Reincarnated To Evolve My Bee Empire

I weighed the pros and cons again in my head and eventually made my decision.

'We will try to storm this fortress first. Give an order to build long stairs and prepare planks that could be put over the moat to serve as bridges for your soldiers.'

'Yes, Your Majesty. Finally, our warriors will be able to prove themselves in the eyes of gods…' Gresch thought back, enthusiastic despite his suggestion being declined. He just had too much blind faith in my decisions.

I knew that for the stability of the Empire, I won't be able to stay here if a long siege started. At the very least, I will have to say hi to Amby and make sure Hive Supremo, the heart of the Bee Empire, was in a good shape.

If I stayed away from her for too long, my wife would kill me! In the most pleasurable way (by milking me absolutely dry), but death is still a death!

I also had to morphotype new generations of Beemarines and Beehounds, which was also something I could only do personally.

"Bloodimina," I returned to my Grand Commander. "Prepare assassins, after all. Make sure they are ready for anything. If they can kill the commandant, it will help us a lot."

She saluted.

"Yes, Father. They will succeed or die trying!"

"No, no dying! They must retreat if they meet more enemies they can deal with."

"Very well. Then they will succeed or retreat or die trying to retreat!" Bloodimina said with the same straight face.

I chuckled.

"Place a couple of Beehounds with the Beemarine assassins, so the group could report to you their progress in real time." Unlike Beemarines, who only had 'Telepathy V', Beehounds had 'Telepathy X', which let them reach the camp with their messages all the way from the castle. "I would really prefer nobody dies out there without a need."

"As you always are, Father," Bloodimina said with sudden solemnity. "But you were the one who taught Adviser Bloodhero, who taught me that sometimes smaller sacrifices are necessary to prevent more deaths. I don't want to go against your wishes, but if humans can take this fortress without our help, I would almost welcome it. But they need at least some assassinations to win this fight."

I raised my eyebrows.

So Bloodimina suggested I sacrifice the human army in this assault instead of the bee one. It almost sounded like a good decision… But human lives also had value.

After all, these humans were still necessary to counter Eastern Expanse Reach of the Vardish Empire. And then the rest of the Vardish Empire.

"You know, that was some pretty smart logic, Bloodimina. But bees and humans are in this together, for better or worse. We need them," I smirked and ruffled Bloodimina's hair. She blushed a little and glanced away in palpable embarrassment.

"Of course… The mechas are still not built yet!" Bloodimina replied, completely misinterpreting my words. "Then we will attack the castle together with the human soldiers?"

"Yes. Hopefully, human fighting will scare the worst of the pests away…"

***

The garrison of Castle Soneraht didn't attack that day. The agents sent to spy on the commandant's thoughts told me he expected an assault from us and was readying themselves to block it and counterattack.

But this gave us time to prepare.

For the rest of the day, my army's Builder Bees guided the human soldiers as they cut down living mountains from a nearby grove of them. Later, they will use the living stone to make ladders, bridges and even siege shields.

I didn't bother ordering making ballistas, since this would take too much time, and a fortress like Castle Soneraht was built to resist any ranged attacks extremely well.

They would just out-shoot any ballistas with their cannons.

The cannoneers from Castle Soneraht tried to shoot at our camp a few times, but we were far enough away that the cannon balls fell short. But it showed how massive the distance of cannon flight was: hundreds and hundreds of kilometers.

If the human castle wasn't as massive as it was, it'd be impossible to see it from our camp.

The assassins sent by Bloodimina flew at night, and I stayed awake late with Bloodimina to listen to their reports to Bloodimina's signaler.

The bees easily reached the castle's walls unnoticed by humans, reporting all the same things Totalsilence pointed out earlier: diseases, trash and pests running rampant.

I made sure that the several immunized Physicians in our camp that served as portable carriers of the immunizing shots were ready to share blood with the assassins. I was sure they were bound to catch something in this cesspit of a fortress!

And they had to travel long distances on foot over there to not attract attention with their buzzing. The operation was taking so long that I could only go to sleep.

When I woke up, it was to bad news.

"The assassins had to return empty-handed, Father," Bloodimina reported. "They almost reached the commandant, but almost got caught in a spider's web. They successfully killed the spider, but the fight attracted attention from too many creatures in the vicinity, and even a human, so the team had to retreat immediately."

"Let the assassins rest, but send another team tomorrow night, Bloodimina. We can try it while we have time and while humans don't suspect an assassination."

The preparations for an attack weren't complete. However, the Agent Bees that were spying at the commandant's thoughts from a safe distance of a kilometer (which was allowed by their 'Telepathy X' gene) reported that the commandant was planning to wait at least a week before doing something.

The predictions of Oracles were incredibly uncertain, and I felt confident that we had at least this week to prepare for an assault.

Of course, this was when I got a report from the more remote spies that were scattered over Eastern Expanse Reach.

Vardish people have already gathered reinforcements from the area and were sending them to help Castle Soneraht!