Chapter 50: Long Live Her Majesty the Queen (04)

Creak...

The bee girl's stinger, spiraling as it was shot, burrowed into the burning hive, while the wasp woman was rolling on the ground, her waist torn in half.

'Ah...!'

As the hive burned while being slowed down by the mana sword, it only then occurred to me that the heat engulfing the queen could spell the end.

15 minutes were needed, but by setting the fire, I realized that I had disrupted the queen's flight, which had only about 10 minutes left, and caused her to burn.

"What have I done... Ah...!"

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But nature is a mysterious thing.

The queen, whom the bee girl and I tried to protect, dried her wings faster than natural air drying due to the heat from the burning hive, and now she was ready to fly into the sky, having let go of the hive she was holding.

Vroom...

A creature that was once a larva, once a pupa.

Was now a queen taking flight.

"Success... achieved."

The bee girl was still watching.

Watching her sister, whom she had nurtured, ascend gloriously as the queen.

The bee girl, who had been tirelessly collecting honey and making royal jelly every day, had finally received her reward.

Squeeeak...

"GROOOOAR--!!"

Simultaneously with the queen bee's ascent, another queen tore through the hive and revealed herself.

'Is that... the queen of the wasps?'

While the bee's queen bee was similar in size to a human form, with a slightly longer rear end and wings, the wasp queen was truly enormous, to the point I had to look up.

The grotesque appearance, half human and half insect, was burning in the hive's transferred embers; its wings and legs were ablaze, but numerous wasps clung to the queen wasp's body, rubbing themselves against her to put out the fire.

'How do we capture that?'

Even with full gear from the magic knight corps, I had never thought of fighting such a massive monster.

Witnessing the queen wasp reaching out with her burning forelimbs, trying to catch the escaping queen bee amidst the pain was enough to make me realize there was no time to worry.

'Let's capture her first.'

I had to try.

Even if the extreme mana consumption would cause my body to self-destruct, I couldn't give up without even trying.

Hooooong-!

Kaaaaboom-!!

The front of the hive was engulfed in flames and torn apart, and the queen wasp, half-buried in the hive, lost her grip on the queen bee amidst the trembling of her body.

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'This is...!'

Beyond the torn wasp hive, visible were dozens, maybe even more, blobs of fire flying toward the hive.

'Long-range bombardment support from the royal mage corps...!'

Kooooong-!!

It was a body too massive to be cut through with just a sword, but it couldn't withstand the grand siege magic launched by the entire royal mage corps, who had linked their consciousness for the spell.

[Crack... can you hear me? If you can hear, please specify the coordinates. Be careful not to get caught in indiscriminate bombardment. We are targeting based on the mana sword as a marker, so escape as soon as possible.]

Upon the senior knight's orders, I immediately grasped the situation.

Indiscriminate bombardment was about to unfold toward this location, using my mana sword's tracker as the coordinate for firing, so I had no choice but to abandon the mana sword and escape.

'My body is starting to paralyze.'

Having moved my body earlier for a final blow and given up on detoxification, the wasp venom was now severely spreading, slowing my heart rate and nearly turning my body comatose.

Crack!

While biting my tongue to stay awake, I kicked the mana sword and sent it flying into the lower part of the queen wasp before attempting to flee, but...

"This is as far as I go..."

My legs were already not obeying me.

Kuguuuguguang!!

The wasps tried to block the flying siege magic with their bodies, but the powerful magic tearing through the sky couldn't possibly be stopped by a mere physical assault.

And its force was going to blow me away just as equally.

"The queen... she's probably escaping well, right?"

Having no strength left to escape, I collapsed next to the bee girl, who was only half remaining.

"Considering I was destined to die since I was kidnapped, surviving about 5 more days... is alright, isn't it?"

Besides, I hadn't seen the last beautiful sight.

The sight of the trapped queen freely flying into the sky.

As my body stiffened from the paralysis venom, and my lungs and heart were stopping, I quietly closed my eyes to accept my fate.

Gurgle...

A bitter liquid flowed into my mouth.

It was sticky, sweet, and fishy...

And at the same time, terribly bitter.

"......"

Even with only half her body left, the bee girl was passing the last of her fluids in her mouth to mine.

Although all the honey had been spilled, and the blood was thoroughly mixed in... she was feeding me the last of the royal jelly remaining inside her.

