-33- Pressure

If the fact that an Aberrant had come calling without launching a surprise attack was already strange enough, then the sight of one opening its mouth and speaking human language was nothing short of a thunderbolt from a clear sky.

It spoke the language of the Black Tide, and its pronunciation was strange. Rosalind, who knew only a little of the tongue, found it difficult to follow, but the shock was no less overwhelming.

“Y-you... how can you speak?”

Yvette seemed to realize something. “Have you recovered your memories from when you were human?”

“After the third... evolution was complete... I was able to see some... fragments of information... left behind in my brain...” As the Double-Bladed Demon spoke, its tone gradually became smoother, as though it were slowly rediscovering how to speak like a human.

Then, seeing Rosalind’s nervous expression as she hesitated to speak, the Double-Bladed Demon almost laughed again. But when it noticed Yvette standing beside her with an expressionless face, it restrained the impulse.

“I knew long ago... where you lived... The Broodmother factions... know as well... so none of them... will come near... Yesterday, I was only testing... your strength...”

Testing them presumably referred to the surprise attack it had launched against Rosalind the previous day...

The Broodmother factions? That must mean the two sides fighting in the Gray Harbor War... But why did it sound as if it was deliberately distancing itself from them?

Yvette pondered this while Rosalind hid behind her teacher. Drawing on the conversational skills she had learned in her dreams, she asked, “Are you still human? And what do you mean by a Lord?”

“I can only see... a few memories and bits of knowledge... I am different from those other three-stage... stupid dogs... I possess more intelligence than they do... and a body stronger than a human’s... I am a higher life-form, without limits... a perfect organism.”

This time, the Double-Bladed Demon could no longer hold itself back. It once again revealed the smile that frightened Rosalind so much.

Yvette did not suddenly strike it, however.

It was clear that this creature sharply distinguished itself from the other Aberrants. It called itself a perfect organism, while referring to all other third-stage Aberrants as stupid dogs...

Considering that its knowledge came from its memories of being human, did this mean that humanoid Aberrants were more likely to acquire knowledge and intelligence upon reaching the third stage?

Yvette contemplated the possibility.

After a pause, the Double-Bladed Demon continued, “A Lord... is the fourth stage of evolution... Once one is born... it becomes the ruler of the island... At that point, the best outcome for me would be... losing my freedom... The worst would be... becoming nourishment... And your existence... is too great a threat. You will certainly be eradicated...”

“Why are you the only one who came to us to propose cooperation? What about the other third-stage Aberrants?” Yvette asked.

“They are all stupid dogs. They cannot communicate, and they know nothing... Those who know the truth are all slaves of the Broodmothers, creatures that completed their evolution only through the Broodmothers... My evolution relied solely on myself.”

By this point, the Double-Bladed Demon’s once-awkward speech had become far more fluent. Its words were also unmistakably filled with intense superiority.

The Broodmothers could help Aberrants evolve, but the price was submission to their control...

The Double-Bladed Demon had reached the third stage through its own strength, and had thus become a lone wolf among the Broodmother factions.

Yvette understood the implication hidden within its words, yet another question arose.

“After a Lord is born, will it be the Lord who controls you, or the Broodmother? Or are the two one and the same?”

“When a Broodmother is first born, it is very weak. It chooses one... collaborator to become the Nestmaster... There can be only one Nestmaster... It cannot be replaced unless it dies, and it is not controlled by the Broodmother... Only a Nestmaster can evolve into a Lord.”

“I see.”

That must mean that the Broodmothers had no power in their early stages and needed external investment in order to grow. That was the role of the Nestmaster: one who entered into some kind of contract with the Broodmother and formed a symbiotic relationship with it.

Once the Broodmother matured, it would repay the Nestmaster by helping it evolve into the fourth-stage Lord and establish an Aberrant faction.

“How are Broodmothers born?” Yvette asked.

“I don’t know.”

This time, the Double-Bladed Demon answered with surprising bluntness. Then it added, “...Luck.”

“Do you know where the first Aberrant creatures came from when the apocalypse descended?” Yvette asked again.

This time, the Double-Bladed Demon did not even answer. It merely shook its head and looked at her in silence.

Although a gigantic white compound eye could not truly possess a gaze, its humanlike facial structure nevertheless conveyed a wordless response:

How would I know?

When it saw that neither of them had any more questions, the Double-Bladed Demon curled its lips into another smile.

