The tunnel leading to the fifth floor was a long and curvy one. We completely lost the sense of direction. Halfway we heard some buzzing sound that only grew stronger as we walked down the tunnel. When it ended, in front of us there is a beehive. Hexagonal honeycombs everywhere. Bees the size of a toddler swarm the entire place. Probably thousands of them. The buzzing is maddening. So far they are ignoring us, but we are not inside their hive.
Helen places a sound-isolating and a nondetection barriers around us.
"Marcy, any intel on these bees?"
"None. There are some bee monsters, but they don't look like giant normal bees."
"They don't seem dangerous. Care to make a test?"
"Are you doing something crazy again?" Helen asks with a disencouraging tone.
"Depends if you can close this tunnel using earth magic or not."
"I probably can. What is it?"
"I set a dead zone by the tunnel entrance. Marcy snipes one bee. If they aggro, you seal the tunnel with a stone wall."
"It is not that much crazy. We can try it."
I step ahead and ready myself to use dead zone. When everything is ready, I give a signal. Marcy shoots a bee and uses [Assassinate] on it. The bee squirts goo everywhere, some of it our way. The buzzing stops for a brief moment, only to resume in an even stronger form. Hundreds of angry bees are charging us.
Dead zone works overtime, but soon is overwhelmed. There is a limit to how many attacks can be made, even with the skill's acceleration. I am stung dozens of times.
"Stone Wall" Helen's wall closes the gap, crushing some bees in the process.
I trigger Immolation aura and burn all the bees swarming me.
"That was dangerous! Is everyone fine?"
"Yes, but what is this sound?" The buzzing comes from the other side of the wall. There is a reverberation through it, as if a potent subwoofer was playing nearby.
Dust falls from the makeshift cover and cracks begin to form in front of it.
"Helen, put up a firewall in front of the stone! They are breaking through. Zahariel, heal me!"
Helen puts her fire wall up and I stand behind it with the immolation aura on. The bees break the stone wall with the power of their harmonics. Several of them are pushed forward by the swarm coming from behind and burn in the firewall. The few that break through are burned by the immolation aura.
They change the pattern of the buzzing and the flames are extinguished. No, that is wrong. The spells were cancelled. Once again, hundreds of bees come to us.
"Frozen Wonderland!" I spread the ice in front of me to try and reduce their metabolism and effectiveness.
The chilled bees become meek, but after a few moments they begin to tremble and buzz their own bodies, generating an insane amount of heat. Once again the spell is cancelled. The bees come at me and I do my best to block them from going further. I am stung dozens of times again. There are so many bees over me that I am unable to even move.
"Run away, they are coming for us!" Marcy yells.
"But, Grendel!" Helen hesitates. "No! Get away from me!"
"Helen!" Marcy sounds desperate.
I can hear Helen's screams going further inside. Are the bees kidnapping her? I cast immolation aura again and shake the burnt husks of bees from my body. "Where is Helen?"
"The bees took her away. Mittens and Emory's gang ran in pursuit."
"There is no choice. We need to go in and rescue her. Zarr, double time on the healing, I am going to burn this whole place. Marcy, prioritize the safety of you two." Marcy has bad compatibility against swarms.
"I got it! Troll style!" The seraph gives me a thumbs up.
I run inside before Helen's signal gets out of my presence detection. At least her HP is capped. Hold a second, why aren't the bees attacking her? Bees come at me, but before they can hum the dispelling tune, I flare my aura even stronger and burn them on the go.
I lost count of how many bees we've killed. We haven't left combat mode since we stepped into this hive.
Skill Fire Potency [C] level 1 awakened. Passive increase for damage and area of fire spells by
Skill Fire Magic level 6.
Some honeycomb cells boil and pop as the flaming troll runs by. The boiling honey is a hazard for the others. "Be careful of the boiling honey!"
We stop near a cliff and cannot move further. We need to climb the honeycombs if we want to progress further. Helen is nearby but I can't see her. The other wall is crowded with bees.
I run out of MP and turn off the aura. The bees are flocking to the location Helen is at, but are ignoring us. I sit and rest to recover MP and so does Zahariel. Marcy stays on the lookout.
"The bees are moving like crazy over Helen. I don't know where is Mittens and Emory are, they are outside detection range. But Helen is just stunned and her HP is capped."
After a few minutes there is a commotion and some piece of hive breaks and falls down. I counted around five seconds for the sound of the piece crashing down. There are over 200 feet of free fall. Mittens flies out of the new hole with Emory and the rat gang as passengers. I recovered about half of my MP.
