The Unmaker

On the first day, Dahlia, Alice, and half of the healthy townsfolk descended into Alshifa to rescue those who’d been kidnapped. It wasn’t an easy rescue—of the three hundred or so kidnapped townsfolk, forty-three of them had perished on the way down, so it wasn’t an entirely bloodless effort. Forty-three men and women and children died to destroy the Destroyer, and that was how they were going to be remembered for the years and decades to come.

On the second, third, and fourth day, they performed the Arima’ila funeral for the deceased. They were quiet funerals attended only by close friends and loved ones. Dahlia sat most of them out, and so did Alice. They weren’t from the Oasis Town, after all.

On the fifth day, they collapsed the desert above Alshifa and submerged the undertown in sand for good. No giant bug could take refuge in it ever again, and with its destruction, every undertown in the Sharaji Desert was now officially buried. Dahlia didn’t attend Alshifa’s burial, either. She’d already seen its funeral thrice; there was no point seeing it a fourth time.

On the sixth day and onwards, everyone began repairing the Oasis Town, mind and body.

Today was the eleventh day—one week after the death of Madamaron.

Exactly three months since Dahlia arrived at the Sharaji Oasis Town.

Her day began as usual with the ring of the morning bell. Camels bleated outside, the elders threw the window flaps open, the shopkeepers and stall owners trudged out their sandstone houses to set up their wares by the bazaar, yawning and greeting each other with their hands interlocked in prayers. The quiet hubbub would soon grow into the familiar hustle and bustle, but Dahlia was already at the oasis, digging holes alongside two dozen reed farmers to open new aquifers to replenish the drained water.

It was simple but honest work. While most of the rest of the townsfolk were preoccupied with repairing the houses and kitchens, the town’s one and only water source had to be replenished within the week… and with a bit of luck, they’d managed to restore half of the oasis within the past few days. By plugging up the tunnel Madamaron had burst out of and then digging horizontally to uncover new aquifers, the oasis would naturally recharge over time, so Kari calculated it'd be back to its usual sparkling emerald self within two or three more weeks. Everyone had to be sparing with water for the time being, but they could get through this no problem. They were surface-dwelling humans. They’d endured tougher than this.

Eight separate aquifers… should be good enough, right? She thought, wiping sweat off her brow as she climbed out of the oasis with the other farmers, peering down at the slowly filling oasis.

[It is. Now, all we need to do is let nature run its course.]

Right.

Then–

Mushariff Idan tapped her shoulder from behind, and she turned slowly to see him offering her a platter for lunch: hollowed vegetables stuffed with rice, ground meat, and spices. There were even grilled kebabs for her to choose from, so, this time, she didn’t refuse the offer.

For the first time in three months, she shared her lunch with the farmers out in the open sun, fidgeting uncomfortably as they shared and spoke tall tales of the desert god’s slaughter. She’d half a mind to correct some of the rumours they were spinning—she most certainly hadn’t invoked the lightning god’s blessing to charge her claws with, nor was she the one in the red cloak who’d flung Madamaron into building after building—but, for some reason, she didn’t really feel like barging in on their fun. Her face was beet-red all the way through lunch hour as they grabbed her shoulder and made her toast with them; like everyone else, she enjoyed being complimented every once in a while, too.

Mushariff Idan and the farmers bowed as she left for her second job in the afternoon. Fortunately for the town, the forge was almost completely untouched during Madamaron’s surface invasion, which meant business was booming for Smith Jaleel. Perhaps it was booming too much, though—he snapped at her to put on her apron as she squeezed in through the back door she made just a few days ago, but, still riding the high from getting complimented so much, she grumbled something back at him. She wasn’t sure what she really even said, but it probably had something to do with her low wages, given how hard the queuing townsfolk laughed and how miffed Jaleel looked.

For the rest of the afternoon, it was back to forging basic household items and amenities for her and Jaleel. Many, many things needed to be replaced after Madamaron’s invasion, so she didn’t think she’d be able to tear down her growing lists of orders anytime soon. She was more than happy to help out however she could, of course… but at this rate, she’d be stuck here for another two, three months. And Jaleel needed her help. If it was just him, it’d easily be half a year before the town could function properly again.

