I think there is still something more to the story with Steve.

He seemed far too anxious. Not merely nervous, not merely embarrassed, but frightened in that particular way people become frightened when they suspect someone has seen something they were never meant to see. You know the face a child makes after breaking a plate and trying to hide the shards from their mother, only for her to find them anyway—and instead of scolding him immediately, she simply stares, waiting, pressing down on him with silence until the truth begins to crawl out on its own?

That was exactly the face Steve had.

The face of someone who knew he had done something wrong and was terrified of being found out.

I did not know what it was. Honestly, I was not even sure I wanted to know. Whatever he had done could only be one of two things: something stupid for the good of the hive, or something dangerous for the good of the hive.

And even if I did try to uncover exactly what he had done, now was not the right time. I needed to focus on establishing the camp, reinforcing our security, and expanding our food production line. Not chasing after whatever nonsense my children were doing behind my back while I was busy trying to keep everyone alive.

Something that would help immensely was a safer, more stable way to recharge mana crystals.

Crystals were an essential part of our routine. They were still the safest method of powering magical structures, replenishing a troop’s energy, or storing mana in a way that could be used steadily. The problem was that recharging them was both dangerous and costly. Roughly a third of the energy sent into the crystals was lost during the process, and what did accumulate inside them still damaged their internal structure, slowly compromising their viability.

Nobody wanted mana crystals shattering and exploding in their face. Nobody wanted expensive machinery destroyed because a crystal destabilized at the wrong moment. So if I could find a way to safely transfer the energy captured by the [Aura Mana Node] into those crystals, it would become imperative for the hive’s survival.

The “safest” method we had so far was to inject that life energy directly into a large body of [Life Drops], then immerse the crystals in the mana-saturated mixture and leave them there to absorb the energy over several days. The problem was obvious. It required a large structure, as well as an absurd quantity of [Life Drops], which, frankly, were not exactly an abundant resource. Not to mention that, although more stable, the process was painfully slow. The crystals had to remain submerged for days, gradually absorbing the magical energy suspended within the liquid before they could recharge properly.

And we did not have the time to wait days for viable mana crystals.

That had pushed me toward other, more ambitious projects. One of them was a rechargeable mana battery, which was not exactly impossible, but the technology we had so far was still extremely crude. The batteries we could make were not only expensive, but also had absurdly short lifespans. Short enough that their high mana capacity simply did not justify the cost during a period of scarcity like this.

We were also working on the possibility of connecting everything through cabling, with magical energy serving as a variant of the “electricity” that powered our structures. The largest issue with that was how difficult it was to implement all the necessary systems and objects for such a root network, especially when the roots themselves had an expiration date.

That was one of the great weaknesses of working with plant matter. Everything had a relatively short lifespan. Life energy flowing through the roots significantly extended their usefulness, but that same energy also wore them down, slowly degrading the organic cables from the inside and turning maintenance into a logistical nightmare.

Still, we were already heavily invested in using that root system to power our magical structures, so we had begun investing just as heavily into researching it. I had even made an exception and allowed the magic club to operate in conjunction with the construction club to create the “Lifeline Club,” a group dedicated to the maintenance, research, and development of everything related to magical energy cabling technology.

It did not take long for us to encounter a serious problem in the cable network.

Voltage.

The [Aura Mana Node] did not generate a constant, rhythmic “voltage” of magical energy. Its output rose and fell in larger or smaller pulses depending on the Earth’s flame. That created oscillations in the magical lamps, and the Lifeline Club was concerned that those fluctuations would further reduce the lifespan of the cables and everything connected to them.

Which was why I now found myself standing before a table covered in haphazardly scattered materials, surrounded by the intensely curious gazes of my children.

“Alright,” I muttered, leaning over the worktable while several members of the newly formed Lifeline Club watched me with the intense focus of children witnessing forbidden knowledge. “The problem is not that the conduits cannot carry enough energy. The problem is that they carry too much energy whenever the flow spikes. What we need is something that sits between the main line and the branch line, measures the pressure of the mana passing through it, and prevents sudden surges from reaching delicate devices.”

A few antennae twitched.

One of the [Workers] raised a hand.

“So… a gate?”

“Not exactly.” I picked up a thin strand of living root-fiber and stretched it between my fingers. It pulsed faintly with greenish-gold mana, warm and slick against my skin. “A gate opens and closes. That is too crude. If we simply block the flow every time the mana spikes, pressure builds behind the obstruction. Then the conduit swells, the runes destabilize, and eventually something ruptures.”

