A Legion Grows From My Smartphone

"How is he? What’s he doing? Is he happy?”

The legion bombarded with questions.

[...Of course, he’s currently reviewing the footage you sent. He must be quite busy. Yes, he's very happy.]

"Do you know how hard I worked to optimize this for him?”

Kang Do Yeon grumbled from the sidelines.

In truth, Kang Do Yeon deserved recognition for her understanding and refinement of the new fmind technique-’. The legion, with its superior intelligence, had enhanced and evolved this technique. However, it was she who played a crucial role in adapting it from their viewpoint to a human-’s. Throughout this process, she had pushed her cognitive abilities to their limits with the legion’s help, leaving her utterly drained.

"However, the newly created Resonance Method is only half complete.”

The legion gave a vague verdict on the new mind technique for handling Formative Force.

"It’s a technique thoroughly designed for humans, or rather, humanoid forms.”

"But all the high-ranking species are humanoid... aren’t they?”

Kang Do Yeon asked, her confusion evident. The legion nodded in response.

In fact, all the high-ranking species that the legion produced to utilize Formative Force were in the form of humans or orcs, possessing arms and legs and using weapons.

"We’ve never seen a beast use Formative Force.”

The reason was straightforward. The legion had never encountered any creature that utilized Formative Force. They were hesitant to create inefficiently, and thus, never dared to do so.

"Ultimately, because they’re humanoid, they have no choice but to rely on such techniques.”

However, these versatile soldiers had a significant weakness. Compared to other types of soldiers who enhanced their size, teeth, or claws, their lethality decreased if they were weaponless.

Therefore, if they were born with arms and hands, it was best to grab anything and swing it around, even if they had a spiked tail.

"We need swordsmanship. Whether it-’s spear technique or body technique, we need it all.”

The legion-’s eyes gleamed behind the mask.

Creating a weapon was simple. However, that weapon was certainly not a part of the body, and it unquestionably required a method of use.

It had to be more efficient. They had experienced this in their fight with the Moonlight Elves, who had developed a somewhat systematic sword technique.

This was the basis for the legion-’s judgment that the Resonance Method they developed was only half complete.

"Then it-’s solved. The martial arts that Ji Chang Hyun taught him was a type of swordsmanship.”

"Tsk.”

At Kang Do Yeon’s words, the legion didn’t bother to hide its feelings.

"Tsk?”

"It-’s not an unusual sound. While he could learn directly from the video, it would make him happier if we were the ones to teach him.”

[-]

"...You’re incredibly honest in this regard.”

Kang Do Yeon playfully stuck out her tongue in response to the legion-’s unexpected reaction, quickly scanning her surroundings.

This was not the same legion she once knew, the one she had taught to understand and express emotions.

Now, it didn-’t hesitate to comprehend and convey its own feelings.

fI think I understand his concern now.-*

Her understanding deepened now that they were unified as one entity.

This creature, which alternated between being ordinary and peculiar, sometimes resembling a younger sibling, was in fact a being capable of transforming into something brutally and terrifyingly powerful at any given moment.

[The reconnaissance has been completed up to the 68th floor. The traces have been cut off here.]

"There-’s only one possibility.”

The legion shifted its gaze.

The location was more than ten floors above their current position.

Their scouts, dispatched long ago, were operating there without any hindrance.

"Traces of the golem. Could that kid have been caught by the golem?”

"The severed traces lead upwards. The golem must have taken the surviving individual upwards.”

Despite having the same information, the legion, capable of seeing, hearing, and processing countless things in the city, refuted Kang Do Yeon-’s deduction and pointed upwards.

The legion was already aware of the surviving Moonlight Elf, Yelson. They even knew about his assigned mission, having heard it directly from the Great Chieftain.

"Human.”

The entire nest trembled slightly.

Startled, Kang Do Yeon instinctively touched her heart, which had ceased to beat.

She couldn’t utter a word. The legion was already contemplating hunting the humans on the surface.

And a hunt by the legion meant only one thing: the annihilation of an entire species, driving them to extinction.

"Legion Commander.”

"Hmm..”

"Let’s go to the surface right now. To take everything they have.”

The refurbishment was over. The legion decided to go to the surface.

