Alien creatures destroy homes? Start by killing upright apes!

Chapter 15 Gathering! Assembling!

Lu Cheng put down his teacup and walked to the window.

Outside lay the fields of the mighty Dragon Kingdom. The crops in the fields overturned by the Water Dragon Beast were growing much more lushly than in previous years, a verdant expanse.

Several water dragons lay on the ridges of the fields, round and plump, with large fangs stuck in the mud, like a few shovels stuck in the ground.

"President Kerry, have you ever seen the way a water dragon looks at a person?"

Kerry was stunned for a moment: "What?"

"When the water dragon looks at you, there's nothing in its eyes. Not indifference, but truly nothing. In its eyes, you're no different from a stone, a tree, or a lump of mud."

Lu Cheng turned around.

"But Homo erectus is different. The way Homo erectus looks at people changes. On the first day of their arrival, their eyes are blank. On the third day, they look at people with curiosity. On the seventh day, they look at people with observation. On the tenth day, they look at people with imitation. Until yesterday—"

He picked up a piece of intelligence from the table; it had been sent by Ivan Bear Kingdom that morning.

"Ivan Bear State reports that the upright apes of the Far Eastern wilderness have begun migrating south, heading straight for the largest steam engine manufacturing plant in all of Russia. No one has taught them what a steam engine is, no one has told them there's a factory in the south. But they know."

Kerry took the report and opened it.

There was a photo tucked inside.

The trunk of a birch tree was covered with arrows pointing south.

It wasn't carved randomly; the direction is completely consistent.

"How did they know?"

Lu Cheng shook his head: "I don't know, and that's the scariest part. We don't know how they communicate, how they acquire information, or what their next move will be. All we know is that they are learning, and learning faster and faster."

……

Ivan Bear Kingdom, the Far Eastern wilderness.

Fra stood at the edge of the birch forest, facing the birch tree covered with arrows.

His pipe had been extinguished for a long time and hadn't been lit.

"How far is it to the south?" he asked.

The intelligence chief unfolded a map: "The nearest industrial city, Kutsk, is about 1,200 kilometers away as the crow flies. At the current migration speed of the hominids, they will arrive in about twenty days."

"What about the upright apes along the way?"

"They all joined in, three became six, six became thirteen. Like a snowball, it just kept getting bigger and bigger."

Fula remained silent for a long time before saying something that sent chills down the spines of everyone present.

"They are gathering, like an army."

……

Taro Tanuki Country, Kyoto.

Massa has moved out of the mansion with the courtyard.

It's not that I don't want to live there, it's that I'm afraid to live there.

The three upright apes in the courtyard have now become thirty.

It's not reproduction, it's aggregation.

Homo erectus from other places crossed mountains and valleys to find this place, and gathered around the stone covered with patterns.

Massa observed them through binoculars from across the street.

Thirty upright apes sat in three concentric circles. The innermost circle sculpted things out of mud, the middle circle sorted and arranged the sculpted things, and the outermost circle drew patterns on the ground with twigs.

assembly line.

They established an assembly line.

Massa lowered his binoculars and said to the Minister of War behind him, "All the bronze bells at the shrines in Kyoto have been melted down."

The Army Minister was stunned: "Prime Minister, those bronze bells are national treasures—"

"Made into bullets! The skull density of upright apes is lower than that of humans, and existing lead bullets are not penetrating enough. Copper bullets have a penetration power 30 percent higher than lead bullets."

"Prime Minister, are you planning to take action against the Homo erectus?"

Massa turned around, and the Minister of War took a half step back.

He had never seen the prime minister make such an expression.

It wasn't anger, it wasn't fear, it was a calmness suppressed to the extreme.

"I'm not planning to take action; I'm preparing. When the day comes to take action, I need to have enough bullets."

……

Sam Eagle Kingdom, Waimeming Plain.

Wood stood expressionless beside a steam train that had been bitten in two.

This is the seventeenth train to be torn apart by a Tyrannosaurus Rex.

But he didn't come to see the train today.

He came to see the upright ape.

A hominid, which migrated from the north, was squatting next to the railway embankment.

Instead of tree branches, it held an iron pipe salvaged from the wreckage of a train.

It was hitting a stone with that iron pipe, again and again.

"What is it doing?" Wood asked the scientist accompanying him.

The scientist adjusted his glasses and observed for a while: "It's trying to flatten the iron pipe."

Why?

"Once an iron pipe is flattened, it becomes a blade, and once it has a blade, it becomes a knife."

Wood paused for a few seconds. "Has it seen a knife before?"

"Probably not. The report from Ivan Bear Kingdom indicates that the Homo erectus in the Far Eastern wilderness has never come into contact with any metal tools... This is probably something it came up with itself."

An upright ape that had never seen a knife before picked up an iron pipe from the wreckage of a train and figured out the principles of knife manufacturing.

Wood watched as the upright ape flattened the iron pipe with each strike, carving out a rough but unmistakable blade shape. Then, it grasped the other end of the pipe, stood up, and made a chopping motion towards the air.

The movements were not standard, but the intention was chillingly clear.

"Mr. President," the scientist hesitated for a moment, "there's another situation. We've discovered some kind of interaction between Tyrannosaurus Rex and Homo erectus."

"What kind of interaction?"

Three days ago, a group of Tyrannosaurus Rex attacked a farm. Before the Tyrannosaurus Rex arrived, the hominids around the farm had already evacuated. All of them, not one was left.

Wood's pupils contracted sharply: "They knew the Tyrannosaurus Rex was coming?"

"We're not sure how they knew. But the fact is, before each large-scale Tyrannosaurus Rex attack, the hominids in the attack area would evacuate in advance, with evacuation times ranging from two hours to half a day."

As Wood watched the upright ape wielding a pipe knife, he suddenly recalled something Lu Cheng had said at the meeting: "They have ways of communicating that we don't know about."

At the time, he thought Lu Cheng was exaggerating.

He now realizes he may have underestimated the meaning of the word "don't know".

……

The Presidential Palace rooftop of the mighty and powerful Dragon Kingdom.

As the sun set behind the distant mountains, the sky turned a fiery orange-red.

Lu Cheng and Kerry stood side by side by the railing, each holding a cup of tea.

The protesters had mostly dispersed from the street below.

Since the news of the Water Dragon Beast's increased crop yield spread, fewer and fewer people are criticizing Kerry, and more and more are praising him.

But Kerry knew that those who praised him were the same people who had criticized him in the past.

"Brother Lu," Kerry suddenly spoke up.

"I've always wanted to ask, since Advent, your judgments about the hominids have never been wrong. You said they would learn, and they did. You said they would use tools, and they did. You said they would establish organizations, and they did."

He turned to look at Lu Cheng.

"How did you know?"

Lu Cheng paused slightly in his teacup. He couldn't answer this question with "I read about the history of Earth's civilization in the library in my previous life."

After a few seconds of silence, he spoke.

"President Kerry, have you ever watched ants move house?"

Kerry was taken aback: "Ants?"