I pointed toward a cracked stone bowl sitting in the corner of the room.

“That happened yesterday.”

The worker lowered his hand.

“What we need is closer to a pressure valve. Or, in old-world terms, a voltage regulator. It does not stop energy from moving. It smooths the flow. When the incoming mana is too weak, it lets more through. When the incoming mana is too strong, it diverts the excess into storage or releases it gradually.”

Several of them nodded as if they understood.

On the table in front of me sat the first proper prototype: a palm-sized oval shell made from layered wax, polished bark, and thin veins of hardened root. It looked like a strange seed pod, which was intentional. The outer shell needed to remain slightly flexible so it could respond to pressure changes inside the system, but rigid enough to hold the runic structure in place. Too soft, and the inscriptions would distort. Too hard, and the whole thing would crack when the mana flow expanded.

I had learned that lesson after prototype four split open and sprayed warm green sludge across my face.

The current design had three main parts.

The first was the intake ring.

I pressed a sharpened bone needle into the outer layer of wax and slowly carved a circular inscription around the entrance socket. The rune pattern was simple, at least compared to the closed-circuit inscriptions Morthak had mocked me for misunderstanding. This one did not transform mana. It only sensed movement.

“Here,” I said, tapping the ring. “This is the detection layer. It reads how much mana is entering the regulator. Not the total amount stored in the conduit, but the force of the flow at the moment it enters.”

One of the [Mages] leaned closer.

“How can a rune measure force?”

“It does not measure force the way a scale measures weight,” I said. “It measures distortion. When mana passes through this ring, it bends the inscription slightly. The stronger the flow, the stronger the distortion. Then this secondary pattern translates that distortion into a response.”

I carved three smaller runes inside the first ring, spacing them evenly around the circle.

“One rune for low flow, one for stable flow, and one for excess flow. Think of them as instincts. If the mana is weak, the regulator opens wider. If it is stable, it stays neutral. If it is too strong, it redirects the excess.”

“That sounds alive,” one worker said.

“It is alive,” I replied. “That is why it works.”

That was the second part of the device: the living membrane.

I lifted a thin, translucent sheet from a shallow dish filled with nutrient solution. It was made from treated root tissue mixed with a small amount of my own life mana. Not enough to make it sentient or connect it to the hive link, obviously. I did not need my magic cables developing opinions. But enough for the tissue to contract instinctively.

The membrane quivered as I placed it inside the shell.

“This is the part that actually regulates the flow,” I explained. “The intake ring senses pressure, but the membrane reacts to it. When too much mana enters, the membrane tightens and narrows the main channel. At the same time, these side channels open.”

I picked up the half-finished regulator and turned it so they could see the branching passages inside. The main channel ran straight through the center, connecting the intake socket to the output socket. Around it, however, were six small spiral channels leading into a storage chamber.

“The excess mana gets pushed here.”

I tapped the swollen middle section of the shell.

“This chamber acts like a buffer. It absorbs sudden surges, holds them briefly, then feeds them back into the output line once the flow stabilizes.”

“So it eats the excess?” another worker asked.

I paused.

“…That is a horrible way to describe it, but yes. It eats the excess and burps it out slowly.”

The workers nodded with frightening seriousness.

Great. That phrase was going to become official terminology, wasn’t it?

The third part was the grounding bloom.

This was the most dangerous piece.

If the buffer chamber filled completely and the incoming mana continued to rise, the regulator needed somewhere to send the overflow. In a normal electrical system, excess energy could be grounded. In my system, raw life mana could not simply vanish. If dumped into the surrounding soil, it might create uncontrolled plant growth, mutations, or another Ivy situation.

I did not want another Ivy situation.

So instead of releasing the excess into the environment, the grounding bloom would direct any dangerous overflow into a capsule containing dozens of magically modified seeds designed to absorb as much energy as possible before bursting into mossy bubbles covered in a viscous, non-flammable liquid.

Of course, this was only for emergencies. The grounding bloom would eventually break in the process, but it was a well-planned safety system that should function without problems.

At least, that was the idea.

I picked up a small capsule made of compressed seeds and wax. The seeds inside had been bred specifically to absorb life mana quickly without spreading roots or reproducing. It was basically magical insulation that could get fat.

