4 4. Like they were never hurt

The Queen appeared, and saw my lifeless corpse.

She stood stunned. My bloodless, wounded body. Cracked open in many places, my soft insides exposed to the air. She moved closer, hesitant. She wished it was not me. Maybe just an identical looking monster, not even her daughter. She saw my flesh and carapace eaten by burns from fire that she knew I had. But she still refused to believe it, that not just one, but two of her daughters had died, all because she didn't go herself.

She noticed the glint of my fissured core nearby. Her eyes shined, and she rushed to me. She vomited nutritious goo on my core. As I absorbed it, flesh expanded from my soul. I felt the air again, then soon, I could see as well, through the new eyes of my new head. The first view I had was the face of my mother, who cradled my new head around her scythes.

But that was it, I was just a head, and Mother realized it too. She gently placed me on the ground, and I watched her as she devoured my old body. She crushed my armor with her mandibles. She slurped my muscles and flesh as if it was liquid.

After finishing my corpse, not even dust remained, she looked around her. It was still not enough, she still needed more biomass. She moved towards a nearby tree, but halted to face something invisible in the air.

"Just... a little. The... dryads... won't... mind..."

She breached the bark with her mouth-pincers, and took a few chomps of the wood behind it. After collecting enough biomass, she converted it into gray goo in her stomach, she picked my head up close to her face, tied her mandibles with mine, and regurgitated nutritious fluids down my mouth.

It was not a kiss. She was just vomiting in my mouth. Really.

My length began to regenerate, next my scythes, lastly my countless legs. In a few moments, my body was complete, as if I had not been near death just moments ago. Released from her mandibles, she placed me down.

"Come... with... me. Let's... return..."

I did not understand the words she spoke. But I knew what she wanted. The urging instincts within me desired me to follow her. The living eyes she looked at me with. I wanted to come with her. But I also wanted to meet the humans again. I never had a chance to see how they would react to my speech.

The Queen turned, and started heading for the hive. But I remained still where I am. She looked at me, patiently, but as moments passed, she began to realize I was not going to follow her.

"Why... are... you... like… this?"

I turned around. In the end, my curiosity won. Their strength, empowered by tools and armor, mere animals, yet that was not all of it. There was still so much more. The words they spoke, their changing faces, their ability to use magic, their intelligence.

I wanted to understand them. So I began to move.

"Where... are... you... going?"

Suddenly, a great weight pinned me down. It was my mother looming above me, pushing me down with a single scythe. "Come... please..."

I stabbed the soil with both scythes and pulled myself out. As soon as I was free, I ran away with all the strength that I had. I jumped on the side of one of the colossal trees, and rapidly climbed up. When I looked down, there was the Queen, still in the same place, only silently watching me.

She looked at me for a moment, in disbelief. She couldn't understand what I was doing. In her head, several thoughts, itching and biting in her mind. Left by her daughter, who she only wanted the best for. She clawed her face rapidly, but not even her own blades were strong enough to damage her armor, and she hated it. How would she punish herself then?

She rested her scythes, before walking off. She looked back at me one last time, before disappearing.

I climbed up to the trees, taking careful jumps from branch to branch, or using them as bridges to other trees. The last time I met a human, she ambushed me from above. This way, I won't have to worry about being taken by surprise.

Darkness began to cover the forest. The sun had gone, and the forest became a true labyrinth of pure darkness. But I continued onwards.

I saw something from the distance below, the erratic lights of flames. Humans moving with their torches and weapons. They were not resting.

They came endlessly. More and more appeared marching west. A raid of over two hundred men. Organized themselves by their parties and followed a heroic appearing silver knight armed with a giant great sword on his back, front most of them all. I watched far away, observing from atop a branch.

"Hey, Leon." A hooded bird masked man in black light armor called the silver knight. "Shouldn't we stop and rest? It's getting dark."

I saw them speak, but they were too far for me to hear.

"No." Echoed his voice from his helm. "The scypedes have stopped sending monsters out. They're aware, we can't risk them relocating."

"Okay... so... uh... she hasn't returned yet. You think she found something bad?"

Something of immense speed appeared from the distance. The cloaked adventurer I fought appeared, crash landing near the two on her feet, almost tripping. The masked man helped her balance.

She was covered in bloody bandages under the brand new adventuring clothes she wore.

"Hey... I'm back..." She said, struggling for breaths.

"W-what happened to you?!"

"Nothing, I fought a scypede, didn't realize it was a deviant, almost lost my face. The usual."

"Er... are you alright?" He asked as he put her arm over his shoulder, helping her walk

"No, the healers back in town are arse." She looked at the silver knight. "Leon, just heal me already."

The knight waved a hand over her, her bandages glowed. She stood up straight, and stretched her arms. "Ah, that feels better."

She started picking up fallen twigs on the ground, and combining them using her magic, eventually creating a club. She roughly bent it in half, creating splinters and cracks which quickly regenerated. She hooked it on her belt.

"Anyways. I took out a lot of them. The directions the old man priest told you were right. I noted which direction the scypedes ran to, they all headed towards the same general area when they thought they escaped me. I picked several pairs of them as remote points to be really sure, and all pairs pinpointed right..." She points in front of their path. "There-wards... so yeah, same place"

"Then we keep moving forwards." The silver knight spoke. "The other scouts have reported as well. The monsters have stopped hunting."

"So... does that mean…"

"Go scout again, see what they're up to. Look for any traps they might've laid, or if they're even really there in the first place. And... don't get covered in blood again."

"Well then, see you." She instantly disappears from her spot, leaving only falling dust.

"So uh..." The masked man came up to the knight. "Things are really going differently than usual huh? I've heard collectives usually try to trick adventurers into going where their hive isn't.

"Yes. This is too obviously trapped. There is clearly something intelligent behind all this. We must slay the demon before it does anything worse."

The knight suddenly halted, the people following him noticed him and stopped as well. "Do you feel that?"

"Huh? No?"

He looked around, and at the branches, but I was in the distance, covered by the night. He didn't see me.

"Hmm, let's keep going."

"What is it?"

"A bird, I assume."

Silent. Leaping from branch to branch high above, I followed them.