The Bee Dungeon-Side Story 239.1 - Bee-ficient Efforts

“Gah!”

The wolfkin man cried out as a pillar of fire burned right past his face. He fell to the ground, clutching the area by his left eye. He had escaped death as the pillar had not struck him directly, but it had come close enough to burn the left side of his face.

“You incompetent mongrel! After all this time, you can’t even find a single bee?!”

The man gritted his teeth as he pulled himself to face forward and bow. Tears formed in his eyes from the pain but he had no choice but to pull himself together. The Inferno Empress was already displeased enough, she would not hold back with the next fire spell forming in her hand.

“M-My apologies, my empress. We found none in your purified land, and bees are rare in the Underway…”

Another blast of fire surged over his head, scorching his back and his tail.

“I don’t want to hear excuses! If you cannot complete this simple task then perhaps you are of no use to me…you and your people both! Leave, and do not return until you have acquired some bees!”

This time the Inferno Empress took her leave not with a veil of smoke but with a wall of roaring flames. The man slowly rose to his feet, resisting the urge to clutch at his burned face once more. He had no time, not even for pain.

His face and shoulders fell as he shuffled out of the dungeon under the glare of the guards. He and the tribe’s hunters had already scoured both the surface and the nearby Underway and found no bees in their vicinity. It was to be expected, it was a roll of the dice which species might survive in any given purified area.

The problem was that to range any further than they had would take them into the territories of competing tribes and Sacred Dens. If he sent a handful of scouts he would send them to their deaths, such an effort would require a force substantial enough to either intimidate or defeat the locals that would stand in their way. But to do that would leave the tribe’s non-combatants defenseless for however long their excursion lasted, at the mercy of vengeful tribes, and he did not dare hope the Inferno Empress would offer them protection. Besides, if they failed, there would be no place for them in the Inferno Empress’ lands.

He steeled himself, holding his head high despite the pain it caused him. It seemed that, no matter what he chose to do, he would have to have a long discussion with the tribe. Their future was now deeply uncertain, their next actions may determine the fate of their entire people…

General Rippotis walked over to a couple of baskets sitting on an elevated table. He gently lifted the lid off of one. With the lid came the honeycomb built on the strings hung from the bottom of the lid. He smiled as he watched the bees crawl about. They seemed numerous and strong. And then, he replaced the lid, the honeycomb slotting back into its hive with minimal damage.

It wasn’t perfect, as some horizontal honeycomb connections broke off every time he opened the lid, but the beekeepers had come up with a way to access the hive without destroying it. He could now keep bees without destroying their homes…and so could work to make them happy.

He had begun to understand why the God of Bees included that requirement. They were fascinating creatures and far more intelligent than he had first given them credit for. The first time he had approached the hive, they had attacked him, though the mana coating his skin prevented their stingers from piercing through. But, with each time he visited a given hive without destroying it, the bees within grew more accustomed to his presence. Now they would allow him to open up their hives and even handle them directly with barely a complaint. And, notably, they were not this tolerant to subordinates he sent in his place. They recognized individual people and remembered their deeds.

He had truly underestimated them before this. They were a well-organized army whose members never hesitated to sacrifice for the good of the whole. They were capable of learning, remembering, and adapting to changing circumstances. They knew who was a friend and who was a threat.

If only humanity was like that too.

He shook his head before his thoughts went down a grim direction. He now had bees in homes that would not harm them, so it was time for the harder part of the job. The God of Bees required that he raise monster bees of sufficient rarity, so he would have to turn these bees into monsters. A difficult task for him, maybe the most difficult one she could have asked of him.

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Breeding monsters. Transforming mundane beings into monsters. Experimenting upon the resulting monsters to further boost their rarity and power. Those were the sorts of things that the old kings once did, the exact mindset that led them to unleash the Hunger upon the world. Rippotis himself had pushed for the Conclave to heavily regulate monster breeding, he would have preferred to ban it outright had it not been a integral part of the Towers’ functions. The last thing any human should attempt ever again was to play god in such a manner. Even his own use of wyverns and dragons from his Tower was a continuation of a skillset the Dragon Banner Army possessed long before receiving the Towers, and he did his best to replicate wild breeding and taming conditions wherever possible.