“This is the emergency sink,” I said, sliding the cartridge into a slot beneath the buffer chamber. “If the regulator receives more mana than it can safely store, the excess is redirected into this seed cartridge. The seeds absorb it, swell, and completely isolate the grounding bloom inside a protective layer, making it safe to handle and replace.”

One [Worker] raised both hands excitedly.

“Can we eat it after it becomes unusable?”

“No.”

His antennae drooped.

“Can Carl eat it?” another asked.

“Absolutely not.”

That disappointed him even more.

I ignored that and returned to the inscription work. The hardest part was not building the shell or growing the membrane. The hardest part was making the regulator know when to change states without requiring a mind to guide it.

Runes were annoyingly literal. If I told a rune to close when too much mana passed through, it would close. Completely. Immediately. Violently. Then the conduit would swell behind it and probably burst.

So I could not write the magical equivalent of:

Too much mana → close.

I needed something closer to:

If incoming flow exceeds safe threshold, reduce central passage by proportional response while opening secondary diversion channels until pressure stabilizes.

Which sounded simple, until I had to carve that idea into a circle the size of my thumb using symbols invented by people who apparently hated convenience.

My first attempt created a regulator that only worked when the mana flow was already stable, making it completely useless.

My second attempt opened every channel at once and drained the entire line into the seed cartridge.

My third attempt hummed ominously for five minutes and then died.

This one, however, felt different.

The runes fit together more naturally. The detection ring connected to the membrane’s anchor points. The membrane’s anchor points connected to the buffer chamber. The buffer chamber connected to the grounding bloom. Each piece supported the next, creating a closed feedback loop.

Not a spell.

Not exactly.

More like a tiny magical organ made of wax, wood, and moss.

I placed both hands over the regulator and carefully pushed a thread of mana into it.

The intake ring lit first, glowing faintly beneath the wax. Then the membrane contracted. The central channel narrowed, the side channels opened, and the buffer chamber pulsed once as it accepted the excess mana. A moment later, the glow softened as the energy flowed out through the output socket in a steady, controlled stream.

No cracking.

No screaming.

No seed explosion.

Progress.

“Huh,” I said.

The workers leaned closer.

“Did it work?” one asked.

I slowly fed more mana into the intake socket. The glow intensified, but the output remained steady. I increased the pressure again. This time, the buffer chamber swelled slightly, the grounding bloom flickered, and the moss cartridge began to glow a gentle green.

Still stable.

“It… seems to be working.”

The entire room went silent.

I narrowed my eyes at the regulator.

“That is suspicious.”

One of the [Mages] tilted his head.

“Should it not work?”

“It should. I just do not trust it when things work on the first successful attempt.”

Technically, it was the ninth attempt, but that was not the point.

I connected the regulator to a small test line. On one end, a living conduit pulsed with unstable life mana drawn from one of the main branches. On the other, three delicate crystal lamps and a mana crystal waited for power.

“Alright,” I said, taking a step back. “This is the real test. If the regulator works, the lamps should glow evenly and the crystal should recharge without any damage. If it fails, the lamps shatter, the crystal cracks, and someone gets moss and sludge all over their face.”

The workers immediately took two steps back.

Cowards.

Useful cowards, but cowards. Did they not know that progress often came in the form of explosions, cracks, or ruptures? It was not the first time something had exploded in my face, and it certainly would not be the last.

I opened the conduit.

Mana rushed into the regulator. The intake ring flashed. The membrane tightened. The buffer chamber pulsed once, twice, three times, like a small heart learning how to beat.

The lamps flickered.

Then they steadied.

A soft golden-green light filled the chamber, gentle and constant. The mana crystal began to recharge slowly, very slowly, releasing a faint glow instead of the sharp brilliance produced by our conventional charger. The seed cartridge glimmered faintly, absorbing the first few irregular surges before settling into a stable rhythm.

For a few seconds, no one spoke.

Then one of the [Workers] whispered, almost reverently, “The cable is calm.”

I stared at the device.

The cable is calm.

That was… actually not a bad description.

The regulator did not force the conduit into obedience. It soothed it. It took the wild pulse of living mana and gave it rhythm, like a heart being guided back into a steady beat.

I touched the shell with the tip of one finger. It was warm. Alive. Not conscious, not aware, but responsive in the way roots responded to water and leaves responded to sunlight.

A living stabilizer.

A heart valve for the hive’s growing body.

