Ambrosia narrowed her eyes at , then suddenly smiled.
"You decided to warn this ti, Nectus. Good. No, I won't be mad, but I will worry. What is it? How much risk is there, and how necessary is this all?"
"Very!"
I briefly explained to her about the destructive wonders of fire and how they can be applied to hornet nests, then reached the core weakness of the plan.
"But we don't have enough information about these hornets. So I want to stealthily search for them and their nest. If I can see them with my own eyes, I'd be able to say a lot about their capabilities and weaknesses. Because of the system thing, you know?" I tapped my temple aningfully.
Ambrosia tilted her head slightly.
"Searching for the hornet nest is still incredibly risky. They can kill you—or even find our hive. And as you warned already, this will be deadly."
My shoulders slumped.
"As if I *want* to go there myself! But on their own, our daughters won't know what to look out for, and how to hide better! Don't worry," I winked at Ambrosia and showed four thumbs up, "I know a few tricks to keep us stay unnoticed! And I will take guards with , too."
If I convinced her enough, maybe I will convince myself too that my knees didn't shake at the thought of going to the Danger Zone.
Ambrosia humd.
"I've noticed that your face scrunches and your eyes tear up when you are about to say sothing stupid half of the ti. But now… you just look too confident, Nectus. This can't be good. No one should look this confident when suggesting sothing so risky."
Ambrosia shook her head.
I gaped at her.
Was she joking? Seriously. I couldn't tell. Did she develop a sense of humor and an incredible deadpan delivery, or was she serious?
"Are you joking?"
"What's a joke?"
I narrowed my eyes.
"Is *that* a joke, too?"
Ambrosia stared at blankly.
Fuck. There went my thumbs.
"Just—just trust , Amby, this is a good plan, and I'm the last person who wants to die here!"
"Of course. Please, avoid dying."
I puckered my lips.
"What about a kiss for good luck, too?"
Ambrosia smiled and briefly kissed .
"Here."
I grinned.
Now I was going to keep this kiss in mind instead of the size of hornet bites for the entirety of my self-appointed mission.
***
It took about two days for a single team of Craftsn Bees to make a full set of bone armor. One day for two teams. Most of that ti went to make all the strings and spikes.
It would take three days for all the bone armor and candles to be complete.
Before that, I picked 20 Cleaning Bees from the OP generation and gathered them together.
But not in the usual spot near the hive's exit—we went outside!
We stood in the forest at the foot of our pillar mountain—a relatively safe place, but still innately rife with danger. At least I was wearing bone armor.
There, I turned to my daughters and hid the heaviness in my heart.
"From now on, you will prepare to be our stealthiest, our sneakiest, our most ready to kill, and our most heroic bees. Like Warrior Bees, but even more heroic. You will be… Commando Bees!"
〔Commando Bee〕: 10% to base agility, endurance, and perception.
For now, my future Commando Bees didn't fit the title requirents, but they stood straighter.
"Like Warrior Bees… Warrior Bees get hamrs!"
"Is that for the hive?" one asked.
I nodded eagerly.
"Yes! Everything is."
Now everybody looked interested.
"I'm ready to learn!"
", too, Father!"
I bead. It looked like, thanks to the endless bee gossip, my authority had finally spread even to the youngest generations of my daughters. They even called "Father" without being told to!
"Great. You will learn how to be sneaky… and to walk a lot. First, you must learn how to hide your bright coloring."
Black and yellow looked nice, but could be seen for miles away.
As my students watched, I walked up to a patch of mud nearby and dipped my hands in it. Then I sared the dirt over my face.
Not enough.
With so swearing, I took off my bone armor and began rolling in the mud like a pig! I didn't stop until I felt like the mud was literally everywhere, even under my leaf skirt.
〔A temporary special ability gained: 'Camouflage II'.〕
〔Camouflage II: reduces chances of being spotted by sight and sll.〕
I looked and slled like a mud demon, and my wings itched badly from the dirt on it. I beat them to shake so off, and turned to my audience.
"Behold. The camouflage! Now do the sa thing—get that mud all over yourself."
"Yes, Father!"
"We got it, Father!"
"Our mud will be just like yours, Father!"
The bees went right to the mud and began rolling in it.
A couple minutes later, I beca a leader of an entire squad of mud demons. With grass sticking out of their gray and brown mud covering, they really blended with their surroundings infinitely better than before.
The mud also hid our slls. Now we more resembled ants or even wood lice, not bees.
But that wasn't enough if my bees were going to fly loudly around, beat their wings for no reason, and whisper among each other all the ti.
"Ti to get *really* stealthy, girls. We are going silent. No one in this forest should hear us move."
This was much harder to teach my bees than the dirt-rolling. Especially since I was bad at sneaking myself!
But for two days, we learned together. On the third day, I quickly taught them the basics of swinging hamrs at the enemies of the bee state.
And on the fourth day, when all the bone armor was ready and my Craftsn Bees were back to making string, I deed us ready to sneak into the Danger Zone.
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