In a dim room, capsules were lined up with regularity. Tens, hundreds of spheres filled the floor and walls.
Among the faintly glowing capsules, there was one singular, foreign, defective item mixed in. It was broken. Peering into the cracked sphere, a silver-haired girl was there.
I was born. I was born as an ant, as a Queen Ant who would become the core of a nest. From now on, I would lay many soldier ant eggs and build a new colony. That was the natural way of being as a species imposed upon me. Without room for doubt, I was reasoned and motivated by instinct.
That is why I think I, who am aware that I am an 'Ant' like this, am a very un-ant-like ant. Immediately after being born, the first thing I thought was the question of who I was.
There were foreign memories inside me. There was a massive amount of knowledge that I, just born, should not have known, and a personality had been formed. Those were the memories of a "human."
Why do I have human memories? That doubt led to a single answer.
Among the information left in my head, there was a memory burned in particularly vividly. A manga called "HUNTER x HUNTER." A story of adventure involving a protagonist boy and his friends. This seemed to be a very important memory. Even though I wasn't particularly trying to recall it, it would float up into my consciousness on its own.
There was an interesting description within it. The story of ants called Chimera Ants. Their ecology was strikingly similar to ours. I couldn't think of it as a coincidence. perhaps it was a story created based on events that happened in reality.
The Chimera Ants that appeared in the work had achieved a development different from ours. They ate humans and obtained appearances and abilities close to humans. Some even inherited the memories of the humans they ate.
I thought that perhaps the memories I possess were inherited by this same principle. Did my father, the King Ant, mate with the human who owned these memories? Is the inheritance of memories possible even without Phagogenesis? It wasn't revealed how the Queen Ant called the "Sub-human Type" that appeared in the work came to be, so I don't know the details.
However, it seems I didn't become a complete 'Sub-human Type.' My body shape and size are not much different from other ants. Only the memories were inherited.
The other ants don't know that I have human memories. No, they can't even recognize such a thing. I alone am the abnormality.
The ones taking care of me, who was born not long ago, are a portion of the soldier ants called the Royal Guards. There are about ten of them. The King Ant is usually not in the nest. Taking the Royal Guards other than the soldiers left in the nest, he goes outside the nest to search for the next mating partner. He returns occasionally, but he doesn't come to me.
The soldier ants crush the red stones, our staple food, into fine pieces so they are easy to eat and bring them to me. They also give me water mouth-to-mouth. I don't have to do anything; I just have to sit.
It is said that Chimera Ants can communicate via radio waves. I tried it as a test, but no one responded. The King Ant and the Royal Guards seem unable to use radio wave transmission. This was also noted in the work as a characteristic of Chimera Ants, just as it was in my memory.
The King Ant and his Royal Guards, whose purpose is to go outside the nest and breed, do not originally premise their lives on settling in a nest. They built a temporary nest of minimum size for me, who was just born, and are taking care of me, but that is only temporary. Once I start laying eggs and enter the soldier creation phase, they will leave the nest. It likely means there is no need for unnecessary communication.
I don't move from my bed all day. It's a soft bed made by gathering animal fur. This beautiful bed, which looks as if it were paved with silver threads, is my favorite. My mind calms down when I am on it.
In the story "HUNTER x HUNTER," the humans who appeared used a special power called "Nen." This seems to be a unique ability possessed by humans, but the Sub-human Type Chimera Ants who ate humans and inherited their characteristics also became able to use Nen abilities.
Perhaps I can use it too. My body is an ant, but I have a clear personality. I want to believe the possibility isn't zero. If I can use Nen abilities, I will be able to do various things. Since I have tons of free time anyway, I decided to try Nen training.
Nen is a technique to handle aura, which is the expression of life energy. Everyone harbors this aura inside their body, but very few can manipulate it intentionally. To become aware of this aura, one must first open the Aura Nodes, the passages for aura.
The easiest and fastest way to open the Aura Nodes is to receive an attack with aura from a Nen user. By having another's aura collide with you, your own Aura Nodes are forcibly opened, and you awaken to Nen. However, this method appears to be quite dangerous.
