Chapter 590: The next ruler of Ashida
It took three weeks for a ssenger to travel close enough to send a telepathic ssage toward Hive Supremo. A week later than in my most optimistic predictions, an infinite amount of weeks sooner than in my most pessimistic.
The ssage sent by Malevolence was long and detailed.
So of it belonged to the crew of the Dragon-Bee, who wanted to share the exciting news of their journey.
As per one of our plans, the entire plane was put on a trade ship, together with its entire crew, to be delivered back to our continent by sea. The trade ships built by humans and modernised by bees were large enough for a plane of Dragon-Bee’s size, although it took a lot of its cargo capacity.
The crew told a story about how they had to steer the Dragon-Bee through fog, storms and even a flock of hungry dragons to reach the shores of the Ashida continent, and how they broke a landing wheel during the landing.
The latter was a cause for their delay to return—so repairs had to be made before the plane could be put on a ship, and since ships didn’t leave the Ashida continent daily, Malevolence gave an order to delay ship schedules a little so the plane could travel with the next one.
Either way, despite those small mishaps, the flight was a success, and the cargo in it was delivered, unhard, to the Ashida continent.
The next part of the ssage was from Malevolence and her advisers. She thanked for the helpers and for the directives… and gave a reply to my question about her position as a crusader or a civil leader.
It was short.
“‘I can’t wait to kill things for the Empire, Father. Direct and my soldiers at enemies, if you want. Let soone else deal with humans,'” I read aloud from a sheet of paper on which all the ssages were dutifully transcribed by an Attendant. “Huh. Well, I’m surprised she worked with them as well as she did. Considering how much of it she was doing—way more than I expected, to be honest.”
Ambrosia, to whom I was sharing this report, smiled.
“She’s growing wise and patient with her age,” she said. “It’s a good quality for any leader, both military or a civil one. I hope she didn’t enter into any actual troubles with her humans?”
I scrolled with my eyes past several other pages of the ssage.
“No. It says that she has united a few more minor human settlents under her rule and spread belief in Mother-Nature to them. Emperor Ramwill is still in fear of her, which was strengthened when Malevolence sent Beemarines to eliminate warriors from a settlent that wanted to keep its independence from the Bee Empire.”
Amby tilted her head.
“Are Vardish humans so easy to scare that just killing so of their own does it? In the past, they were more stubborn.”
“This particular human, as I understand it, is smarter than average, while also having a strong self-preservation instinct. He’s so smart that he realises how easily Malevolence could kill him if she wanted to. anwhile, his self-preservation instinct doesn’t let him forget it. But soone else could be in Malevolence’s place, I’m sure.”
Now we only had to finalise these plans. Make a transition, install soone in Malevolence’s place… Perhaps the human emperor could take so logistical burden off the new ruler’s shoulders.
From the last reports compiled by Malevolence’s lead Agent Eloquence, I knew that Ramwill took to leadership well despite having a poor education as a lowborn human.
He had to deal with a lot of things in the wake of his coup, even considering that Agent Bees guarded him and directed his every step. Despite this, he managed to unite even nobles who at first looked at him like they were dirt under their feet. This was not only thanks to his charisma, but also thanks to his cunning and natural instincts.
Perhaps Ramwill was a human, and it would take a literal decade for him to understand intricate details of bee society, but at the very least, he could understand so of its logistics.
Enough to take so of the administrative work of ruling the Ashida continent on his shoulders.
“But is he worthy enough of this?” I thought aloud.
“He? Who? Are you talking about a human?” Amby asked.
I cleared my throat and explained to her my idea, only for her to shake her head almost imdiately.
“This is a poor idea, Necty. You suggest that a human directs bees? It can only be the other way around!”
“I didn’t an that! Honestly, I don’t trust him to have our best interests in mind as much as you don’t. But for other reasons.”
Amby didn’t trust humans because she was a bee and humans were an unknown, unpredictable and inherently hostile value. I didn’t trust humans because I was a human (at least in the past) and knew exactly what they were able to do. They were a known and unpredictable, inherently egoistical value.
“Then what did you an?” Ambrosia asked.
“Humans in the Bee Empire already make various requests to bees, which helps us identify problems they face and deal with them. Ramwill could do the sa things, but at a larger… depth. If he knew more about how the Bee Empire functions, he could do more thought-through requests, which would be more useful to us. Beco an almost co-ruler, perhaps…”
“I still think this is a poor idea. Everybody so far said that Ramwill is untrustworthy and only follows us out of fear, when the experience of Agents shows that the best human followers are those who obey out of fear, gratitude and awe combined.”
“Ramwill has fear and gratitude—bees brought him to a position he couldn’t even dream about when he was on his own,” I countered. “All we need to truly trust him is his awe. And wasn’t everything the Bee Empire showed him so far already awe-inspiring enough?”
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