Reincarnated To Evolve My Bee Empire

Malevolence has studied the intelligence gathered about the continent she travelled to. She knew that humans of the Vardish Empire and neighbouring kingdoms (most of which were either conquered by the Vardish people or destroyed by recent cataclysms) were more technologically advanced than humans of the Bee Empire were before the Empire's unification.

Thus, from a human village on another continent, she expected something less barbaric. Perhaps they even had hexagonal houses instead of the square ones that humans liked to use out of their ignorance.

But the village her small army had arrived at looked almost exactly like any small farmer human village in the Bee Empire (and Malevolence had seen hundreds of those in her career). From her observation point over a forest on top of a distant hill, Malevolence could see all of it.

There were fields (patrolled by some bees), human stench, and stone houses with wooden roofing. They all were giant, but it didn't make them less ugly.

At least there weren't any domesticated beasts humans liked to keep around—they must've been already killed before they could betray and attack their former owners. Or maybe they died for other reasons.

"My sisters in the village have already warned the humans that you will arrive and that they must treat you with respect," the Agent guide said, gesturing at the group of humans visible in the distance. They were standing on the street, clearly waiting for something—or someone.

Like all humans from the Ashida continent, they had blue colouring instead of the common green. And, if one believed Physicians who studied humans, different common facial features.

Malevolence couldn't distinguish one human face from another, so it didn't matter to her.

"Resume moving!" Malevolence ordered her soldiers. "We will see who we have come here to conquer… And to defend from those who would want to take away what's ours."

The local humans have met Malevolence's army with loud chattering in an unfamiliar human language and lots of bowing. They especially tried to speak with humans of the Bee Empire, but since they didn't know the Ashida language, it was fruitless.

Malevolence didn't care to watch them making their teeth sounds, so she left most of the army to see the state of sick humans, then went to explore the village's defences and local water supply with a smaller squad—just one human and a few thousand bees. She also gave the scouts staying in the shore camp orders to scan the area with their astral projections.

As soon as Malevolence exited the village, several insect beasts tried to attack her squad. These attacks were something as familiar to Malevolence and her people as breathing, and they have barely slowed the pace of their movement while they killed the attackers with their rifles and stingers.

None of these beasts wasn't dangerous or special, but Malevolence didn't expect them to be. She knew that really scary beasts usually travelled in hordes, not alone or in small groups. Because scary beasts were successful, and successful beasts bred like ten thousand Queen Bees.

An hour of exploring the edges of the village and cutting down insects later, Malevolence and her scouts found the root of water supply problems—a grove of trees that began growing right in the river that was running right near the village.

Malevolence couldn't test it herself—she was immune to poisons—but she was ready to bet that these trees were venomous.

They were also guarded by a massive four-legged beast. It stood firmly on the ground with thick legs and was protected by a thick, fuzzy, brown carapace. Its triangular head had a mouth below it, from which a pair of mandibles was sticking upward instead of downward.

The beast was just walking around and occasionally digging roots out of the ground. It ate them, while parts of plants and soil fell into the river, dirtying it even more.

A few scouts tried to approach close to it, but the beast reacted extremely aggressively, and they had to dodge its short, thin, but still potentially deadly tail. Humans alerted it from even farther away—the one Malevolence took with her couldn't even look at it before the beast would make aggressive sounds in their direction.

Only bees—in small groups—could get close enough to see the beasts, like Malevolence a few minutes ago.

Now, to speak with her subordinates, Malevolence moved a dozen kilometres away—a distance from which the beast was invisible among the trees, but so were Malevolence's forces.

"Grand Commander, this grass might not be the reason that the water went poisonous, but if it continues to grow, it will stop its flow and create a dam," the Chief Commando said to Malevolence. "There's more of it upstream, and more of these beasts. They are always together."

Malevolence frowned as she heard that. Alliances like these were extremely rare among her enemies. But not impossible.

"We came here on a mission to purify at least a small part of this land… We can start here. Removing trees just from this place won't be enough to make the water safe to drink again, if there are more of the trees upstream, but it's a start!"

She raised her rifle in the air and smiled a little when her soldiers mirrored the gesture—even the human ones!

"Keep these rifles. To clear these trees, we must first deal with the beast, and it has to be poison-resistant to be able to eat them! It also has a tough carapace and is the size of an entire sub-hive. But is this the first such beast I killed? No! And I will lead you to kill this one, too. For now, we will return to our sisters in the village and unite forces."

The first rule of fighting creatures larger than yourself, after all, was gathering as many allies as possible.

The Physicians in the camp confirmed that the source of human problems was most likely these beast-guarded trees, and that even dodo blood won't help humans survive the poisoning caused by their sap.

So Malevolence was going to make sure no trees on the river survived this day, either.