[Create Egg:

20 Simple Worker - 60%

14 Simple Warrior - 7%

15 Gathering Drone - 8.7495%

]

After popping out a 14th warrior, I finally got the notification of Egg Laying leveling up. Beatrice seemed a bit tired, and I hadn’t given myself a break since coming back from memory land, so I decided to leave the new unit selection for the morning.

“A good decision. These options are truly something else.”

Queen had smoothly recovered with the night’s rest and seemed brighter than ever. As for what she was talking about?

[{Egg Creation} Level up! -> Lv. 3

Qualibee AND Quantibee. The Bee has recognized your efforts.

Choose two Subtypes to unlock:

Subtype choices:

* Wax Drone

* Pollination Drone

* Sting Warrior

* Swarm Warrior

Special Subtypes unlocked:

* Aide’sAide

* Force Warrior

* Linker Bee

* Caretaker

* Memory Eater

ERROR: The Bee has restricted unlocked Subtypes

* Vultuous Chimera

]

Gee, thanks, mighty Bee. Not only was this prompt particularly punny, but it was also full of strange choices. Not to mention the restricted Subtype.

“What the hell is a Vultuous?”

“As if I would know. Though the name is connected in some way with Vultures, it would seem.”

“Well, it’s restricted anyways. Even ignoring that little nugget, why can I only choose two subtypes again? How can the big bad Bee give me so many options and then restrict me? Lame.”

“Regardless, shall we consult Beatrice? Though perhaps you could be a bit more selfish this time.”

Easier said than done. It was hard to argue with Beatrice’s cold hard facts. The interesting-sounding Force Warrior was available again, but we were still in a stage of necessity. Wax Drones basically already took up one of the mere two available choices, and there were so many interesting options for that final choice. Force Warrior, Linker Bee. Hell, Memory Eater sounded sick.

“Yo Beatrice. Take a look at these Subtype options. Let me know your thoughts,” I shot toward my aide. If my imaginary clock was right, it was some time past noon, so Beatrice had likely been up for a while.

Ah, the joys of royalty. I could sleep as long as I wanted, even if it was totally unnecessary! Though, today I had woken up later than usual if my estimation was correct…

Hey, on that note. I quickly created a B-box and tasked it with keeping track of time. I left it some flexibility, but as far as I was concerned, it could painstakingly count every second to stay in tune. I mean, that was technically something anyone could do, but who in their right mind would count every second of every day just to stay in touch with time?

A computer, maybe.

Anyways, what to do today? Ooh, I’d go check in on the Valkybees. The shiny new toys of mine were training with Bedivere, just as I wanted, and as I blearily floated out of the hive, I realized something baffling.

I hadn’t seen a really actually truly insane fantasy fight yet.

Sure, I had seen Bedivere slaughter huge masses of vultures, and I myself had used my psychic powers to do some… er… mass murdering, but I hadn’t seen a real fight. Seeing the physically overpowered Bedivere have an actual bout with creatures that compete with him would be like something straight out of an anime or hyper-budget superhero movie. Seeing that in real life was like a dream come true!

I found the five monster bees in a clearing, and it was everything I could have hoped for.

Four demonic bees surrounded a shining knight of a bee in a tense balance. The arguing and manic laughter of the day before were nowhere to be found. Even the crazy Beelzebub had a look of intense focus on her face, even if it was accompanied by a terrifying smile.

In a blur, the red and black leader of the Valkybees exploded towards Bedivere, missing him by inches. A subtle twist dodged Beelzebub’s furious stinger and Bedivere’s massive weapon came around in a slashing motion, barely parried by Beelzebub’s own skillful move. She countered with her claws, unusually hard and sharp, but Bedivere expertly maneuvered despite his oversized stinger. It turned out to be a feint because in the next instant, Behemoth was right behind, fists coming down to smash Bedivere to pieces, but the knight flowed like water and redirected the attack into the ground, kicking up a ton of dust in a following explosion.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

All of that happened in seconds, faster than I could have processed if I hadn’t been experimenting with B-boxes. The next instants were just as frantic. Bedivere used the cloud of dust to disguise an attack on Beelzebub, but Belial came in with his multiple eyes to distract him. After that, rocks and trees flew towards Bedivere courtesy of Belphegora, which Bedivere cut and tore to pieces just in time.

