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To be accurate, they hadn’t determined an exact number of ants that she could control. There were no problems with the ones operating in the Great Liebe Forest or in the ground beneath the neighboring prairie, but if Rare wanted her invasion to expand outside of those areas, that number would not suffice. The treants as well could only multiply so much, since they had a limited population density, so Rare believed something similar was at work. In other words, what she needed was a new queen ant.

For a common ant queen, when she first copulated, she would receive enough sperm from the male ant to fertilize a lifetime’s worth of eggs, which she would store inside her body. If she were to be unable to lay more eggs, the typical reason would be that she had used up her supply of sperm. However, when Sugaru had been asked if that might be the case, apparently her race didn’t even understand the concept of sexes in and of itself, which meant that all of her eggs had been unfertilized.

When considering normal ants, queens could choose to lay fertilized or unfertilized eggs, with the latter always birthing male ants. However, with regards to Sugaru’s race, if they didn’t technically have sexes and could only lay unfertilized eggs, then either the offspring would be genderless, or they would be hermaphrodites. If these had been normal ants, then the creation of the next queen could be induced via pheremones and diet, but the eggs Sugaru laid had predetermined results. Thus, it would be reasonable to assume that it should be possible to lay an egg meant to become the next queen.

In her current skill trees, she didn’t have any reproduction skills to create a new generation of queen, so Sugaru needed some kind of breakthrough. Perhaps learning a specific skill could unlock the one they sought, but looking at World Tree, its [Root Division] skill was unable to create more world trees. Along the same lines, since Sugaru was a Vespoid Queen, Rare was certain that she would be unable to reproduce another queen-type monster. Assuming she was right, she hoped having Sugaru reincarnate into a higher class of monster would be that breakthrough.

“With the event’s increased XP, I’ve already regained what I used earlier from killing the people in the capital. I’m no longer in the red from the death penalty, so the players I fought and killed yesterday around noon put me in the black. Nice, nice, aha ha ha.”

Rare calmed herself down.

“There should be enough for Sugaru’s reincarnation now. As for our emergency funds… Eh, we’ll start saving again tomorrow.”

However, as they used more XP, the amount of XP they needed in reserve increased as well.

“Everything would go to waste if I were to die, but if I just don’t die then no problem.”

Which meant investing now to reduce the risk of her dying later.

“That said, I’ll go back to the forest for a time. I hope I can leave you in charge,” Rare said to Sieg, who had been silently listening to her talk to herself this entire time. She wouldn’t have minded if he had voiced his thoughts, but Sieg was pretty reserved. It was incredible how he had become a knight-captain with his personality; he must have been exceptionally brilliant.

“Understood. Leave the capital to me. But please take Sir Deas back with you. He is Your Majesty’s personal guard, after all.”

“Indeed. I shall call for him after I’ve arrived there. If I don’t, I’m sure he’d be peeved.”

Sieg certainly didn’t suggest that because he thought that Deas would be a pain in the ass if he stayed in the capital. Probably.

With Sugaru as her target, Rare used [Summon] on herself, returning to the queen’s chamber. The wolf pups were also there, tussling with each other. Which reminded her, Deas was originally supposed to be looking after the pups, so she had wondered what he had done with them when he came to the castle; it seemed he had Sugaru watch them. Before she forgot, Rare also cast [Summon] on Deas; he immediately moved over to the wall, paying absolutely no mind to the little wolves.

“I apologize for yesterday, for making you suddenly experience death. I also want to thank you for restoring the forest.”

<Your words are wasted on me… Sir Deas’s appearance has certainly become much more virile.>

“Ha ha ha. This is how I looked when I was much younger…”

His personality really had become somewhat obnoxious. As he became less undead and more human, his weak human traits surfaced more—or they were being resurrected. It wasn’t a huge problem, though, for now.

“You’ll become a lot more impressive soon yourself, Sugaru, I hope.”

Rare then pulled out a Greater Philosopher’s Stone from her inventory. She had left all the regular Philosopher’s Stones in the capital, but she still held onto all the greater ones.

“Now, it’s time to reincarnate. Come.”

She handed over the greater stone. In Sugaru’s hand, the vessel turned into light and disappeared, the liquid inside melting into her body. Rare’s eyes could see that the instant the stone was used, the container had turned into pure mana. Since it appeared to be an item without a single drop of magic before it was used, it must use some kind of system similar to casting spells, where the activation process generates magic.

