Slow. Slow. Slowly backing awaaaaaay…

The rat stared at me with beady eyes before letting out a screech. I frantically tried to concentrate enough to float away as the rat leaped off the corpse and dashed straight at me.

“Ack!” I yelled elegantly, finally beginning to shoot upwards. The rat’s teeth barely missed and I had a vision of headlights and screeching tires.

How many near-death experiences did a guy need?

Thankfully I managed to float out of the rat’s reach, staring at it as it stalked below me before carefully going back to the corpse. Upon more careful inspection, it wasn’t a rat at all, but some sort of feral squirrel. Its bushy tail seemed to have caught on fire or something, making it seem more like a fleshy rat tail, explaining my confusion.

Well, I was used to squirrels being a bit cuter than feral rodents, but this world was clearly not very nice. The squirrel stuck its head into the charred pig-like corpse and came up with a mouth full of meat. Can bees hurl?

As gross as the sight was, my cramping stomach thought it was pretty pleasing. At the very least, the meat was safe to eat; now, all I needed to do was get rid of the scavenger.

No way was I getting close enough to use Venomous Stinger. I was already hurt badly enough, and I didn’t have much confidence in my combat ability compared to the feral carnivore squirrel’s sharp teeth and wicked claws.

That left Mind. Psychic powers are super strong, so surely I could beat a stupid squirrel. I rose higher, making sure I was far out of the squirrels reach. Didn’t want to be anywhere near the thing while I tried to force-choke it. Who cares if it was unfair? We’re talking about life or death here!

I hovered several meters above the pig corpse. Mister squirrel kept a wary eye on me as it feasted. No matter. I was a flying drone, ready to unleash hell onto this thing. Somehow.

I just couldn’t resist. I focused the power of my mind on mister squirrel’s neck, imagining a hand squeezing hard.

[Tapped Mind: 1% / 94%]

Mister squirrel’s eyes bulged as imprints appeared on its furry neck. Holy hell. I could actually force choke! Hello, childhood fantasies!

Then my brain exploded.

Pain blossomed in my head and my vision became blurry. The gray blur called Mister Squirrel suddenly moved, speeding across the ground and onto a tree. Screeching broke the forest’s endless silence as Mister Squirrel’s rage exploded, dashing up the burned trunk to reach a height nearly equal to mine.

I groggily tried to move backward, still recovering from the shock. The hell happened? I didn’t have time to think about it. It jumped right at me! The gray form of Mister Squirrel suddenly became uncomfortably large, and I did what any respectable warrior would do in my position.

I panicked.

[Tapped Mind: 80% / 94%]

Desperately, I squeezed as hard as I could manage.

Mister squirrel paused, hovering in the air for a moment. The next instant, it imploded. Faster than I could even process, the formerly large form of mister squirrel became a bloody mist that sprayed right onto me.

Oh.

“Berchleg.” Instead of my intended expression of victory, I barfed… not much of anything, and all went dark.

____________________________________

Cracks spread through the air, beautiful arcs of light filling my vision. Like a spindly hand, the cracks reached forwards. The sharp fingers dove into my head and…

I snapped awake screaming, panic only receding when I noticed a distinct lack of cracks. I saw a blackened sky and felt weightless, and I remembered my situation. Bees. Squirrels. Hurty brain.

“Urg… what happened?”

Queen was confused too? Not good. It was pretty funny that I was just floating in the air while totally unconscious, but otherwise not good. I opened my menu, looking for some answers and grimaced at what I saw.

[Status: severely injured, starving, Mind collapse]

The first two made sense; nothing too shocking there.

“Would you happen to know how bad Mind collapse is?” I asked the only source of information this world’s asshole gods had given me.

“Specifically? No clue. I can infer that overexertion of Mind has negative effects. Still, I do not know exactly what triggered it,” Queen hummed, “The collapse was triggered after you used 80% of our Mind to attack Mister Squirrel, but I feel there is more to the condition.”

Right. If using 80% of your power made your brain explode, it seemed like a super inefficient system. I reflected on the events leading up to the collapse, but even simple thinking made my brain feel sore.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

Before I calmly executed Mister Squirrel, I had tried to choke it, but somehow it fought back. Whatever it had done to defend itself had sent me for a loop, so that was definitely on the table for a factor in the collapse.

