Sword Art Online Vol. 15 – Alicization Invading Chapter 14 - Subtilizer (The One Who Steals Souls) 6 | P a g e Every one of these insects lived up until a certain moment. In the grasslands of Africa, the deserts of the Middle East, the jungles of South America, they energetically made their nests and hunted for food. However, they were caught by a harvester at some point, treated with chemicals, and exchanged hands numerous times through commerce before neatly arranged in these glass cases at the Millers. In other words, while this room was a collection room of insect specimens, it was also a gigantic cemetery filled with tens of thousands of massacred corpses… Gabriel lowered his eyelids and imagined what would happen if the insects around suddenly came back to life. Their six legs would desperately scrape the air, their haptic perception and wings quivering. The myriad buzzes overlapping and surging towards Gabriel as parched ripples. Buzz, buzz. His eyelids flashed open. The legs of the green rhinoceros beetle fixed in the corner of the case before him seemed to move; he leapt off the sofa. He rushed over to the case, absorbed in the sight, but the insect was a lifeless specimen once more by the time he reached. Its carapace, legs with sharp thorns growing over them, and compound eyes that resembled a miniscule mesh were emerald green and as glossy as metal. Gabriel pondered on exactly what once powered that delicate body, granting it mobility. His father told him that insects lacked a brain like that of humans. He asked, how did they think then, and his father showed him a certain video. It captured praying mantises in the act of mating. The small male had held down the plump female from her back, their reproductive organs joined. The female remained motionless for a moment, but then abruptly grasped the male’s upper body with her two scythes, crunched down on his head, and began feeding without any prior warning. The male persisted in his mating even while Gabriel watched on