An attempt at spiritual combing

"Who is Ryan?"

When Alyssa asked this, both Savior and Gabriel fell silent for a short time.

Seville leaned against Gabriel's back, turned off the interpreter, and whispered, "Lord Gabriel... didn't you say that Lord Ryan is an important guard for us to protect Her Majesty Alyssa's alliance... If it's so important, why didn't you give Her Majesty Alyssa any preparation?"

Gabriel, who had been obsessed with feeding Her Majesty Alyssa and handling some of the government affairs of the Saint Hobel Palace these days, was overwhelmed: "..."

"Um, perhaps you could hand over some of Her Majesty Alyssa's daily affairs to other internal affairs officials?"

There was a chief housekeeper, and of course, other positions. Besides Gabriel, the Pompeii had six other housekeepers aboard. They were responsible for the Worm Mother's headdress, clothing, food, entertainment, etiquette, and culture. However, since retrieving the Worm Mother, these tasks had essentially been handled solely by Gabriel and Pineapple, leaving the other housekeepers without even seeing her.

Gabriel knew it was time to relinquish power. My Lord! She, Gabriel, had committed the sin of power-seeking! She truly relied on her wholeheartedly, like a cub. Her Majesty, sweeter than honey, was so adorable!

For a moment, Gabriel even wavered: should she also consider pheromone mating and have a few cubs? But she quickly rejected it with even greater resolve. The cubs would only become a burden, hindering her ability to serve Her Majesty Alyssa.

"...After Her Majesty Alyssa meets Ryan, I will immediately introduce her to her internal affairs officer and guards." Gabriel made this difficult decision while gnashing his teeth. Her Majesty the Worm Mother belonged to everyone. She couldn't be so selfish as to seek the undivided support of a noble Worm Mother.

"Your Highness Alyssa, you have met Ryan Warlock. He is the big brown-black beetle who carried out the mission to rescue you, and he is your captain of the guards." Gabriel put away the affectionate attitude of reaching out to hug the Worm Queen when he saw her, and put his right hand on her chest, showing the respect that a chief internal affairs officer should have for the Worm Queen.

Alyssa immediately recalled the sturdy arm covered in brown-black armor that had wrapped around her waist and pulled her up. She also inevitably recalled the Governor's face, which had instantly turned pale with fear.

Don't be afraid...don't be afraid, the bugs won't hurt her. She is the bug queen.

He repeated this to himself several times in his mind, and the scene in his memory turned into the pair of appendages that tightly held him and carefully controlled the strength, and the solid armor that isolated all the strong winds and strange explosions.

So, were the vague words like "Your Majesty" and "Safety" that kept coming to her at that time the voice of Ryan's heart that she perceived through her unconscious mental power?

After all, direct communication using mental power does not require any reliance on an interpreter.

"Where is he now?"

"…He's not doing well right now."

Gabriel told Alyssa in detail about Ryan's injuries, the consequences of the Zerg's degeneration, and the role that the Zerg Queen could play in the Zerg's degeneration. Alyssa, who had been carefree these days, frowned slightly, her face solemn.

It was her incompetence that caused Her Majesty Alyssa to have such an expression on her face. Gabriel had to say, however, "Vio has exhausted nearly every possible means of treatment, and his deterioration remains unchecked. Therefore, Vio has requested that you perform a mental refresher on Ryan."

She concealed the Second and Third Legions' pressure on the Saint Hobel Palace, as well as the superficial politeness and indirect probing of the high-ranking families. Such ugly politics should not be known to Her Majesty Alyssa, whose common sense was like that of a newborn cub.

"I, I don't know how to..."

"...Yes, Your Majesty. You have indeed not received any inheritance in this area. Please allow me to explain to you again: mental grooming is risky. Some manic and highly degraded Zerg will transmit mental pollution to you. Moreover, Ryan can no longer maintain his mimicry and is in full insect form. His insect form... is very huge. You may be afraid. You can choose whether to perform mental grooming on him."

"But...if I don't do it, no one else can help him, right?" Alyssa clutched the soft, silky fabric on her chest and looked at Gabriel. "Mammy, I don't know how...but I want to help him. I, I can learn."

When Alyssa took the hovercraft to enter the treatment cabin where Ryan was, she found that she had overestimated her endurance.

The treatment cabin is a huge space similar to a swimming pool. The worm-shaped Ryan is immersed in the orange-yellow treatment fluid pool, with only a pair of huge mandibles belonging to the giant mountain stag beetle exposed on the surface of the pool.

Looking down from the platform, the orange-yellow, translucent pool water soaked Ryan's brown-black carapace, making it even more shiny. The tears on his carapace were thicker than Alyssa's hands, and the edges of the wounds were covered with dense spines, and fine bubbles constantly emerged from them.

He looked like he was being boiled in this pot of pool water.

