The inside of the building was not small.
Perhaps because so much time had passed, all the walls that had divided the rooms had collapsed, leaving only the exterior walls, making it look almost like a small gymnasium.
A massive cocoon filled that interior.
Its size was incomparable to that of the scout.
The huge, quivering mass of flesh had only one hole pierced through it.
It was the hole into which the monster that had taken the form of an old man had sucked itself just moments ago.
Even after devouring the old man monster, the hole was still gaping in our direction.
The hole squirmed as if telling us to come inside.
It was truly horrifying.
The team members looked up at the cocoon with dumbfounded expressions.
“What is this?”
“Its size makes no sense, but it looks like a cocoon……”
“If it’s this big, it has to be several times larger than the scout monster, right?”
While we were shocked by the cocoon, Soph seemed shocked for a different reason.
[This is bad. To think they’re already feeding it their own kind. It’s grown far larger than I expected……]
Soph’s grave words.
I asked him.
[What does that mean?]
[Once it reaches a certain size, the nutrients brought in from outside are no longer enough. When that happens, the monsters acting as workers throw their own bodies in as food. That means there isn’t much time left before it tears out of the cocoon.]
I looked at the cocoon again.
A cocoon several times larger than the scout.
Of course, something far more terrifying had to be inside it.
[How long until it comes out of the cocoon?]
[A month at most? No, it could be shorter than that.]
Considering how often he had been wrong lately, it could be even shorter.
‘Three weeks? Or two?’
That was only enough time to go to Earth once and come back.
While I was talking with Soph, the team members who had been standing there blankly came to their senses.
Master Sergeant Woo aimed his spear at the cocoon.
“Let’s kill this thing now. If it really is a cocoon, isn’t this when it’s at its weakest? There’s no need to wait until it’s fully grown.”
He looked ready to thrust his spear the moment I gave permission.
It seemed fine to me as well, but Soph opposed it.
[We thought the same thing once. But didn’t I tell you before? These monsters aren’t fools. Check the floor. There should be a tube connected to it.]
I checked the floor as Soph said.
I saw a tube connected to the cocoon.
A tube thick enough for a human arm to fit inside led underground through the broken floor.
[It’s a tube connected to the control entity. The control entity uses that tube to create combat soldiers. If you kill it, the control entity will notice through the tube.]
I raised my hand and stopped Master Sergeant Woo.
“There’s a tube connected to the cocoon that leads underground. I don’t know how far it’s connected, but if we touch it, it’ll cause trouble.”
At my words, everyone seemed to think of a trap.
Master Sergeant Woo lowered his spear.
In any case, we had confirmed what we needed.
“We’ve checked what it’s making, so let’s head to our destination.”
I led the others out of the building.
At my words, everyone gave up on attacking the cocoon, but I, on the contrary, found it incredibly regrettable.
An enemy completely defenseless.
An opportunity like this did not come often.
I pondered as I walked with the team.
***
On the way to our destination, we saw several similar places.
Humanoid monsters entering buildings that were relatively intact. The monsters that went inside did not come back out.
Since we had already confirmed what they were, we continued moving while avoiding the monsters.
Instead, I memorized all those places.
Even the places I did not see directly, I marked down every location that my senses could reach.
And time passed.
After several battles, we arrived at our destination.
The place Hanna had told us about was not in the west, where the control entity was expected to be, but in the northern part of the city.
“I feel it beneath this building.”
When I looked at the building Hanna pointed to, Soph’s bitter voice rang out.
[That’s right. This is the building with the spatial movement facility. In Earth terms, it’s a transit terminal.]
Unfortunately, only traces of the building remained. It was a ruin with only a bit of wall and a large foundation left.
On one side of the ruins, I could see a collapsed passage leading underground.
I walked in front of the collapsed passage and thrust my spear into the ground.
Thud.
I pushed energy into the spear, and then Soph cast a spell.
Rumble, rumble, rumble.
The rocks and dirt blocking the passage began to slide aside.
Magreta, who had been watching the sight with great interest, opened her mouth.
“Magic is a lot more versatile than I thought. Couldn’t you do everything on your own without us?”
Not right away, but soon, things might become just as she said.
Still, even if that happened, I had no intention of going around alone.
Putting loneliness aside, I could not do everything by myself.
Not long ago, I would have died if it had not been for my companions, so there was no reason to travel alone.
As the dirt and rocks were pushed away, stairs leading downward appeared.
Stairs that had no visible end because there was no light.
They looked gloomy, but Hanna pointed at the stairs with a bright expression.
Before going down the stairs, I checked the surroundings with my senses.
In this area, which was more heavily destroyed than the others, there were no humanoid monsters to be seen.
Naturally, there were no buildings that looked like they might contain cocoons either.
Even so, I could not feel at ease.
‘Including the places we checked on the way here, there are four in total. Even if my senses swept over a wide area, it probably wasn’t even one-tenth of the city, which means there are over forty of them in this city……’
There were more than forty locations in this city presumed to contain cocoons.
If all the monsters inside those cocoons woke up, the situation would undoubtedly become far worse than when the scouts appeared.
One scout had destroyed the forward base, and now there were forty stronger monsters.
There was no way I could not be worried.
