Reincarnated To Evolve My Bee Empire - Chapter 194

Chapter 194: This was getting progressively more weird
I gasped and, without thinking, flew after the source of the shout, and was only slightly faster than Ambrosia.

The closer we got to the brood cells we just left, the louder the shouts became. Hundreds of bees were flying and talking all at once, making it impossible to discern what they were talking.

But the wails of that one girl still were loud enough to be heard.

“AAAAAH, NO, NO! STOP!”

Soon, I and Amby saw the source of the noise.

A hundred or so Nurse Bees, gathered from the entire comb sector by the commotion, were fluttering in panic around a single brood cell. Whatever they were trying to do, instead, they were just stumbling into each other in the air, shouting over each other’s voices, and achieving absolutely nothing.

Ambrosia charged right into them, spreading her arms and her Queen pheromones. Her embroidered dress fluttered in the air.

“Silence!” She wasn’t shouting, but her voice still carried. “All Nurse Bees, return to your assigned brood cells and immediate duties!”

The power of Ambrosia’s presence in this moment hit all the panicking bees like a sledgehammer. One by one, they went quiet and scared; in the next instant, they spread over the hive, returning to the newborn bees they were responsible for.

Only two Nurses stayed near the brood cell that was in the center of all commotion, hovering at its sides. One had a large pelt in her hands, the other was holding two clay jugs.

Now that we could see what the Nurses were covering, we stopped in place, too. Ambrosia frowned with hesitation.

Inside the brood cell was sitting a newborn bee. She was clutching her head and wailing quietly—until she suddenly raised her head and let out a louder, keening cry of pain that made me wince in sympathy.

“Father, Mother-Queen! This young sister, she—” one of her handling Nurse Bees began, but the other interrupted her.

“She wouldn’t leave her cell! She began shouting while inside, so we opened it—but she shouted louder! We—”

“We don’t know what to dooo! She’s—”

“Enough of that,” I said, blazing past them. “Just make sure clothing and food *are* here! Oh, wait.”

I grabbed the pelt from a Nurse’s hands, then went back inside the cell.

When I saw the bee, I saw the source of her problems as well—”Precognition V”.

In every aspect but that she was a healthy and ordinary girl, but this gene—I couldn’t even guess what it was doing to her! So far, all I knew was that it existed somewhere down my tree of gene unlocks.

‘It’s just the thing I feared the most,’ I thought, sitting in the brood cell next to the young bee.

Brood cells were smaller than the ones for sleeping, so I couldn’t stand to full height here.

She didn’t even react to my appearance, just kept wailing. Even when I put the warm pelt over the bee’s shoulders, she didn’t react at all.

But after I hugged her and began gently stroking her short hair, the wails and occasional shouts turned into quiet sobs.

Ambrosia entered the cell, too, and crouched awkwardly at the edge. She looked between me and the ailing bee and bit her cheek.

“Please, make our daughter feel better—I don’t even know where to start with these strange rituals of touch you do.” She frowned. “Would it help if I patted her head, too?”

I smiled at Amby.

“Sure, why not? Headpats aren’t the father’s privilege, really!”

Ambrosia’s headpat was awkward, but her presence alone was already calming. A comforting Queen’s scent surrounded us.

The young bee was still shaking and not reacting to surroundings—but whatever prophetic visions assaulted her, perhaps grounding the girl in the present will help her fight them off.

I immediately recalled a breathing technique recommended for people suffering from flashbacks.

“Follow my lead and breathe with me, daughter. Inhale… hold… exhale. Inhaaaale… hold… exhaaaale…”

I breathed noisily through the nose between repeating the words over and over. A minute later, I noticed the girl began following my lead.

Her sobs softened at first, then stopped. Finally, several minutes later, the bee opened her eyes and looked around us like she was seeing the hive for the first time, but also for the thousandth.

“It stopped,” she said. “And you are still here. F-Father. You are always here. And Mother, you are here, too. This isn’t a dream, right?”

“Of course we are here. Don’t worry, this is all real, and we won’t go anywhere,” I said, still stroking the girl’s head.

Ambrosia sat on the floor next to us and leaned closer to the young bee, frowning.

“How do you know to call us that, daughter? Nobody had time to teach you yet.”

I blinked and realized that she was right. Newborn bees could instinctively recognize me and Amby as their parents by smell, but they also instinctively just called us “Drone” and “Queen”!

“But that’s what you are, aren’t you?” The young bee looked at us confusedly, then winced and shook her head. “I’m sorry, I—it’s hard. I’m here, right? Not anywhere else?”

This was getting progressively more weird, so I established some priorities.

“Forget about this all for now. You aren’t in pain anymore? You should eat and get dressed. We will help.”

As Amby, I, and a few Nurses helped the young bee out of her cell, I hoped that no more bees today will be born with similar problems.

After the young bee drank some nectar and got dressed, she looked at her surroundings with much clearer eyes.

“I know—I will go to school next,” the bee said with assurance, only to stumble and frown. “No, but I don’t, because I will go to the hospital. Or—nowhere? I… I don’t know, actually.”

“What are you talking about, daughter? This makes even less sense than Necty at his worst…” Ambrosia said.

I coughed.

“This is *not* the time, really! And I always make perfect sense, thank you.”

The young bee chuckled into her fist.

“And you keep saying things like these, Father. So I heard right!”

I frowned.

“You keep referring to these things, daughter—ones that didn’t happen yet. Was that why you were in pain? Was it something you saw in the future?”