Became the Queen of the Legion

“This is…”

Seira, who glimpsed the vast hive consciousness shown by the queen through the tentacle that entered her ear, immediately stiffened and fell into great shock.

Although the queen had been accustomed to it from the moment of her birth, in fact, the mental world of the hive mind where countless individuals are connected as one is by no means something that a being with a normal ego can endure.

In a moment of carelessness, one loses oneself and begins to drift in the vast mental world.

The same was true for Seira.

In that brief moment, as she gradually became dazed and her thoughts began to disappear, she was on the verge of losing herself and assimilating into the hive.

“I’m not doing this to create a doll without an ego.”

It was the queen who caught Seira. Seira flinched and barely came to her senses as she saw the silver-haired woman holding her arm.

“Wh-what do you want from me?”

“There’s an experiment I want to do. If you cooperate with it, I’ll grant one thing you want too.”

The queen, grinning, made an offer to Seira, who was trembling with fear.

It was an offer that Seira, who had given up everything, couldn’t even imagine.

“We’ve only raided a few goblin villages so far, but we’ll continue to fight from now on. By fighting more like that, devouring more, we’ll cover this land with countless soldiers.”

It was saying that they would become true rulers surpassing even the demon races, the current ruling species firmly established in the demon realm, but it was by no means a far-fetched story.

Seira intuitively felt this through the vast mental world she was now seeing.

This unidentified group of monsters, whose ability limits were unknown, clearly had that possibility.

“I’ll give you a chance to join us. If you dedicate your body, mind, and soul to us and become one, I’ll invest even more power.”

“If I do that…”

“Take revenge with your own hands. Against those who annihilated your family and gave you humiliation and shame.”

The queen, her eyes flashing, ordered Seira to become her knight.

If she was prepared to abandon everything and be reborn, she would give her the ability to seize new opportunities as she is reborn.

‘Revenge…’

Seira’s eyes wavered. Her heart, broken long ago, began to burn again little by little as it encountered an unexpected hope.

From the start, there were only two options.

Accept the queen’s offer and become part of the hive, or be killed and used as mere nutrients.

Although she had asked to be killed herself, the situation was different now.

“I will do it.”

Finally, Seira answered blankly, choosing the path of abandoning everything and being reborn.

“It’s still impossible to fully decode the genetic information of higher species like vampires. So it’s difficult to reconstruct everything as I think.”

The queen deliberately made Seira lose consciousness and personally lifted her body slowly.

The original plan was to change her entire body to her own cells while maintaining only the outward appearance.

That way, she could heal Seira’s body with its broken magic circuits and make her a member of the army without having to worry about difficult considerations.

However, due to the lack of physical data on higher demon races including vampires, it was impossible to do such a thing right away.

Therefore, the queen found another method. It was to put on a kind of suit made of her own cells.

‘Even if I just integrate it with the skin and insert needles into the central nervous system to dominate her nervous system, that body is essentially in my hands anyway.’

The queen looked down at Seira’s naked body in her arms with glowing red eyes.

Seira, wrapped in a suit made of the queen’s cells over her entire body, will essentially be able to fully recover her broken body and gain power beyond her prime.

Because the queen intended to pour all the magic power accumulated in the hive into her now.

[There is a limit to the amount of magic power that can be injected into cells at the current level. To create a body that can hold all the originally targeted amount, it would have to weigh several times more than now]

“Then do as much as possible.”

Of course, there were clear limitations, so she couldn’t really do such a thing yet, but nevertheless, the amount of magic power accumulated by the entire hive was sufficient.

“Be reborn not as a vampire, but as our soldier.”

The queen grinned, slightly stuck out her red tongue, and dropped her saliva onto Seira’s body in her arms.

The cells that began to proliferate and bubble on Seira’s bare body rapidly increased and gradually covered her body, and her slender naked body was soon completely hidden by something like black leather.

* * *

“The only way we can handle the magic power extracted from enemies right now is to inject a certain amount of magic power into each cell. In other words, the more cells, the more magic power we can have.”