Fuck yeah! Fantasy fight!

But seriously, how overpowered was Bedivere?! These four were unfairly powerful, created with lots of Mind and turned into real monsters by Bedivere’s own Ability, but he was still keeping up with them, no problem. Granted, he wasn’t effortlessly demolishing them as he had done with the regular warriors, but he was still keeping up with them 4v1 without much issue.

“Now!”

Beelzebub’s voice echoed, and the attack of the Valkybees shifted, instantly converging in unison. Oh damn, would this finally get Bedivere?

Just before their attacks reached, Bedivere took a deep breath. An intense pressure emanated from him and all four of the Valkybees were buried in the ground with only their faces sticking out.

Wait, what?

“Incredible. Your teamwork nearly covered your weaknesses for an instant there. If you were individually skilled, that might have gotten me.”

Excuse me? Can we talk about how despite my ability to process information at stupid speeds, I had no idea what just happened?! I played things back to try and understand. It seems Bedivere poured an insane amount of his Mind into that Stinger Fencing Ability of his and completely dismantled the attack of the Valkybees one by one, then decided to dig holes, put the Valkybees inside, and fill the holes back in.

What sort of fencing was that?! Would fencing champions be distraught to see Bedivere using the art to dig holes faster than the brain could think rather than, oh, I don’t know, swordfight?

“Damn! I told you that strategy wouldn’t work, Beel.”

Beelzebub didn’t respond. It was odd to see her forgo a bout with Belial, but her intense stare towards Bedivere made it clear she was thinking of bigger fish.

“Goodness, she looks like she wants to eat Bedivere for breakfast.”

Seriously. Forget daggers; she was staring lasers into Bedivere, who didn’t even seem to notice, instead squatting next to Belphegora’s exasperated face while giving her some tips on how to throw rocks better. Seems Beelzebub found her only real rival.

“Big bro…” she said to herself with a blush, “Big bro is the coolest~”

Wha. Coolest? Blush? While looking at him like a lion eying up a tasty piece of meat? Wait. Oh god. She was some sort of damn yandere brocon thing!

______________

“The decision is unexpectedly difficult. Despite the fact that one option is quite clear, the other is- are you listening, Mother?”

“Hm? Oh yes. Continue, Beatrice.”

After observing some of the Valkybees’ training, I had decided to take my mind off the weirdness and start my Forest Revitalization Project. The FRP mostly consisted of me using Mind to funnel water up out of the river and spray it was a fine mist all over the place. It seemed far to me to start close to the river banks and spread out, hopefully convincing the forest to just un-die already.

So, sorry, Beatrice. Also, I just couldn’t help but wrestle over the fact that goofy tropes kept popping up all over the hive. Including the overbearing, hyper-intelligent, ultra-competent assistant who adores their boss and who interrupts their boss’s cool new project to talk about real work. Not naming names, of course.

Of course, with the B-boxes, I could be thinking of pretty much anything and still know everything Beatrice said. I mean, even now I could observe Bedivere training the Valkybees (and the budding weirdo that was Beelzebub), or Bess tearing her figurative hair out trying to control the Construction Drones while dealing with the weirdo Bessie who kept burrowing underground, or even Bella trying to console the crying weirdo who followed her everywhere.

Man, this hive sure was packed with weirdos.

“Very well. As you well know, Wax Drones are an unavoidable pick at this juncture. We do not know how much it will take for the next level of Egg Laying to be achieved, and we cannot risk falling behind on wax production once Bess hits her stride. I have broken things up into the following,”

Beatrice tried to illustrate her ideas with Mind. Well, her visualization skills have improved ever since she got into improving the map.

“The three simple categories of options are utility bees, combat bees, and uniques. Considering the state of the hive, basic utility bees would be, in my opinion, ideal. However, ever since the Scavenger War, I have since realized the importance of pre-emptively improving our military prowess. Thus I would no longer recommend discarding the combat types immediately.”