What else?

Assuming the Mind powers aren’t completely unlimited, then maybe the exertion from experimenting with the Mind Locks could also have played a part.

A careless mistake.

I had assumed, for whatever reason, that I could freely experiment and play with my psychic powers. I hadn’t even considered what Mind meant to Queen or to me. The fact that Queen had never made a Lock or used Mind as psychic abilities should have tipped me off.

Stomach rumbling, I tried my best to will myself towards the pig. Even that tiny exertion sent waves of nausea through me. What had I been doing? Was I being lax in my struggle for survival? I had thought I was doing my best, trying to gather information and use every tool at my disposal, but I still ended up in an almost worse situation.

Hope receded from my body, and my approach to the pig slowed. Was there even a point in trying?

“Fuck you, Enno.”

Uh.

“You have forced your will to live onto me. I lost everything and had no hope, yet you extended my suffering, keeping me alive. I was to die in that tree, yet you have struggled to survive. Here we are, still kicking, and you have the audacity to feel sorry for yourself? Sure, your use of Mind has caused us more pain, but did you think about why we can feel this new pain?”

I chewed on Queen’s words. Yeah. Yeah! I made mistakes, but my efforts had kept us going until then.

“Thank you, Queen. It’s… refreshing to have a positive voice in my head.”

“Hmph. Just go eat. I’ve never been this hungry in my life. Oh, what I would give for a servant to bring me some jelly….”

A laugh escaped me. Now, it was time to eat!

________________________

“I’ll get to it eventually. Quit your nagging.”

“Why are you avoiding it, you dope? Giving birth will be fun!”

Something told me that was a load of bs. My condition had improved dramatically after my meal, even if my mood hadn’t. It was pretty creepy that I could eat an entire animal several times my size and still crave more, and when Queen said it was to create as many offspring as possible, I knew exactly what to do next.

I stalled.

I tried my best to bandage my burns with wet leaves, but finding leaves that hadn’t been completely disintegrated was tough. I eventually found enough to dunk in the river and wrap around my burns, so good progress there.

Then I stalled some more.

I had been mistaken when I thought this forest was completely dead. It was shocking to see just how much life was still milling about, primarily scavengers like Mister Squirrel or insects like myself. I carefully steered clear of them, intent on avoiding combat in my condition. Once I had become more experienced at getting food without disturbing other wildlife, it was finally time.

To stall even more.

I played with Mind. I ate more food. And now I was trying to build some kind of shelter in the biggest tree I could find.

“I am in your head. I know you are stalling.”

“Hey, this branch is perfect to close the gap in the ceiling!”

“Enno. We need help.”

The big branch I had been carefully floating into place slotted in with the rest at the top of the ruined tree before something came undone, and all the branches fell. Some onto me. I was an electrical engineer, dammit, this was the wrong kind of engineering!

Even so, I knew Queen was right. There was no way I could build a shelter on my own, and it was a waste of time, regardless. My strongest asset was Mind, and between scavenging food, failing to build a shelter, and other mundane tasks, I had no opportunity to better understand it.

If I got help, I could become more familiar with Mind and prevent a repeat of Mister Squirrel. There was only one problem.

I really didn’t want to lay goddamn eggs.

[Name: (Unnamed)]

[Age: 1 months]

[Subtype: Queen]

[Status: Injured]

[Abilities:

* Create Egg (Lv: 1)

* Combined Mind

* Queen Piping (Lv: 1)

* Venomous Stinger

]

[Mind: 10th Degree]

[Tapped Mind: 0% / 94%]

[Mind Locks:

* Life (5%)

* Float(1%)

]

The bold words “Create Egg” stared at me, urging me to use it.

“Queen. I’m… scared.” That was the truth. No doubt about it, the idea of laying a fucking egg was way too weird and terrifying for me to handle. Queen’s humming softened, feelings of warmth and comfort washing over me. She was doing her best to support me, but the hesitation stayed firmly in place.

Now was as good a time as any. Armed with the reassurance and support of Queen, I shakily activated [Create Egg].

