Her Majesty’s Swarm: Volume 3 - ebook

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A DIP IN THE OCEAN

I had conquered the Dukedom of Schtraut. It was a victory built atop countless deaths: Duke Sharon, Basil de Buffon, the people of the Adventurers’ Guild... None of these people had deserved their fates, nor had all the brave little Swarms that lost their lives in the conflict.

My Swarm feared nothing; many unflinchingly strode into certain death so that we could get just that much closer to our victory. Their lives were the sacrifices we had made. If not for them, we would not have won.

Irritatingly, the Dukedom was connected to the great power of the south—the Empire of Nyrnal—via the elven forest. On top of that, it bordered the Popedom of Frantz to the east. I had successfully driven a wedge between Frantz and Nyrnal during the International Council, but after just one country had declared war on us, a huge target had been painted on our backs. The other major power was always seeking to take advantage of the fact we were pressed on one front to attack us on another.

As such, I made reinforcing our borders’ defenses our first priority. The Swarms built walls and erected Eyeball Spires along the borders. Eyeball Spires were fixed defensive structures that automatically attacked any approaching enemy. In addition, they also surveyed their surroundings and would alert us if an army were to approach the border.

Still, Schtraut’s own borders were terribly vast. I had a large force of Worker Swarms start construction, accompanied by Ripper Swarms to protect them, but there was no telling when they’d finish fortifying the entire border.

We started by working on the border with Frantz. In my eyes, Frantz was the more immediate threat, as it had organized the allied army for the express purpose of fighting us.

Today, too, additional Eyeball Spires were being built along the border.

_Work, work, work._

For the time being, nothing seemed to get in the way of setting up our defenses. Perhaps the Popedom wasn’t afraid of us, or it thought the walls would be easy to tear down. While they weren’t easily broken, our walls were only made of stones held together by the Worker Swarms’ saliva; they weren’t indestructible.

But if it seemed like the walls might be attacked, we’d simply deploy forces to the affected location. The walls were there to stall our enemies, not stop them altogether. Between the long borders Schtraut held with Frantz and our own borders with Nyrnal, the Swarms’ forces were spread thin. That meant the enemy would have to attack our fortifications one at a time. And while they were held back by the walls, we’d mobilize our forces to intercept.

Such was the strategy I’d decided upon for the time being. As I went over it once more in my mind, I watched over the walls’ construction.

_Work, work! Build, my peons, build!_

“Y-Your Majesty?” Sérignan shot me a dubious look as I egged the Worker Swarms on in my head.

_Aww, not the collective consciousness again. She heard my chanting._

“Ignore me, Sérignan. I was just, uhh, firing myself up.”

“I... see.”

She still seemed doubtful, but I didn’t pay it much mind. After all, the border was so long that if I didn’t sing in my head, I wouldn’t be able to stay sane. Rather than building in a straight line, I had the Worker Swarms stagger the Eyeball Spires so their lines of fire would intersect.

The game had taught me that victory went to the one who made the first move, so I rarely relied on defensive structures like these. My mentality as an Arachnea player was to overwhelm the enemy with offensive tactics, like Ripper Swarm rushes, rather than go on the defensive.

Put another way, the Arachnea became much less effective if it had to focus strictly on defense. The faction was built around relentless attacks, and the reward for massacres was the flesh of the fallen, which could be used to create meatballs and increase its ranks.

Turtling with defensive structures would be a strategic mistake in the Arachnea’s case, since that would limit the rate at which it could build up its numbers and instead put the pace of the battle in the enemy’s hands. Had I fought only defensive battles with the Arachnea, I wouldn’t have won nearly as many games as I did. That made sense; the game needed to be balanced, and no faction could be invincible.

Given our current situation, however, I had to rethink our tactics. I had essentially no information on what the enemy was plotting, especially when it came to the Nyrnal Empire. The Empire had left the alliance, true, but I didn’t expect it to just putz around and mind its own business. Then there was that talk of dragons—the wyverns only Nyrnal could supposedly employ.

Wyverns were a subspecies of dragon, and I associated dragons with something very specific... which gave me a _very_ bad feeling. So far, we hadn’t encountered other factions from the game, but that didn’t mean they weren’t out there somewhere. Assuming the wyverns were just regular monsters, everything was fine. But if my suspicions were correct, and they weren’t mere monsters, the Arachnea was going to be pitted against a very menacing foe.

