Ah, Making Me Risk My Life Again? (2)
“Honeybee. Wasp. Enemies.”
“Honeybees and wasps are enemies?”
“Honeybee Empress. Persuade.”
“The Honeybee Empress can kill the wasps?”
“Impossible.”
“Then?”
“All. Honeybees. Unite. Sacrifice. Possible.”
“How do the honeybees sacrifice themselves?”
“Wasp Empress. Honeybees. Cover. Heat. Kill.”
I couldn’t help but chuckle.
I’d grown up in the countryside as a kid, so I knew all about the war between honeybees and wasps.
Honeybees don’t have dedicated soldier bees.
When hornets or paper wasps invade their hive, the worker bees turn into fighters.
Since their stings can’t pierce a hornet’s armor, they use a trap called a “bee ball.”
They form a bowl-shaped cluster and wait.
When a hornet gets caught in a depression, they swarm over it completely, wrapping it into a living sphere.
Once the enemy is trapped, they rub their bellies furiously, generating heat that cooks the hornet alive.
Honeybees can withstand higher temperatures than wasps.
So this tactic works even in a world of magical beasts?
Still, even at first glance, the plan looked extremely difficult to pull off.
For one thing, a bee ball can’t be used offensively.
It’s a defensive trap built inside the hive, not something you can carry into the enemy’s nest.
That meant we’d have to lure the Megahornet into the honeybee hive.
That wouldn’t be easy either.
After seeing how the previous empress used mayonnaise, it was obvious this Megahornet was highly intelligent.
Besides, the Megahornet itself was already thirty to forty meters long, and it traveled with hundreds of three-to-four-meter subordinates.
Even if we provoked it toward the hive, its underlings would surely scout ahead first.
I asked the bee.
“Where can I meet the Honeybee Empress?”
“Path guidance. Possible.”
This one seemed remarkably clever.
I rubbed its head with my thumb again and gave it a little of the leftover acacia honey from last time.
“Eat. It’s a reward.”
But it held back and spoke.
“For the swarm. Princess. Want to give. Possible?”
The more I saw of this bee, the more I liked it.
It was thinking of the new princess who would be born in the royal chamber rather than itself.
“No,” I said. “You eat it. For the sake of the swarm.”
“I. Worker. No need to eat well.”
I spoke meaningfully.
“Right now you’re a worker, but someday you might become a queen.”
The bee’s wings trembled in shock.
“Impossible. Impossible.”
Worker bees are all female and born capable of laying eggs.
They simply never develop ovaries because they only eat royal jelly for three days.
In reality, if the queen dies and the colony becomes queenless, some workers do eat royal jelly and crown themselves.
But this bee had clearly never even considered such a thing.
I stroked it once more and said,
“Possible! From now on, I’ll call you Ganeungi.”
I left the bottle of acacia honey behind and headed for the waypoint.
There was a mountain of things to prepare.
* * *
Twenty-four hours passed.
I spent every waking moment in frantic preparation.
And finally—
The preparations for the landing operation on the 4th Basement Level were complete.
: 5 days, 18 hours, 42 minutes, 52 seconds
I lined up the landing force.
Two Ogre Queens and two Ogre Princesses.
Two Twin-Arm and Twin-Six Ogres.
Rotter Sergeant and eleven other Rotters capable of running.
Plus one hundred Devil-Bees tamed by the Empress’s Pheromone and turned into loyal soldiers.
And finally, the honeybee Ganeungi, who would serve as our guide.
The pregnant Ogre Queen and the slow-moving Rotter soldiers—150 in total—would stay behind on the 3rd Basement Level to prepare for the Megahornet raid.
Even so, the force I had assembled now was powerful enough to wipe out any half-baked guild.
Yet…
When I thought of the three colossal species waiting below, even this mighty army gave me no sense of security.
This expedition was truly a gamble where I would have to stake my life.
“Everyone! See you down there!”
At my shout, the ogres, Rotters, and Devil-Bees all raised their voices in cheers.
I opened my status window and dispersed the entire landing force downward.
Portals opened at once, and everyone was shot below.
I immediately checked my helmet and gear one last time, then leapt into the already-opened passage.
Shwoooooosh—
I fell straight down, pulled by gravity.
I had chosen this somewhat dangerous skydiving method to shorten the descent time.
The 4th Basement Level was home to countless terrifying flying creatures that would target me.
Even if the Ultra Dragonfly wasn’t around, information from the Devil-Bees told me that giant birds like the Bee Hawk also inhabited the floor.
So falling quickly was safer in every way.
The distance to the ground was roughly 770 meters.
Assuming an object falls about 50 meters per second, I would hit the ground in 15 seconds.
During freefall, the human body continues accelerating under gravity for the first 10 seconds.
That 10-second figure only applies when a diver spreads out to maximize air resistance.
Someone like me, diving in a streamlined position to reduce drag and actually accelerate, could keep gaining speed well past 10 seconds.
Moreover, this straight-line drop from inside the tower would accelerate far more than jumping from an airplane, since there was no forward inertia to account for.
In the end, I covered nearly 600 of the 770 meters with almost no air resistance, falling at the fastest speed I could manage.
Shwoooooong~
And then—
At the moment I had only about 150 meters left—
I deployed the parachute.
Paang~
A sudden opening shock created massive resistance, and an enormous pressure slammed into my entire body.
For an instant it felt as if a giant hand had reached down from the sky, grabbed me by the scruff of the neck, and yanked me upward.
“Ghh!”
A scream escaped me.