“Alright,” I said, unable to keep the smile from my voice. “Record this design. Carefully. This is now the base model for all secondary conduit branches. No important device gets connected directly to the main line anymore. Every branch needs at least one regulator. The next goal is to make the seed cartridges replaceable instead of single-use.”

Several workers immediately began taking notes, more for show than any actual necessity.

“And label the emergency sink properly,” I added sharply. “Do not call it the ‘mana burp moss.’”

Three workers froze.

I sighed.

“You already wrote that down, didn’t you?”

They avoided my gaze.

Of course they did.

A faint notification shimmered at the edge of my vision.

 

 

 

I stared at the notification for a moment. This was my first level after my last evolution, and I had a feeling the next ones would be even harder to achieve.

“Living Tension Regulator…” I muttered. “That sounds too professional.”

One of the workers raised a hand.

“My queen, should we use the system name?”

I looked at the glowing regulator. Then at the moss cartridge. Then at the group of workers who were absolutely going to call it mana burp moss the second I left the room.

“No,” I said. “Officially, it is the [Living Tension Regulator]. Unofficially…”

I hesitated.

The workers leaned forward.

“…the Valve of Serenity.”

Their antennae perked up.

That one, at least, I could live with.

 

“Ugh, this again? Is this going to happen every time I create something new for the world? Damn goddess. Is she really so idle that she spends her time trying to read other people’s minds?”

I exhaled slowly, watching the lamps glow with steady light.

For once, nothing exploded.

That alone made it a good day.

---

 

Creating the Valve of Serenity motivated me to delve deeper into the world of “living technology.”

Everything created with life magic was… well, alive. I could not create consciousness. I think. At least, not with pure magic. The closest I had ever come to “complete” consciousness was Muck, and even then, he was more of a golem with a soul powered by life energy than a living being created purely through my own design. Creating truly living objects with life magic alone was still far beyond my capabilities.

But I could create simple organisms that reacted to certain situations, events, or scenarios. The [Aura Mana Node] was one example. In simplified terms, it was basically a “living” organism capable of absorbing foreign energy and converting it into magical life energy. It did something I could also do, but it had been created specifically and solely for that purpose.

I could also create small plants that responded to changes in temperature or touch. Even better, I could create organisms that reacted to certain types of mana, intensity, or purity. That did not have much purpose in everyday life. After all, who needed a flower that changed color according to temperature when you could simply tell whether it was hot or cold yourself?

But using that same ability on a valve that only allowed cold liquids to pass through was an entirely different story.

I could create mycelium inside pipes that reacted to temperature, sending simple signals to a wooden valve that interpreted those signals and opened or closed in response. If I combined that with runes, spells, and artifice, I could create something that closely resembled the technology of my original world, but made entirely from living organisms.

It was a little unsettling to know that even the objects were technically alive. But unlike my original world, where people could argue endlessly about whether unconscious living beings felt pain, here that was not a real question.

I was certain the items I created with life magic did not feel pain.

How?

Because they did not have consciousness complex enough to process pain, nor nerves or pain receptors to transmit it. Most of the things I created for use in living technology were closer to single-celled organisms with simple, basic functions, surviving by feeding on the magical energy that flowed through whatever object they were part of.

The limits of this technology were also… debatable.

Theoretically, I could even create a car out of living matter. I could give it a stomach instead of a gas tank and make it digest matter into magical energy to sustain itself. Taking that idea even further, I could create entire factories that behaved like living organisms, processing the matter inserted into them into valuable byproducts and controlled waste.

It was tempting.

Extremely tempting.

And also a little terrifying.

The idea of a living factory sounded like something out of an H. P. Lovecraft story, and I did not know if creating such complex living objects would truly be ethically acceptable. After all, if I needed to dispose of one of them, would that be considered dismantling?

Or slaughter?

The question was so morally uncomfortable that it made my head hurt.

The possible uses, however, were endless. And truly tempting. The most immediate one that came to mind was mining.

What did mining have to do with living technology, you might ask?

Actually, quite a lot.

Our species was not suited for mining. Of course, humans were not naturally suited for it either, and they had developed technologies to become proficient at it. But in this new world, I was light-years away from creating proper mining operations or mining technology.

The main reason was simple: I knew almost nothing about it.

In my past life, I had been more interested in biology, science, literature, and chemistry than engineering, mechanics, or blacksmithing. So if I wanted to extract precious metals from the ground, I could either wait until my children developed something functional on their own, or I could use the knowledge I already had to create something better suited to our situation.

