The Laughing Swordsman

"Look, friend, look! Doesn't it look great?"

Layla pointed excitedly to a strange honeycomb as she dragged Apollo along.

As for Apollo, he simply blinked a few times, stumbling because of Layla's tug.

"That looks like something, that's for sure."

The strange honeycomb was very large. The entirety of it was roughly thirty meters high and fifty meters wide. The honeycomb was slanted to the side and consisted of various hexagonal cells that were nearly overflowing with some strange viscous translucent green substance.

These shapes were not the most perfectly made. They were not only irregularly shaped, like what a hexagon would look like if drawn by a child, but also cracked. There was even a section that looked somewhat like a teacup, while one in the middle of the honeycomb was half draped over.

  In fact, certain sections of the comb had directly broken off.

Whoever or whatever made them, did a really sloppy job.

The honeycomb itself was a deep brown color. Paired with the viscous translucent green liquid coming out of them, they seemed far from appealing, prompting Apollo to question if this was really something they wanted to try.

However, the two-headed dog tasted fine, so he imagined this wouldn't be too bad.

Countless dark green locust-like insects swarmed around the honeycomb. Some of them seemed to be adding to the honeycomb, while others were consuming it.

As Layla continued pulling Apollo towards the honeycomb, something else approached from the opposite side. It was a massive light green insect, nearly five meters long.

It was the queen.

The queen settled down on top of the honeycomb, causing it to let out concerning creaking sounds. As for the surrounding dark green insects, they immediately fled, getting far away from the queen.

Apollo looked towards Layla, who continued to go forth as though nothing was wrong. Then, he pointed to the large queen insect in front of them.

"What do we do about that thing?"

Layla looked towards where Apollo was pointing, then waved her hand dismissively.

"Friend is overreacting! It may bother you for a little bit, but there is nothing it can do!"

The queen insect began inspecting the honeycomb, but not without sticking out its straw-like tongue and greedily sucking at the green contents within. However, once it found the strange part of the honeycomb that seemed to be draped over, it froze.

Without warning, it let out a high-pitched roar and smashed that part with its arm.

Layla gasped.

"Ah! It's not okay!"

She let go of Apollo and dashed towards the honeycomb. The queen insect repeatedly slammed its arm against that section of the honeycomb, until it directly burst and the honeycomb itself collapsed into multiple pieces, causing quite a bit of the dark green liquid to splash into the air.

The queen raised its head to let out a roar, but before it could...

A deafening bang reverberated, shaking the air.

Layla had leaped upwards and pulled back her hand before slapping the insect queen, turning it into green sludge that splattered across the floor. Although there was the occasional insect arm within that green sludge, it would be hard to figure out that it used to be an insect queen.

Apollo slowly walked over to Layla, who let out a sigh of relief. She turned around and showed off a big smile.

"It's ok now! The tasty stuff is saved!"

Layla proceeded to pick up several of the overturned hexagonal cells from the honeycomb and set them upright to prevent its translucent green content from slipping into the ground.

During this time, Apollo walked over and inspected the hexagonal cell that was draped over and had been slammed by the queen insect. What remained of it was only several pieces and some dark green liquid that splattered across the floor.

Apollo narrowed his eyes.

...Actually, there was something else. It was something that remained within the green liquid and was moving. As for what exactly, Apollo couldn't tell since he only saw a fuzzy black figure.

He proceeded to stick his hand into the green liquid and pull out whatever was inside with far less hesitation than what a normal person would have.

It was a relatively small light green insect.

The insect had black beady eyes that looked at Apollo and blinked curiously. After only a few moments, Apollo lost interest.

He set it back down into the green liquid, but it crawled back out and touched his foot.

Apollo's face twitched.

Was this thing feeling attached to him?

However, he had bigger problems than being considered a mother.

Because the surrounding dark green insects began swarming him.

Apollo immediately slashed the few that got near him, causing them to burst into green fluid. However, that was only the beginning.

The number of insects quickly became too much for Apollo. Some of them even landed on his body, but burst into green fluid right after. As time passed, more and more of them landed on his body, until he had to focus all of his attention on the bugs covering him.

As for Layla, she was simply idling away, sticking her finger into the green liquid housed by the hexagonal cells, then sticking that finger into her mouth.

"Mm, tasty!"

Layla herself was not being attacked by any of the bugs, despite eating their food right in front of them. She looked over to Apollo who, on the other hand, was being swarmed by them.

"Hm, friend seems to be having fun!"

Then, she went back to her own business, eating some more of the green liquid.

As for Apollo, unlike how Layla put it, he was not having fun.

The bugs landed on his body faster than he could kill them. As such, some of them had enough time to open their tiny jaws and bite down.

Apollo grit his teeth from the sharp pain of having pieces of his flesh being torn off.

However, even with grit teeth, he did not forget to laugh.