This was just one more reason I was focusing on cinching up our defenses. We kept a wary eye on what the enemy was up to and prepared to strike. We’d likely need to deal with Frantz first, but we had to try to gather information on both of them moving forward. Hence, yours truly was currently engaged in the rather boring task of building border fortifications.

Perhaps it had been optimistic of me to think that, given enough time, the Swarm would learn how to build these on their own.

“The border is seriously so long... I hope we have enough resources to build all the walls.”

Creating enough fortifications to cover the entire length of the border would require a great deal of resources. I had ordered the Worker Swarms to cut down trees and dig up rocks, but I was beginning to doubt if our goal was even possible.

My simple math led me to believe we would have enough for the walls and the Eyeball Spires, but some of the terrain along the borders wasn’t even solid ground. That meant some of the walls would need to be built in a twisting, zig-zaggy fashion. Given the lumber and stone we had at the moment, I wasn’t sure that was manageable…

“Your Majesty, a word?” a voice called out while I was crunching numbers.

It was one of the Ripper Swarms.

“Is something wrong?” I asked.

“Yes. We were attacked by what appears to be an enemy force. We managed to push them back, but only barely, and the enemy got away with some of our resources.”

As it answered my question, the Ripper Swarm transmitted what it had seen through the collective consciousness.

“They... came from the sea?”

What I saw was a group of men disembarking a medium-sized sailing ship and stepping onto smaller boats, which they then rowed up to the shores of a coastal town I’d conquered. Unfortunately, the town was full of Worker Swarms trying to rebuild the place and only a handful of Ripper Swarms stationed to defend them. The Ripper Swarms tried to fight back, but they were surrounded and quickly defeated.

They _did_ take down a few of the enemy’s men, though, and what few Ripper Swarms remained escorted the Worker Swarms to safety. Meanwhile, the attackers raided the town’s storehouses, stealing the resources I’d saved up to unlock new structures. After that, they fled back to their ship.

“Pirates? Seriously?”

Pirates were the only sort of people I could picture doing something like this. It fit their M.O.—they appeared from the sea, stole other people’s goods, and skedaddled.

“They were too sloppy to be scouts from Frantz. They’re probably pirates,” I concluded.

“Pirates, you say? I wonder where they came from,” Sérignan wondered aloud. “It would be challenging for us to pursue a pirate ship, but if they have a stronghold, we might be able to stage a landing.”

“This is annoying, though. I didn’t expect someone to attack us by sea.” I heaved a sigh. “We can cover the borders with all the defenses we want, but it’s all pointless if we’re exposed to the open ocean. We have to consider fortifying the shores now, too. Aaah, this is giving me a headache...”

I’d thought that fortifying our terrestrial borders would put us in the clear, but I’d neglected to consider the possibility that our enemies could simply sail into our territory. While our side was now capable of handling ships, we only had a handful of serviceable crafts.

We’d reduced all the shipwrights who could’ve built or repaired ships into meatballs, and the Swarm didn’t know how to build them. Building a fleet to patrol the shores wasn’t a feasible option.

Even if we _could_ manage it somehow, the only one among us with some knowledge of how to mobilize a fleet was Roland. The rest of the Swarm had learned how to handle a ship from him, but there was no point in trying to get them to absorb the knowledge of how to command an entire fleet.

The Arachnea was a land-based force—a fundamentally different kind of army. I didn’t feel it was necessary for us to engage in naval warfare. My only experience with controlling aquatic or naval units came from times I’d dabbled in other factions. These experiments hadn’t resulted in much success; my win-loss ratio was always dreadful compared to when I played with the Arachnea.

In other words, I was completely unskilled when it came to naval combat.

“What shall we do, Your Majesty?” asked the Ripper Swarm.

“We’ll have the Worker Swarms erect Eyeball Spires along the coastal towns and station reserve forces there. That should keep them in check.”

“Understood, Your Majesty. By your will.” The Ripper Swarm performed its gesture of loyalty and scuttled away.

“Can you swim, Sérignan?”

“Me, swim? No, I cannot. My apologies, Your Majesty...”

“I’m not blaming you, just asking.”

The Swarm were no good when it came to traversing water, and Sérignan was no exception.

“It’s such a waste, though. We’ve conquered these pretty shores, and we can’t even go for a swim.”

Schtraut’s seas were a lovely shade of sapphire blue, and it looked like they’d be a delight to swim in. Plus, it was the middle of summer, so I really felt like taking a dip.

_Is that childish of me, I wonder?_

“Do you want to go swimming, Your Majesty?”

