With a heave, the branch I was spinning like a drill flew off into the forest. That was a pretty decent distance.

“Yo Beryl, when do we get to see some action?!”

“Quiet. The pair of humans should be passing by any moment now.”

Yes. A chance to redeem myself. My… questionable judgment in the last encounter with humans had ultimately turned out alright, but I was now in this state. Relegated to tossing branches rather than valiantly dueling with my stinger like a true warrior.

Speaking of. I glared at Belial, casually lounging nearby. He was one of elder brother Bedivere’s dear favorites, and yet he did not intend to be an honorable warrior. No, he was now obsessed with those odd weapons of the humans now. Even now, he caressed them, pointing them at random trees as if acting out a battle.

Ridiculous.

But I was no longer one to judge. I certainly didn’t regret my actions, but my crippled state was no joy. Well, I was figuring things out. Besides, there was one other duty I absolutely had to take care of.

“Are you all ready? Hey! I can see you slouching!”

The other warriors buzzed as quietly as possible, a ways away from the hive. We were lying in wait for the pair of humans Mother had alerted us about. Our job was simple: swarm the humans and disable them so that Mother could bring them into the hive. Of course, there was a small addition.

The sneaky human.

That one was to be the prey of Bedivere and Beelzebub. Mother had insisted that the sneaky human find out as little as possible about us. The exact location of the hive, the true capabilities of our combatants, that sort of stuff. Interesting choice, then, for our two most mysterious and dangerous warriors to be the ones to apprehend him.

Well, I suppose they were best suited to take care of someone in the quickest possible fashion.

Suddenly, I saw a pair of silhouettes pushing through the dead trees.

“Ahead. Be ready.”

As the two stepped into the purposefully suspicious clearing, we released the squirrels.

This was an idea from yours truly. With the help of Mother’s grand Mind, we managed to capture a few squirrels and attach Linker Bees to them to act as a disposable force. It was unlikely they would be able to do any real damage to the human warriors, but that was not their purpose.

The humans grunted at each other, quickly steadying themselves and firing those ridiculously loud human weapons called guns. It was a closer battle than I had expected; the squirrels were quite resilient, requiring several gunshots to permanently down, but the humans were quite experienced with fighting the creatures. Even so, I couldn’t help but scoff.

It was taking these two humans a full, concentrated effort to destroy these puny squirrels. Why, if they were forced to fight Bedivere, it would be a sorry slaughter. Even I could probably defeat these chumps!

Nevertheless, the superior tactics and teamwork of the humans won them the battle. Eventually. A ‘battle’ like that apparently warranted a break, so they took a moment to catch their breaths. They were drenched in… sweat? Panting heavily and giving themselves some time to recover after a battle hard fought.

“Charge!”

Perfect! The plan went perfectly! Right when the humans were mentally off-guard, my warriors sprung into action, stinging and poking the pair of sweaty, tired humans. I watched from the sidelines, occasionally tossing in some sticks and stones in an attempt to possibly break the humans’ bones.

Of course, my actual role was one of command and prevention. If the sneaky human decided to interfere, or if these two humans turned out to be a bigger problem than expected, then I would be there to help. Well, Belial was the true insurance. But I could fulfill that role just as well!

No matter. In a matter of seconds, the humans’ weapons had been pulled away, and they were relegated to weakly swatting the air and hiding their faces. I turned my attention to Bedivere. Big brother Bedivere was silently watching a human, who was in turn silently watching our ‘battle.’

“Is now the time, Bedivere?”

“Yes, Beryl. Though, I will be giving Beelzebub the chance to prove herself. Please, watch with me. As the somewhat more experienced warrior, I would like you to tell me what you think of her attempt.

Wh-wh-wh-what??? Me?! Big brother Bedivere wanted my opinion? Oh. My. Bee!

Okay, okay. Ahem. In that case, I must take this exceedingly seriously. I hovered above the tree line, intently staring at the position where the hidden human should be, according to Bedivere. I also decided to keep an eye on Beelzebub herself.

“Yargh! I’m gonna kill ya!”

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And so, her slaughter began. The humongous human, surprisingly, showed no sign of surprise, calmly dodging out of the way of Beelzebub’s charge as if he knew it was coming. He slipped a blade out of seemingly nowhere and made to run away. The coward!

