LIGHTNOVELONLINE Chapter 43: Apiculture
Drumming hooves and squealing cries of fear echoed within glades of verdant woods, fleeing from the unseen terror, hunting them down one by one. Unable to locate let alone fight against their invisible attacker their sole choice was to run away. A sound of faint crackling tension followed by a thud always seemed to precede the attacks. Sometimes they would hear it amidst its flight through the air becoming conditioned to pull their body in some other direction in hopes of evading the oncoming missile. Vicious darts drenched in vile fluids that crippled their movements came from shadows near and far; sapping vigor and robbing their life, slowly, gently. A single scratch spelled certain death, for slowing down for just a moment meant those dreadful attacks would land…
Although at first she was slow and clumsy now Alicia was deftly extracting her arrows from the beast she fell. Something she had done quite often in the last few days. Though she received a full quiver of sixty arrows, those dwindled down to about half. First of her arrows weren’t coated in her venom, thus requiring more than one to drop the game. And sometimes when they did they would fall on the arrow and break the shaft. Having to pull out arrow heads without the shaft to reuse. And some even ran off with the arrow stuck to their body. Thankfully she could track the blood trails to catch up however spending a good part of the day following a track in the dirt and subsequently waiting for whatever she shot to bleed out was decidedly not the most enjoyable or rewarding of endeavors. Unfortunately some other times she would be careless and the arrows would be lost for good.
With the experiences with her new weapon, there was something she found strange. She had never used a bow or anything like it ever before, but found herself instinctively adept at it to the point of even surprising Faenas. Until…
She had forgotten about Armed that enhanced her abilities with any weapon until she earned Marksmanship which brought attention to it.
As for Alice she was no longer suffering from the pain of self digestion and was far more active than before. As patient as she can be she was still… bored sitting in a hole, without much to do now more than before. Alicia still had a bundle of unprocessed shedding of the goats hoping that Alice could do something with it so she stored the burrow. Alice wasted no time in messing with them… Alicia had to come down and help her untangle herself a few times at first but eventually she managed to make a number of clothing articles some, even she herself liked so much that she changed into it. One incident that genuinely frightened Alicia was when she found Alice eating one of the egg sacs, her first thought being that she was still starving. Questioning her revealed that the one that she was consuming was infertile and undeveloped sac, almost like a chicken egg. Apparently they eat it to recoup some energy spent on it… She didn’t particularly need to eat it for energy, she wanted to clean up as well as her instincts telling her to just do it. Gaining parthenogenesis meant that her kindred spirits had access to it as well. This meant potentially hundreds and thousands if not more eggs. So to prevent crowding and overpopulation she had made a ruling limiting how much they can lay to one hundredth of what they would normally. Thankfully they didn’t particularly mind it.
The new wolves proved themselves to be quite competent, perhaps a bit too much than what Alicia expected from them. When she commanded them to gather food for Alice she was in a rush due to the circumstances and completely overestimated the food they would realistically need. Leading to a massive surplus of extra rations. Her kindred spirits could store their food by keeping them alive and paralysed for an extended amount of time but since they were alive she had them released after the venom wore off. Even so this was only a portion of the surplus. The other part that was gathered by the wolves were… dead, as such instead of letting them rot away and be wasted she sent most of it out as a gift to the elven village and troll tribes. With their accomplishments validated they were allowed to be taken in under Kindred. She delegated the specifics of what skills they should have to Alma…
Any organized ‘pack’ would have a social hierarchy, Alicia’s was no different. Without her knowing this hierarchy already established itself based on seniority. With her and Alice being at the top, her kindred spirits, even those who are late comers were placed right under them… citing that they were directly related to her. After them was Ramiel and underneath him Rufus and the wolves… She found it weird and amusing that a goat led a pack of wolves… And at the bottom, the single rat she carried around… Incidentally Alma unsuccessfully restored the rat’s broken mind. Unsuccessfully as it no longer acted like a rat and more like a clever mouse. According to its own reports:
>Neural mapping complete.
>Neural pathway reconstruction to initial state failed.
>Predictive reconstruction successful.
>Subject shows increased intellectual capabilities.
When she tried to set the rat free it wasn't willing to part, always seeming to find its way to her. She kept it as a pet. By now, recovering stuck arrows had become a menial task that required little cognitive input, with her mind wandering as a result she thought of a strange notion…
‘Spiders, goats, wolves, rats… Am I turning into some sort off-brand D*sney princess? Let me think… Magic, check. Talks to animals… sort of… check? Musicals… not really… Any moment now and some knight in shining armor is going to show trying to rescue me, good thing I’m not really human… But isn’t there some fairytale trend of curses or something like that turning the damsel into a monster, that you lift by kiss of true love? He might think I’m cursed by some evil witch. This isn’t looking good… I ain’t kissing you buddy I’m still straight… wait… am I gay?’
Derailing from one inane thought process to another her mind naturally drifted to other thoughts unrelated to the task at hand.
‘Mentally, I am a guy that’s attracted to women, that would make me hetero, but with this current body, very much so biologically female… I believe? Would make me a female attracted to other females… socially that should make me homo. So am I gay or not…? Maybe that sexuality studies course wasn’t so pointless… The one time I skip over a non-mandatory class, it rears its ugly face to bite me in the rear, of course why not… Screw it all, I’m gay now…’
Her daydream was interrupted by a message coming in from one of her kindred, entailing something about her being needed to present to resolve. Apparently a bee kept getting stuck in their web around their home. This wasn’t an issue on it’s own, Alicia was fond of bees, especially since in her previous life their population was in a sharp decline. Even before she gained her current anthropomorphic features, sometimes bees would get caught in her web, which she set free after making sure they’re paralyzed and safe to do so, something she ordered her kindred to do as well. However this particular bee, after being freed, would still go back and get caught in the web. And each time it did the spiders would have to repair the web quickly turning into a problem. Gathering all of her arrows and storing her equipment in the vault, she turned back to the great oak…
Passing through the webbed perimeters housed by Brides and Weavers and greeting them in passing, she was confronted with a bizarre situation. A large bee, half the size of an adult tied up in a hostage style bindings; its wings & legs wrapped up and mandibles webbed shut with silk hanging from one of the branches of the tree. Barely holding back a snicker:
- ‘Could you stop running into our web? It’s quite the work to patch the holes.’
