A few days passed without significant change. I continued training with Feltan, repeatedly trying and failing to focus without focusing on making mud giraffes, but even so, I thought I was making progress. Or at least Queen assured me I was. But while my psychic wizard training was slow, work was steady and eggs were shockingly fast. Food production, which meant honey, was somewhat slow thanks to the small number of workers actually dedicated to the task, but that didn’t mean food was scarce. In fact, as Bella became more comfortable with her delivery logistics, the food in the hive was piling up.

But man, it was just so conflicting — the bees insisted that I eat only honey, to ensure the eggs hatched in ideal conditions, and it was hard to argue with them. I mean, I didn’t want to eat the nasty human food! So I would gladly choose to eat honey any day of the week. But it meant that most of the honey was reserved for me, so the bees typically ate human food with a small side of honey. The unfortunate state of my poor family’s palate was as good a motivation as any to make me want to create more food-focused workers.

And speaking of making workers. By this point, all the Linkers had hatched, and while it didn’t feel like my efforts were wasted, reserving more Mind for the Linkers’ egg creation didn’t result in anything shocking. None of them were ‘conscious’ in any way, and interestingly, all of them were exactly the same shape, size, color, everything. There was only one small difference.

[Name: (Unnamed)]

[Age: 1 day]

[Subtype: Linker]

[Status: Healthy]

[Abilities:

• Linker Stinger (Lv. 3)

]

[Mind: 0th Degree]

[Tapped Mind: 0% / 95%]

[Mind Locks:

• Life (5%)

]

That’s right. For all my effort, I get two levels in their one tool, Linker Stinger. Now, to be fair, it implied that Linker Stinger had the potential to be an incredibly powerful Ability. The Linker with the most Mind I had allotted took a staggering 10% of my current Mind, and still only got that tiny boost. Oh, is that not a lot? Allow me to remind you that I lifted the Rotor Shaft with a comparable amount of Mind. And there was no way I was going to do calculations to make that comparison.

The point was, an absurd amount of Mind only equated to a small benefit, so until I knew more about the Linkers themselves, there was no point experimenting. Higher volumes of base cost Linkers would be more beneficial. That wasn’t to say the test was a failure, though.

[Linker Stinger

Level 3

Acquired by: Birth

  Link outside the links. By creating a physical connection, entangle the Mind.

  Significantly less mind required to establish a Link. Slightly less drain on the user’s lifespan.

]

Those were two important factors to consider when it came to the Linkers’ connection, so we made a mental note about what the potential uses for more expensive Linkers could be. But for now, it was going to be Workers all the way. They were the most flexible in their potential roles, so with Queen’s idea of intent, they would be the best subject to test it on.

It didn’t work. When the base Workers I created ended up having completely roles than I intended for them, I practically gave up. Obviously, I tried not to let my disappointment show when I came face to face with my new children, and I knew they didn’t understand what my emotions meant thanks to their naivety. But it was shockingly sad for me when I noticed my own disappointment. Instead of being happy to have new bees in the hive, I only cared about how my attempts to make things more efficient failed.

In the end, though, Queen consoled me, as usual, and I kept truckin’ on. Because while my experiments did fail, Queen made something known to me. She thought we were close to a breakthrough. And somehow, I didn’t doubt it. It really did feel like my egg-making Ability was full to bursting, just needing one more little push to level up, but what did it need? Man, first Linker Stinger and now my egg-making. Was the jump from level three to four insane across all Abilities or what? It really did feel like a threshold of some kind. Many of the mercenaries’ Abilities were way above level three, though that might be chalked up to the fact that they’ve been practicing and learning their own Abilities for years rather than a month.

But beyond my own experiments and the dodginess of food, the entire hive was actually progressing at a steady pace — and not necessarily a slow one either. Take construction, for example. With the new abundance of food (regardless of its flavor), wax production was through the roof. Bess had gone from being limited by her wax supplies to having an excess, but she was making use of it. The ‘dome’ of hers was nearly complete, at least in structure. At some point she had started complaining that wax made with pure honey was much more effective than wax made just with human food, but all that did was make her decide to layer the types of wax for extra structural integrity. A simple tunnel system now extended from the six corners of the hexagonal wall that served as the base of the dome towards the central hive, and Bessie was eager to turn them into an intricate tunnel network.

Most reassuring of all, the warriors were looking stronger than ever. Though he had been lying low for a while, Bedivere was making excellent use of his time. He tirelessly trained the rank-and-file, who were now outside of the main Link, and even continued on to train the Valkybees and the other commanders. They were all training their Minds as well, sharpening them even more than their stingers. But the one Bedivere pushed the hardest was himself. He knew from the Yiwi Operation that our bees were currently at a massive disadvantage in a straight-up fight, and although sneak and swarm tactics were effective, the reality of this world was that individual strengths also needed to be leveraged. Maybe in a few months' time, when I had the opportunity to hatch monstrous numbers of Simple Warriors, then our swarms might stand a chance. But until then, even simple Abilities like Vlugh’s or Rette’s put us in danger.

