Reincarnated To Evolve My Bee Empire

I couldn't let this continue. Otherwise, the turtles might eventually disturb even the massive harbours that sent out ships all over the world.

Yes, the world! If there wasn't a third continent hiding somewhere away from even the humans of the Vardish Empire (and by calculations of the continents' size and the planet's curvature and surface area, there was just no place for anything but polar caps), then the two discovered continents made most of the planet's landmass.

And the turtles, of course, would interfere with my plans to move the capital closer to the sea.

Thus, I took a day off from regular administrative tasks and flew closer to the sea on a dragon so I could send an astral projection to one of the sites with roaming turtles and see them myself.

While my body was safely asleep in a guarded bedroom of a sub-hive I stayed at, my astral projection travelled to the shore with the speed of thought.

I travelled over the sky at the height of a dragon's flight, easily finding glowing balls that were astral projections of other bees. I asked them directions, and they quickly pointed me toward the nearest turtle they were tracking.

As soon as I stopped near it, I froze in shock.

I should've known not to expect anything that actually looked turtle-like after hearing the name "green sea turtle"!

The beast was even stranger than most of them!

It was, of course, massive—around 150 meters in length and only slightly less narrow. Its frontal… fins?… easily trampled trees the beast crawled on, reaching for the tastier parts with its parrot-like beak.

The creature had a vaguely turtle-like oval shape, but this was where most of the similarities ended. The entire thing was covered in bright green feathers, each barely larger than I, which looked slightly shiny. Unlike the feathers of ordinary lizards, I felt like these feathers were much more waterproof, like a goose's feathers.

Its four limbs and a small tail looked like fins or like a penguin's wings—or both, since these two were similar things. The turtle wasn't very fast on land with them, but it didn't look hurried.

The main attraction of the turtle, of course, was its shell. Or, in this case, a carapace. It was light grey and grew out of the turtle's back and stomach, pushing away the feathers. I could see easily that it was just the beast's bone without anything covering it…

This was just like with the turtles on Earth—their shells were literally their bones, parts of their ribcages. But they didn't look as bone-like as this turtle's shell.

I watched the creature roam and eat for some time longer, making circles around it. It crawled slowly over the land, eating what it wanted and absolutely ignoring all insects and other small wild beasts that tried to take a bite out of it in the process. Not that there were many of them, thanks to the efforts of my soldiers.

The turtle never got too far from the water, coming from time to time to drink or swim in at least a small pond. Otherwise, being on the ground didn't seem to bring it any discomfort—its thoughts were calm and pleased.

All in all…

'Yeah, if we don't throw these beasts out, they will just eat or trample everything we have,' I thought.

At least turtles themselves were gigantic only when compared to bees—humans and mechas could, with effort, simply throw them back into the sea. Now that I saw a turtle with my own eyes, I could tell this for sure.

So when I returned to Hive Supremo, I passed this order to Bloodhero.

"Just make humans gather the turtles and throw them back into the sea! They won't be able to do anything about it."

And I was absolutely right.

The next day, the teams of humans sent to rapidly deal with the turtles simply gathered them in sacks and threw them back into the ocean on fishing boats. The only problem they had was to do it before the turtles would chew their way through the sacks.

And the fact that the turtles would return. I didn't need to be an Oracle to know it.

Which is why the improved version of my turtle-dealing plan was already underway, too!

Teams of mechas were digging pits near the areas where turtles were coming out of the water. Although this process took a few days, afterwards, all the turtles could be thrown into these pits—and then covered with soil.

A lot of soil.

I was ordering the poor turtles alive… This almost made me feel bad. My girls, of course, noticed it at the same council meeting.

"This was a great idea, Father! Why are you feeling bad that our enemies will die?" Whisper asked.

Before I could even try to explain, Worriesgone spoke up instead.

"Yes, Father, don't feel bad! These turtle-beasts were going to die anyway since they decided to stand in the way of the Bee Empire! It's their fault that they can't die quickly." She pouted angrily. "Sister Bloodhero, doesn't that make the turtle-beasts even more guilty?"

"Absolutely. Anything that makes Father unhappy must be destroyed."

Oh, my girls! I didn't know if I should feel better or worse after hearing arguments like these! Even as someone who didn't care for nature, I thought that "it's their fault" argument was a bit too much!

"Be calm, daughters." Ambrosia's melodic voice cut through this discussion. Under the table, she held my hand. "Father is strong; he will regain his peace of mind without your help."

Worriesgone lowered her head; her antennae drooped.

"But we want to help…"

"I'm fine, I'm really fine," I took the opportunity to say. "The turtles are just in the way. Bury them all up and watch that they don't dig themselves out. Not that it's possible with their limbs."

I hoped that the problems with the ocean would end there. The turtles weren't dangerous, after all—but the future showed that it really wasn't the turtles I should have been wary about.