Chapter 103

Chapter 103

“See? I was just trying to help you.”

I watched as the queen bastion bee slowly fluttered up to the sky. Her wings buzzed weakly behind her, and she could hardly carry her own bodyweight. But... she was flying now.

She hadn’t even been able to move her head just half an hour ago. However, after removing the arrow puncturing her sides and giving her a cure for the poison afflicting her, she was able to quickly recover thanks to the help of a healing potion.

The entire time I was carrying out this... pseudo-surgery, the colony of bastion bees tried to fight me off. They were unsuccessful. Very unsuccessful. I didn’t even glance back once as they continuously assailed me with their stingers.

But once I had given the queen the cure, she must have realized I was there to help her. And with a single twitch of her antennae, she commanded them to stop their onslaught of attacks. Then giving a healing potion was easy, and I just had to wait until she recovered.

Now, she had mostly recovered. And she bowed her head at me gratefully. I just smiled at her, but then she raised her head. Her antennae twitched as a somber look crossed her face— an apologetic expression.

The hive descended, landing on the ground in what almost seemed to be a prostrating position. Like they were bowing at me to apologize.

“It’s fine,” I said, waving a hand dismissively. “None of your workers actually managed to hurt me. You don’t have to apologize to me.”

The queen bastion bee cocked her head. But her workers didn’t budge. I just snorted as I gestured vaguely back towards the entrance of the cavern.

“If you really apologize to someone, go and apologize to Dorien. I’m pretty sure you guys hurt his feelings by attacking him.”

The colony of bastion bees raised their heads. The queen’s mandibles clicked together, and she slowly drifted forward. I watched as she flew past me, heading down the tunnel. She paused as she glanced back at me one last time. I nodded and trailed after her.

Her hive didn’t follow. They remained idle while their queen flew with me by her side. She was still in a weakened state, so she couldn’t move too quickly. I was pretty sure that she was still trying to readjust to flying after lying inert for a few months.

We exited the cavern soon enough. The sun had already set; it was nighttime at this point, so it was completely dark. Dorien was waiting for us right outside— just where I had left him. He blinked when he saw the queen, before dashing forward.

“You did it!” he exclaimed.

“Yeah,” I said as I handed him a half-empty vial. It was the cure— there was still some of the magical antidote left. “Here, I didn’t use it all.”

“Right, thank you.” The [Druid] accepted it, before quickly pocketing it into his bag.

A soft buzzing drew his attention to the side, and he turned to face the queen bastion bee. She was staring at him with her bulbous red eyes— they shimmered briefly as he gaped in awe. Her mandibles fluttered as a clicking sound left her mouth.

Was she... talking to Dorien? Apparently so.

“O-oh, you don’t have to apologize, Queen Quebi,” he said as he bowed his head.

“Quebi?” I asked with a raised brow. “Did you name her?”

He shook his head. “That is the name she had given herself.”

“I see.” I just watched as the [Druid] and the queen bastion bee continued their conversation.

Slowly, she spread her mandibles wide open as I narrowed my eyes. Dorien himself was taken aback. But he wasn’t alarmed. He just opened his mouth wide.

“I—” he started.

And a green liquid started to drip from her mandibles. She secreted a glowing ooze as Dorien’s eyes went wide. He quickly cupped his hands together before reaching out to collect whatever it was.The origin of this chapter's debut can be traced to N0v3l--B1n.

I did not expect that when I asked her for some honey. I was expecting her to let me regularly visit her hive to collect her honey or something— not... this. And, apparently, this was a big deal.

“Queen Quebi has refused to expand her hive for as long as I have known her,” Dorien said, eyeing the queen bastion bee with a soft gaze. “The fact that she is entrusting a new hive to you... it means she trusts you to protect them.”

She buzzed her wings, bobbing her body in agreement. I stared at her for a moment. I saw the way she looked at me— even though she was a giant bee, I could see the worry in her face. She must have been afraid. She must have been terrified, knowing that she was dying and that there was nothing she could do to save herself.

If she had perished from the poison or her wounds, her species would have truly gone extinct. That creeping fear must have been more prevalent in her mind now than ever— that was why she was giving me some of her workers to start a new hive. So that even if something were to happen to her, her people would still pervade.

I sighed. That was a lot of weight to place on my shoulders. But I just nodded as I held Quebi’s gaze.

“Yeah, I’ll protect them,” I finally said as I brought a hand up to pat the young bastion bee that was carrying the eggs. “So don’t worry about them too much.”

The queen bastion bee made a chirping sound. Once again, she bowed her head. I returned the gesture, and it almost looked like she was smiling. With that, she finally returned back to her hive as Dorien just gaped at the scene.

I waited until Quebi was finally gone, then I turned to face the twelve worker bastion bees. I pressed my lips into a thin line as I scratched the back of my head.

“Alright... now how am I supposed to bring you guys back to Wolfwater without causing a panic?”

Maybe I could convince Z to placate the village. He was an angel, so everyone would listen to him, right?

“...where is he even at anyways?”

I still didn’t know where he disappeared to. He said he wanted to save the world or whatever. I didn’t fully trust him— but I also didn’t trust what the Voidgod said about angels, either. So I just hoped that Z wasn’t causing trouble for anyone with whatever he was doing.

—--

Guardian Angel Z357 tore through another rift. He hurriedly dispelled the Void’s essence, before flying down the tunnel to another rift. He repeated the process again. Then he did it again. And again. And again.

He had been going at it for a few hours now. Yet, the onslaught of outpouring rifts never stopped. He must have closed over a hundred of them at this point, but they kept popping up elsewhere in this intricate tunnel system.

It was getting exhausting. But the angel didn’t falter. He couldn’t falter. If he allowed these rifts to fester and foster, all of Planet 16B could be quickly overwhelmed by voidlings and voidbeasts in the matter of weeks. The situation was starting to be akin to what it was ten thousand years ago.

No— it was even worse. While plenty of rifts had opened up back then, there weren’t nearly as many as right now.

Or maybe the current situation wasn’t as bad as he thought. These rifts were mostly nascent in nature, after all. If one was left to fully mature, there might not have been as many other rifts opening up.

Guardian Angel Z357 didn’t fully comprehend the depths of the power of the Fal-Deus. He simply knew that it was the Void causing this incursion down here, and he had to stop it from wreaking calamity unto the world.

He swept his gaze around the tunnel network, his twelve eyes peering through the walls as he searched for more rifts. But he paused when he saw half a dozen rifts vanishing all at once.

They were... closing?

The rifts began to flicker and vanish as Guardian Angel Z357 narrowed his twelve eyes. He hovered in the air, carried by his wings as he looked on in confusion. He lowered his head, before blinking as the space just before him began to tear open.

He tensed, raising his lance. But this rift was larger than the others— and it formed far quicker than any other rift he had ever seen. He stopped himself from attacking just yet as he peered into the depths of the Void.

And he heard a voice.

“Greetings... Slave of the System.”