Bee Larvae

We found a river flowing out of the lake, so we decided to travel downstream for about two days and survey it.

The river was almost completely flat, and its current was not strong. It had to flow through the great wetlands and eventually join the Anis River.

I sent up a drone, but it was hidden by the forest, and at an altitude of about 100 meters, it could not see very far ahead.

We continued smoothly downstream, surveying the river, when we were suddenly attacked by giant bees.

Each one was about fifty centimeters long, with yellow-and-black stripes—reminiscent of hornets from my old world.

They were vicious insects with powerful jaws and stingers protruding like spears from their abdomens.

If we were stung, we would probably die instantly.

We defeated the giant bees with insecticide bought from Shangri-La and a desperate charge by the beastfolk.

Leaving one alive, we put a plan into action to locate the nest.

We tied a streamer to the body of a bee we had rendered unconscious, then used it to locate the enemy's lair.

The beastfolk set off after the white streamer fluttering between the trees of the forest.

"Let's go!" "Nyaa!"

The beastfolk were remarkably lively in the forest. It seemed that forests like this had originally been their habitat.

Apparently, they were a species that built houses in trees and lived in large families.

"It looks like Nyamena has recovered."

"Nyamena? Yeah, she was seriously terrified after the kraken, so I was a little worried. I guess she's bad with that kind of monster. She even said she'd been pierced by tentacles before."

I put the bee corpse lying on the ground into my Item Box.

The item name displayed was—Killer Hornet.

"I never knew there were bees this huge."

"Aren't there any around the royal capital?"

"No. There was once a great commotion when an ordinary bee built a nest in the royal palace, but..."

"This is a Killer Hornet."

"Oh—so this is a Killer Hornet? I read about them in a book in the library."

"Put simply, 'murder hornet' or 'killer bee' would probably be close enough."

"Seeing one is worth hearing a thousand descriptions."

In Japanese, it would be, "Seeing something once is better than hearing about it a hundred times."

I also climbed onto the container house to inspect it.

The panels had not been penetrated, but the black iron was badly dented. They were not especially thick, after all.

If the same spot had been attacked repeatedly, it might have been pierced.

There were bite marks too.

"Damn, if one of those jaws got hold of your neck, it would tear your head right off."

As expected of another world, death was far too close—but if we stayed in town and did not come to places like this, we would be safe.

While I was inspecting the container house, a call came through the transceiver.

'Boss, we found it!'

"If you come back here once, can you find the same place again?"

'No problem, nya.'

"Then come back for now, and let's eat."

'Got it, nya! Blackie! I'm the one talking here! Unyaa!'

The transmission cut off. It seemed they had been fighting over the transceiver.

"What are we going to do about the nest?"

"Obviously, destroy it."

"Tomorrow?"

"No, tonight."

"What?!"

Bees did not fly at night, and they would all return to the nest.

"We'll catch them all at once after they've returned to the nest for the night."

"You're rather ruthless, aren't you?"

"Don't make me sound so terrible."

I was doing this to protect my family. I was prepared to wipe out every insect and monster.

While I was talking with Lilith, the beastfolk returned.

"Boss, we found an incredibly huge nest!" "Unyaa!"

According to them, the bees had built a gigantic brown nest between the trees.

"I guess a bigger bee means a bigger nest..."

"So, are we doing it tomorrow?"

I explained the same plan to the beastfolk that I had described to Lilith.

"We never would have thought of something like that." "We'd only think of fighting them head-on, nya."

"With such brute force, you'd lose even fights you could win."

It was around four in the afternoon, and the surroundings were growing dark.

We planned to attack at night, so we had to eat first—one cannot fight on an empty stomach.

We still had trout left, so I decided to eat that. While I prepared it, I had Anemone bake some bread.

I grilled the trout fillets and flaked the meat.

I mixed it with a little soy sauce and mayonnaise, then added white sesame seeds and chopped green shiso.

I put the finished mixture on bread and ate it.

For the soup, I made egg soup with kombu stock, rock salt, and an egg. It was simple and delicious.

"Oh, damn! I put green shiso in without asking what you all liked."

"You mean that herb?"

"Yeah. If you don't like it, I'll make something else."

"I have a feeling nothing the Boss makes can turn out badly." "That's right, nya."

"What? You won't eat spider eggs, though, will you?"

"That... I'd rather not."

The beastfolk made faces of obvious disgust. I had no intention of forcing them to eat it.

"It's delicious, though."

"Indeed... but we won't know until we try it—munch, munch. Oh! This is an unusual herb!"

"Whoa, this is delicious too!" "Nyaa! The only way I knew to eat fish was grilled whole!"

It seemed green shiso was fine, which was a relief.

