***(Kaori)
A day had passed, it was one day before the Life festival. She decided to use these 2 days to clear out the monsters in the wild. She can prepare for the Life festival once she got back.
"We happen to find one, there's a nest at a distance away. It's a type of monster that forms a colony and constantly reproduces minions, the queen is A grade.
But the queen itself wouldn't move, so we didn't see a problem as long as we squashed the little ones that wandered too close. So we have a designated zone of patrol, and anything beyond we ignore. The nest is outside.
It wasn't really necessary to eliminate the nest now, but the accumulation of minions is worrying, glad to have you helping out, Reserve ArcLord, Kaori. " (Friedra)
"... come on... Must you bet that reserved? I still remember meeting you when I was a fledgling as if it was just yesterday! " (Kaori)
"... I'll try. To be honest, I'm very jealous you reached S grade before I did. As acting commander, I received the same amount of Intel as the other commanders and ArcMaidens...
Damn you Kaori!!! You should slave away like the rest of us! " (Friedra)
".... Haha.... What an extreme change... Leave it to me. " (Kaori)
She took a leisurely pace, even so this was drastically different from the expedition to the Demon King's castle, even with her base A grade stats, she was able to reach it in mere moments after locating it. It wasn't hard to find since her radar could cover the entire continent... To find a large mass of magical particles gathered...
Even A grades weren't this obvious to find... The entire mass together... Could count for an S grade... It was mentioned that this monster was the type to build a matriarchal colony, like insects such as bees and ants. But there was no mention of its appearance, that suggested that it shouldn't be too out of place. An insect type perhaps? It wasn't unconventional for monsters to imitate animal species, in fact they are born from a large mass of animal corpses.
In the first place, the basis for a monster's existence could be any type of matter, the matter houses magical particles which is ever present in the universe, but the particles happen to spontaneously birth circuits that act as a monster's brains, like how amino acids were forged on primordial earth. But they are always born from dead matter, as if they were zombies or dredges from the past such as spirits. These monsters could have been the foundation for all supernatural myths and be the origin of all superstition.
So what was the sight before her? Indescribable. No amount could justify or rationalise their anatomy. The components of their body are both flesh and mechanical parts, they both gyrate like muscle spasm and rotate like cogs. There are numerous auxiliary parts that looked tacked on, it was impossible to tell how they functioned are what they were for. Numerous of these auxiliary parts, small mechanical structures with remnants of flesh chaotically blink, expand and contract. The colours were akin to static on an old TV set with a grey base and the colourful flickering of the small parts blinking through many colours at once.
What were they?
"What's wrong? We heard your movements stopped through the walk talkie. We're you unable to locate them? The spelabug?" (Friedra)
"... Bug?" (Kaori)
She uttered in abject disgust, her skin receded into wrinkles and her shoulders quivered, as if to wring out the revulsion from her body through her movements. Meanwhile, there was only exasperation leaking from the other side of the walk talkie.
"... What's wrong? Why have you gone quiet? They're a bunch of insects, no? They're suppose to be these huge ants with metallic exoskeletons. D grades far weaker than the crane which was comparable to fighter jets." (Friedra)
"I see... Ants with metal exoskeleton... I see their corpses underneath this creature. It looks like an ant without bones, consisting only of it's respiratory and nerve system... Wearing a biblical angel for a suit...
It's also rotating like a rubix cube and spinning at it. The organs inside are convulsing like beating hearts and its brain is exposed. There are numerous eye like organs on the outside, some blinking, some bursting like pimples... Well there's a lot going on that it would take a while to list all of it. " (Kaori)
Some silence seemed to past as the respective parties gathered themselves. It was elaborate and meaningless, Kaori didn't seem to be joking so Friedra had to take some time to take deep breaths. She made sure to turn the walky talkie off before exhaling loudly. It was... To say the least, ridiculous. It was difficult to imagine such a grotesque existence being in the same reality as she was, but right now she must assess the situation.
In the beginning, Kaori was the one being sent out. The magical girl who defeated the Demon King and The Progenitor. There could be none more reliable and experienced when it comes to magic. The role of Friedra here was just to guide her, because Friedra was the only one who knew where the nest was. Originally, she had planned to instantly leave once the nest was found, she wasn't such a free willed person as to ignore her accumulating workload. It was time to work.
"... Glad to have you take care of it then... What about magic readings...? " (Friedra)
Usually new sightings are accompanied by retreat, they weren't so barbaric as to fight new creatures on sight. Intel is first collected, and even scientific testing to look for weaknesses. Once it was verified that the monster could be killed, and how much strength it took, they might capture a target species and verify the weakness. They would also place the target in various other conditions to see what would happen, but this was only possible with the weaker species.
Right now...
"B grade. The lowest is B. I can detect some A grade elite class of this species, and an S grade queen." (Kaori)
"... Good, thanks for the info. It'd be hard right now since we don't have cameras, so we might have to come another day to with a specific magical girl who can produce photos.