Ah, but he must have sensed big brother Bedivere or something along those lines because the human paused, instead opting to dash toward the other humans in the clearing. He yelled at his two underlings and made to swipe at my troops, but I had already been ordering them to pull away. The two humans were alive, but they were also completely unconscious.

Of course, this spelled disaster for the big sneaky human. At that moment, Beelzebub returned with righteous fury, screaming her head off and waving her small stinger at the large human. And what followed was a tragedy.

The human stood no chance. He tried cutting Beelzebub with his two knives - wait, where did he get the second one? Anyways, it didn’t matter. Beelzebub easily maneuvered around the blades and smashed into the man’s arms, causing him to scream.

How… undignified. Beelzebub was moving as if to emulate Bedivere’s fencing style with her stinger, but instead, she was using brute strength to obliterate the human’s bones. Speaking of the human, now he had the grace to look panicked. It was then that he disappeared.

Huh?

One second, the human had been standing there, fear in his eyes and mangled arm hanging limply by his side, and the next, he was nowhere to be seen.

“Beelzebub!” Bedivere exclaimed, “He is using an Ability to hide. Combat his Mind with your own.”

Oh, dear. I noticed Belial watching with a bored expression, some of his many eyes following something unseen. Ah. Belial was able to see where the human was hiding. So unfair. Would Beelzebub also pull out one of her natural-born capabilities the Valkybees so unfairly had?

“Damn you, you slipper bastard!”

Oh, she was fuming. Fuming so hard, in fact, that her face seemed to be bright red. Ah. Rather, her face was starting to actually glow red. As were her antennae horns. Perhaps this was a display of her powers.

Then the clearing exploded.

As I blinked, Beelzebub screeched as the human once again became visible, trying his best to imitate a puppet ragdoll flying through the air. What the hell was that?!

“Dangerous and thoughtless. Effective, but even so,” Bedivere mumbled next to me. When did he get there?

“She poured a heaping helping of Mind into nothing but the Strength Lock she copied from me, along with a boost for her movement. Honestly. Why not use her own Ability?”

Unbelievable. As the dust settled around Beelzebub, I finally understood what had happened. Beelzebub, for lack of a better word, had gone ballistic. She didn’t use some incredible Ability or even notice Belial’s wandering eyes; instead, she had turned herself into a mimicry of a gun’s bullet, exploding with speed and noise around the clearing. She had wildly flailed and simply hoped that she would connect with the invisible human, to apparent success.

How… how… barbaric!

“Is the human alright? Mother wanted them to be alive.”

Ah. Bedivere had a point. That stunt could have caused some severe damage, not only to the sneaky human but to our pair as well. A quick inspection told me that the two humans were still incapacitated but were unfortunately woken up by the commotion. No matter. We could easily hold them down by working together.

As for the sneaky human? He was in seriously sorry shape. Hmph. A foolish decision, Beelzebub. If the human was injured badly enough, I was sure she would be on the receiving end of Mother’s dissatisfaction. About time. In my opinion, every bee needed a good scolding from Mother at least once. It built character!

_____________

“Goddammit, Beelzebub, did you have to beat him up so bad?!”

“Sorry… but, but! He was invisible! And it was pissing me off!”

“I don’t care! I- Well, you explain, Bedivere!”

“Of course. Beelzebub, understand the source of Mother’s consternation. The intent was many-fold. For one, it was a test from myself to see if you would be capable of incapacitating the human while causing the least amount of overt damage. By doing so, you would have proven not only restraint but sheer skill. It would take expert execution to be able to defeat an opponent while causing them as little lasting harm as possible.”

Bedivere sighed, “Further, we are being cautious of that particular human. We assume that he has information-gathering capabilities and may be able to communicate information about us even while under our control. You showed at least part of your hand.”

“And that is not even the worst of it. That particular human maintains a very specific role. He will no longer be able to arrive at the city first. His deception will be exposed, which will have to be carefully managed when explaining to his companions. It would presumably not be surprising for him to have taken such a sneaky measure, but his injuries and those of the other two will be complicated to work around. Considering his deceptive nature and experience, we will need to be extremely cautious when working with him.”