Any ordinary person would have died from the impact alone.
But thanks to it, my speed dropped.
At that moment, the one hundred Devil-Bees waiting below all took off at once and formed a protective escort around me.
A slowly descending parachute was bound to draw the attention of every flying predator nearby.
If a giant bird attacked, I could easily become prey.
I had even considered dropping at night when the mana light disappeared.
But that carried its own dangers.
Without experience, I might not judge the exact moment to open the parachute using only night-vision goggles.
Anyway, the parachute was open.
From here, the next ten seconds were pure luck.
With no parachute training whatsoever, I had no idea where I would land.
Then I saw a massive spiderweb stretched across the trees directly ahead of the parachute’s path.
And—
A gigantic spider, easily thirty meters across, hung in the center of the web, waiting.
Shit!
Normally, tarantulas don’t spin webs.
They lost the ability because they had no natural predators and hunted by brute force.
But this ancient species still spun webs, just like its ancestors.
In a place where monsters like the Megahornet roamed, even the spider had to use webs to survive.
Before I could even give an order, three hundred Devil-Bees swarmed onto me and formed a massive bee ball.
I immediately cut the parachute and let them carry me down thirty meters.
Buzzzzzzzzz~
Tatatatatata~
The combined sound of four hundred wings beating at maximum mana output filled the air.
With my speed already reduced by the parachute, the hundred giant insects flapping furiously managed to lower me gently to the ground as if it were a lie.
“Whew~”
Yet I didn’t relax for a second.
Staying alert with the Devil-Bees, I scanned the surroundings.
I still had to link up with the Rotters and Ogres I had dispersed earlier.
Looking around, everything on the 4th Basement Level—trees, grass, flowers—was enormous.
It felt as if I had become a tiny person from a fairy tale.
The Paleozoic? Mesozoic?
Whatever the era, it was like a forest from hundreds of millions of years ago had been recreated.
Or perhaps it was modeled after a forest on an alien planet with an environment similar to Earth…
Clomp-clomp—
Clomp-clomp—
A short while later, the four Ogres arrived, led by the fastest Twin-Arm Ogre.
Soon after, the fourteen-member special forces unit, including the Rotter Sergeant, also gathered.
Once headcount was finished, we began moving.
Ganeungi took the lead as our guide.
However…
The march was grueling beyond belief.
There was no path at all through the forest.
Ganeungi always flew, so the route had zero consideration for creatures that walked on two legs.
Moreover, the ground was so wet that I sank up to my knees, thighs, and even my waist in countless places.
Only after the Ogre Queen finally lifted me onto her shoulder did I manage to catch my breath.
* * *
The march continued for a full two hours.
During that time I saw countless giant creatures and couldn’t hide my shock.
Disgusting myriapods over ten meters long…
Three-meter scorpion-like arthropods…
Giant insects with six wings spanning more than five meters…
But because we had a clear objective, we passed them by without hunting.
The giant creatures themselves were wary of our unfamiliar group, so fights rarely broke out.
The only trouble was stopping Twin-Arm from picking quarrels with every new species we encountered.
Then, at some point, we ran into a swarm of large wasps.
Each one was twice the size of a Devil-Bee.
When the Ogres and I nervously gripped the nozzles of the flamethrowers we carried like backpacks, Ganeungi danced to stop us.
“Enemy. Not. Honeybee.”
Looking closer, I realized they weren’t wasps at all—they looked just like Ganeungi.
Ha.
Honeybees forty to fifty centimeters long.
So Ganeungi, at thirty centimeters, was still on the small side.
Then how big were the actual hornets?
These were patrol bees guarding the borders of their kingdom.
Ganeungi danced to inform them that we were allies coming to meet their empress.
The patrol ordered us to wait and flew off to report.
Soon it returned and danced something to Ganeungi.
Ganeungi translated.
“One person. Allowed.”
I nodded.
After making the grumbling Twin-Arm sit down, I followed Ganeungi into the empire’s territory.
After winding through what seemed like a pathless area, a large rock came into view.
Buzzzzz~
Buzzzzz~
The honeybees’ hive was built in layers like an apartment complex, hidden in the crevices of the massive rock.
Scaled to their size, the hexagonal honeycomb cells were enormous.
The entire structure was vast, and the number of bees was beyond counting.
The sight made my ears ring and my head spin.
This was practically a bee apartment complex.
It looked at least ten stories tall…
“Here. Honeybees’. Holy land. Rock crevice. Empire.”
Then a bee over one meter long flew down with majestic grace and landed before us.
Its reddish hue gave it an ancient, dignified air.
It had to be the queen or empress of the honeybees.
Ganeungi, as straightforward as ever, explained why we had come.
“Wasps. Together. Kill. Warrior. Came.”
Buzzzzzzzzz~
Buzzzzzzzzz~
Even from a glance, the bees seemed sharply divided in opinion.
Hawks and doves were locked in heated debate, growling at one another.
Then the red one-meter bee flew up once, calming the swarm, before descending toward me and releasing pheromones.
From that moment on, I could receive the honeybees’ intentions directly through my status window.
The queen had apparently used a skill similar to Empress’s Pheromone.
She introduced herself first.
“I. Waterfall Queen.”
“I’m the leader of the Devil-Bees. Ganeungi’s friend.”
Once introductions were roughly finished, the Waterfall Queen immediately spoke in a confrontational tone.
“Why. We. Sacrifice?”
I answered the queen.
“There’s no need to sacrifice. We can wipe out the wasps without a single honeybee dying!”