"We need to support or the bees will kill them." Marcy cries.
I take the horn spear and some rope out of storage. "I hope these honeycombs are strong enough. You two, tie yourselves to my back in a way you can still act. We are doing something crazy now."
"Troll style?" Zahariel asks.
"Nope. Free climbing. Geronimo!" With the spear in hand and my two companions safely tied to my back, I trigger the emperor's might and leap to the other side. With a might thrust of the spear, it sticks to the honeycomb on the other side and works as a support to gain a foothold with my claws.
From the other side, Mittens is dogfighting bees. Emory is working as a navigator of sorts, i guess. The other rats are clinging to Mittens' legs and covering for his soft belly. Bees that come too close get bitten. But those stingers have a hard time piercing his carapace.
"Homing Multishot!" When the situation around Mittens becomes dire, Marcy thins out the bees with a cheat shot.
This novel's true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.
Little by little we approach the place where Helen is. I don't fail to notice that these honeycomb holes have larvae inside, but they look dead.
"Isn't it strange that the bees swarming around Helen are not going to help fight Mittens?"
"Yes, and it scares me. What are they doing there?"
"I will scatter them. Get a good look and bring down as many as you can. [Ferocious Shout]!" My almost trademarked vocal prowess doesn't fail in making the bees make a beeline away from me. Mittens doesn't let the opportunity pass and slashes away at the bees, clipping several wings in one swing. In this high-altitude battlefield losing your wings is certain death.
"She is trapped in some sort of coccoon!" I can see a spiral cocoon stuck to the honeycomb wall where Helen is, but the coccoon is not transparent. There is a milky goo covering everything. "Wait, I can see part of her face."
With a few more jumps we reach the coccoon. I take several gobin spears and stab them in the combs to get a makeshift platform going. The gap between spears is not enough for even Zahariel to fall through. They are firmly stuck in place. More of the milky-white goo flows from the punctured combs, along with some dead larva parts.
I yell at the monsters "Mittens, get over here now!" The mantis looks at me and changes direction to meet us. When it reaches us, it latches on the wall with its hind legs and raises the scythes to defend Helen from the bees. The rats climb down into the coccoon and begin eating the white goo. Marcy unties herself from my back and goes down to the spears next to the coccoon. Zahariel also unties himself but climbs on Mittens' back and heals the mantis. There are still strands of rope tethering them to me.
"Helen, Helen can you hear me?" Marcy scrapes the goo from her face. Lots of the stuff is pushed overboard and falls down.
The bees are returning, and I have no foothold to set up a dead zone. Repeating the shout will have diminishing returns, but it is the only option I have.
"Ferocious Shout!"
Skill Ferocious Shout level 7. {Stunning Shout} learned. Cone-shaped shout can stun for up to 10 seconds instead of causing fear.
Two-thirds of the bees flee, but there is almost a hundred coming at us.
"Multishot!" "Star Flare!" The crew gives their best to thin out the enraged bees that are coming at us stinger-first. Mittens readies its scythes and lowers his body to cover Helen. Emory and the rats are... hungry? At least They are lowering the level of the white bee...
Hold a second. Is that royal jelly? It is not honey, it is not propolis. What the heck are these bees doing to Helen?
I ready dragon claws and the bees clash into our melee range. Several of them sting us but now that we can see the attacks, they don't lose the stingers.
They make their pass and Zahariel and me heal everyone. Marcy keeps shooting magic arrows at the bees, and soon enters into MP exhaustion. She wobbles and I am forced to grab her.
"Don't overdo it. It is no use to sacrifice one to save another!" The tether is a last-ditch resort. One can never be sure the rope won't snap.
Slurping sounds and burps come from the rats that are still eating the royal jelly. Helen's head is almost entirely out.
"Dazzling Light!" Zahariel creates a flash of light that stuns the bees, and they plummet down. I can do that too.
The two hundred something bees that failed to resist the second shout are coming. I'll ready the stunning shout to take them down too. Helen awakes and gasps for air.
"Helen, how are you?"
"I am... fine? But more important, ALL OF YOU STOP NOW." She shouts and the bees brake mid-charge, and so does Mittens and the rat squad. "Do not fight. The real enemy is coming at us now and is coming fast."
At the edge of presence detection two B-rank pemadras enter range, one on each side of the chasm. Thousands of smaller presences also come after them.
"G, there are two swarms of bees coming from each side. Each swarm is led by a huge bee."
