(Bonus chapter 1/5 for "Little Lamb")
The symbiotic relationship between the Sangha and scarabs had always been a tradition.
After thousands of years of evolution, the complex relationship between these two species was no longer a simple one of master and servant. According to Nephthys's summary of Sangha mythology, the Sangha had supposedly found the scarab to serve as their civilization's totem under the direct guidance of the Creator.
But the entomologist Terra Nova thought the whole thing was more than a little unscientific.
According to what she'd heard from the Mummy Girl, the Sangha's current genealogical studies of scarabs had identified seven major categories and nearly seventy-four distinct growth forms. The most famous were the Sun Scarabs and the Death Moon Scarabs, which were symbiotic with the Church of the Glorious Sun and the Cult of the Moon of Death.
The former were semi-elemental creatures filled with purifying sunlight energy, while the latter were higher undead beings fused with death. Both were powerful forms on the scarabs' "evolutionary tree," representing not only strength, but also the shared destiny of the Sangha and scarabs.
Besides those, the Mummy Girl had enthusiastically introduced her first "kinswoman" to the Hunter Scarab, capable of stealth without needing to move; the Shield Scarab, with its huge pincers, scorpion tail, and stinger, whose thick shell was specially adapted for combat and made it exceptionally skilled at fighting head-on; and the mighty Scarab, whose specialized size made it responsible for medium- and long-distance transport in the Land of Origin.
Over the course of a thousand years, the Sangha had even cultivated Storm Scarabs and Abyssal Scarabs, capable of controlling raging winds and flowing water.
In short, there was no evolutionary path an entomologist couldn't imagine, and no specialized function a scarab couldn't develop.
Of course, cultivating