The Eccentric Entomologist is Now a Queen's Consort-Chapter 801: The Schemer Watching (2)

Chapter 801: The Schemer Watching (2)
"Fine," she said. "Watch. I’ve done dumber shows for worse crowds."
She kept walking.
Far away, another mind followed the same images, but from the other side.
The main command tent of Silvarion’s forward camp smelled faintly of ink, leather, and cooled tea.
Lamp-light pooled over the war table, picking out the edges of maps and the scrawl of hastily added notes.
Above the table floated a projection pane—a flat sheet of pale light, its surface rippling with the picture sent up from the depths of Ashen River.
Tonight, it showed a slow, shifting view of crystal trunks and glowing moss.
Mikhailis sat in a chair that someone had finally convinced him to use instead of perching on the table.
His posture was relaxed at first glance—one arm draped over the back of the chair, one leg folded over the other—but the slight tension in his shoulders betrayed how long he’d been holding the projection.
The runes worked into the glove on his right hand glowed dull gold, pulsing in time with the pane.
Bandages still wrapped part of his throat and shoulder under his shirt, a reminder that the dungeon had already had one bite of him.
He eyed the image of Rhaen weaving through the crystals and let out a slow breath through his nose.
She’s good,
he thought.
Annoyingly good.
Inside his head, a familiar, dry voice spoke.
<Her survival probability after the shaft was six percent,> Rodion said.
You sound mildly offended,
Mikhailis replied, mouth twitching.
<I am updating models,> the AI answered.
He almost chuckled.
"Something funny?" Serelith asked from behind him.
He glanced back.
The court magician lounged in her usual casually indecent way in a spare chair, long legs crossed, amethyst eyes half-lidded. She looked like she was watching a play instead of a live feed from a death maze.
"Rodion is sulking," Mikhailis said.
Serelith’s smile sharpened.
"Mm. I like him already," she purred.
On his right, Elowen sat straighter, hands folded on the table in front of her.
Her silver hair was tied back in a loose knot, a few strands falling forward to frame her face.
She didn’t look away from the projection.
"If your... friend is annoyed," she said softly, "it means the enemy is doing better than we thought."
Her tone was calm, but he heard the thin thread of tension underneath.
Lira stood just behind his chair, tray balanced perfectly, long black ponytail falling over her shoulder.
She had been refilling cups and changing teapots without a sound for the last hour.
Now, she tilted her head slightly.
"She is alone?" she asked. "All this time?"
Mikhailis’s eyes flicked to a corner of the projection where, earlier, there had been more movement—shadows of the other Kharadorn agents before the dungeon chewed them.
"Her team didn’t make it past the threshold," he said. "It’s just her now."
Vyrelda, sitting opposite him with arms folded and chin resting on her knuckles, let out a low sigh.
"That makes three major factions sending elites into that hole," she said. "League test squad. Technomancer toys. Now Kharadorn’s pet knife."
"Pet knife?" Cerys murmured from near the entrance.
The Lone Wolf leaned against a tent pole, red hair in a practical tie, armour loosened but ready.
Vyrelda shrugged.
"Look at her," she said, nodding at the projection. "She isn’t just an officer. She moves like someone who’s spent years being thrown at problems and told to fix them or die."
Cerys’s eyes narrowed slightly.
"I’ve seen that walk," she said quietly. "In mirrors."
Mikhailis’s gaze lingered on the knight for a moment.
Then he turned back to the pane.
Rhaen had reached the fork between the open spawn-like clearing and the crystal thicket.
She stood there, weighing choices.
He watched her turn toward the denser path.
Good instinct,
he thought.
<She just avoided a likely spawn zone,> Rodion confirmed.
"Smart girl," Serelith murmured. "Walk into the knives you can’t see instead of the ones you can. That’s how you live a little longer."
Elowen’s fingers tightened very slightly together.
"She has courage," the queen said.
"That she does," Mikhailis agreed.
He felt something twist in his chest—respect, maybe, and the faint ache of shared experience.
He knew what it felt like to be the one idiot who kept walking when everyone else had stopped.
On the projection, the angle shifted.
The view rose a little, peeked down into the narrowing path.
A cluster of small, dark shapes clung to the upper edges of the trunks there, perfectly still.
To anyone who didn’t know what they were, they looked like natural bumps.
Mikhailis knew better.
"Busy little things," he murmured.
Elowen’s eyes flicked to him.
"They’re close?" she asked, just barely above a whisper.
"Two ahead of her, three behind, one soldier deeper in," he said. "They’re not attacking yet."
"Why not?" Vyrelda asked.
He tapped a finger lightly against his teacup.
"Because I told them not to," he said.
There was a brief silence.
Cerys straightened a fraction.
"You’re... letting her go?" the knight asked.
"For now," Mikhailis said. "She’s drawing a very nice line for us through that floor. No reason to cut the pen while it’s still writing."
Serelith let out a soft, delighted sound.
"Oh, you are awful," she said, eyes gleaming. "I approve so much."
Lira’s hand tightened on the tray.
"She doesn’t know," the maid said quietly. "That she’s being used like that."
"No," Mikhailis said. "She doesn’t."
His tone was mild, but his eyes stayed cold.
If we warn every brave intruder,
he thought,
we’ll run out of patience and resources before the League runs out of bodies.
