Chapter 59: Chapter 59

It took some time for Kai to notice, but the moment one of the drones started to nibble on the tongue of the toad not noticing that the majority of the corpse had faded away was practically impossible. What remained were the legs, a bit of the skin, a disgusting looking eye, a weird organ and the tongue, that was indeed seriously barbed with keratin spikes.

Seeing those barbs made her look back at the injured and still bleeding drone guiltily. As long as the wound didn’t get infected the poor thing would probably heal and survive, but it would never see with its left eye again and Kai felt that she was seriously at fault for this.

Back when they had first encountered the dragon or fought the Xanai, there wasn’t much she could have done as long as she didn’t want to put her daughters into danger. Sure, she had probably made dump mistakes that cost the life of more swarm drones, but ultimately fighting the Xanai had been something she had no choice in, something the hive would have to do no matter what.

This time was different however. It was her decision to send these five drones into a dangerous unknown environment and leave them largely unsupervised. Kai knew for a fact that Brian was busy coordinating the scouting drones in an efficient manner and providing them with a mana sense, something the drones themselves could not do.

That left her being the only one to command them and she hadn’t done much beyond telling them where to go, expecting them to be able to fend for themself. In hindsight, this was stupid. The drones were at best 5 months old and definitely not experienced enough yet as a whole. Due to them not being sapient the amount of knowledge Brian was able to impart in them upon birth was very limited, because more complex thought structures and experiences confused them greatly. This meant that compared to herself and her daughters the drones were at a disadvantage and had to figure out how to act in a different environment themselves before that could be taught to the other drones.

Kai could or rather should have been the one to urge them to be weary and have them check every nook and cranny to avoid one of them being injured, but she had failed them and been mostly in thought instead, hence, she felt guilty.

To at least somewhat remedy the injury and appease her guilt she focused on the injured drone and sent it the impression of praise, of being sorry and of being thankful.

Instantly, the drone stopped squirming and began to radiate an immense feeling of joy through the hive connection, joy of having been individually talked to by the queen. The other four drones were quick on the uptake and responded just in the same way, skittering around the cave happily.

The whole scene left Kai somewhat overwhelmed and made her question her decisions in life. She had purposely tried not to get attached to any one drone, knowing full well that they were likely to die and the first to do so. If she didn’t want to constantly mourn them, it was the smart thing to.

However, looking back at the last half a year or so, she realized she had gone even further than that and had never truly acknowledged the drones. They worked for her, fought for her and they died for her, yet, she had never thanked any drone for what they did. She had taken all that as granted, even though she should know better.

What kind of queen, nai, what kind of mother would do such a thing?!

Kai let herself sink into her bed depressively as she witnessed the drones immense joy, because she knew, only a failure would not acknowledge what her children did for her.

She buried her face in the soft silk and hugged the mattress with her four arms. Why was all of this so hard and why did she keep failing in some of the most important things?

Even worse, she knew she should be able to avoid these mistakes, so what was it that made her act this way, that made her somewhat clumsy?

Was she perhaps expecting too much of herself?

No, Kai didn’t think so. Quite on the contrary, she thought for a girl with a lack of natural survival skills and experience as a mother she was doing well. There were things she could do better, that would always be true, but fact is she could have done much worse.

She had been able to defend her daughters, built a home for them, feed them and was in the process of securing them a future, so her expectations were definitely not the problem.

Absentmindedly, she sent the 5 drones out of the dungeon, telling them to guard it and thanked them once more. Now that she knew it made them this happy she just couldn’t bring herself not to and she didn’t want to ignore them any longer either.

Then she turned around on her back to look at the ceiling, an admittedly awkward and uncomfortable position to be in because of her tail.

“Hmm, the Future…” She mumbled to herself.

Thinking about it, that was her problem, was it not?

Since day one she had been constantly worried about the future, about this and that, about things that might be years away and that couldn’t be good. She didn’t think worrying about the future was a bad thing, but she was just doing it way too much.

How much time did she actually spend enjoying and living the present? Not a lot, excluding the times she laid eggs nearly nothing. Everything she did was an active preparation for the future, be it distancing herself from the drones, training or planning what needed to be done.

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In fact, Kai felt like she had impacted her daughters more when she had been enjoying the moment, though the only example that came to mind was when she had been dancing to the tune of the dune. 

Well, the hugging and kissing after a fight was probably such a moment too, but it wasn’t really as impactful as showing her daughters music.

Anyway, the problem was that despite living approximately half a year on this planet now, the count of times she had been actively living in the present was two, laying eggs being an exception for obvious reasons, but two?!

Seriously, when she had still been a human she had done nothing else but living in the present. With her grades, her future had been bright and even without them she would have been able to get a job. There having been a lack of repairmen and manual workmen meant that as long as she learned the right thing, it would be fine.

Kai sighed audibly, though she couldn’t help but smile slightly afterwards. Having suddenly become a mother of not one but tens and possibly hundreds of children had fucked her over all right.

It was a good thing she had noticed this now, before she had fucked up anything major. She wouldn’t change what she had planned for the future or how she felt about her children, but now she knew better than to get overwhelmed by the pressure again.

Kai picked herself up again and stretched her arms. She hadn’t cried or anything, having been mostly disappointed in herself, but she felt as if a weight had been taken off her shoulders and now that it was gone, she could finally look up again.

With a refreshed mind, she left her room and decided to join Anna and Artemis again. She knew that they would be speaking and theorizing about mana and intent all night long, especially now that Artemis would leave at first light. Kai had confirmed the location of the dungeon so there was no point in holding them back anymore.

When she entered the room the two girls gave her a kind smile and seemed to hesitate for a moment as if they wanted to say something before they got back to theorizing and apparently experimenting too. 

Kai was thankful that they didn’t ask if she was fine or told her they were there for her, she knew as much already and wasn’t in the mood to speak about what she had been doing in her room for multiple hours. Sometimes things you did alone were not meant to be shared.

Listening and watching the pair turned out to actually be quite strenuous for Kai’s mind, but it was definitely not a fruitless endeavor and made the time fly past fastly. By the end of the night she had finally understood what her daughters had been on about.

Intent, the colors she had seen in her vision, was apparently what caused mana to move and react the way it did and was somehow attached to mana. Without it, mana might as well not be there. 

The second thing they figured out was the reason for them not being able to cast spells outside of their body. The moment the intent and mana left their body, they simply lost control over the intent and whatever they had done inside of their body lost cohesion. Why that happened though, they had no idea.

All in all being able to experiment with mana and discover the natural laws behind it was a big step forward however and all of them were happy with the result in the morning.

When the moths finally left them alone, spurting a few more wounds than yesterday, the whole hive assembled outside to say goodbye to the majority of their people for some time. 

The whole process took some time, especially since Kai simply refused not to hug every single one of them and make sure they knew she loved them all. Artemis was the last one to receive the loving embrace of their mother.

“Make sure to keep them all safe, okay?” Kai said as she let go. Artemis was the most knowledgeable person in the hive when it came to dealing with and avoiding danger, more so than even herself, so it was the most reasonable to let the huntress be in charge of the safety.

Artemis nodded and smirked slightly. “I will, mother. You don’t have to worry this much, especially since you will practically be with us the whole time thanks to the hive connection.”

Kai blushed a bit, Artemis had her there. Then she watched the whole procession of drones, both advanced and normal and her daughters head off into the forest. She waved them the whole time, with all of her hands of course, something that the few that remained copied.

When the last of them disappeared into the bushes, Anna turned to her. “So, what now?”

Kai gave her a pat on the head and smiled. “We train of course!”

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