[All the floors have been cleaned by the humans’ golems, so naturally, there are no creatures that could become our enemies.]

The march of the legionnaires began with a chilling silence. The lush vegetation in the labyrinth was left untouched.

The expansion of the nest, which was devouring the entire labyrinth, continued without a break, as they could eat slowly anyway.

The only obstacles were the golems that the humans had scattered for management, but they all fell apart as their cores were shattered by the swords of the high-ranking species.

[The location of the scouts, the 78th floor. Their traces were found here. However, the traces are a bit old.]

[The 88th floor. The scouts began to get hurt by creatures that look like cave bats.]

[The 96th floor. Artificially polished passages and spaces are visible. A heavy door is blocking the passage, but there is a tiny gap.]

[The 99th floor. Above, there is light.]

‘We found it.’

The entire legion was shaken.

On the 100th floor, the legion’s scouts had discovered humans.

The 100th floor was a rather expansive facility.

A considerable number of humans were congregated in this facility, each clutching one or two peculiar crystal-like objects. The surviving scout, no larger than a slightly oversized bee, cautiously approached some of them. The humans, engrossed in their chatter, remained oblivious to the scout’s presence. Those in robes were particularly engrossed in their casual conversation about the crystal spheres.

"Could they be...wizards?”

Kang Do Yeon, who already knew that the golems were not moved by scientific means but by a unique method, mumbled in a daze.

The legion also understood what magic was.

Not the fictitious magic known through Earth’s knowledge, but the magic of the humans of this world, as revealed by the testimony of the Moonlight Elf Chieftain.

"The gaze reflected in the crystal spheres. It’s the scenery of the cave. They’re looking through the golems’ eyes.”

The legion confirmed that the screens visible in the crystal spheres were displaying similar landscapes from various angles, and identified their nature.

"It wasn’t automatic...then, doesn’t that mean they saw us? But it’s too quiet for that.”

"The total number of crystal spheres is 69, the number of humans is 38. They’re not watching all the golems from the start.”

The legion swiftly completed its calculations and initiated a new one. A Moonlight Elf survivor had managed to evade detection, and it was clear they hadn’t yet disclosed their

identity to the humans. This information could be leveraged for a more efficient battle.

"I want to see the outside first.”

The legion, momentarily halting its march, dispatched a single scout. The scout quickly caught and devoured a bug to replenish its energy.

The smaller scouts possessed fully functional digestive organs, enabling them to procure energy independently.

[Was the desperation so great that it justified the inefficiency? Then, how does it feel to finally see the outside world you’ve yearned for?]

The scout moved steadily towards the intensifying light.

Suddenly, the landscape shifted.

The pure sunlight, a stark contrast to the feeble glow stones of the cave that resembled a prison, bathed the entire world with the power of origin and life.

The wind, now free to roam anywhere, was unlike the wind confined to flow within the underground labyrinth.

The soil, teeming with the energy of countless lives thriving on it, was different.

All these elements, which those who lived here and saw daily, couldn’t appreciate, were entirely new to the legion, which had just surfaced from the ground for the first time.

It felt like a child seeing the world for the first time. The legion’s world, which began from a single hive in a cave, had expanded once more.

[Didn’t you already know? What’s outside, what the sun is, what this world is?]

<’No...it’ s...different. ’

They knew, of course, thanks to the vast knowledge they had gathered while growing. But that was merely information they had seen and heard.

The sights they directly experienced through a part of themselves were so overwhelming that their advanced brain momentarily froze.

'The sky. The dwelling place of the gods and the gateway to the boundless universe.’

The legion looked upwards. They had always been curious about the sky.

The endless expanse of blue. The scout’s specially enhanced vision accurately captured that clear blue color.

‘'It’s beautiful.’

For the first time since their birth, they could see the sky of the open world.

The view of this world under the open sky was beyond comparison to even the largest hive.

The legion, which had yet to clearly define what beauty was, found its definition for the first time.

[Then, what are your thoughts on seeing that sky, this world?]

'I want it.’

Their obsession momentarily subsided, and the legion’s inherent desire to consume surged stronger than ever before.

It was a predictable outcome. If they desired something, they would seize it. That was the legion’s logic.

The entire legion was violently stirred by the intense primal instinct to devour everything, to color it with their own cells.