Reincarnated To Evolve My Bee Empire

If the creature had any pheromones, they have all long rotted away. Figuring out the meaning of all the other bits of meat inside of the creature based on a few rotting corpses was impossible with our level of scientific advancements.

I had a different idea.

"The metal eaters must belong to a species. When they evolved, they most likely based their way of hiding on some gene they had originally. At least, it's the cheapest way. Call the Archivists, Tabletina—I want them to sift through all sketches of caterpillars and larvae and find the ones most similar to those. Perhaps we already met the unevolved versions of these metal-eaters!"

"Yes, Father," Tabletina lowered her head. "What about the autopsy?"

I looked at the carcass with its skin and bones pulled apart, its innards full of dark, ugly bruises and old blood…

"I'm done here. You can continue the autopsy if you think you can find something useful, but probably better pass this job to one of your assistants. You have other duties, after all—as my Adviser!"

Tabletina's face fell a little, but she nodded.

"I will, Father. This autopsy just needs a bit more of my personal touch. This creature's skin is incredibly fascinating… Assistants, why none of you have brought the sketch of this creature to the Archives?"

***

The Archives we had were massive. Perfect memory couldn't save knowledge from being lost because of deaths, and it didn't help to spread it. So Archives of every hive not only had bureaucratic documentation but also notes on all things under the sun.

These notes were carefully copied so that every sub-hive had at least all the most important literature in stock. Hive Supremo's Archives were still the largest, though—they had copies of every scroll, book and tablet from every sub-hive.

Even in a hurry, the Archivists could take days to find the information I needed.

Meanwhile, I poured my efforts into preventing more successful attacks on the Bee Empire and negating the result of the last one.

The rescue operation in the mines was complete. There were thousands of dead and wounded in the end, and Titania was broken. The dead couldn't be brought back to life, but Titania wasn't broken irreparably—although it would need replacement parts.

I put it high on the list of the Empire's priorities—for morale, if nothing else. It made a lot of my girls all over the empire sad to hear that their beautiful mecha was broken by evil-doers.

Since the last time I realized we needed more scouts, several batches of Commandos have finished training. It wasn't a part of my order to get more scouts, no. These people were trained so they could replace the ones lost to natural causes and other regular accidents.

However, this time I instead ordered them to search for more metal-eaters in places where they might appear according to the predictions of Oracles. They got all the information we had on the creatures.

I didn't expect much from this search, as well as from the general tightening of security and the higher alert of all border patrols. It never worked so far—we only got the corpses for the autopsy because of luck (and the metal-eaters lack of self-preservation).

I suspected that the metal-eaters traveled underground to avoid notice, and some of Tabletina's notes confirmed this theory. My highest hope was not to stop more metal eaters from entering the Bee Empire, but to prevent any more accidents.

Especially since the rate at which the Oracles brought new predictions about them only grew.

According to the prophecies, other mechas were threatened now, too. Of course, their crew members were on especially high alert—to the point of paranoia.

After all, their sisters somehow missed the intruders, even in narrow spaces of their own mecha, where every entrance was guarded!

This paranoia diminished the effectiveness of the crew members' work: they were too distracted to pilot the mechas well. Immediately after the incident with Titania, the rate of work accidents with mechas grew by ten percent!

None of them were fatal to the mechas or the crew, but any accident meant a pause in work. A few times, mechas needed minor repairs afterward.

I knew this paranoia, if left unchecked, could deal a blow to our economics just as well as actual sabotage. But I couldn't put a stop on it—not when my girls had an actual reason to watch every shadow!

***

Five days later, a metal-eater was found alive, and it was partially because of this paranoia.

Usually, the mechas didn't have any guards outside. The open head had shutters that could be lowered as a protection from any flying predators. The rest was also armored. And the mechas had small windows in its back with bees behind them acting as extra "eyes".

This didn't give a mecha the perfectly full field of view, but it was more than enough.

However, because of paranoia, the crew of Princess-class mecha Magnificence asked some soldiers from their sub-hive to serve as the Magnificence's outer guard while they were off duty (and supposed to rest!).

The soldiers agreed to put in extra hours. Near the predicted time of attack, they were joined by a few Commandos that were trying to sniff out the metal-eaters.

They didn't sniff them out, but a soldier noticed a corrosion mark on the mecha's foot—which could've been easily mistaken for dirt if not for the paranoia of everybody.

This caused so much alarm that Magnificence's crew stopped the mecha to make one more sweep for the metal eaters…

And the Commandos have found one of these creatures, trying to chew its way through the mecha's metal wall!

It had almost no scent on its own, but when the acid pouring from its mouth touched metal, it created a scent that my girls could notice with their sensitive antennae.

The rest of the metal-eater was almost invisible. But still weak.

Even attacking blindly, my girls easily subdued it.

A bag full of a metal-eater was delivered to the Hive Supremo doorstep…