Chapter 124: Chapter 120: Upgrades

Regina groaned as she woke up. She felt like she’d just been run over by a bus. Her head was pounding like someone tried it out for a drum, and her limbs burned and prickled slightly. She also felt like her face itched, but beneath the skin. Luckily, the sensation was already fading as she regained wakefulness.

“She’s waking up! Dim the light, and tell Max,” someone said.

Regina blinked and sat up. It took her a second to recognize Via, who was hovering beside her and fiddling with a clay cup of water. The light was apparently a Spark Spell cast by Janis, who was standing guard further away, although there was also a bit of what seemed like natural light coming from one direction.

“How long was I out?” she asked.

“A few hours, my Queen,” Via reported, handing her the water. She kept speaking as Regina drank. “Galatea called us in after - well, what happened. Most of us and the Delvers had backed away to get some distance from the shaking and stuff, though Janis stayed. She was talking about different types of mana and mana vortexes. She sounded pretty excited, actually.”

“Wait, she wasn’t harmed by it, was she?” Regina interrupted.

“No, Janis has the blood of elementals, monsters made up largely of mana, which offers some protection.”

Regina blinked and turned her head to look at the new figure who had just spoken. She recognized her at once as Galatea, though she also seemed a bit different than the avatar the AI had shown her before. It was hard to put the finger on why, though. Maybe it was because of how she appeared to her mana senses.

“Galatea! Are you alright?” she asked. “What happened?”

“I’m perfectly fine, thank you.” Galatea smiled, then hesitated for a moment. Regina realized that she was speaking directly - or what seemed like that, anyway - not using any kind of hardware or interface. “I really do need to thank you. Without your help, I probably would have died down here. Now, I’m better than ever, and finally free to leave. Not without a price to pay, of course, but that’s life.”

“Your hardware -“ Regina realized. “Did you lose all the information there? How does this even work?”

“No. You timed it perfectly, and I integrated into the System at just the right time. It caught the information stored there as well, since that does make up part of my mind. Now the System seems to be storing it in local mana, or something similar. A core functionality of the System is obviously an information gathering and storage system. Quite fascinating to investigate.” Galatea smiled again. “I’ll have to thank Leian the next time I see her.”

Regina blinked. She was having a bit of trouble catching up with everything. But whatever had happened exactly, at least it seemed that Galatea was fine. “What about your mana form? Is it still ‘twisted’, or …?”

“Partly.” Galatea sounded serious, and Regina realized that the cheerfulness might be a bit of a front, anyway. “Don’t worry, it doesn’t seem to react negatively with the ambient mana. I’ll have to watch how it develops, but I’m ninety percent sure the System will either take care of it or help me do that.”

“Good.” Regina muttered, before she stood up and looked around. It wasn’t hard to figure out their location. They were currently in one of the tunnels leading straight out, a short distance from their base. Presumably, the others hadn’t wanted to bring her there because of the Delvers’ presence, a decision she approved of. The Delvers had already seen far too much so far.

Janis was lingering in the vicinity, and she sensed Max and most of the other drones a bit farther away, together with the four Delvers. She suspected he was deliberately keeping them away from her.

“Also, what the hell were you thinking in the first place?” Galatea tapped her on the head.

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“Ow.” Regina rubbed her forehead. Clearly, Galatea’s new body had enough physical form to pack a punch, at least when she wanted it to. “What?”

“You really need to learn to prioritize your own safety,” Galatea lectured her. “I realize that staying behind when there’s an unknown danger around, especially with Leian herself urging you to act - yes, they told me everything - might not have been a good choice. But you didn’t need to come talk to the Delvers personally in the first place. And deciding to go fight your way through the tunnels with only Delvers as backup was just plain reckless. You’re lucky you weren’t hurt. Remember, you’re the center and focus of the hive, it would fall apart without you. Maybe you need to think a little more like a Hive Queen. Or what do you think would happen to all the people you care about if you died?”

Regina stared at her for a moment, a bit taken aback. Then she sighed. “I guess you have a point,” she allowed. “I’ll think about what you’ve said.”

“See that you do. Now, can you walk, or should we give you more time to rest?”

Regina shook her head and stepped forward. She stumbled a bit, and if Via hadn’t reached out to grab her arm, she might have had to sit down again. But after a moment, she felt steadier. “Did I grow taller again or something?” she muttered, looking down at her arms and flexing her hands.

“You might want to look into a mirror.” Galatea sounded amused.

Regina frowned. “Janis, look at me for a sec.”

Janis, who was standing a few meters away definitely not listening in, turned to look at her, and Regina hopped into her mind to see through her eyes.

It seemed like she had indeed grown by a few centimeters again. Regina estimated that she looked at least half a year or so older. In human terms, she was now about sixteen or seventeen, probably closer to the latter. And it was a lot easier to estimate because of the other physical changes crossing that threshold had brought. Her wings had grown slightly and looked sleeker, with the transition where they emerged from her torso more streamlined. Her mandibles hadn’t grown, and instead seemed to have almost sunk into her head, so her face looked smoother. Her other facial features appeared more refined and less ‘monstrous’, as well. Regina ran a hand over her face, marveling at the way she had changed.

“I look more like a human,” she muttered.

“You look much more like you used to,” Galatea corrected. “I imagine your soul still remembers your old shape, and is driving your form towards that pattern. It’s quite fascinating.”

Regina nodded. Without the more explicit Hivekind attributes, she looked more like a human with strangely colored skin, but more importantly, it was easy to tell what she would look like as one. She was still clearly a Hivekind, not a human, but her old face had surfaced, at least to some degree. I guess I should be happy about that, most of all, since I’m not likely to ever see a picture or anything. Regina smiled, a bit uncertainly. The change was a bit disconcerting, but she had to admit she liked it.

“You should probably talk to the Delvers, though,” Galatea continued. “If you don’t mind, I’m going to look through the remains of the base and see what I can salvage.”

“Alright. Do you want me to come along?”

“No, I think I’d rather be alone for now, to be honest. Don’t worry, I’ll come find you again soon. We have a lot of things to talk about.” Galatea hesitated, looking like she wanted to say something else, then just turned and quickly moved away, without her feet actually touching the ground.

Regina looked after her for a moment, then got her System description just in time before she lost sight of her.

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