Chapter 48: Long Live Her Majesty the Queen (02)
Through the dried traces of semen and my chilly body, I realized that the bee girl had left my embrace.
'Did she go out to gather honey...?'
Perhaps because I had slept deeply thanks to the bee girl, my head felt slightly groggy and my body felt heavy, as if it would take some time to return to normal condition.
'My arm feels a bit itchy... huh?'
As I scratched my forearm, I discovered several tiny needle-like holes there.
The holes in my skin were very small, and when I touched them with my finger, no blood oozed out nor did the wounds open up, so it wasn't a major concern, but I couldn't feel much sensation when rubbing the area.
'It's almost like... it's numb...'
Unlike the wasp stinger on my left side which was significantly larger and had a venom that caused a fever for days, these were very small and the venom was mild.
'No wonder I slept so well...'
If I activated my mana circuits, the numbness would quickly dissipate, as the venom only caused enough paralysis to allow my body to relax and sleep deeply.
Normally, I would wake up from the scent of the bee girl's honey, but today, for some reason, I woke up a bit early and regained consciousness as if pinned down by a nightmare, unable to move.
The reason for this was...
The sound coming from the next room, over the wall.
It had been about two days since the queen bee larva had pupated, and it seemed that was enough time for the queen bee to emerge.
The beeswax sealing the entrance started to fall off, revealing the queen bee pupa gradually making its appearance.
The hard shell wrapping its body began to crack, and the naked queen bee inside started to unfold its wings.
Although not yet fully dry, the queen bee quickly dried off and began regaining color as she emerged from the tight hive cave to stretch and dry her wings.
Watching a new queen being born right in front of me was a truly mystical and beautiful sight, drawing my gaze involuntarily, showing a more developed humanoid form compared to its previous larval state, with a bigger and longer tail and elegantly unfurling wings than those of the bee girl.
I wasn't sure how long it usually takes for insects to emerge from pupation and transform, but it appeared that the queen bee in front of me would be ready to fly on her own within about 15 minutes.
'It's still early dawn, so it seems like the wasps haven't emerged yet, if it stays ...'
However, 15 minutes was far too long to transform in the heart of enemy territory.
A painful vibrating noise began to echo as the wasps started their morning patrols.
The queen bee also flinched at the sound of the wings, looking terrified, but she had already emerged from the pupa and her wings, not yet dry, would be ruined if she retreated back into the hole.
'Wasps aren't known for their good vision, so maybe she won't be spotted if lucky...'
Even with human-like vision, the queen bee, poking her upper body out and drying her wings and head, would be visible, but fortunately, wasps have poor vision, so they hadn't yet spotted the queen bee.
After being captured by the wasps and nearly turned into meatballs, the bee girl had saved me, so I felt it was my turn to repay the favor.
'Just a little longer...'
Tense, I began activating my mana circuits to wake up my sluggish body and start preparing for battle, but I couldn't recover immediately.
Although the venom injected by the bee girl was quickly neutralized, the problem was that after spending several days inside this tight hive without proper movement, my muscles had stiffened, making it time-consuming to switch my mana circuits to combat mode.
'Has it really been several days without proper exercise?'
Fortunately, there were no wasps yet... Slowly activating my mana circuits, I was regaining consciousness and grabbing my mana sword, ready to protect the queen bee from any potential wasp attacks.
A sharp stinger suddenly pierced through the floor of the hive where I was lying, stabbing my thigh.
It wasn't a deep wound, but through it, a potent paralyzing venom began to seep in, and I managed to prevent further venom from entering by stretching my body, but this venom was incomparably stronger than the bee girl's.
Then, a wasp's armored helmet emerged through the entrance of the hive.
'How did they get here...'
The sound I had heard earlier, the sound of the hive being nibbled away, wasn't just the queen bee pupa making space to emerge; it was a wasp digging up from below.