"What's with all these little bits?"

Anemone seemed curious about the sesame seeds.

"Anemone, those are plant seeds."

"These seeds are fragrant and delicious too."

"They're nutritious, and you can extract oil from them as well."

"Wouldn't it be interesting to grow these seeds in fields?"

"Yeah, that might be a good idea. Sesame and shiso can multiply endlessly, after all."

Shiso was easy to grow, but once it ran wild, it often smelled bad and became inedible.

"Boss..."

Nyamena looked dissatisfied.

"We might have to fight tonight, you know?"

"It's fine, it's fine."

"Then just one ale."

"Woohoo!"

Nyamena took the can of beer, immediately opened the pull tab, and began gulping it down.

"Damn! This is good!"

Nyamena wiped the foam from her mouth.

"If Tiger screws up and dies, Kenichi will be mine, nya."

"Hey, don't say things like that."

"Of course I will, nya."

It was frightening because Myaaree sounded half serious.

Once we had finished eating, we all gathered around the campfire.

We were camping here tonight. We had mapped about ten kilometers from the lake.

We talked for a while, and before long, the surroundings were completely dark.

The lakeshore was brightened by the moonlight reflecting off the surface of the lake, so it felt relatively well lit...

But once the forest had sunk into true darkness, we began our operation.

We needed a light to illuminate the ground, so I took out a headlamp I had bought before from my Item Box.

I bought another one from Shangri-La for Lilith.

It used batteries to power an LED, but it was extremely bright, and unlike a lantern, it left both hands free.

"Oh! Is this magical light? It is so bright!"

"What about you two, Nyamena and Myaaree?"

"We can see well enough. We don't need one."

"Yeah, nya."

Apparently, the beastfolk's night vision was good enough for them to see clearly.

"Boss... Don't point that light at me. It dazzles me."

"Sorry."

Their eyes had adjusted to the darkness, so the LED light was blinding to them.

I stored the container house, prepared our equipment, and strapped insecticide cans to our bodies.

We headed toward the bee nest through the darkness.

"Do you know where it is?"

"Don't worry, Boss." "Nyaa."

We walked single file through the darkness, unable to see our feet at all. We proceeded while illuminating the ground with the LED light.

The beastfolk were apparently following the scents we had left behind.

Myaaree had once followed the smell of oil from a two-stroke motorcycle to find me, so this was probably easy for her.

Anemone walked by herself, while Lilith clung to me the entire time.

"Aren't you afraid?"

"I've gotten used to it."

"Me too."

People could get used to anything, and I had gained a fair amount of experience by now.

"Princess, a nobleman's wife doesn't have to put herself through something this frightening, does she?"

Lilith reacted to Nyamena's words.

"If I let something this minor wear me down, I could not remain at Kenichi's side!"

"I appreciate the sentiment, but I don't have the confidence to protect you if things become truly dangerous."

"Then we'll deal with it when the time comes! I would be satisfied with that."

"Ah..."

I was at a loss for words. There were a lot of strong-willed women in this world. No matter what, they refused to listen and simply went ahead and acted.

Perhaps I just happened to be surrounded by that kind of woman...

While I was worrying over it, we reached the place in question.

"Boss, we're here."

Apparently, the nest was between the trees about fifty meters ahead, but it was too dark to see anything.

I took the night-vision device from my Item Box and peered through it.

In the green-tinted view, I could see a huge nest stretching vertically between the large trees, but not a single bee was flying around it.

Just as I had expected, the enemies seemed to be asleep.

"Let me see!"

I lent the night-vision device to Anemone, and she peered through it.

"Amazing! It's huge!"

"Let me see too, please."

While Lilith was looking through the night-vision device, Nyamena was fidgeting restlessly.

"So, Boss, what are we going to do now?"

"We'll use Anemone's magic."

"Are you going to blow it away with Explosion, nya?"

"No, we'll heat it."

"Heat it with magic?"

Anemone looked puzzled too at my words.

"Bring the entire nest up to about the temperature of a bath that is too hot to enter. Can you do that?"

"Probably."

If we used Explosion, some of the scattered bees and larvae might survive, while burning the nest would certainly kill them—but a forest fire would be disastrous.

Besides, I had another idea.

"All right, just in case..."

I took the container house out of my Item Box.

We would all get inside and snipe them with magic from within the box.

"Oh, this should keep us safe even if the bees surround us."

"Only you could do something like this, Boss. Normally, we'd have to risk our lives a lot more." "That's right, nya."

"Since I have useful abilities, I might as well make full use of them. Anemone, go ahead."

"Got it!"

Anemone opened the window, peered through the night-vision device, and began casting her magic.

"Mm! Warm!"