[Select:

* Simple Worker: A worker with no unique capabilities. (Min Mind Tap: 0.5%)

* Simple Warrior: A warrior built for combat. (Min Mind Tap: 0.75%)

1.5x Mind penalty: Unfavorable conditions

]

Tapping into the minimum 0.5% of Mind, I chose to create a Simple Worker. A force suddenly pulled on my stomach, and a slight pressure pushed on my head. I sighed in relief as a ball began to form in front of my abdomen. Thankfully, it seemed like I didn’t actually have to lay eggs, which made me much more confident.

Then I threw up.

Yuck. I guess the mass the Ability talked about had to be used like...this.

After a few seconds of brain pressure and puking, the ball hardened as the Ability completed.

“That sucked. Better than I expected, but that sucked.”

A weight lifted off my shoulders. My mental state would totally survive. Hopefully.

[Success!]

[Create Lock: Kin Link?]

Oh?

[Kin Link:

A Mind connection with produced offspring offered to certain species. Allows for enhanced communication and control of related kin. Slightly enhances the capabilities of the linked kin’s Mind.

* Simple Worker Link - Minimum 0.0005% Mind / Unit

]

“Any advice on this?” I asked. A monstrous urge compelled me to create the Lock, but Queen was the expert.

“You have to do it. Do it now. Do it.”

Well then. With the voice of the emperor- I mean queen in my head, I relented, creating the Lock.

[Tapped Mind: 0% / 93.9995%]

[Mind Locks:

* Life (5%)

* Float (1%)

* Kin Link (0.0005%)

]

I used the minimum possible Mind for the egg creation and the Link. This was supposed to be an experiment, not creating some bee horror by accident.

The little egg sat unmoving on the leaf bed I made in the tree. It was tiny, slightly smaller than my head. The egg’s orange color and opaque texture made it seem more like a bouncy ball or something rather than my… child.

Ew.

“How long until it hatches?” I had hoped there would be a timer or something, but I didn’t even feel the influence of the Mind Lock. Why was this System so intuitive yet so annoyingly obtuse?

“I believe it depends on several factors. Considering how little we put into this child, I would say no more than a day.”

Somewhere around a day, huh? At least I had some time before I needed to face the consequences of my actions. After a few nervous moments, I left the tree. Watching the egg with anticipation wasn’t exactly productive, so I decided to get to work. Queen had been bothering me with information about making a new bee family, so I went to get some food.

Without workers to do my chores, it was up to my lonesome self to gather food for the baby bees. Queen had wanted to start by laying 100 eggs, so I obviously called her an idiot.

Her reasoning was that by making as many eggs as possible, we would have more workers and increase the chances of surviving eggs.

I wanted to take a different approach.

Besides the fact that there was no way I was brave enough to make more than 1 egg for now, I wanted to make sure I needed to lay the least amount of eggs possible. If I made sure that each new child would survive, then fewer eggs to lay!

Some vultures circled around as I ‘hunted’ for food, the giant birds being another type of scavenger that had shown up recently. My ‘hunting’ consisted of picking up the closest slabs of overly well-done beef and furiously shaking the corpse just in case of a repeat of the Mister Squirrel fiasco. After a solid amount of food hovered close to me, I made my way back to the tree which I had helpfully marked with a circle of rocks.

I nearly squealed in excitement when I saw what was waiting for me.

“Please chill out, Queen. Your feelings are affecting me too.”

“But Enno, look! The widdle baby is gwowing up so big and stwong~” As funny as it was to hear the typically regal humming devolve into adoring shrieks, seeing the egg I had made become larger and less opaque freaked me out.

The orange color of the little sphere had become lighter, and a dark shape could be seen through its walls. Calling it ‘little’ also wasn’t as accurate anymore, as the thing had nearly doubled in size.

After a big stretch and deep yawn, I carefully deactivated Float and set the food down right outside the tree. I had no idea how long I had been in this world, but it had at least been a substantial number of hours, if not days, and the only rest I had given myself was involuntary unconsciousness. With the hope that I could somehow delay meeting the baby bee, I drifted off to sleep, dreaming of fire and lightning and giant monster squirrels.