shook the world, causing all living beings to flee in terror.
They were the quintessential destroyers, against whom only a Hero—counterpart to evil—could resist.
And yet, they were defeated so effortlessly.
(There should have been a decent number... No way they were all wiped out. ...Damn it, I can't verify anything in this situation.)
The assault on the city of Dragontan included many of Ice Rock's subordinate demons, in addition to the monsters summoned by the Demon Lord's forces.
That number far surpassed the forces Fremain had mobilized in secret from the Demon Lord.
Even if they were weak enough to be blown away by a puff of wind from the perspective of the Four Heavenly Kings, they were an astonishing number from the standpoint of humanity, whom the demons had fought until now.
Considering that number, even if it was excessive, it was by no means insufficient to take a single city.
That these vanguard forces of the Demon Lord's army and the Four Heavenly Kings leading them had been so easily... even for Fremain, who was known as a shrewd strategist, accepting Isla's words as fact required just a little more time.
(Well... trash is still trash no matter how you look at it.)
Even with his companions completely wiped out in this critical situation, Fremain was convinced he could break through, buoyed by his overwhelming confidence in his own power.
...For Brave Questus's Demon Lord army, monsters were ultimately nothing more than pieces.
That they weren't accustomed to army movements and showed such pathetic weakness wasn't necessarily because they were incompetent.
In the end, no matter how many troops one commanded, individual power could easily overturn it.
The prime examples of this were the Hero and the Demon Lord.
War was an ultimate duel decided by individuals against each other.
Military action was merely a secondary element in their world.
It was akin to a rear guard action or a meaningless exhibition match.
That was why Fremain had stayed behind.
He believed that if he himself defeated the enemy before him, the previous gains could be easily reversed.
In fact, in the Brave Questus Demon Lord army, where the mana cost for summoning monsters was virtually zero, this line of thinking was by no means wrong.
"Well, that guy is the weakest of the Four Heavenly Kings after all. Compared to me, he's at least two levels lower. ...Hang around with that same sense of awareness, and you'll get hurt. Keh heh heh."
"My, my, you're awfully confident... and you think you're not the same?"
"At the very least, I can absolutely beat you to death and drag that boss sitting on the throne back there down to the ground. What was his name again? —Lord Takuto, was it? Ha ha ha!"
It was a cheap provocation.
But even if it was just provocation, those words were taboo for Mynoghra's subordinates.
Especially for a Hero.
"Oh my... to bark so fiercely at our great Lord — you garbage scrap."
The eruption of rage from her — so utterly unlike the refined lady she typically appeared — and the swarm of sub-hornets driven into a frenzy by the queen's fury descended upon Fremain simultaneously.
His gaunt frame was swallowed by the tide of insects.
With a repulsive fluttering of wings, a black object in the shape of a man materialized in an instant.
"..."
Isla maintained her silence at the sight.
Then, from its very center, an explosion erupted simultaneously with a towering column of fierce flame.
"I see...! Kihihi! Still, this is just perfect — not like we've been short of things to burn around here. I'll give you winged vermin the grand immolation you deserve!"
The figure that emerged was Fremain.
The flames wreathing his body swelled with even greater intensity, scorching away the sub-hornets that had rushed at him.
The creatures shrieked their death agonies — a piercing, shrill keening — as they crumbled to ash and vanished. Fremain watched with a cruel sneer.
"By all means, do come in. I've nothing against a spirited gentleman. That said, since I am your opponent, I do expect you to lead me along with some gentleness."
Queen Isla, too, returned his mocking smile.
A rondo of abominations wielding absolute power was about to begin.
………
……
…
"Your Majesty... what are you thinking about?"
"Is there anything we can help with?"
"No... it's just something small."
In the city of Mynoghra — seated in a rocking chair that swayed gently in a square nestled among the tangled trees of the winding streets — Takuto had his thoughts interrupted when two young girls peered into his face.
Their names were Mearia and Caria.
The Elful sisters assigned exclusively as Takuto's attendants.
Normally during an emergency all non-combatants would be gathered in one place for evacuation, but the two, having been ordered to serve as his handmaidens, repeatedly refused instructions and instead accompanied Takuto like this.
They spoke of fulfilling their duties as handmaidens, but the constant bustle of his orders across the field left no opportunity to insist further, and with escort soldiers present anyway, the matter was left unsettled and their accompaniment tacitly permitted.
"An SLG character versus an RPG character—the SLG is overwhelmingly advantaged. Especially Eternal Nations, its setting is absurd to begin with, so if we go by game logic, that power gap is only natural..."
Alternating his gaze between their two faces, he looked up at the sky and groaned.
That gesture made the twin girls tilt their heads in puzzlement.
"Ugh..."
What drove Takuto into this sea of thought, what had been making him groan since earlier, was a single nagging doubt.
He was overlooking something.
That groundless, faint anxiety lingered in his chest like a hard knot.
The power gap was overwhelming...
The world setting of Eternal Nations, with its cataclysmic events, colossal weapons that pierce the sky, and armies numbering in the tens of thousands, versus Brave Questus, an adventure-based setting where magic at most reached the individual level—the scales were fundamentally different.
He had exercised maximum caution given the visitors were from an RPG, but upon investigation, the threat level was manageable.
From Ice Rock's combat capability, the Demon Lord's and the other Four Heavenly Kings' true strength had already been deduced.
With Mynoghra's current state, defeat was possible if they didn't lower their guard. The only remaining concern—the barbarians of unknown origin—could be considered handled if interpreted as typical RPG-style monster summons or spawns.
Yet the sense of unease wouldn't fade.
A sensation like a small bone lodged in his soul, a fear akin to that, had been ringing alarms deep within his heart since earlier.
He re-examined the situation of all operations and scrutinized the information of his subordinates.
Atou and Elder Mortar had already finished crushing the enemy legions and had moved on to the cleanup operation.
The Gears Defense Force was garrisoned within Mynoghra's city, escorting civilians and dealing with any enemy units that slipped through.
Isla and her Insect forces were handling the Mynoghra invasion, and even after analyzing the current situation, their chances of defeating their leader, one of the Four Heavenly Kings, were essentially zero. It was also hard to imagine her making some foolish blunder.
No matter how he looked at it, he couldn't figure out what was causing this strange sense of unease.
"A gut feeling, maybe? Do you two sense anything off?"
Trapped in an indescribable premonition, he asked the two girls who attended him, clinging to them for reassurance.
Cair and Mearia. The two attendants exchanged glances at his words, then shook their heads in unison with troubled expressions.
=Eterpedia===
"Devour"
- Recover 10% of a unit's HP for each enemy defeated.
"Parasitic Oviposition"
- Each time attacking a living unit, there is a low chance of inflicting the "Parasitic" skill.
Units afflicted with this skill become uncontrollable, then after a set period give birth to spawn before ceasing to exist.
※Exclusive skill of "Isla, Queen of All Insects"
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