When I thought of mining, the first thing that came to mind was a pickaxe and Minecraft.

But another thing came to mind too: a curious fact I had once read in a scientific article from my past life about a tree called Pycnandra acuminata, a species that grew in tropical forests and was known worldwide for its strange, vivid turquoise sap.

The reason for that strange characteristic?

A high concentration of nickel in its sap.

That plant intentionally absorbed heavy metals from the soil and stored them in its body. The amount of nickel contained within it could be up to fifty thousand times greater than the amount of heavy metals found in other plants. I did not remember the exact reason it did this, but it was likely a form of self-defense. By absorbing so much nickel, it essentially became toxic without needing to expend energy producing its own toxins.

The article discussed how those trees had been planted in abandoned nickel mines to absorb remaining metal from the soil. Their sap was then processed and transformed into metal.

Which made me think about the possibility of creating plants with similar characteristics.

We did not need metals.

Well… I thought we did not.

Most of what we made was created from organic materials, but that was more due to a lack of other resources than an actual preference. If we had access to more resistant, durable, and optimized raw materials, we would certainly use them instead of relying on wood, wax, and glue.

The problem was that creating a plant capable of extracting metal from soil was not easy. I would need to analyze the soil to determine what kind of metal could be extracted, then find an enzyme capable of binding to that specific metal, then create a plant that produced large quantities of that enzyme. After that, I would still need to create a self-defense mechanism so the absorbed metals did not harm the plant, and then develop a method to refine the gathered materials into something useful.

Anyway, I had started rambling again.

All of that was just a plan for the future. For now, I needed to worry about us not starving.

Thankfully, with the magical lampposts we had created, that problem seemed like it might soon be resolved. The lampposts emitted life mana, which accelerated the growth of plants and similar organisms. I believed life mana accelerated cell growth in general, which was… not necessarily a good thing.

Some plants began developing strange mutations, such as irregular colors, leaves in abnormal shapes, or fruits ripening too early. My greatest fear was that the mana emanating from those lampposts might affect my children’s bodies, so whenever the lamps were active, circulation in the area was prohibited. That was specifically to prevent someone from growing two heads or developing tumors across their entire body.

Apart from that, the plants had begun producing impressive yields. Their fruits were a little… different from usual, and Buck said that the longer they remained under the lamps’ influence, the greater those alterations would become. But as long as none of the plants became toxic, I did not particularly mind eating a blue strawberry the size of a watermelon.

---

Weeks Later

 

Where did I go wrong?

That was all I could ask myself as I stared at the bodies lined up in front of me. Tears would not stop streaming down my face. My body would not stop trembling. Something inside me hurt so badly that even the simple act of breathing felt impossible.

I could hear the hive crying.

Pain. Sadness. Suffering.

It poured through the link in a mournful melody, grief spreading from mind to mind for those who had fallen.

In front of me lay the bodies of several [Soldiers] and [Collectors]. They had gone out today as usual to gather resources from the region, but then…

Something attacked them.

We did not know what it was. Their memories before… before…

They only showed a flash of white. A blur too quick to understand.

Then nothing.

Only pain and darkness, followed by a cold, empty silence.

I had tried so hard to keep them all alive.

So why?

What had I done wrong? What had I missed? Why?

My precious babies.

I could still remember the warmth of their bodies on the day I laid them. I remembered their voices. I remembered how they played peacefully with one another. So why? Why were they now nothing more than cold, hollow shells lying on a filthy floor?

“My queen, we have activated Code Red, and the Lifeguardians are on alert. The beast this group encountered appears to be some kind of insect predator. Judging by the way the bodies were digested from the inside out, we believe it may be some kind of spider—” a [Knight] reported coldly.

“How can you say that?!” I screamed at everyone around me. “They are your brothers! Do not report their deaths as if you were reading inventory! What is wrong with you?!”

My knees gave out, and I collapsed to the ground. My [Knights] rushed forward to help me stand, but all I could do was cry. Cry for the deaths of my babies.

I wanted so desperately to feel anger toward my children for treating the deaths of their siblings in such an… indifferent way. But all I could feel was deep, burning hatred for whatever had taken them from me. I wanted to tear its flesh, grind its bones, and kill every last one of its kind.

The hatred was so intense I thought my teeth might crack from the pressure of clenching them. I was so frustrated. So sad. But I could not mourn my precious babies properly because all I felt was the urge to kill what had killed them.

