Reincarnated To Evolve My Bee Empire - Chapter 279

Chapter 279: The humans are in good hands
“Do you think they will be fine in that bag?..” Ambrosia asked me as we both watched Farini leave the Hive Supremo.

“Of course, Amby! And if they won’t, they will come up with a better way to travel.” I grinned with fatherly pride. “My girls won’t let themselves be mistreated, on purpose or by accident. If anything, I worry they might sting some wrong people.”

Ambrosia exhaled.

“I’m still unsure that Bloodimina was the best choice as the leader of this army, even if she’s the most experienced among our Commander Warriors.”

“She already proved that she could keep her bloodthirst in check,” I reminded Amby and stretched my shoulders. “Aaah, Forever Greatest is pretty comfortable for an armor, but I’m still going to change into something more casual. Destroyer, you can stop hauling this banner around… No, wait, don’t just leave it here, pass it to the art storage! Then be dismissed—I’m not leaving the hive today.”

“Yes, Father!”

My bodyguards flew away into the hive. Its citizens, many of whom temporarily paused their tasks to watch the approach of a (friendly!) human with curiosity and worry, now were returning to work.

Hive Supremo changed a lot over the last months.

Because of the population growth, we had to expand and dig into the pillar mountain we were at. But even with this, the hive was becoming too big to build it using the good old wax-shaping.

The cell walls began collapsing on themselves because of their weight! And the cell structure already wasn’t the most effective for many specialized buildings.

It was a complicated task—to fix this all up. In the newer hives, bees could build better from scratch, but we couldn’t just demolish half of Hive Supremo to rebuild it.

Instead, we built walls upon walls of wooden and stone buildings to the walls of the hive cave. Some rooms were dug directly into the cave.

Some of the old cell walls in the hive were also dismantled and turned into wax for candles and tablets. In their place were built durable and tall wooden buildings that had a more structurally sound pyramidal shape.

And even more buildings were moved to the bottom of the mountains. As long as we built them from stone, the storms didn’t break them. And we *could* do that, because Researchina invented mortar!

Right now, we were gradually improving our manufacturing process. My dream was to develop our understanding of electricity so we could move from steam engines directly to coal power plants and electricity-powered conveyor belts, as well as simple automation.

At the moment, we only had coal power plants… and were working on finer points of capacitors and transformers. And by ‘we’ I meant Researchina’s girls, of course—my input ended when I told her all I could remember from the Internet about it, and it wasn’t much.

Now, I opened my wings and flew toward my and Amby’s new Royal Chambers—made from wood and stone, not from wax, and much more spacious than before. While flying, I sent messages to my girls, checking that they were still alright.

Bloodimina reported the bag was dark and stuffy, and half of her army had to ride on the outer side even after Farini took out some items to leave space.

Explanatory (whom I had to reach through a relay of telepaths) told that she was ready to move from the researchers’ camp whenever Farini will come there, and that the Physicians in her team were excited to vivisect some humans for science.

‘Their task is to help humans with finding cures for illnesses, not to kill anyone!’ I reminded Explanatory. ‘How they are thinking they will cut humans up, anyway? They are huge!’

‘They made plans to work in large teams, Father. I consider these plans to make sense.’

Oh, those Physicians.

‘No cutting anyone over… without their permission,’ I allowed reluctantly. ‘Coordinate it with Whisper. I don’t want Farini, or anyone, to think that we are doing something wrong.’

‘Of course, Father.’

Whisper also reported that everything was fine on her end—except for Farini’s horse, which must’ve heard the buzzing in Farini’s bag.

‘Should I send a beast-tamer to you?’ I asked.

We had quite a few of them by now, and plenty of beasts: mostly various feathered lizards, but also several young dragons. They grew fast, although it would take the rest of the year, or even longer, for them to reach their full size.

Even so, they were impressive. And could carry the trains on which we didn’t have the time and resources to put steam engines yet.

‘Ha, as if I couldn’t deal with some horse-beast!’ Whisper replied immediately. ‘Humans are much more complicated than them, and I tame them just fine!’

‘Then I know that the fate of this entire operation is in good hands!’ I praised her. ‘Remember—don’t be too shy asking me for advice!’

Really, I felt much calmer now as I changed into my regular tunic and asked the Attendant Helping-Hands if anyone wanted an audience with me or Ambrosia this morning.

The small insect problem that we had on our borders was going to be a piece of cake to deal with compared to the expansion toward humans.

“Adviser Bloodhero sent a request for you, Father. I stored it in my memory to not distract you during the human-taming ceremony, but it sounded important,” Helping-Hands replied.

She had a perfect memory thanks to my blood, but still could only *receive* telepathic messages. She was still a great secretary. Without her, I wouldn’t have had any free mind-space to think for myself…

“Ah. What is it?” I asked.

“Our border patrols caught some evolved insects, and Adviser Bloodhero wants for you to look at them with your special sight so that the soldiers know what they will have to deal with. She’d arrange them to be brought here, but they are too wounded and she fears they will die before that.”

I frowned.

Perhaps I was too fast to dismiss Destroyer’s team.

“Yeah, I’m going to tie up the other things for today in the hive and fly there and back real quick…”