Reincarnated To Evolve My Bee Empire

It was soon discovered that no, the small island I pointed at didn't have enough space for a large plane to land on it safely.

Then the large cargo planes required equally large runways to take off. Building these runways was almost as hard as building the planes! We had to invent asphalt just for their sake.

The same went for any other islands that a plane could reach. Hell, even reaching the other continent, while theoretically possible at this point, was stopped because there were no runways for planes on the other side.

There would be (an order to build at least one was already sent on a ship), but for now, the fact remained.

And taking off was necessary—the scouts needed not just to land in a place from which they could scout the ocean, but also to send their findings back to the Bee Empire somehow.

The entire Empire Council gathered just for the sake of addressing the problem of scouting the ocean's depths.

"We can send a hive mind on a ship with scouts…" Bloodhero began to propose, only for Ambrosia to cut her off before I could.

"We only have one hive mind that could protect ships right now—Precio-Us—and they are too valuable for the Bee Empire to be sent on a risky expedition. Even if the ship is safe from monsters, it can suffer from a storm and be destroyed together with everybody on board."

Bloodhero lowered her head in both agreement and shame, so I smiled at her reassuringly.

"This is a brainstorming session. There are no bad ideas. If we had more time for Precio-Us to train somebody in this… art of protection… then we could've done this. However, we don't have the time. We don't know when the threat will strike, and when it will be too late to deal with it."

Bloodhero straightened a little. She really was glad to hear this, but her face was as stoic as it ever had been… Well, she sure had her Warrior's pride to hold.

"Can't we travel to this island-land on dragons?" Things-Things asked.

"None of our tame dragons can fly this far without landing for the night," Workharder replied immediately. "Planes are much faster and larger!"

"Then… if a large plane can't land there… Maybe a small one can? We have small planes, yes-yes!"

"Those are test models," Researchina replied. "They won't be able to fly this far in the first place."

Tabletina pouted.

"Do the scouts need to land at all?" Tabletina asked. "They can send astral projections while their bodies are travelling in a plane somewhere around the area they must look through."

"A plane won't be able to keep flying over the region for long. If we did this, the scouts would have an hour at a time to explore the region at most before they would have to return," Researchina countered. "It will also be terribly, terribly ineffective. The amount of fuel we will spend on just one expedition like that will already be large. But dozens of expeditions will be necessary to find ANY information."

Workharder grinned.

"So what? We have the fuel."

I rubbed my chin.

"And although we have only a few planes that could reach the other continent, there are plenty that can fly a third of the way, fly in circles for an hour and return, aren't there?"

"Ten prototypes and one complete plane. All are perfectly functional, but only the latter has been properly adorned and named," Researchina said, nodding at Worriesgone. "The Artists are working on three more right now."

"They will fly better when they are prettier," Worriesgone said dreamily. "My sisters will make their wings shine with gold and blue scales in the sunlight… It will scare away all the wild dragons, too!"

I doubted this would really be as practical as it sounded, but it would surely be a boost to the Bee Empire's total culture. Or, in other words, bees would love it.

It was their equivalent of fighter pilots painting anime girls on their aircraft.

"This promises to look amazing, Worriesgone," I said, imagining the show. "But if we need these planes NOW, can we use them?"

Worriesgone frowned in thought, jutting her lower lip in an adorable slight pout.

"Yes… But it might delay my sisters' work for a while. Perhaps even several weeks if the planes get damaged! If this is for the Empire, though…"

"Everything is," Amby said solemnly.

I turned to Workharder.

"How much fuel will it take to send each of these planes back and forth to the place we need to scout? No… Just tell me if we have enough or not." Then I turned to Bloodhero. "And how many scouts can you spare for this? Can you pack these planes full?"

The plan was gathering up, and sensing it, my girls perked up.

"I can pull some scouts from other areas, so there are definitely enough!" Bloodhero replied. "I mean… how much can these planes carry?"

"Up to eight hundred thousand bees, counting crew," Researchina replied.

The Council Chamber fell silent for a minute. Even I had to appreciate the number. Until now, I mostly thought of planes in categories of "a lot of carrying space" and "not as much carrying space".

This was certainly a lot.

"And if we don't count crew?" I asked.

"Then… seven hundred thousand. And we have five full crew teams."

Even mechas required a smaller crew. But as long as this all worked…

"I think that with these numbers, a single plane full of scouts will be enough," I said. "Bloodhero, would this many scouts be able to scour the ocean in one trip?"

Bloodhero shook her head.

"The entire ocean? No. Would they find the threat? This depends on how close they are to it. We can't really predict it." She glanced at Undecided and corrected herself. "Well, I can't predict it."

"Good enough to me. So this is what we will do!"