Reincarnated To Evolve My Bee Empire

The expeditions sent to me have taken a decent chunk of the continent away from the smooth-back deer. In some places, so many deer were killed by bees' stings that the corpses piled into entire mountains.

There were too many of them to eat, but instead of letting them rot, the soldiers planted the seeds given by the Champion Tree near them.

These seeds grew into evolved, spiky usnea trees that produced nectar and fruit that fed the bees both in the Bee Empire and now in this expedition. The freezing aura also preserved the deer meat so it could be eaten later.

Despite the distance from the Bee Empire, at least when it came to food, the expedition armies didn't have to fear a lack of resources.

But deer liked the usnea tree fruits, too. And their god took notice of the bees' involvement—the blue-eyed scouts have reported that some deer deeper in the continent have begun evolving venom resistance in addition to their steadily growing physical defence.

Before their venom resistance became venom immunity, I sent an order to start a hunt against these deer specifically. Squads of bees armed by stingers with concentrated bee venom, the most deadly of all we knew of—my own venom—would seek and kill all such deer.

Of course, this required the stingers I sent in boxes to actually reach the expedition army. Until then, they could only rely on their own weapons.

But by the time my stingers reached the expedition army, there would be several generations of the venom-resistant bees running around.

If the gene were allowed to spread, it would travel farther and farther, until my girls would have to rely only on the sharpness of their stingers and the bullets in their rifles to kill them.

Since deer were over a hundred times the size of a bee, this would make their task very hard.

Despite this, I felt that the campaign against the smooth-back deer was under control—and after they were out of the equation, I won't have to wonder what else might attack the Bee Empire next. Not on this continent, at least.

Then Workharder came with another scheduled report and brought unexpected and worrisome news.

"There are more and more human ships that end up lost in the sea, Father. This has been true ever since the 'fast evolution' started, from what sister Whisper told me, but I found that this has been growing worse for the last few months. I'm afraid that if this continues, all of our sea logistics will be under threat. Including the ships sending supplies to the expedition armies, and the ships bringing news from the Vardish Empire!"

I leaned forward in my seat.

"Are you sure, Workharder? There are dozens of reasons a ship might get lost in the sea, especially if they don't have any means of communication. Storms, plagues, pirates…"

Workharder shook her head.

"These aren't the reasons, Father! Remember, ever since the unification of the Bee Empire, all the ships had some bees on board and a signaler—to protect the ship's food supplies from insects and rat beasts and also to communicate with the Empire. They usually had time to pass a word about whatever threat the ship met before it would sink."

I nodded, leaning back in my chair again and frowning

Putting bees on human ships was something I came up with myself. It improved the Empire's sea and river logistics immensely, and we benefited from it as much as humans did.

"So ships were lost in the sea for unusual reasons? This sounds too important for me to only find out now."

"I didn't want to bother you until I was sure this was worth it. And I only found out recently. At first, the ships were lost too far into the open sea for them to send messages to the shore. By all means, a storm could've easily taken them!" Workharder flailed her arms animatedly. "But now a ship has disappeared closer to our shores. The bees on board have sent a message that something like a massive fish-beast was roaming underwater, then rammed the ship."

"And this was the end of the message?"

Workharder nodded.

"Yes. It feels to me as if the bees on board died before they could tell more… Which is awful. Father, we must find this beast and make it pay! Otherwise, it and its kin can attack other ships. Everywhere!"

The sea was a strange and uncharted place, especially now. Every week, Whisper told me that fishermen have pulled out some evolved, strange fish. Humans have long ago grown to be careful with eating even species that were familiar earlier, since they could never know if they stayed safe to eat. At least until bees checked it.

But all these creatures stayed away from the ships and people on land. I hoped that it meant that at least until someone won in the battle royale that was happening underwater, they wouldn't bother attacking us.

At least… at least in the foreseeable future.

But of course I was wrong.

"I want to have all the information you have about the cases that could come from these beasts' attacks. We must find out more about them, find where they live, and send a blue-eyed scout to them. You are absolutely right—they must be dealt with."

Leaving the beasts to roam around would be like lying down belly-up and waiting for them to step on it.

I didn't know what these beasts tried to achieve by attacking our ships. Perhaps they were in alliance with the God of Smooth-back Deer, perhaps it was a part of a more complicated plan, or perhaps the beasts just evolved in a way that made them prone to attacking ships by accident.

Either way, their god made a mistake, and the beasts were going to pay for it.

I had to drive them away before our supply chains to the expedition forces were put under attack, too!