“Yeah, it’d be a nice change of pace. I know now’s not the time for that, though.”

“If that is your desire, Your Majesty, we may swim,” Sérignan said. “You have been working so hard all this time; you certainly deserve some rest. By all means, go ahead and swim.”

“You’re surprisingly gung-ho about it, considering you yourself can’t swim. Are you sure?”

_Will she really have fun going with me if she can’t swim?_

“My enjoyment is not a factor here. I merely advised that you rest because I feel it is necessary, Your Majesty. You look quite tired, and you collapsed several times during the war over the Dukedom. I believe that calls for some repose.”

She wasn’t wrong; I _had_ been rather tired as of late. Maluk’s massacre was one thing, but the many deaths in Schtraut weighed heavily upon me. Had things played out a bit differently, the people we killed might have been our allies, and that made me feel like I’d lost a friend.

“_You must never forget your human heart_.”

I remembered the words someone had told me. It was then that I realized I still possessed my human heart... and that was why I grieved for the people of Schtraut.

Emotional burdens aside, I’d been fighting nonstop, and I had even been poisoned—twice! It was only natural I’d be exhausted by this point, even if I hadn’t noticed it creeping up on me.

One look in the mirror made it apparent that my already thin body was even skinnier than before. Maybe Sérignan was right, and I needed a change of pace.

“All right, let’s go swimming, then. And since you can’t swim, we can throw a barbecue, too. We’ll play at the beach, and we can go back to work after that. I don’t think the enemy will attack us again so soon, and if they do, we’ll just crush them into paste.”

“By your will, Your Majesty. We will begin preparations.”

_A dip in the ocean, huh?_

It’d been two or three years since I last went swimming. I was worried I might get sunburned, but that was a minor concern. Right now, I wanted to play around and enjoy myself before I had to return to the savage world of war.

♱

Soon enough, we found ourselves at the beach. The sparkling blue water showed no trace of monsters. This, along with the beautiful white dunes, made the whole thing the very picture of a coastal resort. I could never have gone to a beach like this back in my world.

“The ocean is sooo pretty!” Lysa exclaimed.

“Indeed. It’s a shame we can’t swim,” Roland said with a nod.

I was escorted by some Ripper Swarms and Masquerade Swarms, as well as Lysa, Sérignan, and Roland.

“Why are you hiding back there, Sérignan?” I called out to her. “Don’t be shy; come look at the sea.”

“B-But, my attire, it’s...” Fidgeting, she peeked out from behind the rocks.

Sérignan’s bathing suit was a rather bold bikini I’d asked the Worker Swarms to make. The white fabric complemented her pale skin and made her look very much like a mature woman. At least in terms of her figure, if nothing else.

Meanwhile, Lysa and I were in one-piece swimsuits, also courtesy of the Worker Swarms. Mine wasn’t showy, but Lysa’s exposed her back in case her Mimesis wore off and her wings appeared.

“C’mon, you look good in it, Sérignan. You’re the only one in our group who could get away with wearing something like that, anyway, so be proud of what you’ve got.”

“Erm, by your will, Your Majesty...” With that, she dragged herself over to us.

“All right, Lysa and I are going to go swimming. You and Roland can hang back and enjoy your barbecue.”

“Perish the thought, Your Majesty! I cannot eat before you’ve had the first bite!”

_You can be a real stick-in-the-mud, Sérignan... But I guess that’s part of what makes you so cute._

“Fine, you can eat later, then. Let’s go, Lysa!”

“Roger that!”

Lysa and I approached the water, dipping our feet into the receding waves.

“Ooh, it’s nice and cool!” she cried.

“This is your first time at the beach, right? Having fun?”

The two of us started splashing around, the water reaching up to our waists.

“Yes! I wish I could show this to Linnet...”

“Yeah... Right.”

Lysa’s feelings for Linnet hadn’t waned in the slightest. Linnet’s death was also the first of anyone I held dear. His death had driven me to destroy the Kingdom of Maluk and brought us to where we were today. It had also been a major turning point for Lysa.

“Is there something I can do for you?” I asked her. “You’ve been away from the elven village for so long. You must be getting homesick.”

“No, I’m fine,” she said, shaking her head. “At first, walking around towns and other places so far away from the forest made me anxious, but having you and Sérignan with me helped a great deal.”

_You’re such a brave girl, Lysa._

I, myself, was a bit homesick. I wondered how my parents were doing, what my friends were up to, and how things were going in the game... But no, I’d come to the beach to let those thoughts get washed away. I shook them off and tried to concentrate on having a good time.