"Helen, how did you know they were coming before me and Marcy?"
"I can sense the other Queen Bees. The fight for control of this entire hive will happen now. And you culled most of our forces."
"They hit first!" Zahariel raises an objection in our defense.
"Marcy, can you snipe one queen? I'll take the other one out."
"Yeah, I think I have enough MP left for a single shot."
"Killing the queens won't stop the war. It is a flight to the last bee standing." Was it a typo?
"Make it count. Helen, get your minions to defend us. Close to me. If you can, nuke the swarms." This is going to hurt, but I'll cover all the bees in my sacrifice aura.
The queens lead the charge. One on each side. I check my footholds, they will support my weight.
"Ice Arrow, Homing, Assassinate!" There is a loud twang when Marcy's arrow flies to freeze and shatter one of the queens' wing at long range. Her bow is too noisy but the queen plummets down. Half of her swarm follows her in a vain attempt to rescue her.
I need to wait a bit more because my range is way smaller. {Power Javelin}!" I let loose one of my goblin spears upon the other queen. The toothpick pierces the queen thorax and gets stuck in the middle of the shaft. Gravity takes over and this queen also wins a one-way ticket to the abyss. But her swarm only enrages and dashes forward.
They approach and our mages each start a long chant. Some spells allow you to gather more power by lenghtening the chant. Our bees are buzzing around us making our first line of defense.
"Burst Fireball, Overboost, Wind Admixture!" When the largest swarm approaches, Helen lets out a huge composite spell. The normal burst fireball has a radius of about 20 to 30 feet. Overboost almost doubles that, but the wind admixture adds a wind effect going outward from the edge of the fireball. It is like the shockwave that travels further than the heat of the explosion.
We could feel the shockwave from where we are. Several of our bees were caught off guard and tossed around, but they were unharmed. Of the other swarm, I could swear I saw some of them going all the way over us to meet the other side swarm's bees. But the side I am looking at is almost clear.
"Guess I can't do poorly now! Celestial Star!" Zahariel's spell creates small swirling lights way above the other swarm from which falling meteoroids are either created or summoned. The falling shooting stars maim the bees in their path and shortly after being born they explode like fireworks.
A fun fact I realised only now, the party never left combat during all this incursion. I think this will go south before it gets better. There are still a lot of bees that survived the nukes. I take out an axe and begin to hack a niche for me on the wall.
The two swarms' remnants clash upon our location and a grand melee breaks out. I am unsure of which bee to attack, because to me they all look the same. I guess I will just root for our team and take the damage for our bees. The only one able to tell a bee from another is Mittens. While he is the only one fighting efficiently, Zahariel is keeping my HP in check and Marcy is with a sword defending Helen. The rats are also around the edge of the coccoon, but their bellies are too stuffed to do anything. I untie the tethers binding me to Marcy and Zahariel.
The extended durability from the sacrifice aura allows our bees to fight longer, but they are still outnumbered two to one. The other swarms decided they want to take out our queen as well and seem to have joined forces. The amount of damage I am taking is thinning out and it means so are our forces.
Bee by bee, we are losing. Fast. I can tell our bees from the others, they are the ones with huge gashes on their furry bodies. "Guys, I am going to win this one for us 'troll style'. I put a dimensional anchor on the recently dug and honey covered niche and jump down. The moment I am below Helen's coccoon, I let go my sure-fire win strike upwards:
"Stunning Shout!" Every bee fighting above were in the range of the cone. Meet you downstairs! Not! "[Short Jaunt]!"
Skill Space Magic level 4.
I teleport back to my carved niche. Momentum was not killed, and honey splashes everyone.
"Grendel! We talked about these crazy stunts!"
"Damn, G! I was able to remain clean until now!"
"So tasty!"
I can hear their voices of discontent. Only their voices. There is no buzzing anymore. My shout does not affect friendlies, but the bees serving Helen were counted as neutral, I guess. Drones are expendable, right?
Beelzebub's Hive B5 cleared. Guild card updated. Quest completed!
Helen (Monster Tamer) has gained 10 levels!
Marcy (Mystic Archer) has gained 7 levels!
Zahariel (Magician) has gained 8+10 levels!
Grendel (Super Villager) has gained 9+10 levels!
118 skill points added.
Title Thousand to One awarded.
Those that win a fight against odds greater than 1,000 to one.
Increase Exp awarded in combat proportional to log(odds).
"Do you guys want to do one more level?" I suggest.
"No! I want to go home!" Helen refuses it on the spot.