Reincarnated To Evolve My Bee Empire - Chapter 252

Chapter 252: How sloppy!
Meanwhile, I put my nose (and antennae) to the ground by offering to help with health inspections.

“Sure, sure. We always need help,” a Sergeant Physician Cure-204 nodded to me. She was only four months old, and born in a sub-hive based on her genes. “What’s your name, sister?”

“Tally, sister. Because I grew so tall,” I squeaked in my most girlish voice.

Cure-204 looked at me from head to toes and back, and her eyes widened a little.

“Yeah… You sure did, Tally! Well, go there, find a free table and start picking people from the line. That’s standard procedure, you should know how it goes!”

I didn’t, not really, but it was simple enough.

There was a large hall for health inspections, with four dozen tables spread around like in a large open office. Each table had a Physician or a Nurse working there, checking approaching bees for symptoms, filling wax tablets with records and leaving notches on wooden marks of good health (or sending people to get healing in other parts of the hospital).

The voices of bees talking to each other, beating of wings, walking and so on created above average for a hive level of noise. I saw that many talked right into each other’s ears to be heard, or outright used gestures. They’d be dancing if the place wasn’t so crowded—the space was used very efficiently here.

A long, but fast-moving line of Worker Bees was waiting at one edge of the hall. On the opposite side were doors that led to other parts of the hospital building—the ones that interested me more.

Places where sick girls waited to heal.

I wanted to get there, but—all in due time.

For now, I sat at a free table in a corner, smiled under my mask, and cheerfully waved toward the line, inviting people in.

“I’m super healthy, can I just get my health notch and go back? I only got a health leave for an hour and I spent too much of it in this queue!” said the first girl who approached my table, shoving a wooden chip of health to me.

The inspections were supposed to be weekly, and I was pleased to see a notch for the past week. Around the same time that passed in this hive since regular health inspections became a thing.

But I didn’t like the hurry of this bee.

“You don’t have *any* complaints about health? Even small ones?” I squeaked out, examining the girl’s status. Her health and stamina were full, suggesting that she didn’t have any serious active illnesses, at least.

“No, no, none whatsoever!”

I squinted my eyes at the girl, trying to threaten her into compliance, but she just shifted on her feet.

Since I wasn’t even a real Physician and wasn’t here to actually inspect people’s health, I sighed and cut into her wooden chip with my pocket knife. Hopefully, I didn’t unknowingly start a pandemic.

“Sure, go. Next!”

Girls approached me one after another, and all acted like they were in a great hurry to get back to work. As soon as they weren’t obviously sick, I let them.

My attention was more on other health inspectors, and what I saw was not promising.

The other inspectors acted just like me, letting people leave as soon as they said they were healthy!

It was one thing for me to wave my hand and send people away, but when *actual* Physicians showed such obvious sloppiness in their health checks.

A little while into inspections, I saw a bee walk away from the hall with a new notch on her wooden chip of health—and knew immediately I had to stop her.

“Get your notch with someone else—this table is closed!” I sternly told the bee I was inspecting a moment earlier, then ran past my table toward the leaving bee.

I’d fly if ceilings here were taller; instead, I had to push girls away with my elbows to get through. I tried to be gentle with that, though.

“Stop right there, Thingmover-49!” I said, addressing the leaving bee, and put a hand on her shoulder.

The bee turned to me, blinking clueless eyes.

“Huh? Who…? Sister Physician, why did you stop me? I must return to work!”

I shook my head.

Although Thingmover-49 looked like an average Forager Bee with no visible signs of illness, I saw she was missing a few points of health and stamina.

She was *obviously* sick, but a Physician deemed her healthy!

“You are sick. I can tell, I’m a Physician! Come with me—I will inspect you better.”

The authoritativeness of my tone was diminished by my need to squeak, but I tried my best.

“What? But the other Physician just told me that I’m healthy!”

“And I’m telling that you are not. You should’ve noticed! Are you sneezing? Coughing? Just have fainting spells?”

Thingmover-49’s shoulders slumped.

“I’m tiring faster than usual… But this will pass on its own, I’m sure. There’s no need to let me laze around in a hospital!”

I sighed.

“No, no, there is… Come with me.”

Thingmover-49 didn’t protest when I led her away to get treatment, preferably from an actual Physician. As she walked, I knew Tabletina needed to know about this. And not just her—if all the Council’s orders were fulfilled the same way health inspections were done, we might as well have not been giving orders at all!

But my reason for bringing the sick bee to a sick bay was two-fold.

I was about to look at the local Physician’s methods for myself, and I already dreaded what I would find.

Well, the first thing I found was another line of patients. This time, it was in a hallway.

Despite the wooden walls and waxen floors of the building, I suddenly had flashbacks to the hospitals on Earth.

I silently promised myself to get Tabletina more funding, if we had any to spare, and walked forward with Thingmover-49 trailing behind me.