“If we kill the humans, then we won’t need to feed them! Makes sense to me.”

“Mhm. Quite sensible.”

“Yes indeed. Sensible.”

“Saying that’s sensible is highly, highly questionable,” I responded to the bickering bees.

The past few hours had been nothing but circles. Each bee had an opinion on what to do with the humans that had suddenly appeared, but they broadly fell into two main camps: kill the humans outright or keep them imprisoned forever.

“Beck, have you made any headway in figuring out how to communicate with them?”

Beck’s suggestions amounted to forcing a Link with the humans. We bees have so far only been able to communicate using Mind, and since the humans were seemingly closed off from the regular sort of telepathy we used with most conscious creatures, a Link would be the only way to ensure communication.

Well, easier said than done. Besides the fact that each human seemed to be defending against mental intrusion, they also ended up freaking out whenever I tried to create a mental connection. I’d need some way to quickly and easily connect without them noticing. Hopefully I would be able to Link with them and use the Link to prevent them from doing anything drastic.

Unfortunately, Beck hadn’t thought of anything. I’d like to give them as much time in the universe to think of a solution, but the clock had begun ticking as soon as the humans were kneeling at our feet.

“Try to figure something out. I have to give you a deadline of the end of tomorrow. We have no idea when other humans might show up. As for the rest of you,”

I turned to the other workers. What a conundrum. We desperately needed to continue all our work, but the appearance of a new variable was annoying. And scary.

Some workers like Belle would go practically unaffected by the new situation, besides maybe having a fire lit under their asses. On the other hand…

“Bess, I’m going to ask you to prioritize the hive’s construction in the direction of the human settlements. I’ll be assigning warriors to escort your builder squad permanently from now onwards.”

It wasn’t overly difficult to figure out what side of the hive needed to be bolstered. Combining the knowledge I’d discerened about where the human settlement might be from other evidence, plus taking into account where the humans appeared, I had a general idea of where to place focus.

As for the builder squad, their numbers had been cut by the humans. I’d have to see if the building speed was faster or slower considering the smaller numbers; theoretically, Bess’ greater control over the smaller numbers could make up for the smaller numbers, but I wasn’t quite sure yet.

“I see. Is it wise to focus our defenses on my team?”

“Of course. Remember, we have the Valkybees now. I’ll assign one of them, along with a couple regular warriors to protect you. Beatrice, this means the rotation might have to be adjusted. Can you modify the guard rotation so that only warriors from the opposite side of the hive are missing?”

“A simple task, Mother.”

“Ah, may I ask something, Mom?”

“Hm? Of course, Bess.”

Bess seemed uncomfortable speaking out. I valued all of their opinions, so I didn’t think there was much sense in being nervous.

“It’s about Bessie. You see, she’s actually made me realize something. She has a… fascination with digging. Hell, it’s all she does. Initially, I saw it as an annoyance, but when I saw what she had done, I thought it might be highly efficient. She had dug so much that there is now a tiny system of tunnels she has been using to move between our work sites.”

Oh. Oh! I saw where she was going with this. Brilliant!

“That’s great! A tunnel system would have a ton of advantages, especially now that we’re concerned about security! And it would be an efficient use of space. Do you think you’d be able to juggle both the hive walls and a tunnel system, though?”

“That’s the issue. I had originally been thinking that I might be able to put some drones under Bessie’s command and have her focus on tunneling, but now….”

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Hm. Well that sucked. Making some Construction Drones would be absolutely no problem, though.

“Thank you for the suggestion, Bess. I’ll make some Construction Drones to replenish your team. Great work.”

My compliment had Bess on cloud nine, it seemed. Damn, even Beatrice seemed jealous about that! I guess I don’t praise them enough…?

“Okay! Any other suggestions?”

Ha! If a simple compliment was all it took, then commanding people would be a cinch! Maybe there was merit to that? Well, in my case, at least, the thought of praise had the workers clamoring over each other to make suggestions or present their ideas.

Not surprisingly, Beatrice was at the forefront of this concentrated effort.

“Mother, there is something we have not addressed that I believe may be important. The strength of the humans. Or perhaps the lack thereof.”

I was wondering when that would be brought up. I had also been thrown off guard by how easily our forces were able to take down this group of humans.

“What do you mean, Beatrice? Doesn’t that just mean our warriors are awesome?!”

“You are not completely wrong, Ben. However, we may need to reevaluate the relative strength of this world.”

I needed a larger sample size, honestly. Our knowledge boiled down to the squirrels, vultures, this one team of humans, and the humans from Queen’s memory. Comparing our strength to theirs was tough, though. Our simple warriors had been able to pretty much take care of the group of humans, and both the humans and our warriors could take care of squirrels pretty handily. As for the vultures? They would probably get destroyed pretty badly by our warriors, considering how a bunch of workers (and me) were able to take on a huge army of them. Sure, there were outliers like the Vulch and Bedivere, but still.

The humans, though? They were all over the place. Were the humans in Queen’s memory some crazy outliers? Was Queen’s old hive particularly weak?

“I would say it might be a combination of both. The magnitude of those humans’ power altered the entire landscape of this forest, which is no small feat, but my hive was just full of normal bees. We were capable of overwhelming prey or intruders, certainly, but I cannot say that we were particularly invested in combative strength.”