That is... If that day comes. Threat evaluation of nested Medania Cherubi raised to S grade. Unidentified parasitical species designated as 'Medania Cherubi'. Proceed with caution, wipe out the weaklings and exercise prudence. We don't have data on their intelligence. " (Friedra)
" Roger, acting South commander Friedra. Commencing extermination. " (Kaori)
They didn't have wings and nested in a super large cave... To be more specific, the monsters bored that cave themselves. It might have been the Spelabugs or the Cherubi, whichever it was, it served to ground them so Kaori could safely observe from the sky... But now, she plummets.
"Extreme altitude kinetic bomb. REIGNING...
DRILL. CROSS. PUNCHHH!!!!!" (Kaori)
A super high density drill formed from vacuums of air surround her feet in a mirage of black light. It spins with a low humming noise like a vacuum cleaner with an ominous tinge to it. The Cherubi hearing this grew cautious but were also confused, unable to locate the origin of the noise, they frantically gazed around at the sandy lands surrounding their nest.
As Kaori's shrill fiery voice uttered the last syllable of her technique, the drill struck the ground at the centre of the nest's roof... And everything ruptured. The immediate contact drove the surrounding ground to rotate, turning the nest into a sandy whirlpool that expanded until it encapsulated the entire nest. The Cherubi rush out in panic as those that weren't so lucky were sliced into ribbons by the whirlpool. Flesh and steel, all return to nothing under the might of this great drill.
Popping up from the sand were numerous cherubi that rose to the surface. Despite Kaori's drill attack landing onto the surface of the ground, the nest seemed to be deeper than she thought. The crater she opened up could fit an entire street, it was as if a small meteor had crashed onto the earth. This wasn't good news... Their burrowing habits went above expectations.
For a start, insects such as ants usually dig through softer soil when making their ant hills. While they are impressive at digging extensive networks of holes, there was a certain limit to the depth due to the soil's hardness or that it would take too long to relocate the soil to the surface. These limits are not present with the Spelabugs, not to mention the far more enhanced Cherubis. Even scaling up an ant hill wouldn't provide an accurate estimate for the nest's depth, they likely went deeper. The question is... Do they have a limit?
It is theoretically possible, but... Kaori shouldn't cut the earth in half just to rid one nest. It's going to be impossible to eradicate the Cherubis given that countless could hide underground until she went away. And if she went in, it would be dangerous. Not to mention, she still hasn't made contact with the elites and the queen, but... This means that they are at least within the continent.
The Cherubis that reached the surface identified her as a threat and began closing the distance. A large mass of black with blinking lights approach her, the constant motion of the occasional rotating abdomens were quite distracting too, they could give a person motion sickness. But she wasn't too worried. None of them could react to her in time. They were at a range well below A grade and around low to middle B grade. In other words, the strongest one would still be twice as slow as her.
She materialises her 2 rapiers. She moved around 20 times faster than the closest one, with a flick of her wrist, it was bisected before it could realise. If the colony sensed that one of itself was taken out, the rest would start rushing to subjugate the target, but... They didn't even realise it since it was too fast. She had already begun her rampage.
Her rapiers were longer than usual, tearing through the sand in a swift but aimless sword dance. A continuous swing that went on for less than a second, but an eternity to those caught up in the storm. Like cuttinf butter with a hot knife, multiple of the cherubi split into halves at once, followed by multiple more. Both her arms held her rapiers tightly, swing both at once to take out more than one cherubi on each blade. When they finally processed that Kaori had moved from her spot, she had vanished and the vicinity was filled with around 15 dead cherubi. Pools of lilac purple dyed the sand and gravel underneath their feet.
A shrill chirping floods the atmosphere at once, spreading to the inner depths of the nest to sound an alarm. A sizable threat that the minions could never hope to take out. Slice and slice, one cherubi gets close, her leg coated with black carves it into half as it jumps at her torso. Her arms, wrist and legs never stopped moving, but compared to the fight with the Demon King... There was almost no fatigue.
Her blades tear through whatever made up their body, in this field of gravel, blood, scrap metal and loose ruptured organs, a continuous trial of death spreads across the land. The cherubi inevitably March to their doom, crawling out of the ground only to be sliced into ribbons without a shred of resistance. The land was nearly covered with cherubi now, living and dead... Some of the dead were being dragged into the depths of the earth... A burying ritual perhap? Did they also create culture?
Maybe in another world, they could have coexisted with humans peacefully. Maybe in that other world, they could be communicated with, and we could work towards a future of multispecies communities... Then maybe... The demons would have a place on earth and be free... While animals and demons kill magical girls, they could get by without doing so. They can passively sustain themselves with the magical particles that they passively absorb from nature, instead of directly consuming a magical girl...
Nah, maybe not. Kaori couldn't stomach it. Maybe if they were all as cute as Hikari's unarmoured form, but as it is now... They all look like Hikari's Great Disaster form. A grotesque and unjustified build up of flesh that moves and indiscriminately consumes all within sight. She jumps into air and summons countless more rapiers, shooting them into the enemies on the ground like a machine gun barrage. Well, they are certainly fired faster than a machine gun could handle, but to the cherubi's perspective they might be slower than bullets. Even so, they were too difficult to dodge and the cherub is that end up under the heavy fire were turned into mash potatoes.
More were still crawling out of the ground, not to mention the elites and the queen have not showed up yet.