The Empress's Gate (1)
I saw that everyone on the Waterfall Queen's side nodded in agreement, and it seemed like they believed the Empress's Gate would work in their favor.
Right after that, serious debate broke out among the Honeycomb Gap Queen Bees.
In fact, even the bee colonies in the human world decided major kingdom matters through fairly democratic discussions: which larva to crown as queen, when to replace a weakened queen, when to distribute alms, and when to expel the drones, and so on.
From the examples of Empress Cheon and Ganeungi, the insects I'd met underground were, if anything, smarter than those in the human world, though they didn't fall behind much.
So, it made perfect sense that these queens would gather to decide things through a meeting.
My stomach twisted at the thought of what it meant for me.
The queen's gate opens, and I have to become the new empress.
The Waterfall Queen must have been counting on this, which is why she was pushing so hard.
But the other side?
The Devil-Bee Empress side.
They'd already decided their plan was better.
What the hell?
I'd been so focused on the quest that I hadn't noticed how divided the factions were.
Now it was all coming together in my mind, and I felt a cold sweat run down my back.
My turn to make a decision.
I read the quest again, word for word.
The ancient forest. Honeybee queens open the Empress's Gate and pick a new empress.
Challenge: Pass the test proposed by the honeybee queens and become the Honeybee Emperor.
1. Pass the Empress's Sting test.
2. Win the aerial race against the honeybee queens.
3. Solve the riddle of the ancient honeycomb.
Reward: Ancient Honey Gaeggul x ??
Do you accept the quest?
Yes No
The third one, the ancient honeycomb riddle... what the hell was that about?
I dragged Ganeungi over to the corner and asked her about the Empress's Gate in detail.
She gave me a worried look and started speaking in her short, direct sentences.
Once the gate opens, every candidate has to survive after being stung by the poison extracted from the previous empress's corpse to prove their worth to the tribe.
That's where the qualifications are tested.
What? With my basic immunity to poison, that should be easy...
Then, after passing, you have to win a group flight race.
The group flight race is where all the surviving queens compete in a chase race to find the number one.
The weird part is that every queen has to bring two of her bodyguards along.
Ganeungi explained it was tradition during marriage flights, when the queens fly with their two guards.
Even worse...
During the race, attacks from opponents are allowed. The Waterfall Queen. Her bodyguard. Powerful. The Mother Wasp.
Mother Wasp.
They live as freelancers and don't join group colonies.
They also fight one-on-one duels with spiders and subdue them. They have terrifying strength.
In the human world, they're known as the largest bees of all.
The Waterfall Queen had hired those terrifying beasts as bodyguards.
I told Ganeungi what I'd learned so far, and finally the Honeycomb Gap queens reached a conclusion in their debate.
They decided to accept the Empress's Gate.
Ganeungi said sixteen queens from the Waterfall Queen's side, three from the middle group, and twelve from our side.
Forty-eight from that side versus thirty-six from ours. A massive dogfight flight.
And the Empress's Gate would open right before sunset.
Shit.
I told Ganeungi I'd be back before the gate opened and stepped out of the bees' territory.
I immediately gathered the Devil-Bees and started the meeting.
One of the explorers returned with interesting intel.
I assigned twenty Devil-Bees to him and told him to investigate deeper with Ganeungi.
Then I gathered the rest and carefully laid out my plan.
Some of them immediately protested.
But when I doused the Devil-Bee Empress's pheromones on everyone, even the ones who fought back eventually submitted.
I gave the orders to Master Rotter and sent him and the Rot Special Forces back to Level 3.
I watched Master Rotter and the interpreter disappear through the portal, then jumped onto the king's concubine and rushed to the drop point I'd fallen from earlier.
Mana light was going to be gone in just six hours.
I had to succeed before then.
Only then could I join the Empress's Gate that started in the evening.
I urged Owgere to give her maximum speed.
Twin Palms and Twin Six would lag behind, but I had to reach the site first.
One hour and twenty minutes later, I arrived near the landing spot.
The descent had cut the time in half thanks to the king's concubine's hard whipping and the downhill slope.
I looked up at the ceiling 771 meters above.
It was so far that the entrance looked like a tiny dot to the naked eye.
I fired a mana flare skyward.
A signal came back. The preparations were complete.
The king's concubine, Owgere, and the king's concubine finally arrived stayed far away and hid.
Through the scope, the ceiling hole grew larger and larger.
Then, tens of seconds later, honeycomb debris rained down on the floor.
The ceiling hole was big enough now.
Suddenly, something huge and round burst out and started plummeting straight down.
It looked like a long, elongated object.
It fell slowly for over ten seconds, then...
KWAHAHAANG!
It slammed into the ground fifty meters from where Owgere and I were hiding, kicking up a cloud of dust and completely shattering.
The object exploded on impact, and its internal cross-section was exposed.
A dense hexagonal honeycomb filled with nectar.
It was the queen's hive where Empress Cheon had laid her eggs.
I knew it. It was heartbreaking.
Each larva inside that hive was a seed for a massive kingdom.
