Chapter 24
Chapter 24
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 24
Chapter Title: Infiltration
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A massive tunnel.
The entrance was filled to the brim with the incessant buzzing of countless bees covered in black carapaces.
The gateway swarmed with hundreds of bees rushing in before scattering again, resembling a beach where tides ebbed and flowed.
One bee crawled arduously along the ground into its depths.
Its legs barely functional, dragging feebly; even its five eyes, which should have been constantly shifting, had lost their gleam.
Yet none of the bees inside the hive-castle paid this sight any mind.
"You really think this is working?"
Leon whispered, holding her breath.
Her face plainly betrayed her astonishment.
"Haven't I told you time and again? It's guaranteed to succeed."
"Even so, I didn't expect them to be dumb enough not to notice this disguise."
Leon peeked outside through a gap in the bee shell they wore.
The tunnel interior resembled a vast city.
From the walls to the lofty ceiling, everything was blanketed in hexagonal honeycombs, each cell wriggling with fat, pale larvae.
The bees bustled over them, feeding honey from their mouths to the young, the hive so teeming with black specks it sent chills down the spine.
Buzzz!
A sudden wingbeat.
The crawling bee met her gaze.
Its glassy, bead-like eyes rolled about before locking onto her; she swallowed hard.
"Zzzurrr."
The bee passed her by.
As if she were merely part of the natural scenery, not a living, breathing human.
"Phew."
Leon's hand trembled faintly over her chest.
"Why worry so much? If it were that easy to spot, we wouldn't have made it in here."
"Covering ourselves in a monster's corpse—its shell—and sneaking in. I still don't get why this works."
"The shell alone wouldn't cut it. That's why we used other means too."
Before entering, we'd sliced open a captured bee's abdomen and gutted its innards.
Blood and fluids clung to our fingertips; we smeared them all over our bodies, letting it seep into every crevice of our clothes.
The stench invading our nostrils with every breath nearly induced vomit, but this let us infiltrate their lair.
"As you see, they're recognizing us as kin. Unless we do something blatantly suspicious, we won't get caught."
"They distinguish friend from foe by smell, right?"
"Exactly."
Ebon Wasps.
Resembling bees in form, they shared eerily similar traits.
A colony divided into queen, workers, and drones; they lived communally, detected distant flower scents with keen olfaction.
Their vision was hopelessly poor, unable to even recognize a person up close, so they relied on their olfactory strength, identifying kin via pheromones.
In short, drenched in their blood, we could wander this hive like it was our own bedroom.
"Where'd you learn all this? I've visited the upper layers multiple times and didn't even know these bees lived up here."
"All from experience."
Capturing and dissecting various monsters in my spare time had paid off.
A pastime from when regression boredom peaked—experimenting like a mad gamer collecting a monster compendium.
For the record, my dissection skills came from hands-on practice as Aren’s lab rat.
"Worth smearing ourselves in that nauseating guts, right?"
"The smell sucks, but if it fools them, sure."
Slipping into a monster den coated in foul sludge with minimal effort far outweighed the hassle, so Leon voiced no real complaints.
Having breached their tight security safely, our next task was rescuing the hostage inside. I pointed to where Elia was likely held.
"We went all out with the shells for camouflage, but we can't linger. A bit further, there's a room they use as a storeroom—let's head there."
"Got it."
We ventured deeper into the tunnel.
The air grew thick with sweet aroma; the ground turned sticky with honey, clinging like glue with every step.
Shaking off that viscous grip around our ankles, we reached our destination.
Every wall and ceiling was coated in honey like thick paint.
Bees darted busily through mounds of it piled high; within the transparently crystallized honey lay preserved animal carcasses, like insects in amber.
That eerie scene evoked sci-fi cryo-pods. Amid the countless crystals, we spotted a familiar woman.
"Sis!"
Leon desperately stifled a cry rising to her throat as she called out to her blood kin.
She clearly yearned to rush over for a tearful reunion but hesitated to reach for Elia.
"Be extra careful from here. One slip, and we'll draw suspicion."
"I know."
Were they guarding her like a rare delicacy?
Several bees stood sentinel around Elia's honey crystal, like guards.
Their bodies twice the size, with jaws that could crunch steel plating—these weren't ordinary workers.
"The queen's royal guard. Looks like they've diverted some to the storeroom."
"What if we approach?"
"They'd shove us away with their legs at first, but touch that crystal, and friend or not—they'll attack."
"...Now what?"
Leon gnawed her nails, voicing her anxiety.
We'd made it this far, but with no clue how to extract Elia, she felt stumped.
Suddenly, her eyes fixed on me.
"You know a way, right?"
"What makes you think that?"
"Someone who grasped the hive layout well enough to lead straight to her storeroom wouldn't overlook this snag."
"Well, I anticipated it."
Offerings for the queen, rigorously managed by her guard—that was within expectations.
And I'd prepared countermeasures.
"Know the royal guard's defining trait?"
"...Stronger than the others?"
"That's part of it, but they think and act solely around the queen. Loyal servants tending her every need."
For the reproductive linchpin ensuring the vast colony's survival, the guard sacrifices their lives without hesitation.
The queen's safety is their sole criterion; everything else takes a backseat.
This blind loyalty was the key to breaking the impasse.
"In other words, threaten the queen's safety, and they'll vacate on their own."
"Just us two taking them on?"
"As if. Too tough for us, and even if we won, we'd be swarmed—counterproductive."
"So there's another way."
"Yes, a proven solution from long ago."
My hand rummaged in my pouch and pulled out two cold stones.
Clacking them together sparked flames, illuminating the darkness around us.
"A trick we used often when hives popped up near home—let's try it here."
...
Czzzzt!
Flames began spreading through the darkness.
A small spark from somewhere ignited the wax on walls and ceiling, racing outward in an instant.
The bees flapped wings furiously, buzzing in chaos.
Thick smoke billowed, shrouding every corner of the tunnel in a black veil.
The uncontrollable blaze devoured the sealed tunnel's oxygen greedily, and instinctively, the bees moved to protect the larvae and queen.
"Zzzurrrk!"
Sharp cries echoed like alarms throughout the tunnel.
Countless bees unfurled wings and took flight en masse, their flapping churning the air.
The orderly hive turned to pandemonium in seconds, chaos dragging on amid the frenzy.
Instinctively spraying honey from their mouths to douse the flames, but quelling one blaze only birthed new sparks elsewhere.
The fire front expanded endlessly; their desperate efforts proved as futile as building sandcastles on a stormy beach.
In the end, they decided to abandon the nest.
The royal guard set aside their duties to focus on escorting the queen, as hordes of bees streamed out in orderly lines.
And mixed among that procession was one bee incapable of even flapping its wings.
Once outside, it promptly broke from the column and leisurely departed, as if its task were done.