Rodion’s voice slid back into his thoughts.
<Her pathing has already reduced projected casualty rates for the colony’s next expansion cycle by twelve percent,> the AI said. <She is, in effect, free optimisation.>
You’re starting to sound like Serelith,
Mikhailis replied.
<You set my personality parameters,> Rodion said.
He fought down another laugh.
From the outside, he suspected it would look inappropriate.
On the screen, Rhaen paused again.
Her shoulders stiffened.
Even from the ants’ vantage point, it was clear she felt something closing in.
She turned in place, scanning the trunks.
Her blade lifted slightly.
Mikhailis leaned forward without meaning to.
For a heartbeat, their gazes met—hers through the projection, his through the swarm.
Of course, she couldn’t see him.
But he felt the weight of her searching stare anyway.
"We should offer her terms," Cerys said suddenly.
Everyone looked at her.
Cerys met Mikhailis’s eyes steadily.
"She’s not a mindless berserker," the knight said. "She’s a professional. Give her a way out and she might take it. We could use someone like that."
Vyrelda raised a brow.
"And tell Kharadorn we poached one of their favourite knives?" she said. "They’d love that."
"They tried to shatter your border ward two months ago," Cerys shot back. "They can afford to lose a knife."
Elowen’s gaze moved between them, then rested on Mikhailis.
"What do you think?" she asked.
He hesitated.
His first answer was yes. Recruit, flip, turn enemy assets into allies—that was basic strategy.
His second answer tasted bitter.
If he offered terms now, he’d have to tell her what watched her.
He’d have to of the colony than he was ready to reveal to any outsider—even an elite one.
He rolled the thought around behind his teeth.
Is she worth that much risk?
he wondered.
Rodion, uninvited, dropped numbers into his mind.
<Probability of successful recruitment if offered extraction right now: twenty-eight percent,> the AI said.
You’re no fun,
Mikhailis thought.
<You pay me not to be,> Rodion replied.
He sighed softly, out loud.
"I think," he said, choosing his words, "that right now she’s more valuable as a pathfinder than as a very uncertain ally."
Cerys’s jaw clenched.
"So we just... watch?" she asked.
"For now," he said.
Elowen’s mouth thinned.
"I do not like throwing away people who fight this hard," she said quietly.
Mikhailis met her eyes.
"I don’t like it either," he said. "But I like the idea of the League owning this core even less."
Something in his tone made her look away first.
On the pane, Rhaen turned her back on whatever phantom had pricked her instincts and walked deeper into the crystal thicket.
The scouts above her moved as one, creeping along the trunks to keep pace.
The soldier unit shifted at the edge of a darker patch, mandibles flexing.
Not yet, the hive-mind hummed.
Not yet.
Let her open more doors.
Let her safe ground.
Then—
Mikhailis’s fingers tapped gently against his cup.
The tea had cooled.
He didn’t care.
He watched the small figure threading through pillars of light, her shoulders square, her steps careful.
He thought of himself, half-crushed on the first floor not long ago, coughing blood and cursing the dungeon’s sense of humour.
We are all tools to something,
he thought.
A kingdom. A god. A queen. A hive.
He’d chosen his tools.
She had chosen hers.
Now those choices scraped against each other in the dark.
"You know," Serelith said idly, "if we bottled whatever keeps her going, we could sell it as a stimulant."
"Please don’t," Lira muttered under her breath.
Serelith grinned.
The projection view rose higher again as the scouts climbed.
From that angle, Rhaen looked small, a single human thread weaving under the crystal canopy.
In the foreground, one of the soldier units moved at last.
Heavy legs, armour plate catching the light, mandibles working open and closed in a slow, anticipatory rhythm.
It stepped from one trunk to another, then onto the moss, leaving faint indentations.
Rhaen didn’t hear it yet.
She moved on, following a path only she could see.
Mikhailis sat back a little and swirled his tea.
His voice, when he finally spoke, was light on the surface.
Underneath, it was edged.
"Go on," he murmured, eyes on the projection. "Open the path more..."
The soldier ant lifted its head, antennae tasting the air.
"...you’re going to be the colony’s meal."
The words hung in the tent for a heartbeat.
Elowen’s gaze snapped to him, sharp.
"Mikhailis," she said, a warning in her tone.
He didn’t look away.
"It’s not cruelty," he said quietly. "It’s accounting."
"That woman is not a number," Cerys said, voice low and hard.
"No," he agreed. "She’s a blade pointed at us. I’d rather she cut a path we can use before she breaks."
Serelith’s eyes shone.
"You sound almost like a villain king," she said happily.
Lira’s fingers whitened around the tray, her knuckles tight.
Vyrelda let out a slow breath.
"She got deeper than most," the mage said. "If nothing else, they’ll sing about her."
"If anyone ever finds enough of her to confirm she existed," Cerys replied.
No one had an answer to that.
On the pane, the view zoomed out one last time.
Rhaen walked on, a stubborn, solitary figure under towering pillars of crystal.
In the foreground, clear now to everyone in the tent, the Chimera Ant soldier took its first, slow steps after her, mandibles flexing, carapace catching the blue-green light.
Above, the scouts flowed along the trunks like living shadows.
The moss glowed softly.
The dungeon breathed.
And somewhere deep beneath the camp, the colony waited, patient and hungry.