Was it the instinct of a bee who had nurtured larvae? Or... a will transcending death that showed a miracle.

With a final push of royal jelly to my lips, the bee girl completely stopped breathing and moving.

The depleted mana began to flare up as the royal jelly's effects started neutralizing the wasp's venom.

As my stiffened body started to obey again, I lifted the bee girl's upper body, which was now lighter than usual by more than half.

Even though her beehive was attacked and she was kidnapped along with her sister by the wasps.

Even though her colleagues were captured by the wasps and died.

Even when she charged at the overwhelmingly stronger wasp.

The bee girl never gave up.

Then neither could I.

Believing in the soft material of the beehive, I wrapped the burning pieces of the wasp hive around my body and threw myself toward the ground.

* * *

Due to the long-range bombardment by the royal mage corps, the northern part of the Spider Forest began to burn.

As fire-based magic exploded one after another, the hive burned, and the bees trying to put out the fire inside also burned to death, obliterating the surrounding ecosystem compared to the imposing nature of the bees.

No matter how giant the hive was, its structural weakness to fire was undeniable.

If they were bees, they might have attempted to put out the fire by flapping their wings together, but for wasps who knew nothing but to destroy and consume, there was no way to block such flames.

They threw themselves desperately to protect the queen wasp, but the extremely large queen wasp caught fire first in her wings and couldn't ascend, burning alive; only then did the surviving wasps, sensing their survival instincts, flee and got caught in the reinforced spider webs of the Spider Forest, becoming prey while still alive.

For spiders, wasps were a formidable and tricky prey, but once caught in the prepared webs, they were merely food.

"Phew... the smell."

The knights from Barrack 2, holding their noses against the smell of melting beeswax and the noxious scent of burning bees, were searching the burned forest for their roommate.

"Ugh... The smell of burning is too strong to find him..."

The scent of burning hampered the military dogs from tracking properly, and the mana sword's tracker had long been destroyed by the bombardment, so it was thought that it would take a long time to search, but unexpectedly, they were able to find Ban quickly.

Rustle.

Ban suddenly appeared from the burned bushes.

"It's been a while."

"You're alive?"

Although the words were blunt, the knights of Barrack 2 were exceedingly glad to see Ban return safely, inwardly relieved and happy.

Of course, being men as usual, they joked about how tough his lifeline was, saying, "Oh, he bought it," but that was just their way of speaking.

"So did you get stung by a bee this time?"

To Dane's question, Ban smiled weakly, unlike his usual self.

"I'm tired, let's go in and rest first."

"Alright..."

They noticed Ban's right wrist was bloodied and his left arm had a large hole, realizing he had faced a brush with death, so they didn't ask further, just letting him lean on their shoulders to help him out.

"Yes, found him. Heading back now."

With that, along with Levin's communication, Ban left the burned wasp nest and looked back one last time

.

"Farewell."

Beyond the bushes he had sprung from was a small mound left behind.

A mana sword fragment and a bracelet made of old leather tied near the handle served as a makeshift grave marker.

It was a small grave he had made for a trivial creature, but it was precious to Ban.

Leaving that place behind, Ban returned to where he was meant to be.

Aaaaaang......

Unbeknownst to him, the queen bee with beautiful rainbow-colored wings was watching him from the sky.

If Ban was under any misconception, it was that the mating with the queen bee larva was not merely an act to stimulate her to quickly become a pupa and be reborn as a queen.

Only after the queen bee was confident that she could create her swarm and still have seeds left over from this one interaction did she attempt her metamorphosis.

Aaaaaang...

The queen bee looked down at Ban's location one last time, but with her poor vision, it was unclear whether she was actually looking at him or just sensing the flow of the wind and happened to be above him.

She was certain only of her ability to create a new swarm and give birth to bee girls like herself.

Fate is, after all, an unknowable thing.

To protect the last larva of the northern hive, over 400 bee girls had died from the hive.

Even after being captured, while carrying food and feeding royal jelly, they made her into a queen, but three of the bee girls were caught by the wasps and died.

Born from a queen, to die for a queen.

That was the fate of the bee girls.

Except for one.

Except for one bee girl who threw herself into danger to save the man she loved.

No one might acknowledge it, and even the man himself might understand it as just an instinct to protect the queen.

But the queen bee knew.

Was the bee girl her sister?

Because they shared the same bloodline.