“Damn it!” That was all I managed to say, my voice breaking under the weight of the situation.

“Queen Mother, please forgive us for our inadequacy as a hive in bringing you suffering,” said one [Knight], strangely attempting to console me.

“Ugh, what is wrong with you?!” I snapped, grief sharpening my voice into something ugly. “I am not grieving because you failed to control something beyond your control. I am grieving because my babies, they… they died! Can’t you grieve that?!”

“Uh—hum… Queen Mother…” one of the [Knights] began awkwardly. “Of course we are saddened by the deaths of our brothers, but… grieving for something already dead will do no good. The best course of action is to act quickly, eliminate the threat, and prevent further casualties.”

“That is not the point—” I tried to say.

Then I saw several [Soldiers] begin picking up the bodies, preparing to carry them somewhere.

“Wait.” My voice came out thin, frightened. “Where are you taking them?”

“Uhmm?” The [Soldier] murmured, looking confused, as if uncertain whether the question was directed at him. “Well… for disposal? The [Nurses] said they cannot remain inside the camp.”

The words struck me like a physical blow.

“Wh—” was all that escaped my lips. “You…”

I looked around.

Some of them were sad. I could feel that much. But their sadness was brief, practical, contained. They came to say quick goodbyes, then turned away and returned to work. The [Soldiers] and [Archivists] analyzed the bodies like an autopsy, searching for signs of how they had died, then handed them over to the [Soldiers] responsible for disposal.

“Ha…”

Something inside me cracked.

And in the next moment, the only thing I could think about was the day I learned my human mother had died.

I remembered arriving at the hospital with a box of sliced fruit in one hand and a soft blanket tucked inside my bag. I remembered the quiet weight in my chest as I walked down that corridor toward her room, already tired, already afraid, but still clinging to that small, stubborn hope that maybe—just maybe—today would be better. Maybe she would be awake. Maybe she would smile. Maybe she would complain about the fruit being cut too thick, or tell me the blanket was too warm, or do anything at all that proved she was still there.

But when I stepped into the room, what I found was a family of strangers.

For a few seconds, I only stood there, confused. I thought I had walked into the wrong room. I thought they had moved her somewhere else without telling me. So I went to the head nurse and asked for information, still holding that stupid box of fruit like it mattered.

Then came the bombshell.

She had passed away in the early hours of that same morning.

They had called me, but I had not answered because my phone was broken. All they gave me was a quiet “I’m sorry,” spoken with the tired politeness of someone who had already said those words too many times, before guiding me to the morgue and returning to work.

I remembered seeing her on that cursed metal table, covered by a thin white sheet.

She was no longer the warm, vibrant, stubborn person I remembered from my childhood. Illness and time had hollowed her out from the inside, shrinking her into something fragile and silent, a pale shadow of the woman who had once held my hand, scolded me, laughed with me, and made the world feel survivable. I must have caused her so much suffering by forcing her through all of that, by making her cling to one thin thread of hope instead of letting her rest and enjoy whatever time she had left. I made her fight miserably against something that was going to kill her anyway. I spent everything we had chasing the stupid dream that one day I might see her healthy again.

And in the end, it had all been for nothing.

I had felt so sad. So miserable. So wronged.

I wanted to die.

I remembered going home in silence, climbing the stairs of my building, passing my apartment, and continuing up to the rooftop to smoke a cigarette and stare at the view.

Honestly, the view was awful. Too much smoke. Too much noise. Too much life moving on without me.

I remembered the smell of cigarette smoke mixing with the stink of the city below, the gray sky pressing down over the buildings, and the faint autumn breeze brushing gently against my skin as if the world were trying to comfort me with the weakest touch imaginable. Below me, people hurried through their own lives, too busy to look up, too busy to notice that someone was standing above them and quietly falling apart.

All I could think about was jumping off that building and ending that endless misery.

I stood there one step away from the edge, accompanied only by the pigeons nesting along the rooftop ledge and the dead plants some neighbor had forgotten in cracked old pots. I think some part of me waited for someone to appear. Someone to grab my hand. Someone to tell me life was precious, that things could get better, that I still had a future, or any of the other empty things people throw into the wind when they do not know what else to say.

But nobody came.

Nobody cared.

Nobody alive, at least.

And still… I could not do it.

I could not jump.

Not because I wanted to live.

Because I was too cowardly to jump.