“Can you swim, Lysa?”

“Yeah, I used to go swimming in the river every now and then.”

“Then let’s race. First one to get to that reef over there wins!”

With that, I began swimming rapidly toward the reef, with Lysa taking off after me in a hurry. Swimming was simply delicious, and I felt on top of the world. The contrast between the warm sunlight and the cold water filled my body with energy. All the exhaustion that had built up within me melted away.

“Aaah!” My head broke the surface, and I found I’d reached the reef first.

_I won!_

“You’re fast, Your Majesty!” Lysa exclaimed as she caught up to me.

“How do you like them apples?” I said, puffing out my (lacking) chest. “All right, let’s head back and have something to eat. You must be hungry.”

“Mm, not really.”

“Oh, right. You guys don’t eat.”

The Swarm had no need for food, though they could enjoy the flavor.

“Well, that’s fine. At the very least, it should taste good, so you can enjoy that much.” On that note, the two of us swam back to shore.

“How was your swim, Your Majesty?” Sérignan asked upon my return.

“It was fun. I just wish you could try it, too.”

“Oh, no. I’m afraid swimming is beyond me... Anyway, the barbecue has been prepared. Over here, Your Majesty.”

Sérignan insisted she couldn’t swim, but I thought that it would probably be possible if she used her Mimesis.

“What a feast,” I blurted, slightly surprised.

Our barbecue looked like a big party spread out over the entire beach. The smell of burning charcoal filled through the air, whetting my appetite. The only thing missing was the aroma of roasting meat.

“Masquerade Swarm, Ripper Swarm, you guys join in.”

“We will if that is what you desire, but it may hamper our vigil.”

“I don’t mind. The only ones who’d come here are pirates, anyway.”

Right, the pirates. Where had they come from? Did they have some hideout nearby where they stashed all their booty? I assumed they probably had a black flag with a skull on it.

In my mind, pirates were practically fairy-tale characters. I’d seen stories in the news about how pirates were a problem in Somalia, but I’d never heard about them being a threat in Japan.

Still, pirates felt like an aging concept that belonged in the realm of folklore: savage, gallant, and reckless men of the sea who built mountains of treasure, hid in secret fortresses, and fought with cutlasses. That was how I pictured them, too.

“Anyway, let’s cook some meat,” I declared, brushing off that thought.

“Here you are, Your Majesty. The skewers are ready.”

Roland and the Masquerade Swarms had skewered meat and vegetables together. We placed a mesh grill grate over the fire and laid the skewers on top. Soon enough, a mouthwatering fragrance wafted through the air.

“Are they about done?” I wondered aloud, picking one up. I topped it with a little homemade barbecue sauce and took a bite. “Mmm... Delicious. Aaah, a barbecue on a beautiful beach… What bliss.”

For a moment, I could forget about all the fighting.

“You guys should have some too,” I added.

“I shall give it a try.” Sérignan helped herself now that I’d already had some.

The Swarm didn’t need food, but Sérignan, Lysa, and Roland were all originally human and thus capable of experiencing and appreciating flavor. Sérignan loved eating meat, and she was hardly picky.

_That’s a good girl._

“Well? Do you like it?”

“Yes! It is delectable!”

Despite being a Swarm, Sérignan really loved to eat. Watching her, I remembered when she’d happily devoured the sandwiches I’d made a while back. It made me want to feed her all sorts of dishes. That was the least I could do for this diligent knight who fought in my name.

“And what about you, Lysa?”

“Yup, it’s good. Also, it’s really a whole different experience eating in a place like this.”

I’d originally thought Lysa and the elves would be opposed to eating meat, but it turned out that this world’s elves had no problem with it at all. When I visited their village, they often shared their preserved meat with me. They were forbidden from hunting down more meat than they could eat, though, as part of their belief in coexisting with nature.

Elves really were one with nature in a way that was completely foreign to people living in other societies. I really couldn’t fathom why a peaceful, wholesome race such as theirs was viewed as a savage tribe. They were content with just living in the forest, and they didn’t wish for anything more than that.

“This kind of food isn’t out of the ordinary for you, right, Roland?” I asked, turning toward him.

“No, but eating on the beach is new to me.”

Roland was originally a noble, so he was accustomed to fancy cuisine, but even he wasn’t used to having a barbecue on the beach. I was a little taken aback.

