Chapter 32

Chapter 32

Brightening the ship's lights, Yor lifted the hem of his shirt and studied his belly in the mirror.

He turned side to side, then called Lima over, asking uncertainly, "Has it gotten bigger?"

Lima stepped closer, his eyes lingering on the slight swell of Yor's belly for a moment before he gave a gentle nod.

Taste poked his head in from the side, with that annoyingly smug tone: "Yeah! It's a whole size bigger than before I showed up!"

Yor felt a weird pang—so it wasn't all in his head. He'd figured he'd just eaten too much lately and packed on a few pounds.

Taste kept gleefully piling it on: "The Sub-Lord's pheromones—potent stuff."

Who's to say the next generation's lord wouldn't owe his existence to him?

Yor couldn't be bothered with him. He just stared at his belly, then suddenly turned around, his expression grave: "You war bugs—how big are your eggs when they actually hatch?"

Before, he'd been so tortured by pheromone withdrawal that every day was just about trying to soothe the ache in his body—he'd never had a chance to really think about it. Now that he was comfortable, the worry finally started creeping in.

He worried the egg wouldn't grow and he'd be stuck with the gestational sac forever. And he worried it would get too big—with a body like his...

Taste's face changed too.

He quietly pulled up a photo on his terminal and projected it. In the photo, a teenage-looking Dexter was grinning at the camera.

Yor was a bit surprised: "You have baby pictures of Dexter? It's rare to see him look so boyish."

Taste said slowly, "Our fathers were both Sub-Lord-class insects. They both liked raising kids, so they teamed up and each copied an egg separately."

He paused, then pointed at the "rock" Dexter was sitting on. "Dexter was six in this picture. This—this is me, still in my egg."

That "rock" was about half a person's height, sturdy enough for a young Dexter to sit on like a stool. When Yor saw the size and shape of the egg, he gasped: "There's no way I can push that out!"

Lima looked a bit worried too. He thought for a moment, then spoke: "Yor, when a Broodmother lays eggs, she's in her true form." He gestured at the ship's cabin. "An average Broodmother's true form couldn't even fit in this room."

Yor clenched his jaw, his mind racing, before he finally managed to say: "Then... can you teach me how to shift into insect form?"

Compared to having his belly split open by an egg, temporarily turning into an insect didn't seem so bad.

"That's easy!" Taste immediately started waving his hands around. "You just... just... first you figure out where your forelimbs, tail fins, and elytra go... then... then..."

He stammered, his confidence draining with every word.

Shifting forms was as natural as breathing for the insect race—so instinctive, so automatic, that putting it into words was almost impossible. It was like trying to teach someone to breathe.

Lima shoved Taste aside. "Link your mental energy to mine. I'll try to send you the feeling of transformation."

Yor closed his eyes, and a flood of fragmented sensations washed over him—spreading himself out, twisting here, contracting muscles and elytra—but when he tried to copy it... it all turned into gibberish.

He tried over and over, concentrating so hard he forgot to breathe, his face flushed red, without feeling even the slightest twitch—only managing to make Taste and the others crack up.

After a night of messing around, Yor gave up. For a Blue Star human, this was just too hard.

He slumped in his chair, figuring that when the day came for that waist-high egg to split him open, he'd probably figure it out on his deathbed (not really).

Night fell. Taste insisted on spreading a bedroll next to Yor, taking a whiff of the faint pheromone scent that hadn't fully recovered. Yor let him.

But in the middle of the night, Taste's ear tips suddenly twitched.

He looked up at the soundly sleeping Yor, then rose quietly, slipped out the door, and followed the blurry insect silhouette above, beating his wings up into the night sky.

The outline of a starship slowly emerged above the clouds, its pitch-black hull easily reminding any insect of a lord's presence.

Swallowing hard, Taste followed Dexter, who was waiting at the entrance, inside.

But his movements were timid and furtive—like someone with a guilty conscience.