I was afraid of what would happen after. Would it hurt? People said death was instant the moment you hit the ground, but that was not exactly confirmed information, and I had seen enough death by then to know that the deaths people promised would be quick were sometimes the ones that dragged on the longest.

I had never been a particularly religious person either, but in that moment, the only thing my mind could give me was the idea of hell. If I jumped, would I go there? Did it even exist? If God was watching me, would he really condemn me to an afterlife of eternal suffering after a life already filled with suffering?

But in the end, none of that was what stopped me.

It was uncertainty.

No matter how miserable my life had become, I simply could not give it up. Even though there were no more reasons to keep fighting, I still could not surrender. I could think of so many reasons to stop living, but at the same time, buried somewhere beneath all that pain, there were still so many reasons to keep struggling.

I remembered my tenth birthday. The delicious strawberry cake my grandmother had made. The beautiful satin dress I received, the one that made me feel like a princess. I remembered dancing happily around the living room while humming to myself, surrounded by my family’s laughter. I remembered growing up. I remembered hating things for shallow reasons. I remembered being selfish, generous, cruel, kind, brave, and cowardly. I could still hear the laughter from the good moments and the shouting from the arguments. So how could I? How could I do that? How could I be so selfish that I erased all of it? My grandmother first. Then my father. And finally my mother.

All of them had been taken from me.

But they still lived inside me.

And if I gave up then…

Who would remember them?

I had no real reason left to stay alive. That was true. But at the same time, the desire to die was not truly there either.

So I cried.

I cried for days.

And I cried even more when I realized I could not afford a proper burial for my mother. I tried asking for favors. I tried borrowing money. But there was no one left to ask. No one close enough. No one willing enough. No one who would look at my grief and decide it was worth the trouble.

In the end, she was cremated, and her ashes were sent to me by mail.

The only thing I could do to honor her memory was return to our old house and scatter her ashes among the bushes she had cultivated for years. I even had to do it in the middle of the night, hidden by the dark, so the family living there now would not call the police on me for trespassing.

It had all been so miserable.

I had been so, so sad.

So angry.

So full of…

Hatred.

Losing someone important was so…

Unfair.

So why?

Why?!?

Why couldn’t they see that?!

Why couldn’t they feel the same pain I felt?

Why didn’t it hurt them?

Why was I always the only one who had to suffer?!

Why was I the only one who had to feel how much it hurt?!

Why?!

“Queen Mother!”

A familiar voice dragged me back to reality.

When I looked up through my tears, I saw a face covered in chitin armor, tall as a human man, nearly two meters in height.

My eldest son.

Hans.

I opened my mouth to ask what he was doing here, but then I saw tears dripping from the gaps in his armor.

Disoriented, I looked around.

All of my children were kneeling on the ground, crying uncontrollably. Some tried to hold back their tears and failed. Others had surrendered completely to the wave of sadness and wept openly against the earth.

The moment I realized what I had done, I tried to stop crying.

But I could not.

It hurt so much that it felt as if my heart had shattered into pieces.

Hans seemed to notice my struggle and lifted me into his arms, raising me by the sides as if I were a doll. For a few moments, I felt ashamed, but considering Hans’s size and my own, it was probably the most practical way for him to hold me.

“Queen Mother… please don’t cry. It brings me immense sadness,” he said, looking into my eyes.

And somehow, his tears seemed to change.

I had never wanted to cause my children suffering. But I had wanted them to feel the same pain of loss that I felt. Now, seeing Hans cry, that thought began to fade, replaced by a wave of immediate regret.

Just because I was suffering did not mean I had the right to force my suffering onto everyone else.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered, reaching out to touch Hans’s cheek.

Soon, I felt the hive stop crying. Some recovered faster than others, but in the end, I was once again suffering alone for the deaths of my children.

Exactly as it should be.

Hans gently placed me back on the ground, and I turned away to cry discreetly. The pain was horrible, but I was already familiar with this miserable kind of pain. I would survive it, just as I had survived before.

“Bury the bodies,” Hans said.

His words drew my attention.

Confusion spread across the faces of several [Soldiers], but before they could question his order, Hans spoke again.

“They are our flesh and blood,” he said curtly. “Their deaths came too soon. Even if they were unavoidable, they still deserve our mourning. The dead must receive a minute of silence, a proper burial, and the respect owed to lives given for the hive.”

That was all he said before taking the [Collector] from the [Soldier’s] arms.