… As she had that thought, though, sundown came. She was quietly shaping a molten metal door in the furnace with her bare hands when her dagger antennae tingled, and she turned around to see the town chief’s daughter prancing up the stairs, standing at attention with her arms folded behind her back. She loudly proclaimed she was going to work here alongside Jaleel, who immediately tossed her an apron and thumbed at the workbench in the corner where she could start off with the easy-to-handle trinkets.

Then, he turned to Dahlia and tossed her a pouch of silver coins.

“You’re fired,” he said plainly. “I have a new apprentice.”

“...”

He didn’t bother waiting for her response. She may be several times stronger and faster and tougher than him, but he picked her up by her scarf and tossed her outside the forge. She blinked as she turned around to stare at him. He didn’t hesitate. He pulled down the barred gate so he could work with the chief’s daughter, but not before throwing another bag out at her—she didn’t need to pull out the lace to know what was inside the giant leather sack. The rest of the town may want nothing more to do with their destroyed Destroyer, but Jaleel was different. Maybe it was because he was of the younger generation, or maybe it was because he’d been hanging around insect parts more than anyone else in town, but he had no problem giving her all the parts he’d harvested off of Madamaron.

For an eight-metre-tall giant of a Mutant, she’d expected a lot more usable parts than what could all fit inside a leather sack, but…

It’s something, at least.

[Do refrain from using lightning to kill bugs in the future if you want to maintain the quality of their parts.]

Got it.

As she sighed with a soft smile and slung the leather sack over her shoulders, the chief’s daughter whispered at her to come closer to the gate. She obliged with a frown, and she definitely didn’t expect the little girl to hand her a second pair of butterfly goggles to replace the one she’d broken in her fight with Madamaron.

“... Thank you!” the little girl said in Alshifa Tongue, beaming from ear to ear as she waved Dahlia off. “Come back! Soon!”

…

Smiling, she rubbed the little girl’s head through the bars before turning her back to the forge, deliberately avoiding the communal kitchens and the dense streets as she trudged towards the far northern edge of town. If she was spotted by anyone, she’d no doubt be dragged into some sort of celebratory feast—and she was still no good with big crowds—so she was immensely grateful her thin chitin plates were black as oil, camouflaging her slightly as she slipped through the shadowy alleys.

In the end, she hadn’t gotten to know the townsfolk of the Sharaji Oasis Town as well as she’d hoped, but… to begin with, her destiny was not supposed to have intertwined with theirs for as long as it had.

This wasn’t her home.

And now that the oasis was sure to be replenished—and Smith Jaleel had also successfully hired a new apprentice to replace her—she could disappear in the middle of the night and the town would be none the wiser.

… Which was easier said than done, of course, given she spotted the town chief standing at the northern edge of town all by her lonesome. The middle-aged lady’s arms were crossed, and under her veil and heavy-looking head chains, she looked absolutely miffed at the fact that Dahlia was trying to sneak away just as Alice had two weeks ago.

The chief looked like there were a million things she wanted to say, her lips half-parted, her eyes half-lidded, but didn’t know where to start.

For her part, Dahlia simply stopped for a moment, wore the butterfly goggles around her neck, and walked past the chief with a grateful little nod.

“...”

Dahlia didn’t turn around as she left the Sharaji Oasis Town, but she knew the chief turned after her, bowing deeply, solemnly—and for what it was worth, she had enjoyed her time in the town.

It simply wasn’t her home, though, so she had to leave.

She closed her eyes and listened softly, deeply, as the Oasis Town behind her celebrated the end of the week with a loud and boisterous feast. They deserved the rest. They deserved the desert. The night winds were crisp as she trudged up a giant dune, then down the other side, and embarked on a straight-line journey using the effigies of dangling antlions as guideposts.