Seeing Taste like this, Dexter's anger flared up. He raised his hand, ready to give his little brother a loving iron-fisted beating.

Having taken plenty of beatings since childhood, Taste instinctively dodged a couple of times. Usually, dodging never worked—but this time... he actually dodged it easily!!

Taste froze for a second, then it clicked. He was a Sub-Lord now. Dexter was only a High-Grade Insect. This time, Dexter couldn't win.

The young insect immediately got cocky, chin lifted, and a tail tip he hadn't even realized he had flicking around smugly.

Dexter shot him a cold look. Sure enough, two seconds into his arrogance, a lord-level oppressive pressure slammed down. Taste hit the floor with a "thud," dropping to his knees.

That's when he realized what he'd done. Trembling with fear, he looked up and met Leonius's dark, unreadable gaze.

Dexter didn't dare look at the lord's expression. Gritting his teeth, he seized the moment while Taste was immobilized and laid into him with everything he had—pulling no punches, fist after fist, dull thuds echoing.

"Not the face! Not the face! Yor'll notice!" Taste curled up, struggling to speak under the hail of blows.

Dexter's hand paused, then deliberately avoided the head and face and kept hitting.

While Dexter was half for show, half genuinely disciplining his brother, Seraphiel, the domain clan's lord, paid no attention to the commotion.

The male insect, handsome as a god, was pressed against the porthole, his entire face plastered against the glass, without a shred of dignity, staring obsessively at the unremarkable ship below, murmuring to himself: "...Broodmother... a real Broodmother..."

His fingertips traced lightly across the window, as if trying to reach across the immense distance to touch the Broodmother he yearned for.

A moment later, he whipped his head around to stare at Leonius. The obsession in his eyes hadn't faded, but his tone turned bitter: "Mother actually gave you a lord offspring. Talk about extreme favoritism."

Even in the ancient days, only a lord who had won the Broodmother's heart could, after many tries and with luck, receive a "chosen offspring."

The very thought that this offspring meant Mother's focus and affection on Leonius made Seraphiel's teeth ache with jealousy.

Leonius didn't even look at him, just corrected him in a low voice: "...He's not your mother yet."

That nearly broke Seraphiel's heart: "Only because you defied Mother and made him so upset! Otherwise, I'd have built a grass cage as big as the planet Vorna by now, so Mother would be comfortable no matter where he was."

And so he could stay constantly linked to Mother's mental energy, savoring every moment of being close to him.

Leonius finally looked up: "Then resolve his troubles as soon as possible."

Seraphiel paused, dropping his playful demeanor. "Are you sure... you want to do this?"

Leonius raised a hand, pointing at the footage playing on his terminal—all recordings he'd collected of Blue Star human customs and daily life.

A family sitting around a table eating together, office workers rushing down the street with bags, young people lounging on the grass in the sun, couples leaning sweetly into each other...

"Given everything Yor has been raised to believe, being treated as a vessel for childbirth, or having to be with so many insects... none of that is something he could accept." Leonius gazed at the ship below. "He's already chosen his path. He wants to be an ordinary male insect."

And the lord-level offspring Leonius had left inside his body was the biggest obstacle on that path.

Off to the side, Taste had finished taking his beating and was now eavesdropping on the two lords' conversation. The more he heard, the more uneasy he felt: "What do you mean? What are you planning to do with the egg in Yor's belly?"

Dexter shot him a glare but explained quickly: "For a lord-level egg to be born successfully, it requires massive irrigation from war insects to the Broodmother. It's... the kind of thing you did to Yor."

Taste's face went rigid in an instant.

"Didn't you notice that after... last time, the egg has grown a lot bigger?"

Taste didn't even have time to keep resenting the Lord: "What about the Lord? His pheromones are different from ours—isn't one bug like him enough?"

Dexter shook his head. "It's not about quantity. What makes a Lord a Lord, besides being born with the rank, is that he has to receive the collective prayers of other war bugs. Otherwise, he can't even be born properly."