<<Your follower has fulfilled a condition for reincarnation.>>

<<Permit reincarnation into Insect Queen?>>

<<Permit spending 3,000 XP to reincarnate into Reina Quitinosa?>>

Seeing “3,000” was nostalgic, even she had originally seen it not that long ago. It was the amount needed to reincarnate into a demon lord or spirit lord. Which meant that Sugaru should be reincarnating into something that would be on par with Rare. Immortal rulers required less XP, only 1,000, but while they were also catastrophe-class monsters, they might also have less potential compared with Sugaru’s new race.

“Spend three thousand, allow reincarnation into Reina Quitinosa. But that reminds me, World Tree needed five thousand. Going by the amount of XP needed to reincarnate alone, World Tree has the highest rank of everyone here…”

<<Initializing reincarnation.>>

After sucking up a ton of mana, Sugaru disappeared from sight. Even if Rare were to open her eyes, she wouldn’t be able to see anything more, just everything would be a different color.

“But anyway, what’s a ‘Reina Quitinosa’? Is that Spanish, maybe? ‘Reina’ is probably ‘queen.’ ‘Quitinosa’…like…‘quit in osa’? Or ‘kit in osa’? Oh, does it maybe mean ‘chitinous’? As in ‘Chitinous Queen’?”

The light show died down, and a smaller Sugaru came into view. Rare opened her eyes to take in Sugaru’s new appearance.

“Wow, you look pretty cool!”

Sugaru looked more humanlike now. In fact, with all of her wings out, Rare looked more like a bird, so she herself was slowly becoming less and less human.

“But no, she’s got all those arms, so I’m still more humanlike… At least as far as our shapes go.”

Sugaru’s face was covered in hard-looking skin, almost as though she wore a mask; it didn’t seem like she would be able to make any expressions. Her mouth was split into upper and lower halves, with each half sporting separate parts of the mask. She now had hair, but it looked extremely fluffy, resembling the head of a silkmoth^[1]. It was tactile as well. She had round, compound eyes set deep into her mask, located about where human eyes would be. Her entire body was segmented and covered in a hard exoskeleton; the closest comparison Rare could think of was a ball-jointed doll. However, that was it for similarities to humans.

She had three pairs of arms. With her legs included, she had eight limbs total. Very inhuman. And in the area that would be the buttocks for a human, she had an abdomen similar to what one would see on ants or bees. Where a human’s stomach would be, she had what Rare believed was called a “petiole.”^[2] Her legs grew down from there. Sugaru’s three sets of arms, as well as two pairs of wings, grew out of her thorax, which was very insectlike. Her bottom half seemed to be based around some other kind of arthropod.

<<A being of calamity, a [Queen of Insects], has been born. Because the [Queen of Insects] is already under the control of an existing power, the global message will be suppressed.>>

“It’s like you went on an insect part shopping spree… Well, you look awesome, so whatever.”

<Thank you very much. I feel… I feel as though I have an excessive amount of power. I see now; I can understand why Boss decided to personally take part in that battle.>

“Huh? What do you mean?”

<With this much strength, the temptation to test it out is nearly unbearable.>

“Ah…”

That wasn’t exactly the reason Rare had decided to head to the front lines, but now that Sugaru had brought it up, she couldn’t entirely deny that she might have felt that way either. In the end, she never got to try out [Wing Attack], so that still bothered her even now.

<Sir Deas, even though you now look so powerful, you are still quite composed.>

“Because I have a much higher purpose to fulfill.”

He must have been referring to Rare’s protection. As someone with so many other priorities, his statement stabbed her in the heart.

“The system didn’t designate you as a ‘special being of calamity,’ though, just a regular ‘being of calamity,’ Sugaru. Maybe it’s because unlike undead or demon lords, you aren’t naturally aligned against any particular force…? You would just cause trouble for everyone; a neutral calamity, as it were. The system message was canceled either way, so we won’t be able to find out.”

However, if Rare’s speculation were correct and the announcement had gone out, all the nations and factions with characters with that special oracle skill might spread the information publicly. This would simply result in hordes of enemies coming after her. If Sugaru had developed as originally planned in the Great Liebe Forest, then this forest may have become highly contested battleground.

“That’s not something we need to worry about now, though. More importantly, let’s see what new skills you can learn.”

^[1]: /2014/10/domesticated-silkmoth.html

^[2]: https://extension.umn.edu/insects-infest-homes/carpenter-ants

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