“Now, the problem lies in this very sea...” I muttered.

I had come here to keep my mind off the war, but my thoughts drifted there all on their own.

“How many ships do we have?”

“We have one large sailing ship, two medium-sized ones, and about ten merchant ships that aren’t suited for the open sea,” Roland replied.

Many of our usable ships had been damaged or sunk when we landed in Doris, leaving us with only a handful of serviceable crafts. We only had three ships capable of moving freely about the ocean, which meant searching for the pirates in these vast waters was effectively impossible.

“Can’t the Worker Swarms build a ship?” Lysa asked.

“They don’t have any knowledge when it comes to shipbuilding, so I don’t think they’d be able to.”

Even the Worker Swarms, as skilled as they were, couldn’t get us out of this one. I spent some time racking my brains for a solution.

“I think I have an idea,” I said at last.

Fundamentally, we just needed to conquer the pirate stronghold. Doing so, I realized, would be much more straightforward than I’d originally thought.

“All right, let’s eat. Once we’re done cleaning up here, we’ll get to work on our plans for those pirates.”

We couldn’t sit by and let them raid our resources all the time. I needed them to quiet down and behave... and perhaps we could further secure our shores in the process.

SPOILS OF THE RAID

“The Albatross is returning to port! That lady pirate Isabelle’s back!”

A medium-sized ship was sailing into Atlantica, the pirate haven. It was the Albatross—the galleon under the ownership of Isabelle Ismael, a pirate of Atlantica. She’d often used her ship to attack vessels from the Popedom and the Dukedom, stripping them of their riches before hauling the booty back to Atlantica.

The winds carried the ship through Atlantica’s hidden entrance. It was a small grotto hidden between two reefs—a passage no one would know how to find unless they were familiar with nautical charts of the area.

After sailing into the small cave, the Albatross dropped anchor beside a secret wharf used only by the pirates. A group of them rushed over to welcome the incoming ship.

“So, how did things look in Schtraut?!” one of them asked.

“The place is crawlin’ with goddamn monsters!” a member of the Albatross’ crew shouted back.

“All right, ya bastards, haul down the goods!” Isabelle exclaimed.

“Aye aye, ma’am!”

Her crew began carrying the goods they’d stolen from Schtraut out of the Albatross’ hold and onto the wharf.

Isabelle was still in her early twenties, but she boasted as many scars as most of her older comrades. Many pirates had eyepatches and artificial limbs, and Isabelle was no exception—she had an eyepatch on her own left eye. This wound was proof that she had seen more than a few battles in her lifetime.

A child of two pirates, Isabelle was orphaned at the age of twelve after her parents had a vicious feud over some loot. Her career as a pirate began with sweeping decks, but she soon learned how to help navigate the ship and became an official member of the crew.

Since then, she had fought naval forces from both Schtraut and Frantz many times. She’d clawed her way up to the post of captain with her skills and a hearty helping of pluck. Once she’d obtained her own ship, she’d gathered a crew of dependable subordinates and begun mingling with Atlantica’s other pirate captains.

Female pirates weren’t a common sight in Atlantica, but her short, crimson hair gave her a fiery, masculine impression. Coupled with the savage, uninhibited lust most pirates openly expressed, this made her a worthy match for any male pirate.

Anyone who _did_ look down on her for being a woman got a good, hard taste of her cutlass. Her list of victims wasn’t limited to foreign naval officers; any one of her own fellow pirates were equally liable to die at her hand if they didn’t show her proper respect.

She may have been a woman, but she was by no means a fair flower. Isabelle was more akin to a savage predator willing to slaughter its prey without mercy.

“Oooh! Ya got this much after jus’ one raid? Good work!” one pirate exclaimed, surprised by the sheer amount of spoils.

Among the loot were silver candlesticks and utensils, several different types of coins, and a number of assorted gemstones. The onlooking pirates were abuzz with excitement as they watched the plunder get stuffed into chests and carried off.

Normally, it would take months of pillaging to gather this much treasure. Piracy wasn’t easy work, as it required long waits between ambushes. Pirates didn’t often atack ports because they were protected by armies, so they usually had to target trade ships sailing solo.

Learning where and when ships like that might appear was easier said than done. Sometimes the pirates had to spend months out at sea, staving off hunger with hard and rotten food. Evading naval assaults and chasing down ships full of treasure were far from easy.

“Looks like you made a killing, eh, Isabelle?”