Just like Leonius—he was born because the other war bugs all wished for "a Lord who would protect us and lead us to prosperity."

That's also why he spoils the young bugs in the War Department so much.

But neither Taste nor Dexter had known any of this before—since they weren't born from the mother bug directly, just replicas.

Taste was quiet for a moment. "...No," he said in a low voice. "Yor wouldn't even accept me... even that day, what I did..."

He trailed off, but both Dexter and Leonius understood.

Taste took a deep breath. "There's no way he could handle that many war bugs. He'd fall apart."

Dexter looked toward Yor, his eyes full of both pain and determination: "So the egg in Yor's belly has to be brought down to Sub-Lord level, or even lower."

Taste blinked. "...How do we do that?"

"Make him hate the egg." Dexter spoke faster than usual. "Because the egg is soaked in the mother's attention, it's at Lord level."

Even someone as resistant as Yor—what he resisted was the act of giving birth itself, the fear of being locked up and stripped of dignity to have kids. But toward the child in his belly itself, he had... never felt any hatred.

Taste opened his mouth, but couldn't find anything to say.

Dexter lowered his voice. "First, we need to stop feeding the egg any male pheromones. That's also the main reason I called you here—you can't make any more moves on Yor."

Taste's ears went bright red in an instant, and even his neck got hot.

"Second, we need Yor to start feeling disgust toward the egg. For that, we'll need the domain clan Lord to get involved."

The cabin went quiet for a moment.

Choosing to give up the next generation's Lord wasn't an easy decision for any war bug.

But... even having a choice at all was already a blessing.

They had the miners to thank for that—they were the ones who gave Yor back control over his own body. If things were like before, with all his body's energy going to the gestation sac first, they wouldn't even have this much wiggle room.

No point in overthinking it. Leonius turned to Seraphiel and gave a slight nod. "I'm counting on you."

Seraphiel waved a hand, his gaze landing on the ship below. "I'm a domain bug. Where the mother's heart points, that's where the domain bug goes. If you're willing to go this far for the mother, then I should be the one thanking you."

Otherwise, if Leonius had brought the war bugs in to force-feed pheromones and make Yor give birth, Seraphiel—even as a Lord—wouldn't have been able to do anything about it. The domain bugs' combat ability was really...

Leonius looked down, not saying anything.

Compared to some so-called next-generation Lord, he cared way more about Yor. Yor's fear of him was keeping him up at night.

Mother bug pheromones, breeding urges—none of that mattered.

Once Yor became an ordinary male bug, he could stand in front of him and tell him he'd never meant to force him—whether he was a mother bug, a male bug, or... Ling Yue.

Yor had taken back the memories of those three days, but only those three days' worth.

Before that, he'd already had his eyes on Yor.

Attention, affection, and cherishing... those couldn't be erased.

Seraphiel gave him one last look, then raised his hand gently.

The spiritual sea of a domain bug Lord spread out like a soft breeze and slipped without resistance into Yor's sleeping spiritual sea.

Yor was sleeping deeply.

But he hadn't fully lost consciousness. He felt like he was floating in warm, deep water, experiencing a different kind of sensation—fuzzier than reality, but clearer than a dream.

He "saw" his belly getting bigger day by day.

At first it was just a slight swell; before long it rounded into a smooth curve, then grew into an even bigger lump, stretching the skin until it shone, with blue veins crawling like spiderwebs all over his belly.

He looked down at himself and frowned. He could feel his body getting thirsty again.

It was that familiar dryness, but this time with a scorching burn on top of it. Every inch of his skin was screaming for relief.

He instinctively looked for help, but Taste, Lima, and Herman were all gone.

Even the miners who usually greeted him—the ones who had once used their elytra to make the earth vibrate in resonance for him—were starting to look at him weird.

At first, they just couldn't stop staring. Gradually, some would stop in their tracks as they passed him, nostrils flaring, breathing getting heavier.

Later, some started following him—not too close, not too far, but never leaving.

Wherever Yor went, the looks he got grew thick and sticky.