I bought another night-vision device and peered through it as well.

Countless sparkling particles of light appeared in the green-tinted scene.

If they showed up on the camera's sensor too, then this had to be a physical phenomenon...

There was a black hole in the side of the huge nest that seemed to be an entrance, but no bees crawled out of it.

Since it was just the Warm spell, I had her continue for about twenty minutes.

When you lit a fire, the surroundings heated up from the outside, but magical Warm was more like a microwave, heating the inside at the same time.

It probably generated heat by making the atoms vibrate through magic.

Conversely, suppressing the vibration of atoms would cause cooling.

"All right, Anemone. That's enough."

"Phew..."

"Boss, what happened?"

"I think they probably all died."

"Really?"

The beastfolk did not seem convinced, but the proteins that made up living organisms began to denature at around forty-five degrees.

In cooking terms, that was when the food started to cook.

Even the low-temperature cooking I had eaten before had been cooked thoroughly.

"Let's wait about thirty minutes for the nest to cool down."

"Okay, nya."

We lay on the bed in the container house and waited in comfort.

I took a brush from my Item Box and brushed the beastfolk's fur.

Bell was sitting in a loaf position under the bed, but she did not seem tense, so she probably did not sense any danger.

Judging from her condition, my plan seemed to have worked.

"Fnyah, is it really all right to relax like this when we haven't finished off the enemy yet, nya?"

"We can't see any bees crawling out even from here, so it should be fine, right?"

"Fnyah..."

When Myaaree stood up, she hugged me and wrapped her tail around my arm.

"Hey, don't get carried away. We don't know what happened yet."

"That's right, Blackie."

"Fnyah."

When the waiting period was over, I went outside alone to prepare.

I turned on an LED lantern and tossed it carelessly to illuminate the surroundings. A gigantic brown nest rose up before me.

Its striped walls had a black hole gaping open as an entrance, but there was still no reaction.

"All right! Summon Ko○tsu-san!"

A yellow vehicle fell from the dark sky with a ground-shaking thud.

This was not the sword-equipped model, but the ordinary bucket type. Since the bees did not react, I quickly climbed into the heavy machinery.

The driver's seat of Ko○tsu-san was surrounded by glass, so I should be somewhat safe even if bees came out.

I started the engine and raised the arm, but the nest remained silent.

It should have been making quite a racket, and if anything inside was still alive, it would not have been strange for it to come out.

I drove the bucket into the nest and smashed it apart. Its steel teeth could break concrete, so a merely enormous beehive was nothing to worry about.

The nest collapsed with a sound like cardboard being torn apart, and bee corpses poured out of it like a waterfall.

Inside the nest, I could see its shelf-like structure, lined with countless white eggs or larvae.

"As I thought, they were all dead."

The arm of Ko○tsu-san could extend about nine meters high.

Using the bucket, I demolished the entire nest and dropped it to the ground.

"Whew..."

I took a deep breath, stopped the engine, and climbed down from the driver's seat.

On the ground lay the remains of the brown, cardboard-like nest and the corpses of enormous yellow bees.

White eggs and larvae, along with brown pupae, were lined up on the shelf-like nest. Some were close to hatching.

I kicked the bees lying on the ground, but they were all dead and did not twitch at all.

The plan had succeeded, but I had been hoping to find something after hearing that it was a beehive—and it was not there.

Honey.

These were carnivorous bees like hornets, so perhaps they did not produce honey.

What a shame...

"Hey! It's safe! They're all dead!"

I signaled to everyone watching from the container house, then stored Ko○tsu-san in my Item Box.

"Are they really dead?"

Lilith cautiously came over.

"Yes, without a doubt."

"Wow... You really did it..."

"Nyaa."

"Thank you, Anemone."

"Yeah!"

I took a pallet out of my Item Box.

With the beastfolk's help, I had them pile the bee corpses onto the pallet, tied them down with rope, and stored it in my Item Box.

There were about ninety adults in all. Along with the ten I had put away earlier, there had been roughly one hundred of them.

One bee was especially large—the queen.

It was about one and a half meters long.

"It's huge! That's far too scary."

"What are you going to do with this bee?"

Lilith nervously looked at the bee tied to the pallet.

"We might be able to use it as some kind of material. The exoskeleton looks light and durable. It might be interesting to cut it into pieces and make something like scale mail."

"I see."

All that remained were the shelf-like nest and the eggs. When I touched them, they were soft and springy.

They had not turned into boiled eggs. We might be able to use them in all sorts of ways.

I tried putting them into my Item Box, and the entire shelf was stored as it was.

"All right! It worked!"

"Boss, I understand using the bees as material, but what are you going to do with the eggs and larvae?"

