Became the Queen of the Legion

“Wh-what is this.”

What I vomited on the floor wasn’t just simple vomit.

Those black, viscous things were, disgustingly, wriggling slightly.

[It’s the player’s passive skill, Omnipotent Cells]

The system message explained it as a passive skill to satisfy my curiosity.

Passive skills are unique abilities possessed by players.

It’s thanks to passive skills that differentiate players from their kin that players can create their own forces.

And the passive skill of the Black Death Worm player, which no one in this world would have known about, was none other than a kind of omnipotent cell that could grow into anything.

‘The cells are dividing.’

I watched with a blank face as the cluster of cells I had vomited rapidly divided and increased dramatically.

Growing as fast as if on fast-forward, it became a biological tissue about the size of a bicycle.

The overall shape looked like a giant egg sac.

“From now on… breed in here.”

Intuitively realizing what this was, I bit my lip with a distorted face.

An artificial uterus for creating and growing eggs outside the body. That’s exactly what this was.

When I gave the order, the Black Death Worm male that had been standing by quietly slowly moved and began mating with that giant egg sac.

Unable to bear watching it, I tightly closed my eyes and turned my body away.

[It seems you’ve fully understood the passive skill]

At the same time, as the skin tissue of my naked body gradually changed and a shell that looked like black leather grew to cover my body, the system message hit the nail on the head.

That was correct. Right now, I was gradually realizing the abilities I had as the queen of the Black Death Worms.

The ability to transform the cells of my body at will was also one of them.

“…I’ll use the remaining 2 trait points.”

Gritting my teeth, I opened the trait page again.

There’s no time to deny and be angry anymore.

If I’m not going to bash my head against the wall and die like this, if I want to resolve the resentment of why this happened to me, it’s time to do what I can one by one.

“Consciousness Enhancement and Physical Enhancement.”

In my opinion, Reproduction Enhancement seemed good enough to leave at this level for now. Because countless Black Death Worm eggs were growing in the artificial uterus that the male had messily played with.

Instead, I turned my attention to the other two traits.

Black Death Worms are the lowest creatures in the demon realm ecosystem.

Of course, the power of the swarm together is quite strong, but after all, bugs are bugs.

This is the demon realm. It’s one of the highest difficulty civilizations where gigantic demonic beasts that could appear in myths fill the land and sky, and vicious demon races carve out their own forces and live waging war every day.

To survive as the queen leading the Black Death Worms in such a place, I needed stronger power.

“For now… I’ll just raise both.”

After pondering, I just evenly invested 2 points to enhance both consciousness and body by 1 level each.

There’s no such thing as a wasted trait in this game anyway. There are only optimal routes for the goal I’m aiming for.

But not knowing such optimal routes now, there was no need to concentrate on just one.

「Consciousness Enhancement 1」

“Ugh…”

At first, I didn’t understand the term ‘Consciousness Enhancement’.

However, holding my head, I frowned at the strange and bizarre feeling that I dared not express in any language I knew.

I could hear a little more clearly. I could feel a little more clearly.

Consciousness meant the consciousness itself of the Black Death Worms that I could control as queen.

What they want, what they’ve seen, and so on.

What had felt like just animal instincts now seemed clearer, as if the resolution had been increased.

‘Don’t tell me if it goes on like this…!’

The moment I understood that, fear struck me. What if I completely assimilate with them if I keep enhancing consciousness like this?

「Physical Enhancement 1」

But I can’t stop here.

Now that I’ve fallen into this world with this body, this is the only path left for me.

“Ugh…”

The moment I chose Physical Enhancement by using another trait point despite my fear, a strong sense of discomfort began to spread throughout my body.

My eyes opened wide involuntarily and my limbs trembled.

And gradually, pieces of skin began to fall off my body like dead skin.

I instinctively realized this was molting.

“Don’t tell me the entire swarm molted?”

[Traits enhanced by characteristics are applied to everyone in the force]

The pieces of dead cells fallen on the floor weren’t just mine.

Other Black Death Worms also molted voluntarily, gaining a body that was one step stronger. The first enhancement was the exoskeleton.

The characteristic black exoskeleton became slightly harder compared to the previous Black Death Worms.

Of course, I’m not sure how hard it is. The knowledge I had as a newborn queen didn’t have anything to compare it to.

