Became the Queen of the Legion

“Lord Baren, we’ve already destroyed two of their nests. It’s a considerable achievement, so let’s return and regroup for now.”

“Are you satisfied with just this much? The nests of theirs that we destroyed, didn’t you think there was something strange about them? You idiots. Look around carefully.”

Baren, the leader of the Gargoyles who had landed on the ground to catch their breath and recover, frowned at his subordinate’s words.

But his subordinates genuinely looked like they didn’t understand what the problem was.

Looking around, the enemy nests that had been devastating the area with their carpet bombing were completely demolished.

All that remained were enemy corpses and the debris of destroyed nests. No matter how hard they looked, it was difficult to find anything strange.

“These nests are half-nests! They’re just temporary shelters made for eating, I’m telling you!”

Baren pounded his chest as if frustrated. In fact, this was one of the simple nests used as a base, which only served to secure and produce nutrients without breeding facilities.

Baren, with his keen eye, had already recognized this difference. No matter how much they searched the nests, there were no eggs or offspring that would produce monsters.

“Destroying places like this for a hundred or a thousand days won’t mean much. We need to kill the queen who lays the eggs and where those eggs are. If we don’t do that, we can’t win against them.”

They were already aware that the enemy they were facing was different from ordinary creatures.

No matter how many they kill, there’s no end. Like disgusting swarms of pests. If so, the most effective method is to eliminate their nests. And not these temporary nests, but to destroy the real nests where eggs and offspring are raised.

“If we retreat like this, it’s meaningless. While we’re gleefully patting ourselves on the back for destroying a few meaningless nests like this, they will continue to multiply and swarm into our territory in even greater numbers.”

Baren strongly insisted that they needed to destroy the nests. As his words weren’t wrong when you listened to them, his subordinates couldn’t bring themselves to stop him.

Moreover, they weren’t just fighting to earn military achievements. They were all convinced that if they didn’t fight now, they would lose everything, including their territory, to the incoming enemies.

So this wasn’t a war. It was a competition for survival. The moment they feel their limits, get tired, or give up, they can only die.

“Let’s go! Let’s go and establish a more certain achievement and return proudly!”

In the end, Baren took off again with his subordinates. It was to find and destroy a truly meaningful nest.

“Lord Baren! I think we’ve found it. It’s a nest of particularly large ones!”

“These bastards, they were hatching eggs in cities above a certain size after all! Don’t leave even one behind!”

Indeed, the additional nest they discovered was different from the nests they had encountered so far.

Unlike the base nests built at village level, the nests established in walled cities were in the process of growing new soldiers in real-time from eggs spewed out by artificial wombs. Everyone who actually confirmed where the endless swarms of enemies were being produced turned pale.

“Attack!”

Baren, gritting his teeth, immediately gave the attack order to his soldiers. Although the nest was protected by city walls that once defended against enemies, for Gargoyles who could freely fly in the sky, walls were meaningless from the start.

‘No turrets, and none of those disgusting bats. Then it’s certainly possible…!’

The magic turrets, the city’s defense system, were naturally damaged and abandoned, and the flying combat troops mass-produced to catch Gargoyles were also not nearby at the moment.

Not even having many defensive troops, the nest’s defense power converged to zero.

Certain of this, Baren immediately charged fiercely across the sky with his subordinates.

“Huh…?”

It was then that what they thought was nothing, mere biological tissue scattered throughout the city that was just part of the nest, suddenly split open and began to shoot something.

[Nepenthes successfully shot down enemies in its first battle]

“It’s effective as expected.”

The Queen, who had been keeping the Nepenthes on standby without activating them until the enemies charged in first, smirked at the sight.

The bullets of poison gas, fired all at once after holding back, burst in mid-air, scattering strong acidic poison everywhere and spreading poison gas.

The Gargoyles, who had good mobility but were relatively weak in durability, couldn’t withstand the poison gas.

“—!”

They inhaled the poison gas, became intoxicated, lost balance and fell, screaming as their wings and bodies that directly contacted the poison liquid melted helplessly. Only the warriors who could enhance their bodies by drawing up magic power could barely endure. But even warriors couldn’t hold out to the end while being one-sidedly pummeled.

In an instant, part of the sky was dyed with thick poison gas, and the Gargoyles desperately flapped their wings to escape the poison gas rather than fight.

Amidst this, the Nepenthes’ bombardment continued. In this urgent situation, Baren, who had drawn up magic power to push back the poison gas, was speechless with shock.

‘How can this be. Did they anticipate our coming and prepare in advance?! In all those many nests?’

While their approach was blocked by the Nepenthes’ bombardment, numerous flying combat troops were gathering in formation and approaching from far away.

For the Gargoyles, who were floundering helplessly due to the unexpected anti-air fire, it was impossible to overcome the enemies who were charging in ferociously without hesitation.

“Re-retreat! Retreat! We must return alive at all costs!”

Baren, who had barely managed to cut down one charging flying combat troop, instinctively felt that this news must be reported. If defensive facilities started appearing in the nests, all calculations and strategies would have to be redone.

‘What a pity.’

The Queen clicked her tongue, watching the few Gargoyles that ultimately escaped.

If she had annihilated them all, she could have maintained security, but that ultimately failed.

Of course, she knew how difficult it is to completely annihilate the opponent without leaving a single one as the scale of battle grows, so she ended it with just feeling regretful.

* * *

“Have you heard the news brought by the Gargoyles who returned alive? Those bastards are getting stronger as time passes. We must not give them more time. Even if it’s impossible to push them back at once, we must reduce their nests as much as possible!”

“Let’s do that. Let’s move now while the enemy’s main force is trampling the last remaining Lamia territory!”

Now, the devils pouring in from the north had become a true threat to the lords of the area. It was no time to test the waters or try to gain a little more profit.

If nothing else, everyone agreed that they needed to eliminate the madly proliferating nests. Their plan was for all territories in the area to raise armies simultaneously and attack from all directions to eliminate the enemy nests.

“Ludas! Is there still no contact from him?”

But there was one thing that irritated the neighboring lords gathered in one place. It was the Hobgoblin Lord Ludas.

“Isn’t it a bit strange? These crazy monsters attacking everywhere indiscriminately, yet they’re not touching Ludas’s territory, which has the most points of contact with their main base!”

“It is suspicious. Something’s off.”

The seeds sown by the legion troops, who thoroughly ignored Ludas’s territory and started attacking the surrounding small territories first, were finally blooming.

They began to gradually suspect Ludas.

At the very least, unless he knew something, it didn’t make sense for the enemies to not touch only Ludas’s territory.

Someone mentioned that the first to be attacked by the devils was a small city belonging to Ludas’s territory, but it didn’t receive much response.

“Whether Ludas’s territory is related or not! It’s already too late. Ludas must explain. And he must join hands with us to kill those bastards.”

If he’s in league with the devils, that’s the biggest problem. If he knows how to avoid being attacked by the devils, that’s also a problem.

As time passed, the atmosphere in the conference hall continued to criticize Ludas and the Hobgoblins.

「It must all be that bastard’s scheme」

「Meticulous bastard, did he skip the Hobgoblin territory from the start solely for this moment?」

There were some who noticed that all this was the devils’, that is, the Queen’s strategy.

However, this was only possible because they recognized that the devils were beings like themselves, and since there was no way to prove this to the local lords, they couldn’t strongly assert this opinion.

「The handle of the knife is ultimately in the hands of that Hobgoblin Count」

For them, all they could do was hope that Ludas would seriously recognize the current situation and acknowledge it as a calamity that would devour the world, not as a tool to strengthen his hegemony.