“This information... is my show of sincerity... The Decaying Forest between the mountains is where the Lord will be born... The Nestmaster has already begun evolving. Its war against the two nests is merely cover, meant to buy time... All elite guards have been summoned to the Broodmother’s side... I suggest you make your decision quickly... Otherwise, in less than half a month at the latest... heh heh...”

With that, its four wings trembled faintly. It transformed into a blurred shadow, silently merged into the darkness, and vanished without a trace.

...

The next morning, Rosalind came downstairs after a sleepless night, two dark circles beneath her eyes. She found that her teacher had already risen early.

The place was, at best, a makeshift animal pen, containing several wild creatures her teacher had captured.

In the faint morning light, Yvette sat quietly beside a crude wooden table, her shadow stretching long behind her. She held a slender syringe in her hand. A murky liquid swayed faintly within the glass tube as she carefully pushed it beneath the skin of a gray rabbit.

Rosalind did not disturb her. She knew her teacher was conducting an experiment.

Ever since developing the spell known as the Regeneration Pump three years earlier, her teacher had been studying how to use the phantom heart to filter Aberrant factors from the body, creating a means of saving those infected by Aberration.

Unfortunately, because the properties of the factors remained poorly understood, the necessary knowledge was far too advanced. On top of that, Yvette herself was rather excessively lazy. She conducted an experiment only every few days, and each session lasted barely an hour or two.

As a result, the optimization of the vast Regeneration Pump had remained stalled for three years, with almost no progress.

There had been nothing wrong with taking things so leisurely before. For a powerful mage who had lived through countless ages, what was there that could not wait until tomorrow?

But after witnessing the battle the previous day, and receiving the visit from the Double-Bladed Demon that night, Yvette had unexpectedly stopped sleeping in and begun experimenting first thing in the morning.

That alone suggested how much pressure the Lord about to be born in the Ish Mountains had placed upon her.

Rosalind tiptoed into the kitchen, tied on an apron, and began preparing breakfast. When she placed the warm dishes beside her teacher, she noticed a strange expression appear on Yvette’s face.

“How is it going, Teacher?” Rosalind asked.

“I have a lead.”

Yvette let out a breath of relief. “My staying up all night to study this wasn’t in vain.”

“You researched it all night?” Rosalind asked in surprise.

“Yes.”

“So once you get serious, you really are a genius, Teacher.”

Rosalind smiled.

Was she implying that I had been too much of a slacker before?

Looking at the angelic smile on the girl’s face, Yvette felt a little suspicious.

After breakfast, the two of them set out once more. They could almost be said to have circled the Ish Mountains at the center of Ish Island.

They departed from Ish City in the far south, traveled to Gray Harbor City in the northwest, passed through scattered ruins of towns, continued to Luya City in the far north, and finally took the eastern ring road southward, returning to Ish City.

The entire journey took a day. The magic vehicle’s energy panels were completely drained, and it relied entirely on Yvette’s nearly six hundred and fifty points of magical reserves for recharging.

During the journey, they mainly observed several battlefields from the outskirts.

First, they confirmed that the Ish Mountains were indeed waging war against both the Gray Harbor and Luya factions at the same time.

Second, among the Tideworm armies fighting Gray Harbor, there were no third-stage Aberrants leading them. The Tideworm army fighting Luya, however, was led by a third-stage canine Aberrant. They did not know whether it had been deliberately sent out merely to put on a show of strength.

At last, while returning along the ruins of the eastern ring road—which stretched for a full hundred and fifty kilometers—they encountered the Double-Bladed Demon once again as they gazed toward the Ish Mountains in the distance.

It flew beside their vehicle and gave a low chuckle.

“Heh heh... By now, you should know... that I did not lie to you...”

We never confirmed that everything you said was true...

Rosalind was just about to say so when the Double-Bladed Demon continued:

“I truly am the wisest perfect organism...”

For a moment, master and apprentice fell silent.

They had no way to refute it.

While observing the battles in Gray Harbor City and Luya City, they had both attempted to communicate with the third-stage Aberrants and Broodmothers belonging to the two factions. Perhaps because those creatures lacked human brains, however, they had behaved little differently from wild beasts.

They could not speak a word of human language, nor understand the gestures of sign language. All they could do was repeatedly hiss, and attack the moment anyone drew near.

In that respect, as a humanoid Aberrant, the Double-Bladed Demon truly was far superior.

At the very least, it could communicate.