Reincarnated To Evolve My Bee Empire

I could finally look at a living metal-eater with my system sight. Their secrets were going to be revealed to me, and dozens of my daughters watched this with impatience and curiosity.

Most of them were soldiers standing by to protect me and the hive, or Researchers and Physicians that were called in to make notes and examined the metal-eater with me.

Without pomp, the soldiers that carried the creature opened the wriggling cloth sack and let the beast inside get out. It had nowhere to run, anyway—we were inside a spacious holding cell, and it was surrounded by armed bees.

The living metal-eater looked somehow even more ugly than the dead one—probably because of its flailing short limbs—but it wasn't what shocked me the most.

〔Beetle larva〕

〔Health〕: 14 / 26

〔Stamina〕: 8 / 25

〔Species〕: Spotted Mountainboring Beetle

The destructive and dangerous metal-eaters were just some beetle larva. Not even adult beetles, larva! This felt a little pathetic.

The creature's genes were the opposite of pathetic, though.

There were various stat enhancements and things I expected like "Camouflage X" and "Weak Smell IX". The larva had 70 intelligence thanks to "Enhanced Intelligence VII"!

70 intelligence! These creatures were almost as smart as bees and humans. Perhaps on the level of a dog or a gorilla… However, although I pried into the larva's head, I couldn't hear anything from its thoughts besides some white noise.

Besides the familiar things, there was an entire list of genes that made my brows rise.

"Acid Saliva V", "Absolute Omnivore", "Empathic Hiding III", "Destructive Instinct", "Guided Instinct"…

I had no idea what half of them even did! The other half just looked like powerful genes full of requirements and which would cost someone like me a shitton of points to buy.

Someone must've spent a lot of effort on these creatures.

"Do you understand something, Father?" Tabletina asked, quietly approaching me.

The larva tried to crawl away from the bees, but the soldiers encircled it. Realizing that it had nowhere to run, it curled into a ball, as if trying to become smaller. My girls were watching it tensely, expecting the larva to attack at any moment—it wasn't even tied up, after all.

Instead, we all saw how the larva's skin began changing colors with incredible speed and precision. In a blink of an eye, it started to look almost as if I was staring at an empty floor! The illusion was only broken by a few open gashes on the creature's skin, as well as other bits of dirt on it.

"Wow! That's a great show of what a high tier of camouflage can do!" I exclaimed, turning toward Tabletina. "Makes me almost be sad that I didn't evolve in this direction. No way you or anyone comes up with a way to imitate *this* anytime soon, hm?"

She nodded, but smiled.

"Yes, Father. No Artist can draw camouflage paint on anyone this fast. However, I'm glad that our theories proved correct. And the creature has almost no scent when it doesn't rot. It could hide from our scouts and mecha crew members with ease."

I shook my head.

"No, this isn't enough. Not for mechas. Even here—"

I turned around toward the larva and paused.

It wasn't there! No… No, of course it was—but it took me at least a dozen seconds to spot one of its wounded, which looked almost floating in the air.

After I refocused my eyes, the rest of the larva became visible again. I let out a breath.

This was beyond simple camouflage! Before I looked away from it, I had no problems finding it thanks to the bloody gashes. The larva was too quiet compared to all the bees to search for it by sound, too.

Around me, other bees seemed to have no problems like mine—probably because none of them looked away? Even Tabletina's eyes were turned toward it at all times.

Everybody was either too tense or too curious.

"Hm. Girls!" I clapped my hands together. "I need a few volunteers to test something…"

I got them immediately, of course. The puzzled Tabletina had to make sure that most of the bees present were still dutifully guarding the larva.

I made the volunteers look at the larva and away, then back at the larva. After a few turns like that, with different iterations of people looking, I had a pretty clear idea of what was going on.

And not only me.

"Something makes it hard to focus your eyes on the larva even when you know it's here! When someone is already looking at the larva, they are immune to this, but as soon as they look away and back, they have to find it with their eyes all over again," Tabletina summarized with palpable excitement. She was smiling and gesturing with her scalpel in the air. "Could this result from its advanced camouflage? The study of these patterns might help in making our own camouflage costumes even better if so."

I shook my head.

"No. But I think I know the answer now!"

'Empathic Hiding'—this had to be it. Although the name of the gene could mean a different thing, I was almost sure that it allowed the metal-eaters to hide better.

The effect, based on its name, was probably telepathic. That other creatures used some of these "magical" genes was already disturbing to me.

Things were worse because I didn't know what its two other genes—"Destructive Instinct" and "Guided Instinct"—were doing.

However, now that I knew how the larva was hiding, I had at least an idea about how they could be caught, which I immediately explained to the bees present.

"And we can test this idea immediately!" I added, smiling. "Release this metal-eater outside somewhere and catch it using my instructions."

A bee gasped.

"Father, but what if we can't?!" she asked pitifully. "This metal-eater can still be dangerous!"

I chuckled.

"Oh, don't worry. I'm sure we have hundreds more like them right under our feet, anyway…"