One man eyed the treasure with lustful eyes: Blasco Bartoli, Achille Alessandri’s right-hand man and second-in-command here in Atlantica. Surrounded by his lackeys, Blasco approached Isabelle’s loot as it was being carried off. Their expressions were all clouded over with greed as they gaped at it like hungry sharks.

“But, ah, we’ll be claimin’ this half in the name of Atlantica,” Blasco said, prompting his subordinates to shoo away the crew and grab hold of the chests.

“Huh?! What the hell?! Atlantica’s tax is only supposed to be a tenth of what I find! When did you decide to knock it up to half?!” Isabelle barked.

“Geronimo ’n’ Mauro went after you,” he replied, inspecting the treasure carefully. “Geronimo’s ship got attacked by a sea serpent, and now he’s at the bottom o’ the sea. Mauro barely got away with his life. Dont’cha feel bad for ’im? Your bright idea of raidin’ got somebody killed.”

“I don’t give two shits about that! I went through the same kind of danger to pull off this raid, and everyone else knew what they were getting into!”

“It’s all fer one and one fer all out here, li’l lady. I’m your superior, and if you ignore me orders, you’re gonna have to beat it. Your tax is half o’ what ya got this time. We gotta pay for Geronimo’s funeral and fixin’ Mauro’s ship.”

“Shit! Who do you think you are?!”

“C’mon, ma’am, just forget it,” one of Isabelle’s men said coaxingly. “Let them take their half. I’m sure the rest of the crew is angry, too. It’s not like we didn’t get hurt trying to get this loot, either.”

“We don’t have a choice,” another shipmate added. “We can’t keep working as pirates if they kick us out of Atlantica. Frantz’s navy will catch us, and we’ll be fish food before we know it. Better just give up half our loot instead... Curse that bastard!”

“Listen, we put ourselves in danger for this,” Isabelle huffed. “Schtraut’s navy is kaput, and we can take anything we want, but those freakin’ bugs keep crawling outta the woodwork. A cutlass doesn’t do anything against those things. You need at least a crossbow.”

Isabelle and her men had encountered and fought Ripper Swarms guarding the port towns. Her crewmates had tried to fend off the attacking Ripper Swarms with their cutlasses, but the blades did nothing to harm them. The pirates had only managed to defeat them with crossbows and a large hammer they’d used to break into the nearby storehouse. Even then, they had lost a few men in the skirmish.

“It’s gonna be a big race now. All the pirates in this joint are gonna try raidin’ Schtraut’s port towns. Here I thought we’d make it big if we went out there first... But then that bastard Blasco came and pulled this shit on us. I hope those goddamn man-eating bugs tear him to shreds.”

Now that the pirates knew Schtraut’s port towns were easy pickings, they’d likely rush out in droves to get a piece of the pie. However, the Dukedom only had so many resources. The country was in ruins, and its economy had come to a screeching halt, so the pirates couldn’t keep raiding it indefinitely. This made it a first-come, first-served pillaging race.

Knowing this would happen, Isabelle had made sure she would be the first to land so she could make a killing in one go, but then Blasco had taken half the loot from her. It was impossible not to get angry. She had gone out there and braved an unknown threat while Blasco stayed behind, safe and sound. How could he get half of what she had? A dark rage swirled in her heart as Blasco’s underlings hauled the treasure away.

“Hey, Isabelle.”

“Huh, it’s you, Achille. What, you come to swipe even more booty right from under my nose?”

“No, I just thought you might be upset. I warned Blasco that if he tried to take that much, you might pull out your cutlass and slice off his head. Yet he still went ahead and took half... Heh, what am I gonna do with him?”

“Yeah, that’s right. Take that stuff back from him, old man. Geronimo and Mauro might’ve gotten into trouble out there, but we had to stick our necks out for this, too.”

“No, that’s not possible,” Achille said, shaking his head. “He’s right in that we need to pay for Geronimo’s funeral and Mauro’s ship, and you’re the one who made the most, Isabelle. Atlantica’s pirates stand as one; we survive by helping each other out. If your ship were to get wrecked, we’d pay to have it fixed just the same. Just give it a rest. On this island, we all chip in.”

“Can’t say I ever saw you or Blasco pay for somebody’s funeral or ship repairs, old pal. It’s only ever the little guys who pay for that—like me. You bigshots are always too busy sittin’ pretty and rakin’ in other people’s profits.”