She hesitated, “As for the unique types, I am unsure what to make of them as of yet. I will give you my thoughts on the utility and combat bees first, and would welcome some insight into the potential of the unique bees.”

“Sounds good. Go over the utility bees first.”

“I have included three of the options in this category, those being the Pollination Drones, the Aide’s Aide, and the Caretaker. The most simple of these, the Pollination Drones, are an appealing possibility. However, I hesitate to recommend them as an option at this time. Until the Forest Revitalization Project you described to me begins to bear fruit, I truly do not know what use they could be.”

“The Aide’s Aide is another dubious option. As of yet, I have still not had issues managing the hive. I think until the hive’s growth becomes truly constant and unending, it would be a waste, as you would likely be better off making a single highly capable assistant for me.”

“When would you consider the hive’s growth to be at that stage?”

“Hm,” she thought for a moment, “I would say once you create a queen capable of growing the hive further is the moment I would need assistance.”

Oh man. Another queen? I hadn’t even thought of that before. Though, now that the option was in my head, I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I would never have to lay an egg again! I could spend my days relaxing and not having to go through that disgusting experience or doing my one true task.

“Yes! We would be a grandmother!”

Okay! Moving on!

“As for the Caretaker, I would say it is a useless option. While the idea is good, Belle and her underlings are currently undertaking the duties that might be expected of a responsibility coined ‘Caretaker.’ Thus, I would also leave that option to be a possibility only once several queens are making large volumes of eggs that might require that sort of care.”

“Makes sense. So then, the utility options aren’t exactly amazing choices at the moment?”

“Which is precisely what makes this choice so complicated in my eyes. There are many combat options, including the Swarm, Sting, and Force Warriors. It might be better to consult a combat expert such as Bedivere or even Beryl as to which of these options are best, but I would posit that the Swarm Warrior would be ideal of the three.”

Well, that was disappointing. Force Warrior!

“And why is that?”

“Put simply, our forces are scattered. Our combatants are powerful but few. Even the largest group of Simple Warriors are more focused and are not built to take numbers as an advantage. Also…,” she fidgeted. Oh god. Things were never good when Beatrice was uncomfortable.

“I would hesitantly predict that the Swarm Warriors are disposable troops. Which would be… good.”

Huh? Disposable? Such a thought made my stomach churn. Beatrice was totally right. As it was, my entire ‘army’ was indispensable in my eyes. If even one died, it would be devastating. My own child dying.

There was no way I could accept that. And yet, thinking of the only other army I had seen, I could see the truth. Vulch’s army got slaughtered by the dozens. Ordinary footsoldiers killed quickly and without fanfare. If we ever fought against an enemy that could actually overpower our less powerful troops, who was to say they wouldn’t suffer the same fate?

“That’s… a good point. I would say in that case that Swarm Warriors are top of the list right now.”

Of course, it was a bit of a gamble. The only ‘disposable’ bees we had made were Drones, and even then, it felt… wrong to imagine them dying. So who was to say these Warriors would be Drone-like? They could just be another conscious being.

“Understood. Then, that leaves the unique types. Linker Bees and Memory Eaters. I… have no insight into these. There is little that can be garnered from their names alone, so I was wondering if you had thoughts.”

“Hm. I’m not sure. Linker Bees obviously seem related to Links in some way, but I’m not sure what for. Not only is our Link strong, but we also have Beck and their team. Like you say, it’s just not very clear. As for Memory Eater? I have absolutely no clue what’s going on there. I say to leave that until I have free spaces for Subtypes. We’re still in the stages of growth, after all. Maybe I could take it once the hive is more stable and our situation is more solid.”

“Wonderful assessment, Mother.”

“So, I’d say a pretty fair order, for the time being, is Swarm Warriors, Pollination Drones, and maybe something else for third place.”

So many choices. What could I pick? Sprinkling water over the forest was a relaxing way to think, but I’d have to consider things further. Well, I planned to dive some more into memory with my B-boxes later today, so maybe I could get some insight there. Good thing I had a way of leaving my memories now. Who knew what could happen while I was in there?