So tacky, she thought, curling a lip as she passed by one of the effigies. It was five metres tall, woven out of hardened blood silk, and the hollow husk of a Mutant antlion nymph was hanging from the stake with its remaining chitin slashed and mutilated with small knives. All in total, there were thirty-two of these effigies scattered in the dunes surrounding the Oasis Town, and for the time being, the townsfolk had no idea they’d been erected; they’d certainly come as a surprise eventually, but if the townsfolk were smart, they wouldn’t dare rip them out of the ground. They served as a dark warning to any Mutant encroaching on this territory: ‘leave, or be strung up by the Hangman’.

Dahlia certainly got shivers down her spine as she walked past them.

[They’re quite reminiscent of the effigies the Worm God used to make back in Year Sixty-One, when he was still rampaging across the southern end of the continent as the Worm Mage,] Kari said, sounding slightly amused. [At the time, he’d constructed colossal effigies made out of a hundred giant bugs each, raising them so high into the sky you couldn’t miss it even if you tried. He did this every week or so depending on where he was, and every bug that saw his effigy knew it was territory not to be trifled with… though, of course, he ended up taking them all down once he became the Worm God. Oh, Great Makers, they really were quite terrifying even for humans to look at.]

She gave the little golden bug a forced smile. If it works, it works, I… guess?

[I suppose so.]

As the town shrank behind her and she reached the furthest effigy, she started squinting around the endless sea of sand for her destination. She was looking for an unnaturally shaped dune. Soft orange firefly lanterns glowing in the dark. Maybe even a chimney poking out the top of the dune, but—and this was her own fault—she hadn’t paid much attention to that place back when it was at the edge of town, so she wasn’t really sure what she was looking for.

Regardless, she eventually spotted a circular wooden doorway at the bottom of a dune in front of her, so she slid down, trudged across the sand, and narrowed her eyes at the girl sitting on a comically small stool before the doorway.

“... I’m Dahlia Sina of the Alshifa undertown. Insect class, assassin bug,” she said, bowing with two hands folded in front of her. “I don’t like you wearing my face, and the only thing I know about you is how much I don’t know about you. Uncertainty. Frankly, I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to get comfortable around you as long as you’re wearing my face, but…” she trailed off, raising her head to smile faintly. “If I go with you, will I be able to destroy the Swarm?”

In response, Alice tilted her head back and smirked; a horribly, horribly smug look that made Dahlia want to run forward and punch her.

“That’s up to you. I just want you with me so I can continue trying to figure out what an assassin bug’s abilities really are,” Alice said, baring her teeth. “But I’ll be the one to destroy the Swarm, so don’t get your hopes up, yeah? I’ll only be taking the most dangerous missions for the Hasharana, so if you don’t think you can handle them–”

“I can,” Dahlia said, staring straight into Alice’s eyes. “Where are we going first?”

Alice laughed and glanced around at the same time, shouting at Safi to ‘do the thing’—and suddenly the dune moved, six giant legs exploding from the ground to raise both her and the tavern from the desert.

Dahlia flinched, but she didn’t take a step back. She’d had a hunch ever since she evolved her dagger antennae, so she simply watched as the giant cicada rose to its full height: ten metres tall, thirty metres long, and clad in oil-black chitin with orange-veined wings and burning red eyes. Holes had been punched into its abdomen to serve as windows and doorways, and she immediately understood how it all worked. Cicada abdomens were mostly hollow to begin with, since they functioned as air chambers that allowed them to produce their obnoxiously loud screeches, so it was reasonable that someone could build an entire tavern inside a giant cicada.

Still, it was beyond impressive, and for some reason she didn’t feel particularly creeped out standing so close to a giant bug. The cicada’s eyes were blank and swirly, almost as though it’d been thoroughly tamed to forget which side of the war it was really supposed to be on.

If Alice—the bug-slaying maniac—felt comfortable enough to live inside the giant cicada tavern, then she should have even less of a problem with it.

“... Well, it’s no good if I’m travelling around with someone in possession of an unregistered Swarmsteel System!” Alice shouted from five metres up, grinning cheekily down at Dahlia as she did. “First things first: you’re going to have to pass the Hasharana Entrance Exam legitimately and meet the Worm God to have your system registered!”