When I did not go down the stairs and instead looked around, Magreta asked,
“Aren’t we going in?”
“Ah, we are.”
I shook my head and took the lead down the stairs.
Before long, the light coming from outside no longer reached the stairs.
I was about to take a torch out of the box.
Then Soph spoke.
[I’ll light the way.]
Soph chanted a spell.
[Gather. Flow. Illuminate.]
Crackle.
When the spell ended, an electric current flowed from the tip of the spear and lit up the surroundings.
[It’s light created using electrostatic discharge. Compared to other light spells, it isn’t particularly efficient, but a simple light source uses an extremely small amount of energy. There should be no problem using it.]
Soph’s magic was different from the glowing orbs, the light balls, that appeared in fantasy novels.
The spear I was holding was no longer a staff scattering light, but a spear emitting electricity.
“It really is versatile.”
Looking at the spear that lit the way while streaming current, Magreta repeated what she had said earlier.
However, Magreta’s actions were different from before.
She was slowly moving away from me.
The team members were the same.
When I turned my head to look at them, Tom said with an apologetic expression,
“It felt like we’d get electrocuted if we stayed close.”
Hearing that, I asked Soph.
[We won’t get electrocuted, right?]
[It’s a weak current, so it shouldn’t have any effect on the body.]
[That means we do get electrocuted.]
Because Soph absolutely refused to say that we would not get electrocuted, I was left speechless.
And so, with the team members following from a good distance away, I descended the stairs.
There were no traps, and the stairs were not long.
It was just that collapsed sections blocked the path here and there.
Since Soph’s magic cleared away the collapsed parts, we were able to reach our destination quickly.
[It’s a place used by many people. They wouldn’t have made it hard to find like a military facility.]
Originally, there seemed to have been several passages.
However, right now, there was only one passage we could find.
After descending several dozen meters, a large plaza greeted us.
Seeing the plaza, I thought I understood what Soph meant by terminal.
In the center of the underground plaza, a huge circular magic circle was drawn.
Around the magic circle were several lines connected to it, as well as unfamiliar letters.
[Those lines are waiting areas for going to different regions. The letters written on the floor are the destinations.]
According to Soph, those lines were where people would stand in line.
An image formed in my head of people in a terminal waiting room, lined up for the buses they were each going to board.
I understood immediately.
At the same time, it felt strange.
To think it would have such a realistic appearance, so similar to Earth.
It felt as if the world of mages I had thought of as mystical had been dragged down to the ground.
[They were all places where people lived. There’s nothing different about it.]
When I told him what I was thinking, Soph answered in a bitter voice.
Then Soph brought up something else.
[I’m not sure whether it still operates properly. Check that first.]
At Soph’s words, I looked around the plaza.
It was not difficult to find the control panel—the console that controlled the magic circle.
In one corner of the plaza, I saw a console similar to the one I had seen in the terraforming ruins.
I walked in front of that console, and the team members who had been looking around the plaza all came rushing after me.
As I approached the console, I felt energy flowing into it.
The console was still operating.
I stood the spear upright on the console.
Even though I let go, the spear remained standing straight.
Whoosh.
A hologram rose around the spear.
Perhaps because they had seen it several times while traveling with me, the team members were not surprised by the hologram. They waited for the result with interested expressions.
Unfamiliar letters passed through the hologram, and in the end, only two lines of text remained.
Soph’s voice rang out.
[Only two spatial movement facilities connected to this place remain.]
His words were half-lament.
[Out of dozens, only two remain…… I don’t know whether to call that a lot or too few.]
Of course, it was a lot.
For even two to remain after tens of thousands of years was something unimaginable on Earth.
[Let’s see. One of them is…… this one can’t be used right now.]
Soph, who had been examining the hologram, spoke in a gloomy voice.
It was different from a moment ago, a voice laden with the weight of time.
[Where is it?]
[It’s connected beyond the mountain range. It was destroyed in the early days, so even if you go there, there likely won’t be anything left. It doesn’t seem to be connected to anywhere else either, so it would be better to check it later.]
It did not seem to be a lie, but it also did not feel like he had told me everything.
It seemed like there was something else……
Still, there was no need to ask right now.
In the meantime, Soph changed his tone and continued speaking.
[The second one is properly connected. The second connected location is linked to the underground ruins where you arrived. I was worried since the underground ruins were a military facility, but this is fortunate.]
The underground ruins were a military facility?
Well, there was no way ruins buried that deep underground could have been ordinary.
However, if the underground ruins were a military facility, then the place connected to them would not be ordinary either.
[Where is the connected location, for it to be linked to the underground ruins?]
[It’s a kind of research facility. Since it was a place untouched by human hands, I thought it would be intact, and it seems I was right.]
A research facility untouched by human hands—had it been somewhere deep in the mountains?
But I was wrong.
[The connected location is a research facility on the fifth planet of this star system, Quara Eretz. In Earth terms, it would be the fifth planet of TRAPPIST. Terraforming was started there but halted because it was too cold. Still, it has air, and it’s connected to the underground ruins, so you can go back by passing through that place.]
Once again, I received an answer different from what I had expected.
To think that after coming all the way here, I would end up going to another planet.
Even for me, that was not easy to accept.