"Eat them, of course."

That was why I had gone to the trouble of killing them in such a roundabout way.

Besides, it had also been the safest way to defeat them.

"You're going to eat them?!"

"Bee larvae are delicious, you know?"

"You're going to eat them?!!"

"It was an important point, so I said it twice, nya."

Nyamena collapsed face-first on the spot.

"Why did I have to fall for a Boss like this?"

"I never said you had to eat them, Nyamena."

I stroked Nyamena's back as she lay there.

"I know, but still..."

Bell had been sniffing the fragments of the nest, but she suddenly raised her head and pricked up her ears.

"What's wrong, Mother?"

"Kenichi, something's coming, nya."

"What? Again?"

"Boss, it doesn't feel like a monster."

At Nyamena's words, I took the night-vision device from my Item Box.

What I saw through it was a white human silhouette in the green-tinted landscape—with large ears.

"It might be an elf."

"Ugh! Elves in a place like this?!"

Seeing the figure reminded me of the ring I had borrowed from Akira that supposedly let me speak with elves, so I bought a battery-powered megaphone from Shangri-La.

It was the megaphone-shaped type used at sporting events—¥2,500.

'Ah—ah! Clear skies today, clear skies today! Water striders are red, A-I-U-E-O!'

"What was that?!"

Ignoring Lilith's retort, I tried speaking to the elves.

I had borrowed a ring that supposedly let me speak with them, but would we really be able to communicate through a megaphone?

'Let's give it a try. Er—good evening, everyone! We are not your enemies!'

After I had spoken for a little while, something came flying at us, so I dodged.

With a thud, an arrow with striped feathers stuck into the ground.

"Retreat for now!"

"Waaah!"

Leaving the LED lanterns where they were, we all ran and took refuge inside the container house.

The arrows probably would not penetrate this place, surrounded by iron panels.

"Anemone, fire a somewhat weak Explosion between us and them."

"Okay! Mm! Explosion (Medium)!"

Blue light shone in the darkness, and the light of the blast illuminated the surroundings orange.

The explosion revealed silhouettes. There seemed to be about ten people.

I used the megaphone to speak to them again.

'Can you hear me?! If we were your enemies, that Explosion just now would have blown you all away!'

"That is an extremely aggressive negotiation."

"They were the ones who attacked without even trying to talk. We had no choice but to show them our strength."

"Elves use magic too, you know?"

Well, that was probably true. This was my first time meeting elves from this world, but they were supposed to be skilled with magic.

"Anemone, do you sense any magical reaction?"

"No."

"If it looks like a powerful spell is coming, use High Protection."

"Okay."

We watched for a while, but everything remained quiet and still.

Through the night-vision device, it appeared that they had formed a circle and were discussing something.

Perhaps our sudden arrival had caught them off guard.

"Are elves aggressive?"

"They are certainly very isolationist." "Yeah, nya."

While we were discussing the situation among ourselves, Bell began scratching at the window with her front paw.

"Hmm? Bell, do you want to go outside?"

When I opened the window, she placed a paw on the sill and leaped outside.

I was a little worried given the situation, but she was intelligent. She must have had a reason.

I watched silently as Bell began walking toward the elves.

I was anxious that they might attack her, but everything seemed fine.

She was surrounded by the elves and appeared to be having some kind of conversation with them.

She could not speak with humans, but perhaps she had some means of communication.

After waiting for a while, one person came over with her, so we needed to set up a place for negotiations.

I tossed several LED lanterns out the window and placed them around the container house.

The LEDs lit up, making the surroundings faintly visible.

The person who emerged into view was wearing a green, Chinese-dress-like garment decorated with gold—but I could not tell whether they were a man or a woman.

Their straight golden hair reached their shoulders.

They had narrow eyes and long ears. They might have been an unparalleled beauty—or a handsome man who rivaled one.

They did not appear to be carrying a weapon, so I decided to go outside too.

"Everyone, wait inside."

"Boss, are you sure about this?" "Nyaa."

"I'm fine. Don't worry."

I left my anxious family inside the container house and stepped into the grass, where it was dark except for the LED light illuminating my feet.

Standing before me was a beautiful elf, the very embodiment of a fantasy world. Their broad shoulders made me wonder if they were male.

Though I had heard that elves existed, I was finally meeting them.

There had been a slight misunderstanding, but I had to somehow make first contact a success.

Then don't shoot magic at us, I thought, but there was no negotiating with someone who was one hundred percent hostile.

When I stood before the elf, Bell came over to my feet and rubbed herself against me.

I had to thank her for acting as our intermediary.

"I am Kenichi Hamada, a frontier count of the Kingdom of Kadan."

My negotiations with the elf began.