It took some time for Seira, who had undergone temporary body modification, to come to her senses.

Her face looked a bit pale, perhaps realizing what had happened to her body, but she knelt on one knee before me with a somewhat resolute expression, as if she had prepared herself.

“Do you understand what I’m saying?”

“…It’s certainly the first time I’ve heard such words. But I think I understand what it means.”

She nodded. Cells and such are unfamiliar concepts to her as a resident of the demon realm, but we are already sharing one mind.

There was no need to explain laboriously; it wasn’t difficult to instantly transfer the knowledge I had to her.

“At our current level, you need to get bigger and heavier to have more magic power. But if we turn your body into a bulky monster because of that, we can’t use the abilities of a vampire whose ego we’ve preserved and made part of me.”

“That’s right.”

Clearly, I don’t have the ability to absorb vampire abilities now. However, it was possible through an intermediary. That is, Seira, who maintains her ego.

“To help us develop further… I will defeat all enemies in this area as per the queen’s order.”

“I hope the experiment results are good too.”

Smiling at her resolute answer, I knelt on one knee and met her eyes.

Lifting her chin to meet her gaze, black tentacles flowing from my hand gradually covered her face.

Now the being known as the vampire Seira Merteus no longer exists in this world.

There is only a knight of the army, her red eyes gleaming inside a black mask.

“A tier 4 demonic beast, Cerberus. Seems like just the right opponent?”

Although its size was about that of a 2-ton truck and not an especially huge monster, Cerberus was a named demonic beast in its own right.

The problem was that it spewed hot fire, which most demonic beasts avoid, from its three-headed mouths.

Despite that, they themselves had strong fire resistance abilities, giving them strong resistance to flames and heat.

[Seira is attacking Cerberus along with the soldiers]

It’s a tier 4 demonic beast that we couldn’t dare to hunt until now because surrounding attacks were impossible no matter how many troops we mobilized.

Now, Seira, who has regained her combat ability by becoming one with us, has personally set out to hunt such a monster.

‘Is she rejoicing?’

Through our connected minds, I could share the emotions she was feeling now.

Seira, having gained a new body and new power, was in a state of great excitement now. My cells, essentially integrated with her body, were the source of that power.

[Cerberus spews flames]

Hot flames poured down from the demonic beast towards Seira, who rushed in head-on to draw its aggro.

At the same time, Seira naturally moved the magic power I had packed tightly into the cells.

‘I can see it!’

The moment she used my cells to move magic power. With my computational power boosted using the auxiliary brain, I began to see how she was using magic power.

The magic power Seira used became a reddish barrier that blocked the flames.

Having broken through the flames like that, Seira instantly kicked off the ground and jumped high into the air, then swung the huge spear in her hand towards the bewildered demonic beast’s head.

It was a spear I had personally made, created from the hardest exoskeleton composed of cells packed full of magic power.

True to her words that she mainly trained in spear techniques despite her delicate appearance, the spear emanating dark red magic power instantly pierced the demonic beast’s brow.

“Better than expected?”

An excellent elite soldier without the need for me to control.

I raised the corners of my mouth as I watched through Seira’s eyes the demonic beast slowly collapsing to the ground after each head was pierced once by the spear.

Seira, standing proudly on the demonic beast’s corpse holding her spear, had proven her ability.

With her at the forefront, we would no longer have to waste troops on mere goblin villages.

[Achievement, Secret of Magic Power (1) completed. 1 trait point awarded as reward]

Even the system acknowledged it.

After checking the reward points received for making Seira part of the hive, I invested them in consciousness enhancement.

「Consciousness Enhancement 3-1」

I had no intention of stopping here anyway.

[Scouts have discovered something]

“More goblins?”

It’s been a long time since I scattered scouts in all directions.

Although not a small number of scouts that could now fly to the sky were killed by flying demonic beasts and such, if they survived, they provided much more information in a short time.

The number of areas illuminated like this was already over 30.

It was frustrating that points were no longer given for illuminating more areas.