But now it was one of the gods themselves asking him to do just that, and with one of the fast breeding eusocial species that were the most heavily restricted. He chuckled at himself. He might have questioned it or perhaps looked for a non-eusocial type of bee under different circumstances. But with the gods growing unusually involved in their affairs lately and Heigiosa’s concerns, he could not afford to delay. This was the will of the gods that had saved humanity from its own, just destruction, so Rippotis could let nothing, not even his own fears, hold him back. Indeed, the last report from Lord Starami indicated he had reached the last known Tower before the big unbroken sea of Hunger separating them from the lost Tower, so time was ticking.

And so, General Rippotis, the Tower Lord known as most opposed to monster breeding, turned all of his mind and attention to evolving bee monsters…

Meanwhile, Lord Starami had to hold back a hiss as a wad of wet mud fell right on top of his head. Yet again, they had tunneled too close to ground water and now the whole path was sopping wet. It would not due to lose his composure though, so he didn’t even move his head as he glanced at the captain in charge of the digging.

“It appears we will need a new path, yet again.”

The captain was drenched with sweat, and not from the exertion of the dig.

“Right away, my lord.”

Lord Starami held back a sigh. First, the last Tower encountered turned out to be ruled by the subhumans. A human Tower Lord could be convinced to swear loyalty to the Conclave, if they knew what was good for them. A subhuman one had to dealt with. Killing a Tower Lord was possible, but always a troublesome affair. One never knew how many times their patron god would be willing to intervene, or even revive them, and there was a good chance that patron would withdraw their blessing from the Tower once the deed was done. The patron god would then need to be appeased lest they express their wrath upon the rest of the Conclave and any followers they had there, while the Tower in question would need to be rebuilt from the ground up since its features and blessings would no longer match if the original patron could not be convinced to return.

There were some Tower Lords who were willing to merely subjugate subhumans, but Lord Starami’s position was not good enough to endure any hint of further reprove, so he had no choice but to waste further resources exterminating the Tower Lord outright. He was only lucky said subhuman hadn’t followed his own patron.

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And now he had to deal with the Hunger. Unfortunately, Ruckanos’s report had proven accurate. There was a large, unbroken sea of the Hunger across the surface between him and the target, just barely within the limits of a one-way flight by a wyvern. And that meant that he had no choice but to dig underneath. The path was far too long to sustain an army capable of assaulting Towers via wyverns alone, they needed either a closer base or a ground path. And since there were no closer bases, their only choice was to dig their own route and hope that the Hunger wouldn’t seep down into it before they reached their target and made their assault. If they were lucky, perhaps they might break into an Underway path or even find a subterranean Tower…but Starami no longer trusted in his luck.

But he would not be deterred. At the end of this path was the means by which he could resolve his humiliation…as well as to pay back the one who had caused all this. And so, his army pressed on, watching the ground drakes dig away at the dirt…

Meanwhile, the God of Bees was dancing before the God of Fire.

“Fire dungeon masters…not completing mission? Only one so far?”

The God of Fire crossed his arms and hummed.

“I’m a bit embarrassed to admit it but…they’re having a bit of trouble. Rippotis is on his way but…the others are having trouble finding bees in the first place. Urubran was really lucky he could get help from Flower’s master. Um, sorry to ask this but…any chance you can add some bees to their purified zones?”

The God of Bees buzzed her wings.

“Can’t. No authority.”

The God of Fire frowned.

“Really? I know he’s only one of the five I promised but Urubran should be earning you authority now? And Belissar is still doing well, right? Surely you have more authority to work with now…”

The God of Bees looked up at him before dancing again.

“Had to spend on missions.”

The God of Fire’s eye flames shrunk a bit as he recalled which missions the God of Bees had recently assigned Belissar…and why. He rubbed the back of his head.

“Ah. I see.”

The two gods stared at each other in silence for a bit before the God of Fire let out a sigh of smoke.

“Well, I guess we could try to come to some arrangement?”

“Or…perhaps a third party could help with your predicament?”

The God of Fire and God of Bees both started and turned as a third voice entered the conversation…