Chapter 47

Chapter 47

"You've always said that the Purification Department needs a next Lord, that I should bear a child of the Purification Department," Yor said, opening his arms toward the pale male insect. "Well, come on, then."

Lima looked up, stunned.

But the Pure Division Lord, who should have been ecstatic, stood frozen, then turned his head away awkwardly, avoiding Yor's gaze.

Yor walked up to Zane and reached out to touch his arm. It was warm, with clearly defined muscles—just like any other living male insect.

He pressed his palm against Zane's chest, feeling a distinct pulse beneath his hand—steady, strong, and full of life.

He remembered the stunning elytra Zane had once unfurled—so magnificent it was impossible to look away.

The Broodmother was right before him, and Zane couldn't help but look back.

She knows... Mother knows everything... Bitterness and a hint of pleading flickered in Zane's eyes.

But Yor showed no intention of letting him go. He moved even closer, his fingers trailing up to trace Zane's Adam's apple. It was an extremely intimate gesture, yet the male's pheromones remained utterly still—as if he were dead.

The Purification Department's uniform prioritized convenience and protection over a fitted combat style, but Zane always wore it immaculately, with buttons fastened all the way to the top.

Starting from the bottom button, Yor unfastened them one by one. His movements were unhurried, but with each button undone, the air grew heavier.

Starlight fell, illuminating Zane's pale, flawless skin. Until the last button came undone... where his collarbone should have been, an ugly scar was revealed.

Deep brown, with irregular healing edges—clearly the result of being forcibly cut open and hastily sewn back together.

Yor glanced up at Zane. He was looking down, making no move to stop him.

Yor pulled hard, tearing the collar completely open.

A full ring... the scar circled his entire shoulder—the connection point between flesh and machinery.

A Lord-level male with extraordinary regenerative abilities, his entire body—except for his head—was entirely mechanical.

No matter how exquisite the craftsmanship, it couldn't conceal the lifelessness within.

Lima drew in a sharp breath. This... what in the world was going on?

Yor let go, stunned.

Even if he'd had suspicions before, he never imagined the modifications were this extensive—only a single head left...

"When did you discover it?" Zane's eyes held pain, but also a trace of relief at having the secret he'd worked so hard to conceal finally exposed.

"At first I just found it strange—your pheromones were so faint they were almost nonexistent. But what truly made me suspicious was seeing living Purification Clan insects."

Looking at what they had prepared for him—a "home," a familiar workplace, introductory courses on insect society...

Such a meticulous clan. Such a creative clan. A clan where even ordinary insects had their own aspirations...

"Why are you so fixated on the Broodmother experiment?"

"Why not try other possibilities—like turning a Sub-Lord into a Lord?"

"Every clan has the potential to evolve to the strength of the guard clan. The guard clan has over a thousand Lords. Why can't you?"

"I don't know..." Zane's eyes were filled with confusion. "Finding the Broodmother... is the only way to save the insect race..."

Long ago... that was what the Broodmother's consciousness had told him. So all these years, he had... day after day, repeated the Broodmother experiments...

Zane looked down at his hands. They looked no different from a normal insect's—just as dexterous, just as capable of precise experimentation. But if you cut them open, you'd find intricate components and sensory systems inside.

It was with these hands—these hands without warmth—that he had captured countless experimental subjects, pushing these already dying lives deeper into the abyss, all for the sake of an infinitesimally small possibility.

Among mountains of corpses and seas of blood, only Yor had been a miracle.

Yor stared at Zane. Perhaps because even his eyes were mechanical constructs, his gaze always carried an inorganic coldness.

"I used to both hate and fear you," Yor said, and Zane's mechanical pupils trembled slightly. "All my suffering began when you dragged me into that laboratory..."

Recalling the cold and pain, the nausea and terror of foreign things growing inside his body, Yor couldn't help but shudder.

"...Used to?" Zane couldn't help but press. "And now?"

Yor opened his mouth. Of course he still hated him—but hatred could only be directed at the living.

And Zane...

Yor "looked" at him with a complicated expression. His mental sea was flooded with fragments of the Broodmother's consciousness. His self-awareness was tightly shut, its cohesion weaker than even the lingering souls of those experimental subjects on Serion Star.

Was this living... or had he died long ago... merely unable to dissipate because of the Broodmother's consciousness fragments?

And even if he was alive—Yor himself had survived because of this experiment. How could he hate him?

Yor's thoughts churned. He was silent for a long time—so long that Lima reached out and took his hand, so long that the night wind chilled their clasped fingers.

"...I don't know."

It was the expected answer, but Zane's mechanical pupils still lost focus for a moment.

There was no one to direct his hatred at. What had pushed him into the abyss was nothing but a lingering obsession. There was no target for revenge. The dissonance left Yor feeling as though a stone were lodged in his chest—both suffocating and unsettling.