“Yeah! You get it now?”

Thank fuck I had Bedivere to explain these things. I mean, I had mostly been thinking about the info gathering stuff. I hadn’t even begun considering the later planning about having to explain his injuries. Wait, forget that. What was up with the first part? This was supposed to be a routine mission. Simple. Easy. Just get it done.

Bedivere was making this a test and stuff? That was his prerogative.

“I’m disappointed, Beelzebub. I think you should put more focus on your skill and subtlety. I’m glad you successfully completed the goal, don’t get me wrong. But in the future, especially the near future that has an uncertain and possibly violent nature, please make sure to continue improving.”

“Yes, Mother,” Beelzebub pouted. Well, that was done. Sure, Beelzebub looked sad, Bedivere looked disappointed, and Beryl… well, she looked quite satisfied, but nevertheless. I was increasing my expectations for all of the bees. Including myself.

The City of Yiwi, its City Lord, and the scary army that had passed by to destroy the forest were increasingly growing in the forefront of my mind. I had been spending the last day, well, preparing. Producing warriors and Linkers while pouring over the memories of Yelah and her crew.

The most pressing issue had been the incoming humans. Toh in particular. So, I investigated to see what Yelah and the others knew of Toh to see if Yelah had conveniently left anything out of her explanation. Well, Yelah certainly understated the respect she had for the more experienced man. By quite a bit, actually. He was apparently known as a veteran mercenary in their city, and Yelah had been inspired by him as she climbed the ranks in her own career.

Otherwise? None of them really knew anything more. I suppose these mercenaries placed a lot of value in keeping their skills on the down low to maintain an advantage.

Second, I investigated the Humanity Factor. It was by far the most mysterious and dangerous concept I had found in recent memory, and I had to figure out what its deal was. The result?

Disappointingly inconclusive. All four of the humans had the same exact thoughts about the Humanity Factor, knowing it as something completely normal that every human had since birth. Further, it was known as a mundane and completely innocuous thing that gave humanity a small leg up against other species that tended to be born with naturally more powerful Minds, such as us bees.

Well, except one case.

Vlugh was a wealth of interesting information. He was apparently not from the same country as Yelah. Yelah, as well as Yiwi, resided in the country of Somuia. And that was the country our forest was nestled next to. Neither Rette nor Grehn were from this country either, but Vlugh’s home country was fascinating.

Where he came from, they worship literal and actual dragons. In fact, it was apparently well known that the only dragons left in the world lived within Vlugh’s home country, and his country, a theocracy, was known for all sorts of other oddities.

For one thing, they were really, really weird about the Humanity Factor.

And so, I had begun digging deeper. Vlugh originally came from Dreva, one of the several smaller countries that lay on the western border of the gigantic Somuia. Vlugh’s family moved to Somuia when he was a young child, so the only memories that capture the true nature of the theocratic country of Dreva were that of a child.

Dreva’s theocracy was centered around the worship of the dying species of dragons, which were exceedingly powerful creatures that had long since developed sentience through Mind. As a result, they constantly put into question the nature and origin of humans. All Vlugh knew was that the Humanity Factor was heavily scrutinized by Drevani.

Unfortunately, there wasn’t much more than that. But man! A country of dragons and people, how cool. I’d really like to see it. Alas, Dreva was pretty far away. Somuia was a vast country, apparently stretching from the northern to the southern edges of the continent, and Dreva was all the way on the western border, while our forest lay on the eastern border. Somuia was much taller than it was wide, but it was still a pretty crazy distance. Especially since I had to stay near the hive.

And anyways! None of that actually told me anything about the Humanity Factor. But it did reinforce some things. There was a lot I could learn about this world, especially Somuia, solely from the memories of these four humans. Not even including the three new kids. Even further, the denizens of this world knew things.

Until now, I had been working from scratch. But fuck that! Why reinvent the wheel? People in this world contemplated and investigated all sorts of things, things that I had already been wondering about and brand-new things I had discovered.

The immediate problem had been taken care of with ease. A few Linker Bees, and we could focus on Yiwi. And I, therefore, could concentrate on growing.