Things kept getting worse and worse.

When he sat down at the dining table, a bug came over and set a bowl of hot soup in front of him, his fingers "accidentally" brushing across the back of Yor's hand, lingering there for a moment.

Another bug pressed up close from behind as Yor passed through a mine tunnel—close enough that Yor could feel the heat of his chest through the fabric, the bug's voice burrowing into his ear: "...You smell sweeter than yesterday."

Yor turned to snap at him, but the bug's face wore an expression of regret, apology, and restraint stretched to the breaking point—then he fled in a panic.

Pheromones at work.

His belly kept growing.

Bigger and bigger, heavier and heavier, until the skin was nearly translucent. Yor could even make out the curled silhouette inside.

That night, as he turned over, a crack split open across his belly.

Only then did the agony hit him.

It was a slit like something had cut through him, its edges clean. A hand reached out from inside—small, wet, nails not yet fully grown—yet it grabbed precisely onto the edge of his ribcage.

He wanted to scream in despair.

A figure suddenly appeared beside him. Leonius had come.

In his hand he held a slender, coldly gleaming blade. Without hesitation, he cut along the crack, swiftly extracting what was inside—an egg half Yor's height, coated in warm, sticky fluid, already split open with a small head poking out.

Perhaps because of the searing pain, perhaps because of the blood streaming from his eyes, Yor couldn't make out its face. But he heard its voice.

It lunged at him, wet little fingers clutching at his clothes, tilting its head up and speaking in a tone so innocent it was chilling: "Mommy, give me a baby."

Yor suddenly opened his eyes.

He sat bolt upright in bed, the back of his shirt soaked through with sweat, clinging to his skin, cold and sticky.

His breathing was rapid, his chest heaving so violently he could barely breathe.

He looked down, flung the covers aside in one motion, and pressed his palm against his lower abdomen.

Flat. No bump.

No skin stretched tight and shiny, no spiderweb of blue veins, no slit carved into him.

But his hand wouldn't stop shaking.

He pressed his hand to his stomach, his heartbeat thundering in his ears like a war drum.

Ringing in his head, over the pounding of his heart, was that voice... *Give me a child*...

Yor couldn't stop himself from clawing at his scalp. That voice, like bugs crawling over his skin, burrowed from his ears straight into the cracks of his skull.

The male bugs drawn to his pheromones—he could handle all of them.

Being followed, being groped, even being... forced to be filled—he could grit his teeth and take it all.

But something that came out of his own belly, still whining in that thin, soft voice, "give me a child"...

Just the thought of it made him want to throw up.

Panic hit him again.

He slapped a hand over his mouth, scrambled on all fours to the bathroom, back hunched, shoulders shaking...

Above, Seraphiel silently pulled back his mental energy, his fingertips curling slightly.

"...That's enough for today." His voice was lower than usual. "A few more rounds, and the eggs will gradually die off."

Leonius stood behind him, his iron-gray eyes fixed on the small ship's silhouette below.

*I'm sorry.*

*Sorry for the suffering you've had to endure because of the bug race, because of... me.*

*It'll all be over soon.*

...........

While the lords' attention was fixed on the ship, on a hillside not far off, inside Yor's old house, Amon paced a full circle around the room.

He tilted his head slightly, nostrils flaring.

A faint trace of scent lingered in the air, but to Amon, it was so thick it nearly burned.

He stood there, breathing deep, as if trying to swallow the air itself into his lungs, his fingers slowly curling around the window frame, knuckles going white.

His eyes were no longer lazy and careless, but filled with a painful, almost desperate obsession. "...Mother."

He looked up. He needed a way to draw the two lords' attention away.

Only then could he get close to Mother, hold Mother, own... Mother.

His. Mother.

==========Author's Note:==========

Ah, I suddenly got inspired at noon and whipped up a new pre-order, a sentinel/guide harem reversal.

Why do I always suddenly get story ideas right after finishing a recommendation list push... God help me...