So essentially, there was no way of saying for sure. I could make some guesses about these humans, though. They seemed like a competent adventurer group, well-equipped and prepared. They had gotten to our hive without issue, so the squirrels probably posed little threat to them, though that could admittedly be chalked up to ‘human things.’ As in, not individually overpowering, but because of their teamwork and prep time, they were way stronger than the sum of their parts.

Oh, and the penguin. Seriously, what?!

Anyways, the point of figuring out this power scaling was to ensure our safety. This team of humans was able to fend off at least one of our most competent Simple Warriors. Beryl had fought well, but she had caught them off guard. If their fight had continued, from what I could discern from her perspective, she would have died. I wasn’t expecting one of our warriors to be able to win against a coordinated one v five, but what happened after was the concerning part.

The humans had done well against our forces. With four more warriors joining the fray, as well as a whole swarm of construction drones, the humans kept pulling out surprises. Granted, by that time, I had already been pulled from my memory dive, so our forces weren’t fighting to kill. But still. The small girl’s sound powers were devastating against our swarm tactics.

Could a team of five warrior bees beat this particular team of five humans? Honestly, I wasn’t confident. Which meant that a seemingly competent group of human combatants was stronger than a seemingly competent group of fighter bees.

That was concerning. It meant that I could no longer content myself with fair-sized teams of average warriors, and I needed to commit fully to huge numbers or overpowering single fighters. After all, Bedivere by himself was clearly more than a match for the humans.

“There is another few matters, Mother. Beryl is in quite a state.”

“How is she?”

Technically I knew how she was doing. Not well. She would live, but… well, we had no healing of any kind available to us. I could hope for a medically-inclined bee to appear, but I was beginning to think such a thing wouldn’t happen. Bees would likely not occupy themselves with treating injured bees because bees were typically (mostly) disposable assets. Just one small part of a larger hive.

I couldn’t accept something like that.

“Actually, it doesn’t matter how she’s doing. If anyone has an inkling of how you might care for the injured, I want you to try and help her. I will personally do my best to care for her.”

“Mother! Such a thing… is it necessary?”

“Yes. Yes it is. I won’t allow my bees to live painfully. And I certainly won’t allow them to die without a fight.”

Though moved, Beatrice was clearly confused. Probably her bee instinct telling her that wasting resources on weak bees was inefficient. But she was one of us. I could actually see her eyes light up as she thought through the cost-benefits.

“Oh, Mama, what about this!”

The thoughtful moment was interrupted by Ben’s excited cries. He presented quite a sight behind him, that being Belial holding three fucking guns.

Oh. Right. That.

As the prophecy foretold, the great weapon of the future was currently being held by a big bee. Here in my face was confirmation of what I had feared so long ago when I had first looked into Queen’s memories. Dull yet silvery hollow cylinders with distinct handles and triggers. With his top two arms, Belial held a rifle, too unwieldy to hold with one hand. His middle two hands held a smaller pistol each. The pistols were ornate, sporting intricate carvings and patterns on the barrels and handle, while the rifle was simple and without decor.

One interesting thing about these literal and actual guns was how… metallic they were. Their design was reminiscent of guns from before the modern era of my world, made of silver metal with contrasting wooden handles. Except there was no wood to be found. Instead, the guns sported contrasting shades of silver metals.

How odd. Was there some sort of fantasy metal this world had that worked better than wood for those purposes? Wouldn’t being made entirely of metal make these guns super freaking heavy?

“May I see those, Belial?”

The demonic Valkybee hesitantly handed the weapons over. He seemed very interested; maybe I could just give them to him? He could become a bee gunslinger or something fun like that, perhaps.

Considering our bee size, the guns were comically large in our hands. Even if we weren’t exactly bee-sized, we were still nowhere near the size for intended users.

And as soon as Belial handed a pistol over, it smashed into the ground.

Oops. Damn, that was heavy as fuck! I couldn’t even grab onto it for a second!

“How in the world are you holding those Belial?! They’re way too heavy!”

“Hm? Well, they certainly are, but with the strength of a warrior, it is manageable.”

Stupid warrior strength! Powerful though I might be, that in no way translated to physical strength. Without enhancing my strength with Mind somehow, I was actually physically very weak, which did make sense I suppose.

But damn. Those guns were damn heavy!

I picked up the pistol with Mind, which was way easier. I had never held a gun of any sort in my old life, neither modern nor antique, but something told me neither was as heavy as these. What was the point of heavy-ass guns?

“What about their ammo?”

“Ah, you mean these?”

Well that was bizarre. Belial handed over some strange devices also made of metal, and upon closer inspection, I could see bullet-shaped pellets inside. They weren’t particularly organized, mostly thrown in while still contained in a way that maximized space. The devices, which were somewhat cylinder-shaped, had a thin open slot that seemed like they fit on the guns in different places.

The strangest thing was how universal the cylinders were. There were two smaller cylinders and one large one, clearly for the different types of guns, but the slots were the same sizes, and the bullets, from a cursory glance, also seemed identical.

This world honestly made no sense. Guns? Ok. Guns entirely made of heavy metal? Weird. Penguins? Ok. Penguins? Weird.

Yeah. This world was just weird.