Reincarnated To Evolve My Bee Empire-Chapter 174: If you want peace, prepare for war

Of course, Amby just stared at me blankly.

"I have no idea what you are talking about, Necty. Will you explain?"

She spoke the shortened version of my name the same way she said, "ill-in-the-head".

"Nope-nope-nope. This is a gateway to things I would rather not start. Our society is a far cry from a democratic utopia already!"

Thankfully, she didn't insist on the answer.

***

With the news brought by dragon riders, I immediately flew to Hive Rich—humans would most likely target that place.

On my way to Hive Rich, I saw the First Train on the slow journey back home. From above, it was an even grander sight. The storms it went through must've damaged the embellishments outside, but the bees clearly took good care of the train, because it looked like new.

Squads of train guards carried new trophies, clearly gathered from the predators they had to kill on their way. The train pullers looked tired, but not excessively so, despite the heavy load of metal and coal in the train carts.

When they saw me and my bodyguard squad fly above them, they cheered and waved, and I made a brief rest stop to exchange greetings with them before I was on my way again.

***

Hive Rich was quite a sight.

From above, it reminded me of medieval villages of old, built around a protected fort.

In our case, such a fort was the Hive Rich itself—a massive cavern, with hundreds of bees guarding the entrance or moving in and out.

Around it, hundreds of underground forges poked out of the ground like smoking mole mounds. Above and near it, dozens of alcoves were dug into the side of the hill, protecting ballistas ready to shoot whoever approaches the hive.

And thousands of soldiers were doing training drills in the vicinity—several swarms, the side of which was enough to deter even the worst bee predators.

As me and my entourage flew by, all who saw my shiny Forever Great armor paused and saluted, and I just had to wave back.

By the time we landed near the hive entrance, Commander Bloodimina and Hammerwork were waiting for me already, together with several other bees whose name I recognized as those of Regalia's advisers.

"Welcome, Father!" Hammerwork spoke first. "I apologize for Sister-Queen Regalia, but she's laying eggs and can't meet you. Did you come for a visit, or with news?"

"With news—and an inspection. Let's come in and chat."

I told the gist of the news on the way to the local Council Chambers.

The architecture of this hive was more spacious than in Hive Supremo, thanks to the original hornet buildings. The Council Chamber was more spacious, too—but it lacked Hive Supremo's wall map.

I noted to myself that I should send a Beehound to copy it to other hives, and to Hive Supremo archives.

"By my estimation, we don't have much time left," I concluded. "The giants might arrive here as early as today. Or perhaps tomorrow, especially if those clouds I saw on my way here will turn into another storm."

"You have already predicted this attack, and we are ready for a fight when it comes, Father," Bloodimina assured. "5 thousand Warrior Bees, 5 thousand Beemarines—half of this number will be enough to kill a dozen giants. We will be ready for their arrival this time."

"We will take our revenge against these monsters!" Hammerwork exclaimed.

For her, this was more personal than for the others… Unable to help myself, I patted her head.

"Of course you will, Hammerwork. Just remember that *you personally* aren't supposed to fight! Anyway, talk me through the other stuff. How many ballistas are ready here?"

Although we had 6000 ballistas in total, they were divided for 52 hives. A bit over 100 ballistas on average.

"500, Father. Most of them are too heavy to move around, but if a giant gets too close to Hive Supremo, we will make a pincushion out of him," Bloodimina assured. "I've trained some Warriors to use them."

"They won't be able to set the hive on fire again without being shot to death," Hammerwork said darkly.

"We have plenty of ammo for all of them—30 shots for each ballista! We made them all here, on-site, although we had to diminish metal digging to free the hands," Regalia's Industry Adviser boasted.

"No problems with materials?" I asked.

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"We have plenty of stingers, Father, thanks to all the Beemarines you sent here. Even though they protested at first… But they knew what they had to do!"

I nodded, wincing a bit.

Practice showed that a Beemarine could grow a new stinger within 2-3 days. My own stinger, with "Detachable Stinger III", recovered in a day. But taking out a stinger was about as pleasant as taking out a milk tooth.

Not really painful, but you will still prefer for it to fall out on its own!

We had no shortage of venomous tips, including a few special arrows with my extremely deadly venom—some of them should've been brought to Hive Rich, too.

Hammerwork puffed out her chest and added.

"The feathered lizards, as you call those small hunters, flee in fear in sight of our hunters—but we got enough fletching, too. And plenty of fresh meat. We've also been using bone instead of wood where we can, since we have so much of it."

I nodded.

"What about our scouts?"

Bloodimina scowled.

"They still aren't faster than the giants themselves. The best we could was to post some scouts on top of nearby pillar mountains, where they could see giants coming from far away. For other things, we must rely on reports from dragon riders in Hive Supremo… Like yours, Father."

"I see. This really makes me wish we had more than three dragons." I sighed. "Too bad they are so hard to tame, starting from adulthood. But it looks like everything is as ready as it could be."

"Yes, Father," Bloodimina nodded.

Just to be sure, I checked the colony status.