To begin with, are there even any Black Death Worm swarms ‘evolving’ like us right now?

‘One male and fifty workers.’

How many individuals were in the force, the swarm that I could rule as queen, was one of the pieces of information that naturally came to my mind.

If I close my eyes and concentrate, I connect with the minds of those under my control.

Then, no matter how far apart we are, it was possible to control the bodies of those with ‘my genes’ at will.

That was one of the abilities possessed by the queen of the Black Death Worms.

It’s too clumsy to call it a hive mind, but I thought it was definitely not an ability that a mere insect swarm queen would have.

Moreover, if I keep investing trait points to enhance consciousness in the future, who knows what might happen.

“But I wonder what I’m supposed to do with these modest little ones.”

Having left the deepest nest where I had been until now, I sighed as I saw the workers moving busily through the nest’s passages.

The task of the workers passing through the passages, which had minimal light thanks to giant mushrooms that glowed faintly as if containing radiation, was obvious.

They were repairing the nest, managing eggs and larvae, and securing and storing food.

They were just bigger, but their actions weren’t much different from those of the ants they were modeled after.

“What am I supposed to do with this… Ahhh! Get that away!”

At that moment, one of the workers chewed on some unknown piece of rotten meat and approached me.

Realizing it was trying to feed me, I stepped back in shock, just like when the male first approached.

Unfortunately, just creating an artificial uterus to handle reproduction wasn’t enough preparation for me, whose mind was still that of a mere human despite my appearance, to live among this insect swarm.

‘This won’t do. I guess I’ll have to make an artificial digestive system too.’

Although I was shocked, I too am a living creature. It’s clear that I need to replenish nutrients somehow to survive.

Just in case, I went to the food storage, but I ran away like I was escaping after dry heaving at the sight of strange pieces of unknown meat and bizarre plant fragments.

Regardless of whether I could digest them or not, I absolutely did not want to put those things in my mouth, chew, and swallow them.

So the idea I came up with was an artificial digestive system that would digest instead of me and inject only the nutrients into my body, like the artificial uterus that handles pregnancy and childbirth instead. I thought I could at least put nutrients made that way into my body.

It wasn’t impossible. I had already secured the ability to create artificial organs outside the body through the artificial uterus made by consuming trait points.

[Insufficient nutrients]

“Insufficient… nutrients?”

However, my body had already consumed a lot of nutrients just to create the artificial uterus.

I needed more nutrients to create the artificial digestive system I wanted.

And for now, there was only one way to do that.

“Huh, huhahah.”

Sitting down on the floor with a thud, thinking there was no way out no matter how I looked at it, I let out a hollow laugh at the sight of the workers slowly approaching.

Receiving my order, they brought food from the storage and urged me to eat, thrusting their vicious faces around me from all directions.

‘Just this once.’

Just once, if I endure just this once, I won’t have to do this again. This is the first and last investment to create an artificial digestive system.

I slowly opened my mouth towards the food offered by the giant insects surrounding my body.

It felt like something inside me was breaking.

* * *

[Achievement, Voluntary Evolution (1) completed. 1 trait point awarded as a reward]

“…Really?”

Looking at the system message, I stared with blank eyes at the giant piece of meat wriggling in front of me.

In the end, I succeeded in directly replenishing nutrients until it was sufficient, and based on that, I attempted cell division once more to create an artificial digestive system.

Now, instead of feeding me directly, the workers will throw food into the entrance of this meat lump that resembles internal organs.

And the system recognized this as an ‘achievement’.

The only way for players to earn trait points was by achieving these achievements one by one.

[However, a considerable portion of stored resources has been consumed]

It’s not that there was no loss.

Due to the unexpectedly large amount of nutrients needed, a large quantity of food stored in the food storage was consumed.

I had eaten at least several days’ worth of food all by myself, sitting in one place.

“Then we need to replenish it.”

Muttering quietly, I turned my body.

Even now, the workers are busy collecting and bringing food.

But that alone is not enough. Now that I’ve even created a digestive system, there’s no need to chew, swallow, and digest all that food directly anymore.

I can digest food much faster and turn it into nutrients in much larger quantities.

To make the most of this, we can’t live like this anymore. The days of living as mere insects at the bottom of the ecosystem are over.

I, no, we will not stop or hesitate for a moment from now on.