Reincarnated To Evolve My Bee Empire

My scouts have brought the answer, and it started with a visual description (written with the good grammar that was gradually being spread over the Empire in place of what we had before).

[The beast was too large to measure. It had the length of an average pillar mountain and half the width of our ship. Its shape was smooth like that of a fish-beast, but more horizontal, and it was covered in a layer of smooth dark fur the length of a bee's height. Half of the beast's head was its maw, but it moved too fast for us to see inside of it. The beast had horizontal flippers on its sides and tail.]

The description itself didn't tell me much, but since among the scouts were blue-eyed ones, below this part was another, where the scout wrote the creature's stats.

〔Whale〕

〔Health〕: 138 / 140

〔Stamina〕: 154 / 201

〔Species〕: Sperm Whale

〔Age〕: 59 y

〔Remaining lifespan〕: 36 y

〔Attributes〕

> Strength: 54

> Agility: 33

> Endurance: 94

> Defence: 60

> Intelligence: 35

> Perception: 57

〔Special abilities〕

Fat Padding, Sharp Teeth III, Swimming V (MAX), Pack Tactics, Amphibious, Grass Digestion, Meat Digestion, Thick Skin V (MAX), Improved Immunity V (MAX), Electricity Resistance V (MAX), Venom Resistance V (MAX), Increased Fertility VI, Improved Metabolism IV

〔〕〔〕〔〕

A sperm whale!

Just when I wondered if they still existed in this world…

Below that was a list of special abilities that weren't actually anything special. There was nothing that would explain the creature's aggression toward our ships.

There was also another matter.

This whale was older than me!

It was old enough to be my father! And it was definitely born way before the beasts began evolving wildly. This meant that it wasn't a second-generation evolved creature; it was given these genes directly.

Perhaps it was even a so-called "champion"!

A creature didn't have to be a champion to spread genes. Gods could give them to anyone in "their" species. But from what I knew (very little), there were some special rules when it came to official "champion" creatures.

Perhaps all the attacks on our ships were done by this very same whale. I doubted there were many of them. Even compared to the abundant titanic beast underwater, this whale was huge.

This must've been the reason it was still alive with so few genes.

In search of answers about the whale's motivation, I asked what the scouts had read in the whale's thoughts. They were supposed to listen for something, and with its intelligence, they could be interesting.

"The beast thought about eating and prey. Like on a hunt. It was hungry."

This response wasn't what I expected, but the Lieutenant Commando and the scout leader of the Operation Master Baiter was a serious (and shy) young woman who wasn't going to joke. Not in this situation, at least.

"So the ship was just a prey in the whale's eyes?" When the Commando nodded, I raised my eyebrows. "What kind of life was it living recently, if a ship that's ninety percent living stone was more appetising to it than literally anything else that lives underwater?"

The Commando couldn't reply, so I didn't torture her with further questions.

Instead, I ordered more scouts to keep watching the life on the bottom of the ocean. A new group of Researcher Bees was formed to analyse the information they will bring.

The Oracles told me not to expect any further whale attacks soon. It looked like it really was a lone creature, a Moby Dick of this world, and an explosion to the face deterred it from attacking the Bee Empire's ships for now.

However, this incident made it clear that we didn't know enough about the sea and what dangers might suddenly come from it, so the research was necessary.

Two weeks passed peacefully after that, but the whale was not spotted by the scouts working from my shores.

At this time, all the supplies have reached the expedition army, and it could fight the evolving deer using my best venom and well-crafted guns.

My deadly venom really improved the game of our Beemarine and Beehound assassins. Now, almost as soon as deer evolve a new trait, some blue-eyed Beehound will spot them and send a kill squad in the deer's direction.

The initiative of the war on deer was firmly in the hands of bees, and I provided them with extra stingers even though it cost me a lot of time in a day to pluck so many of them. Hours of plucking straight to have enough for even just the assassins, not the entire army.

And the marine Researchers have analysed the first reports of our scouts.

Researchina brought the results to me, looking somewhat excited about them—in her usual reserved manner.

"The marine Researcher team expected the largest beasts to be the most successful. Many of them have resistances that should make them unkillable. But despite this, the most widespread species are smaller ones, only the size of half a human at most."

"Huh, really? I thought they were growing larger and larger because of their fierce competition."

Researchina shook her head.

"No. It seems like there is the opposite going on—but perhaps the beasts didn't have enough time to truly evolve. Either way, large beasts are rare… And it looks like it's simply because they don't have enough to eat."

Now I was puzzled even more, but I waited for Researchina to continue.

"A lot of the smaller beasts have evolved genes that make them indigestible even if you evolved immunity to weapons. And they themselves eat everything they can put in their mouths, digestible or not. They travel in massive packs and leave nothing edible behind. After this, the larger and slower bees can only slowly starve or search for other prey."

I sucked in a sharp breath.

"These creatures use some real 'scorched earth' tactics! This had to be intentional. And if this becomes the domineering strategy… Our own fishermen won't be able to get us any edible fish anymore!"