And if I thought about how plump and juicy the royal jelly would be in their brood cells...
But now was the time to bet.
I couldn't delay anything else because the honey business was already months behind.
I had to succeed now.
The limit time: 5 days, 16 hours, 52 minutes, and 11 seconds left.
The hive split open, and the larvae inside burst or died, turning into thick royal jelly that dripped everywhere.
Please...
Please, let that guy smell this thick royal jelly scent...
But after thirty minutes, and even after Twin Palms finally arrived panting heavily, the guy I was waiting for still hadn't shown up.
Fifty minutes.
Even Twin Six had arrived, but still no news of him.
Shit.
Was the bastard not biting the bait?
Then, suddenly...
Kiiiiek~
A strange sound came from the sky.
I looked up...
There he was!
That bastard with wings spread over ten meters, circling in the air.
The bee-eater had finally appeared.
Normally, bee-eaters hunt hives intensely, eating the larvae inside and living off them.
They were also famous for using bait when hunting bees.
They lay out bait that bees like, and when the bees come to eat it, they hide and watch patiently.
Then, when the bees return to their hive, they follow them and learn the hiding spot before wiping it out completely.
Of course, bees never just take it.
They fight back as hard as they can.
But the bee-eater is covered in extremely thick feathers like scale armor, so the stinger can't even touch it.
No matter how the bees resist, the bee-eater calmly eats all the larvae in the hive, then even tears a piece of the hive to pieces and carries it away to feed the babies.
That's exactly what I used today.
I threw the bait he liked to lure him.
A moment later, the bee-eater circled around for a while, scouting.
On the Korean peninsula today, there were no natural enemies.
But here, with wasps and dragonflies three or four times larger, and dragonflies six or seven times bigger, that was different.
The bastard had to be careful.
Eventually, he carefully landed.
The moment I saw him, I knew it was the exact same bastard who'd punched through the floor of Level 3 earlier.
He approached the hive and started eating the royal jelly larvae while carefully watching his surroundings.
I gripped the Empress's Sting like a javelin and carefully approached from behind.
The bastard was starving, so he was devouring the hive pieces greedily.
One step, another step... I moved closer.
Then, the bee-eater suddenly lifted his head and looked around.
He spotted me.
His eyes immediately went to the Empress's Sting I was holding.
The bastard had already tasted its bitterness once.
Shit!
He hesitated for a moment, then grabbed a piece of honeycomb and flew away into the sky.
I quickly moved my waist and shoulders to throw the Sting... but at the last second, I changed my mind and didn't release it, holding it tightly in my hand instead.
With my current strength and no belt or wrist guards, piercing that thick armor would be hard.
Last time I'd only managed to nick the beak.
So backup plan!
The bee-eater had flown farther away.
I pulled out the Adamantium Pickaxe and shouted, "Twin Palms! Throw this at that new guy!"
Twin Palms ran over, hugged me, and spun three times before launching me into the sky with the original version of Monster Throw.
I shot up ten, twenty, thirty meters in an instant.
When I thought I was at the peak, the bee-eater's back was right there.
Twin Palms's Monster Throw had already reached adult-level strength and accuracy.
I landed on the bee-eater's back and mercilessly drove the Adamantium Pickaxe straight into his feathers.
Fak!
Kiiieeeeeeek~
Even though the bastard's armor was thick, it couldn't stop Adamantium.
The bee-eater screamed in pain and flapped his wings harder, trying to shake me off.
But I had no intention of falling.
I gripped the pickaxe shaft with all my strength and held on.
The bee-eater started shaking his body side to side in flight.
My body swung wildly from right to left.
This was like... rodeo... no, Tower Gunner...
Bee-eater bonding has begun.
The bee-eater wants to submit to you in pain.
Do you want to register the bee-eater as a mount?
Yes No
Exactly thirty-six minutes later, when that message popped up, I didn't hold back even one gram of tears and just cried my eyes out.
This damn new guy.
I was so close to vomiting my intestines.
I'd been clinging to his back for thirty-two minutes, riding the scariest ride in the world sixteen times at once.
Takabisha and Dotonpa from Fuji-Q Highland...
Arch Jump from Utah's island...
Insanity from the Stratosphere Hotel in Las Vegas...
Giant Canyon Swing...
King Da Ka from Six Flags Adventure...
And finally, even the Viking at Wolmi-do...
Even when riding the Viking at Wolmi-do, passing between the giant mantis Periodictis's sharp claws doubled the fear.
Bee-eater has been registered as a mount.
Please name the bee-eater.
Ten intestines. Short name: Twelve Bites.
The bee-eater is now Twelve Bites.
It was hard work, but the payoff was worth it.
Because in such a short time, I'd experienced all the fear and physical pressure that acrobatic flight could bring...
And more than anything, I could confirm the bee-eater's terrifying flight ability in advance.
He eats royal jelly as his staple food.
I expected his stats to be insane, but...
This was beyond expectations!
Yo, all you Waterfall Queen bastards.
You're all dead. Shit.