Reincarnated To Evolve My Bee Empire

When the Vardish reinforcements realized they had reached Castle Soneraht too late, it was also too late for them to avoid a fight with our army.

It was yet another victory, one that was even cleaner than before! Not only this time the Vardish army was about the same size as ours, they were tired from a long march while the Naregan and the bee soldiers had time to rest.

With the help of the Bee Empire, Gresch was on the roll of victories after victories in the eyes of his soldiers. Of course, the bees were also revered as divine bringers of said victories.

After this victory the religious fervor of troops became so high that they ransacked the small temple in the Castle Soneraht so they could place a primitive shrine to me, using symbols that bees carried on banners: notably, the sun-like image that symbolized me with many hands to pat many daughters and strike many enemies.

It was incredible. It was amazing.

The bee culture was infecting humans naturally, without bees forcing it! And this was only one moment—I was sure there were more examples of this in places where bee fortress-hives were guarding human fields.

The future of this war campaign in the Eastern Expanse Reach looked bright, so I declared my intent on leaving the front line without worrying that my subordinates won't be able to finish the rest themselves.

To this, Bloodimina made her squarest face and the sharpest salute.

"I won't let you down, Father. This place will be conquered and cleansed! We will bring it to you whole or in cinders—whatever it takes."

Everybody else didn't want to see me go, but were eager to prove their worth and conquer the rest of the Eastern Expanse Reach.

Then I had to take a long and arduous flight on the dragon rider who came all the way from Naregan's capital city to pick me up. There I had to switch dragons to reach Hive Supremo…

And finally, finally, hug Ambrosia and kiss her plenty. I missed her so much while I was away! And she missed me too, which she was only eager to prove by testing my stamina to its limits.

All for the hive, of course, so that Ambrosia could lay a lot of eggs. There were already several broods worth of gaps in the regular egg-laying schedule, and they were going to mess up the distribution of new workers and replacements of the old ones (who regularly died both from natural causes and accidents even in the cleansed and peaceful parts of the Bee Empire; the death counts were higher near the borders).

Yeah, I definitely couldn't leave Amby alone for too long if I didn't want to die from snu-snu upon return!

But after this, the fun times were over. Duties fell upon me.

Not only I also had to spray morphotyping pheromones in several hives over (at least I could morphotype several broods at once as long as they were still at larvae stage), I was also assaulted by all the other things that waited for my attention until now.

I've dealt with some administrative tasks remotely while in Eastern Expanse Reach, and my Advisers have managed a part of my usual duties themselves, but there were still a lot of things that were pushed aside until my return.

Now I sat in my study and stared at a literal pile of reports that Attendant Helping-Hands placed in front of me. It was tall, like a dozen books stacked on top of each other!

"Inventing paper was a mistake. If these were on wax tablets, you'd never be able to carry them here, and I'd never have to see all of them!" I said, dropping my head on my hands. "Dammit…"

Ambrosia sat at a chair next to me and rubbed me between the wings soothingly.

"This is just your Drone nature acting, Necty. While all female bees crave work, all you innately need is to eat, mate, and sleep."

I jolted at these gently spoken words, feeling like a spike went through my heart, but Amby wasn't done!

"Since you don't want to deal with this, you can go to bed now, and I will take care of this now, just I dealt with other things while you were gone."

"Nooooo! I'm going to work, I'm going to work now!" I hurriedly grabbed the first report while waving at Amby with a free hand. "Just don't compare me to other Drones, Amby! Never, never-ever-ever do that!"

She smiled and giggled a little.

"Oh, this manipulation tactic was much more effective than the usual pleading of our daughters. I wonder if this was because you were a human yourself once, or is it universal? Either way, the Agent Bee instructor that gave me this advice deserves a reward… I should let her have more students."

My shoulders slumped.

"You are terrible, Amby. Terrible! Were you actually sitting on manipulation lessons?"

"I was curious about them after reviewing the lesson plan for the Academy, and I had some free time to listen to them. It was very educational, and I feel like every Queen should learn some of the things in it," Ambrosia said, still smiling. "Will you deal with these reports, though, Necty?"

I glared at them for a moment.

"You know what? Now that I know this was a manipulation tactic that you just tested on me…" I set the report I picked aside and pushed the rest of the pile away. "I don't *have* to. They waited several weeks, they can wait a little longer!"

Ambrosia raised her eyebrows in surprise, but I wasn't done yet.

"Amby, instead of all this, show me the mechas! I've got your reports about their production, but I want to see them all myself—inside, outside, unfinished ones… Where's Tamsha? Where's Engine-See? They should show me… No, show *us*! It's going to be like a walk in an amusement park. Let's go on a date to the mecha-building factory!"