Alyssa had been watching cub cartoons for a few days, and the shock of this unimaginable reality made her tremble again. Gabriel, watching Her Majesty Alyssa's face paler from up close, felt deeply distressed. She wanted to say something, but Sewell gently pulled one of her hands from behind, and she finally swallowed her words.

"Your Highness, I apologize for exposing you to this." Vio pulled up the floating display screen on the platform, projecting a video of Ryan's treatment progress. It could be seen that upon being admitted to the treatment chamber, the wounds were merely normal lacerations. However, after several days, the wounds not only failed to heal, but became increasingly festering, corroding the outer hard shell. "He is now showing clear signs of deterioration. Without your guidance, I'm afraid he would have degenerated into a beast before we returned to Saint Hobel's Palace."

"...What is a strange beast?" It was another new word that she had never heard of and sounded scary.

"...a monster that has completely lost its mind, possessing only an appetite for food and destruction, and is extremely difficult to kill."

Vio called up some images of interstellar monsters. These alien monsters were beyond the imagination of Alyssa even in her nightmares, and she finally couldn't help but bury her face in Gabriel's arms.

"Vio, please be careful with your expression!" Gabriel hugged the petite insect mother with heartache and reminded her.

Vio ignored him and continued, "Your Highness, if you are unable to sort out his mental state, please allow me to euthanize Ryan. The Warlock family will never allow their most outstanding eldest son to become an interstellar beast. Let him go peacefully as a hero who rescued the Worm Queen!"

Anyone could tell that Vio's seemingly yielding but actually coercive request to the Worm Mother was obvious. Gabriel was about to attack when Alyssa lifted herself up from Gabriel's arms and said, "Don't kill him!"

"I'll try my best. You teach me how to do it."

Considering the insect mother's weak mental power, the closer the distance, the better. Alyssa came down from the platform on a floating robot. The closer she got to Ryan in the pool at the bottom, the stronger the pressure from the giant creature became.

"Your Majesty, you can touch his upper jaw right here and try to communicate with him." Vio said, pointing to the forked branch that was more than six meters long and exposed above the water.

Alyssa looked at the scissor-like fork, with four sharp, inward-curving protrusions symmetrically distributed on its inner side. At the base of the fork, within the gaps in the carapace, she could vaguely see the firm muscles.

If this clamped her, she could be easily cut in half.

Alyssa silently prayed to herself that the bugs would not hurt her, placed her hand on the hard forked branch, closed her eyes, and began to try to talk to Ryan in her mind.

The petite, human-shaped Zerg Queen had a mental conversation with the giant beetle. The collision of the softest and the hardest scenes made the three Zergs present, Vio, Gabriel, and Sewell, hold their breath.

After a while, Alyssa put down her hand, her face full of helplessness. She subconsciously turned back to Gabriel and Seville for help: "Mammy, Master... I, I can't hear anything..."

She tried, calling out in her heart, quietly extending her mental tentacles. But the mental tentacles couldn't penetrate Ryan's shell, and calling out to him was more like shouting into a black wall that didn't echo.

The three Zerg present were all somewhat disappointed. Alyssa carefully studied their expressions, especially Vio's, who looked like a young cub who had done something wrong.

How could a Worm Mother who depended on her attendants' wishes become a powerful one? Sewell felt a sense of disappointment at his unfulfilled expectations, but he quickly adjusted his expression. "Your Highness, it's okay. After all, you haven't had time to receive systematic Worm Mother training. We were too hasty."

How could there be any systematic education in this single-line inheritance method? The other Zerg races weren't Zerg Queens. Mental cultivation was almost an innate talent of every Zerg Queen. How could one teach something like talent?

Alyssa said to Vio, "Don't kill him. Let me try again. His carapace is too thick. Can I touch his soft flesh?"

Vio was stunned for a moment: "Of course, Your Majesty Alyssa."

He led the Beetle Queen to an exposed wound on Ryan's head. The wound ran from the corner of the beetle's eye to the top of his head, submerged below the level of the healing fluid. "Please be careful, Your Majesty Alyssa. I'll lower the level of the healing fluid for you."

After lowering the water level, Alyssa, holding onto Vio's tightly restrained capture foot, stepped off the floating robot and onto Ryan's head shell. However, having not needed to walk on her own for so many days, she ignored the soft rubber retainer on her foot and stumbled into the water as soon as she landed!

"Your Majesty!" Vio stretched out his hand to grab it. At that moment, he subconsciously used his fastest-mimicking catching leg, forgetting that the insect queen did not have a hard shell.

Sevier and Gabriel's pupils contracted violently, and they simultaneously made their fastest attack moves to try to stop it, but they were too far away.

With a "clang", the forked branches of the giant mountain stag beetle opened, blocking Vio's serrated capturing legs; a hard black front leg was raised, revealing the wet insect mother lying on it, holding the front leg and shivering.