Backlit and thus hard to see clearly, I could tell that the wasp looking at me through the entrance was sneering.
'Mana circuits... maximum output...!'
The overheating of the mana engine caused a burning pain in my abdomen, but staying defenseless meant becoming wasp food.
The mana circuits forced my muscles and bones into action, starting to detoxify the venom that should have taken hours, if not days, over several days, by forcibly infusing and activating the liver with mana to purify it hastily.
A burning smell wafted from inside my body, but stopping now meant death.
The wasp, seeing my condition, thought it had subdued me and ignored me, turning its attention to the queen bee in the adjacent room, raising its sharp-clawed hands.
In her incomplete state, the queen bee would simply be sliced open by the wasp's strike.
Even if she was lucky enough to avoid a fatal blow, if her wings or antennae were damaged, the queen bee would be unable to escape.
Although the smell and sensation of burning flesh rose from the overheating, in return, I managed to stretch out my trembling hand and barely grasp the mana sword, but at that moment, another wave of wasp venom spread through my body, forcing me to focus all my mana on detoxification.
Could the bee girl's larva, whom the bee girl had painstakingly fed and raised to become a queen, be captured by a wasp just before becoming a queen, in such a vain manner?
It's the natural order for strong wasps to prey on weaker bee girls...
I couldn't accept it.
Mana burned through my spine, incinerating the venom, but I was still powerless.
The defenseless queen bee, whose antennae were almost dry but whose wings were only halfway there, trembled with fear and clung pitifully to the hive.
'Move... Move, my body...!'
Just as the wasp's sharp claw was about to tear the queen bee apart.
The buzzing of the wasp's wings was mere child's play compared to the cute sound of wings that now echoed.
As the soft hive entrance collapsed, I could see the bee girl, with her crooked antenna, lunging at the wasp.
The bee girl, who had gone outside to gather honey to protect her queen, was risking her life to attack the wasp!
The bee girl's combat ability was weak.
She was so fragile that a human could injure her with just physical strength, small in size, and even her wings were too weak to fly effectively.
A single wasp could carry a human, but it took 3-4 bee girls to lift me.
Yet, despite being overwhelmingly overpowered by the wasp, the bee girl was fighting desperately.
A single slash of the wasp's sharp limb or a sting of its tail would be fatal for the bee girl, but skillfully, she managed to buy time by clinging to the wasp's back.
'Just a little... time...!'
The pain of burning flesh began to subside as the mana circuits started operating.
My body moved, and I held the mana sword, ready to intervene as the wasp, distracted by the bee girl, raised its wings to strike.
At that moment, the bee girl and I made eye contact.
Just like last time... as she had done before, resigning to her fate, she smiled reassuringly at me, and in that moment, I understood what the bee girl had decided.
The bee girl thrust her stinger into the relatively unprotected abdomen of the wasp!
There was no exoskeleton there, but the noise was as loud as striking steel, and the bee girl's small, thin stinger penetrated halfway through the wasp's belly.
The wasp, caught off guard by the counterattack, doubled over in pain...
The bee girl's weak stinger couldn't penetrate the wasp's exoskeleton.
Even though the abdomen was a weak spot, the stinger only managed to pierce slightly, and the bee girl's venom was too weak to paralyze the wasp compared to the wasp's venom.
But with that strike, the wasp's attention was fully on the bee girl, and in that moment, she gritted her teeth and retracted her tail.
The end of the bee girl's tail was torn off.
Normally, a bee's sting isn't single-use and can be fired multiple times if properly retracted, but forcibly retracting it from a hard surface could damage the intestines and lead to death.
The bee girl evaded the wasp's twin hand strikes, bleeding from her tail yet managing to draw the wasp down with her.
Just as I finally managed to move, clutching the mana sword and powering up my legs to dash out of the hive cave, I caught sight of the ongoing situation between the wasp and the bee girl.
I saw the bee girl being split in half at the waist by the wasp's sharp jaws.