Atlantica’s pirate colony was, on the surface, a cooperative organization; the members helped one another pillage and gather resources. However, Achille and Blasco took a cut out of everyone’s earnings while not sharing any of their own. They paid when a pirate got hurt or a ship was damaged, but it all came from the taxes pirates like Isabelle had to pay. On top of that, the money these leaders provided usually wasn’t free of charge; it came in the form of a loan with interest.

Isabelle certainly wasn’t the only pirate displeased about this. The other pirates all harbored resentment toward this oppressive system. While the quantity of loot was going up, they weren’t actually _seeing_ much more of it. Everyone from the most seasoned captain to the lowest deck scrubber was gradually becoming more bitter about this state of affairs.

“I’m telling you to just let it go, so do as I say,” Achille said firmly. “I am the leader here.”

“That right? Fine. Whatever.” Isabelle shrugged.

“Good, good. Do as you’re told, and you’ll be fine. Work hard for Atlantica, Isabelle.” With a smirk, Achille walked off.

“Irritatin’ bastard...” she spat.

“Got a sec, Isabelle?”

“What do you want, Gilbert? You want to take some of my loot, too?”

The man who’d walked up to her was another pirate who was roughly her age.

Gilbert shook his head. “I heard you went to Schtraut. How was it?”

“Oh, yeah. It was kinda dangerous, but there’s definitely a profit to be made. Assumin’ the people in charge don’t steal it from you, that is.”

“Dangerous, you say? What, were there sea serpents out there?”

“Nah, there were monsters on the shore. Spider-like buggers. Never seen anything like ’em. I hate bugs, y’see? They gimme the heebie-jeebies.”

Isabelle and her pirates didn’t really know anything about the Swarm. They had no idea these creatures were the ones that had destroyed Schtraut, or that they were the enemies of the entire world... as well as the owners of the loot they’d stolen.

Despite being a seasoned veteran, Isabelle had one major weakness: she had always hated bugs. When she was a little girl, she couldn’t even bring herself to touch a wharf roach. Boys her age, like Gilbert, had always teased her for it.

“Right... That aside, we’ve been losing a lot of men to sea serpents lately. Achille and Blasco are trying to find a solution. It might just be their breeding season, but those sea serpents have been acting differently than usual. Wonder what their deal is.”

“Hah, bold of you to assume those vultures can solve our problems. The only thing on their minds is taking a cut of our profits.”

Sea serpents were monsters many considered to be the rulers of the sea. Adult sea serpents could grow up to 30 meters long, and they could easily sink ships by attacking them from underwater. No ship was safe, whether it carried civilians or pirates.

“Don’t be like that. They lent me money after my ship took a nasty hit. Thanks to that, I can keep working.”

“Hmph. They take away our money just so they can lend it back to us and earn more off the interest. They’re just a bunch of rotten snakes.” Isabelle was still livid.

“Well, all I’m saying is they might send you out to help deal with the sea serpents, so keep that in mind. And hey, if we catch a really big one, we’ll have a huge feast. Err, if they get the better of us, we’ll probably end up as dinner instead. Gotta love being a pirate, you know? Won’t find a more dangerous job no matter how hard you look.”

“Yeah, thanks. Maybe I’ll go get some more stuff from Schtraut before they rope me into slaying the sea serpents. Just hope no one takes a cut of that, too.”

With that, Isabelle parted ways with Gilbert. With the anger clouding her mind, Isabelle would soon forget Gilbert’s words about the sea serpents altogether.

♱

“Preparations are complete, Your Majesty.”

“Thanks, Roland. I leave command of the navy in your hands.”

I gathered all of the Arachnea’s serviceable vessels on the outskirts of Doris, the Dukedom’s former capital. The ships were operated by Ripper Swarms, and they were chock-full of them. There was one large sailing ship that could weather the open ocean at full speed and two medium-sized ships to accompany it.

“All right, so we need to figure out which spot’s gonna get attacked next,” I said, rolling out a map on the table.

There were five large port towns in Schtraut. One spot had already been attacked, but I had still set up my mousetraps along all five. There was also a chance the enemy might attack a small fishing village, but I didn’t care so much about those, as they weren’t housing my resources.

“You think they’ll fall for it?” Lysa asked anxiously.

“I sure hope so, since we don’t have any other way,” I replied, looking down at the map.

All we could do was pray that it worked. There was no telling when or where the pirates or Frantz’s navy might attack. Our strategy involved concentrating the Swarms on the front lines, bu Schtraut’s coasts were too vast for us to station all of them effectively. We had been made well aware of the now-obvious fact that mankind could traverse deep waters, and that meant we needed to secure our border with Nyrnal along the Themel River, too.