Sensing Yor's distress, Lima linked to his mental energy, soothing him while asking the equally troubled Zane: "So now there's a Broodmother. What then?"

"Then? The Broodmother said..." Zane struggled to think. "The Broodmother will grant the Purification Clan its next Lord."

And then, his mission would be complete.

"The Broodmother said?" Lima tried to understand. "The Broodmother consciousness you've been in contact with?"

Zane's face showed visible struggle—clearly, the fragments of Broodmother consciousness had brought him mostly chaos. He nodded, then shook his head. "The Broodmother I created will grant the Purification Clan its next Lord."

Never mind whether Yor was willing—given Zane's current condition, with only a head remaining, consciousness clouded, pheromones nearly absent, how could he grant anything?

Where would the next Lord even come from?

Lima and Yor exchanged a glance. Yor couldn't help but shake his head.

At first, he had thought Zane's obsessive pursuit of the Broodmother experiment was due to mental contamination—after all, this male was truly the one in constant contact with massive amounts of Broodmother consciousness fragments. He must have been the most deeply polluted.

But now, it seemed there might be another reason.

To find out what had happened, the only way was to perform a mental link and read his memories... Yor stared at the chaotic Broodmother consciousness fragments in Zane's mental sea.

But it was too dangerous. The contamination of those fragments...

Before Yor could think it through, the core consciousness within Zane's mental sea suddenly opened its eyes.

The moment Yor's gaze "met" Zane's, he felt the entire world spin violently. Before he could react, his body went limp and slumped to the ground.

=============

A growing lord must return to the nest every month to absorb the inheritance.

This was the thing Zane hated most.

After the Broodmother vanished, the so-called nest had long ceased to exist, but the older generation of bugs clearly refused to accept this fact. They went to great lengths to recover the Broodmother's remains, setting them up as relics, and forced the bugs of the next generation to camp out in the spot closest to the "nest" for days at a time.

They even acted like this was some kind of honor.

Zane turned away, unwilling to look at that grotesque pile, among which were several elytra... clearly from the previous lord of the Purification Clan. He could even recall from the inheritance the pain of having those wings ripped off by force. The elytra were the most sensitive part of a pure bug; every time a wing vein was torn out, his whole back seized up.

Though he didn't want to admit it, young Zane... was terrified.

But as a lord, he shouldn't be afraid, and he couldn't be. So he curled himself up even smaller.

At night when he slept, he desperately wanted to curl up next to Leonius. Think about it—war bugs, like pure bugs, were always the ones most picked on. In fact, war bugs had it even worse; they were always sucked dry of bone marrow while still alive, and after the rare mating, most of them ended up being eaten alive.

So Leonius would get his fear, right?

But Leonius almost never spoke. That little face was all business every single day, and it was impossible to tell what he was thinking.

Zane began to follow Leonius, but he never got too close, always keeping a few meters' distance, like a bug who just happened to be in the area, taking the same route by coincidence—though... other bugs wouldn't go near lord-level bugs like them anyway.

When Leonius ate, Zane ate too. When Leonius picked out the vegetables, Zane did the same with his own bowl, even though he actually kind of liked those vegetables.

When Leonius watched war footage, Zane sat in the row behind him. The firelight from the footage reflected on his face, and his eyes burned, but he refused to blink. In that footage, a war bug was pierced through the abdomen, blood spilling everywhere. Zane's stomach clenched; he felt like throwing up, but he didn't look away.

He told himself that if Leonius could handle it, so could he.

As long as he was enough like him, he'd be allowed to stay by his side.

But he kept at it for a while, and Leonius never once looked back at him.

That war bug was too busy—every day he desperately absorbed inherited memories, learning the essential skills of a war bug, and every spare moment went to looking after the other war bugs.

In Leonius's heart, Zane was nothing.

The day came around again when they had to return to the nest. The wind was strong, and Zane huddled by the wall watching Leonius finish his last set of physical exercises.

He ran over, holding out the meat snack he'd been saving, and hesitated for a long moment before finally speaking: "...Do you want to try this?"

Leonius didn't get what he meant: "Can't finish it? You can give it to my war bug kids."

Zane's hand stopped mid-air, the wind rushing into his sleeves.

He glared at Leonius, but that dumb war bug just looked back at him in confusion. Zane snatched his hand back and ran off without looking back.

Leonius watched him go, genuinely confused about what was wrong with this pure bug he barely knew. He had things to do, so he turned around to adjust the temperature for the eggs.

Zane stood around the corner for a while, but all he heard behind him was the wind... He kicked the wall hard twice, crushing the snack box in his grip. He shoved it into his pocket and walked off.

From that day on, he began following Seraphiel instead.

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

Ah, I'm so fried my period bailed on me. This is killing me.