The body was so small compared to Hans that it fit in the palm of his hand. Delicately, he placed it back on the ground, then knelt before them in absolute silence.

Everyone present immediately understood his command.

Silence fell over the camp.

Only the rustling of branches and the soft breath of the wind could be heard. Time seemed to freeze for one long, painful minute. And when that minute passed, Hans gathered all the dead in his hands and slowly walked toward another part of the camp.

He stopped at a large field Buck had prepared for sowing in the coming days. There, Hans knelt on the earth and gently laid the bodies down before beginning to dig with his bare hands. He opened one grave for each of them, careful and slow, then placed the bodies inside and covered them with soil.

When he was done, he rested his palm against the earth, released a faint sigh, and stroked the ground as if saying goodbye.

“I’m sorry. I could not protect you, my brothers. I promise I will avenge you,” he said, conviction hardening every word.

Then Hans stood and walked silently toward the nest, leaving everyone stunned behind him.

I slowly approached the makeshift graves and knelt before them.

They were small.

So small.

“Oh, my children…” I whispered, clenching my teeth until my jaw ached. “I’m sorry. I failed you.”

Whatever had taken them from me, I would kill it.

But that did not feel like enough.

If my children could leave the safety of the nest on a routine exploration and return dead, what prevented the same thing from happening to the next group? What was I supposed to do? I could not abandon exploration for resources. Not for at least two or three years. Without those resources, the hive could not survive.

Had leaving the forest been a mistake?

Coming to these unknown lands felt like a mistake. The forest had been strange and threatening, but no one had died there.

No.

That was not realistic.

We had only survived so long in the forest because we had not been large enough to be seen as viable prey by the monsters there. But on the eve of our departure, the monsters had already begun growing more aggressive. It had only been a matter of time before the deaths started.

The disadvantage of this place was that we did not have a properly established base of operations. If not for that damned human, we would not have lost our resources during the journey, and we would already have a functional operational base.

It is all the humans’ fault. They all deserve to die. Kill them. Kill. Kill. Kill.

The thought slipped into my mind, and my blood ran cold. I felt icy hands settle on my shoulders, leaning their weight against me, pushing me down. A soft laugh echoed near my ear, and I did not even need to look back to understand what—who—it was.

“Hello, old friend…” a guttural voice whispered in my ear. “You did it now, didn’t you? The beginning of the end… I told you before, didn’t I?” She came closer, her hoarse, almost cadaverous breath brushing against my neck. “You only bring misery.”

Damn it… Can’t I even grieve properly?

That was all I could think.

She was back. And this time, she did not even need me to be unconscious to manifest herself. Was she real? Or just a figment of my exhausted mind?

I had tried so hard to keep everyone alive, but deep down, I had always known that one day someone would die. This world was a cursed meat grinder that demanded to be fed, and unfortunately, we were near the bottom of the food chain. In the Forest of the Fallen, we had still possessed the protection of the forest itself, along with the advantage of living in a relatively safe region.

But here, we were exposed.

Weakened.

Easy targets for anything that wanted to kill us.

This time, it had been a random monster. No different from losing someone to an unexpected accident.

But what about the future?

Berbeken had said this region was the center of the conflict between humans and demon-like creatures, the border between two sides that yearned for each other’s extinction. And we were standing right in the eye of the storm.

Our options were not good.

We could flee again, which we did not have the resources to do.

We could fight any delegation that came to purge us, which was even more impractical.

Or, lastly, we could try to ally ourselves with the demon-like creatures, an option the hive clearly disliked.

Damn it…

What do I do?

“Die,” she whispered in my ear. “The world would be better without cursed beings like you.”

Her voice proved, once again, that she was always listening. Always watching. Always waiting for an opportunity to drag me down with her.

“Mother?”

A familiar voice called me back to reality.

It was Hans, looking at me with concern, as if he could sense that something was wrong. I wanted so badly to cry. To simply break down. But I could not even do that, because if I did, she would reap the fruits of my misery, and my precious children would suffer because of it.

That would not happen.

Wiping away my tears, I forced a small, discreet smile. I had to clasp my hands together to keep them from trembling. I felt such a powerful urge to run away from all of this, to end all this suffering once and for all. But I could not. I had not been able to do it when I was human, and I could not do it now.

Now, I had people who depended on me.

And I could not leave them alone in this shitty world.

Even if it hurt me, it was better that it only hurt me.

“I’m fine,” I forced myself to say.