- ‘… … … …’
- ‘Huh? You were looking for me?’
‘Why did I expect an enthusiastic buzzing from a telepathic communication…?’
- ‘… … … …’
- ‘You’re a queen I set free before? Oh you’re that fat bee that I almost mistook for a wasp. I remember now.’
- ‘… … …!’
The bee reacted something furious to her comparison of it to another insect with a stinger, but it mellowed out quickly for it was in the striking distance of its captor still on the thread that wrapped around it and seemed to have provoked it.
- ‘Hey, calm down, no threatening the guests.’
By her command the spider retreated…
- ‘Sorry sorry, I forgot wasps were bee predators… So you’ve found me. What’s up?’
- ‘… … … …’
- ‘Uh huh…’
- ‘… … … … … … … …’
The story of the queen bee was of one detailing a difficult life… Her original hive had been mostly destroyed by an attack from a bear. In the attack the original queen seemed to have been lost. Unable to continue inhabiting their hive they were forced to relocate and reconstruct their hive; multiple emergency cells birthed virgin queens. The hive split up and swarmed into following each queen. After establishing a new colony, it soon collapsed due to beetles1Hive beetles, (Aethina tumida) and mite2Tracheal mites, (Acarapis woodi) and Varroa mite, (Varroa destructor) You know something is serious when their scientific name has a destructor in it. infestation that especially seeks out bees. Again while searching for a new home her severely weakened brood dropped like flies and petered out to none. It was during this period the immature queen ran into Alicia’s web. Although she lost all hopes of living, after being set free she tried many times and failed to establish a functioning hive. Without a larva or a drone she and her brood was in an inevitable decline to annihilation. Now desperate and at loss she seeked out her former saviour for whatever chance of deliverance.
- ‘Well if you make your hive near here… I can help with wasps and the beetles but I can’t… make you more drones… and you can’t make more drones without larva or drones can you? Sorry I guess you just came around too late.’
>Notice. Subject able to inherit 〔 Parthenogenesis 〕
‘Oh forgot about that…’
- ‘I may be able to help you with your brood problem if you pledge yourself to me… It may not work…
‘…though i can’t imagine Alma screwing me over like this…’
- …but in the end it’s your choice whether you follow me or not… I’ll have to ask for some honey though.’
What other choice did she have? Her brood without a male drone was already fading away. Between slow and unavoidable end and uncertain sliver of a chance at survival, the latter was the option she chose without doubt…
- ‘No hesitation at all huh. Well you can’t say I didn’t give you a fair chance…’
>Idiosyncratic synchronization underway…
>Integrating new skill entries…
>Delegating recommended skill set…
>Constitution Ⅵ
>Stealth Ⅵ
>Spiritual pool Ⅴ☆
>Regeneration Ⅵ
>Parthenogenesis ✪
>Presence detection Ⅵ
>Employment……………… complete.
- ‘You can set her free now.’
Carefully the weaver nibbled at the silk, loosening it up… While it that was taking place;
- “Dryssia are you up there?”
Having heard her name being called she climbed down from the top of the oak, presumably from her afternoon sunbathing.
- “Yeees!”
Not wanting to break even the smallest twig she was cautiously scaling down the tree…
‘Maybe I should make a ladder…’
- “I’m here!”
- “Do you know a place where bees can make their hive?”
- “Buzzer nest?”
‘How do you keep making up these nicknames?’
- “I think so… Any tree that’s close to flowers near here is good.”
- “But buzzers make their nest on the ground next to flower fields?”
- “Excuse me?”
‘Wait so they make their hive on the ground… And they’re dying because of beetle infestation… I think I found the problem…’
With the dryad’s help Alicia made a glade surrounded by wildflowers with few trees specifically grown in a way to become a natural apiary. Surrounding grounds were covered in a network of silk designed and maintained by hex crawlers to capture the smallest of insects. For the bees that wasn’t bothersome at all since they flew over to the flowers and since they were under Alicia’s protection the spiders didn’t bother the bees. As for wasps they sting and abduct live bees, paralyzing them and carrying them back to their nest keeping them alive for as long as possible to inject their eggs… The larva eats the bee from the inside and brings forth a new generation.
Unfortunately Alicia’s kindness didn’t extend to them. Trees around the edges of the bee grove were saturated with Weavers and an extensive densely packed network of webs. Although few bees wandered out and got stuck at first. Eventually they learned to pick up on faint pheromones emanating from the webs to avoid them. Despite all of this there was little she could do help with mite problems. However with presence detection they started to find mites and ‘clean’ them out. As a side effect of this behaviour the menial drones and workers have become increasingly hygienic, grooming themselves and each other more frequently. Still there were some that managed to sneak in. However combined with their regular cleaning and new heartier bodies their presence didn’t adversely affect their health and as much.
With that has been said… There was still something in Alicia’s mind that continued to bother her…
- ‘And now I have bees… this princess theory might not be a theory at all… Seriously I don’t care how pretty he is. I am not kissing a dude.’