If attacked by a malicious Nen user, the possibility of being killed is naturally higher. Even if one survives and the Aura Nodes open, if it isn't accompanied by the technique to keep the aura that overflows out of the body through the Aura Nodes, the aura will soon be depleted, and one will die.
But in my case, I cannot execute this method, so there is no need to worry. Because there are no other Nen users here. There is another way to learn Nen abilities safely that can be done alone.
That is meditation. Slowly calm the mind and face oneself earnestly until the sensation of the aura inside the body can be grasped.
However, with this method, it takes a considerable amount of time to awaken to Nen. It seems even talented people take half a year. It's a story requiring patience. Before that, as a fundamental issue, there is the problem of whether my body, being an ant, even has things like Aura Nodes.
However, doubting everything from the start won't get things started. Believing wholeheartedly that Nen exists is the first step to mastery. If my guess is correct, human blood must be flowing in my body to some extent. I can't say for sure that I absolutely cannot learn it.
I closed my eyes (I don't have eyelids so I can't close them, but in the mood of closing them) and focused my consciousness inward as if searching inside my heart. In that way, I spent the majority of the day in meditation.
It's this place again. I dream the same dream. A dim room, countless capsules.
Inside one broken capsule, there is a human girl.
'Who are you?' I asked.
She looks up at me. There was no expression there. But those eyes were dyed in negative emotions. Hatred as if denying everything in this world.
She wasn't expressionless. Intense emotion painted over her expression, and everything was a void established on top of that.
Eyes with a color so deep one could be sucked in. That gaze pierces me.
She opened her mouth. Words answering my question are spun.
However, I could not hear them. Unnaturally generated radio noise drowns out her voice.
As if I myself am rejecting her words.
I wake up. I was dreaming. When I continue meditating, I fall asleep before I know it, and I've come to dream the same content without fail.
In the dream, I meet a silver-haired girl. And we speak about something. I can't remember the content because I forget it immediately.
It wasn't a very pleasant dream. Is this also an effect of meditation? There is no progress regarding Nen abilities either, and I still cannot sense this thing called aura.
Furthermore, recently, my body has continued to be in poor condition. The egg-laying period is approaching. For a Chimera Ant Queen who creates eggs through Phagogenesis, eating serves as the reproductive act. The more I eat, the more soldier ant eggs are created inside my body.
Leaving descendants for the prosperity of one's species. It is natural behavior as a living thing. If I didn't have a personality and was born as just an ant, I might have felt love for the lives dwelling in my stomach and happily prepared for egg-laying.
But for the current me, egg-laying was not something acceptable. When I think that hundreds of mysterious lives are crowding inside my own belly, I shudder. No matter what, I couldn't think of them as my children.
If it was going to be like this, I didn't need senses close to a human. No, this isn't a problem of personality. I have lived until now reconciling my senses as an ant and my senses as a human. I have never felt pain in the Chimera Ant lifestyle.
Only the single point of "egg-laying" is the problem. This alone I simply cannot tolerate. Emotional disgust takes priority over rationality as an ant's biology. I don't even know myself why I have fallen into such emotions.
Gradually, I stopped eating things. If I eat, the preparation for egg-laying progresses that much. When I think of that, I have no appetite. However, the soldier ants didn't consider my poor condition and continued to carry food just as before.
The bed gets buried in red stones. The soldier ants who usually didn't fail to clean the bed to a neurotic degree didn't clean up the red stones. It was as if I was being pressured, as if they were saying "Eat."
My physical strength is dropping. I can't put power into my body. Even so, I don't think about taking a meal. Crouching on my bed as if fleeing from my mission, I continued to meditate.
In the dream, I was in that dim room again.
Just like always, I peer into the one broken capsule. However, the figure of the girl was not there. Driven by anxiety over where she went, I search around the room. But she is nowhere.
'Mother.'
I heard someone's voice. A radio signal speaking directly into my head. Tremors ran through my whole body.
'I'm here, Mother.'
The radio wave was being emitted from a single capsule. It looks no different from the other spheres around it. But it possesses a will and speaks to me.
'We're going to be born soon.'
It's disgusting. I felt like I was going crazy. I cover my ears. I scream until my throat is crushed. It's useless. The voice rides the radio waves and invades my head.
'We can meet soon, wait for us, Mother.'