Nyrnal could cross the Themel to attack us, while Frantz might sail in from the sea. That would be the worst-case scenario. We’d be forced to retreat and set a defensive perimeter around our base at the elven forest.

For now, the Empire of Nyrnal wasn’t showing any signs of moving in on us, so our defense of the Themel wasn’t as tight. Having chosen to fight alone, Nyrnal was just as worthy of the alliance’s aggression as we were. I already knew that the Empire’s penchant for dominance created friction between it and the surrounding countries. If the Popedom’s allied army were to change course and begin something like a crusade, it could very well opt to attack Nyrnal.

_They’re just as disliked as we are, I guess_, I thought to myself. _Or maybe it’s the other way around?_

Still, we prepared ourselves for the worst, however slight the chances.

“We can’t fall back if we’re to achieve our victory. We have to keep our occupied territory firmly under our control; we must protect both land and sea.”

Losing territory meant losing resources. The Swarm’s strength lay in numbers, and letting those numbers diminish would be fatal. If I wanted to keep up our production of Swarms, we’d need to keep expanding. Retreat wasn’t an option.

“If we can just handle the pirates...”

A part of my operation hinged on the pirates’ movements. I thought we might be able to use them to stop Frantz’s army from mobilizing, which would allow us to focus on our terrestrial efforts and give us the chance we needed to grow.

_Assuming everything goes well, that is._

“Any plan you come up with is bound to succeed, Your Majesty. We will win this time, just as we have won every other battle so far. We have nothing to worry about.”

“I hope so, Sérignan. But I’m a worrywart and a coward. Thinking about what’s going to happen next makes me anxious.”

Would the Swarm grow and grow, eventually enveloping the entire continent? Or would they eventually learn to live in peace with the humans of this land and come to stop their invasion of their own volition?

At present, I couldn’t tell. Even though I was the leader of the Arachnea, I couldn’t see how I would end the war.

“Your Majesty, a suspicious ship is approaching one of our port towns,” Roland said, whisking me away from my thoughts.

“All right. Begin the operation.”

_Right. Time to focus on the battle at hand._ _If we can’t win this battle, conquering the continent is a pipe dream. Glory to the Arachnea._

♱

The Albatross closed in on yet another port town, intending to clean out its stores.

“C’mon! Sweep away those bugs and grab all the treasure!”

Isabelle’s pirates disembarked the ship and rowed to shore on small boats. Four Ripper Swarms appeared but, being outnumbered, were forced into a hasty retreat. The Worker Swarms had already evacuated.

The port town was completely deserted, and there was nothing to get in the way of the pirates’ charge. In the past, Schtraut’s soldiers would have rushed to stop them, but the Dukedom of Schtraut had been destroyed. The only ones still in this town were the strange, insectile monsters. Perhaps the bugs had learned to fear people since they were now fleeing the pirates.

“Hah! The buggers are afraid of us!”

“Run off and never show yer ugly mugs again!”

After jeering at the fleeing monsters, the pirates broke open the door to one of the storehouses. They stormed inside, hoping to pick it clean. One man pried off the lid of the crate, peering inside to get a look at its contents...

“Huh?!”

It only took a single moment. Something leapt out from within the crate, dove into the unfortunate pirate’s mouth, and latched on to his throat.

“Hey, did something happen?” asked one of his comrades, running over to check on him.

“Nothing... happened,” the pirate replied in an awkward, unsteady tone. With stiff movements, he closed the crate’s lid.

“All right, then let’s take this stuff back. I’m sure Isabelle’s gonna be through the roof when she sees how much we got. I just hope those assholes don’t take half of it away again this time...”

“Yes. You’re... right.”

The second pirate eyed his friend suspiciously as he picked up the crate and carried it back to their boat. The loot would then be rowed across the water and onto the pirate vessel, which had already made preparations to depart.

Just like the Arachnea, the pirates placed importance on speed. They always stole from their foes and quickly retreated before a navy could show up to apprehend them.

The second pirate loaded the wooden crate onto the boat and pushed off, leaving the stripped storehouse behind.

None of the other pirates had noticed that there were over 50 Ripper Swarms lying in wait in this town. That the Eyeball Spires were there but, for whatever reason, weren’t attacking them. That one suspicious man in their ranks seemed to be looking around a bit too often.

And that they had been completely and utterly caught in a trap.