And then there were Beck’s studies on the Links. Beck was an interesting bee. They were relentlessly trying to find a way to bring the bees who had Re-Linkuished back into the Link, while simultaneously trying to make it so that humans could Re-Linkuish while still attached to Linkers to bring them into the hive permanently. And there was something else. Every day, at the same time, I noticed that they began singing, their songs being broadcast throughout the whole Link for everyone to enjoy. I did become a bit weirded out when I noticed the songs, while not having any lyrics, so to speak, were full of heartfelt emotions that resonated with everyone, including the non-bees that had been Linked. The weird part was that these emotions were all about working hard for the hive and bringing glory to the Great Mother.

Um, yeah, Great Mother here. I appreciate the thought, Beck, but I’m already a dystopian dictator in the eyes of the humans, anyway. It kinda feels like you’re cementing me into that role.

But those were all the things that were nice and steady. At the moment, there were two things that concerned me. The first of those was Beatrice. She was stretched thin, to say the least. I knew she was constantly thinking of dozens of topics at the same time, and I wished I could lend her my B-boxes or something. She’d surely make better use of them than I ever could. But as things were, she would have to deal with the way things were. Besides, she hadn’t faltered once, even seeming to relish in the overwork. It seemed almost to strengthen her. But with her being so strained, gaps were beginning to appear, even if they were tiny ones.

Which brings me to my second concern: Bella. Specifically, the various projects she’d undertaken. Now, I was happy she was working so hard, but it was out of desperation to prove herself, and she wasn’t taking my word for it. She wanted to see tangible results. I became concerned when I noticed her not thinking of food, which might seem like a strange time to wonder if something was wrong. But I know my bees, and what I definitely know about Bella is that food is her passion. She was the one who practically invented the honey I was eating, and, while stationed in Yiwi, had personally tasted every single item that left the town to ensure it was something that we could eat and/or transform into delicious honey. But her new projects were taking over her thoughts.

There was the original project, the one that started everything. When she began to wonder about talent versus desire and how that affected the development of Mind after her conversation with Merchant Queen Mesne. And I encouraged the research. A lot, actually, because it was something I was extremely curious about too. I mean, it was something that had influenced the entire hive since the beginning, and was still affecting my experiments with Mind; bees were born with certain specializations I couldn’t control, and they fit into their roles without hesitation or consideration. They lived with singular roles and desires until, at some point, they began to change. Like Bella herself.

Now she was all over the place. Commanding the swarms of drones constantly moving to and from the hive like a black and yellow conveyor belt of food. Inspecting dozens of human Minds each day to deduce patterns between their talents, desires, and where they ended up in life. Since humans were continuously needing to be re-Linked once their Linker died, she, who bore witness to this every day as one of the main bees in Yiwi, began investigating the Link, wondering why human Minds could slip in and out of it so easily with little more than their Linker’s death. Beck encouraged that. And now, she was throwing herself into founding Bobbee Inc. Which was a whole mess unto itself. Bobby was too unruly, too crafty, too flexible while remaining in the confines of the Link. Yoho was generally annoying, and Mesne was stretched nearly as thinly as Beatrice. Rette, funnily enough, was turning into one of her few lifelines. While Mesne and Bella had something of a friendly rivalry, I was beginning to feel like Rette and Bella might actually become genuine friends. Which was strange. Of all people, Rette should have been one of the most antagonistic against us, but even when I probed her thoughts just in case, I found nothing malicious.

Bella was well aware of how strange everything was; it just ended up becoming another stressor on the pile. Was Rette somehow tricking her? Was she doing a good enough job to impress not only me, but the hive? Was she becoming too important? What if she couldn’t help the hive anymore? Would we suffer? These were the sorts of questions I found running through her head, and they filled me with a profound sadness. All I wanted to do was force her to take a break. But no. That wasn’t what I wanted.

I wanted her to keep working hard. She was doing great, so why stop her? She was stressed, sure, but she was ultimately doing what she wanted to do. That was okay in my book.

“Are you sure?”

…

There were so many other moving parts in the hive, like Beau’s tinkering and Belle’s various roles she was undertaking as the caretaker, and even the fernen beginning to pack up and slowly move back to the forest. But there was one thing in particular that was holding my attention. I wasn’t sure exactly why.

Up in the north, Beelzebub lay against a tree. She was some distance away from them, but with her naturally exceptional eyesight, watched a group walk across a gorgeous orchard of deep green trees, spotted with yellow ovals — lemons. The group, consisting of a hyperactive bee, two humans, and a fernen, wandered towards the town of Lemonholm; the town was completely surrounded by lemon orchards, but was a much smaller place than Yiwi, with a more flimsy-looking wall of stone adorned by a single wooden door. None of them were any the wiser, especially the totally unconcerned Beelzebub. But as the door eventually closed behind the merry band, the hollow clunking sound it made felt more ominous than anything I’d yet encountered in this world.