grunt.
grunt.
“The honey of the shade bee!!! I never thought this would be here!!!”
Wolfie vigorously waggled his tail as if he had found some very valuable treasure, but none of us had any knowledge of the beasts that lived in this border area.
But isn’t it common knowledge that bees collect honey?
“Does the nectar of shade bees have any good properties?”
“Yep!”
Wolfie nodded vigorously up and down and began to explain.
“This shadow bee witch doesn’t usually make honey, right? But there is a time when this shade bee produces honey on its own inside its body. When do you think that would be?”
If you ask me again, you won’t get a sharp answer. But first of all, Wolfie seemed to be in a good mood, so I wanted to match the rhythm.
‘Murder and kill…’
Maybe my mother, who was next to me, was also interested, and she was seriously contemplating the answer to the question that Wolfie gave.
A queen bee threaded with honey that she doesn’t normally make and a large purple skewer.
Combining these two facts gave an approximate answer.
“The nectar of the shade bee seems to have an effect related to the recovery of wounds.”
“that’s right! How did you match it?”
“Anyway, the current situation seems to be that someone wanted the nectar of the shade bees, so they deliberately put that big iron skewer on the queen bee.”
‘Kill kill!’
My mother agreed that I had exactly the same thought. After listening to Wolfie’s words, I focused on my sense of smell, and a faint scent of honey drifted through my nose.
Dacia glanced at the injured queen bee and smiled.
“Because it’s honey… Honey doesn’t rot easily, so I don’t know how much honey from shade bees there is, but I think it would be nice to keep it and eat a little whenever I feel like eating something sweet.”
Wolfie looked at Dakia and me face to face and asked very carefully.
“Ho, could you take care of me a little too?”
I briefly exchanged glances with Dacia and smiled softly. Thanks to Wolfie, I was able to save Jamel on time, and I had no intention of not paying a separate reward for working so enthusiastically from the beginning.
“No matter how much nectar from the shade bees you have, I’ll take care of it in moderation.”
“really? Yay-ho!”
Wolfie, who jumped briefly, waggled her tail and approached the living queen bee because she couldn’t really die. Since most of the shadow bees had been eliminated on the way here, there was not a single shadow bee left in the room to protect the queen bee.
right! right! right! right!
As Wolfie approached, the queen of the shady bees slammed her chins together violently, but of course those meaningless gestures posed no threat to Wolfie. We followed Wolfie into the hole behind the queen bee.
“Wow!”
Jamel, who checked the inside of the oyster, exclaimed. To be honest, the scene in front of us right now was a spectacular sight worthy of admiration.
The whole huge cavity was filled with hexagonal barrels of honey that glowed golden. To be exact, only one-quarter of the barrels were full of real honey, and the other three-quarters had caterpillars presumed to be shadow bee larvae curled up.
‘killing!’
At the strong smell of honey rising from the huge cavity, my mother smiled and tugged at my collar.
‘killing…?’
I asked if it would be okay to go and eat it with just one dip with my finger. I readily nodded.
“Of course it is fine.”
‘killing!’
With a smile, the mother quickly approached the nearby barrel of honey, poked and pulled her finger into the flowing honey, and brought it to her mouth. And Wolfy, who saw this, was astonished and grabbed his mother’s arm.
“Wait a minute!”
‘Kill!!!’
Suddenly, my mother grabbed my wrist and shook it off, frowning. My mother glared at Wolfie with extremely displeased eyes, then returned to me and tugged at my collar.
‘Kill kill!’
I just laughed bitterly at the angry complaint that he dared not eat honey.
“Is the shade bee’s honey supposed to be eaten after going through a special recipe?”
Judging from the smell it gives off, I think it would be okay to just eat it like other honey.
“It doesn’t matter if I just eat it, but I think I’ll have to eat it after I know what I know…”
She glanced at the hives and opened her mouth.
“The efficacy of this honey to heal wounds is really good, isn’t it? Really, most drugs are so good that I can’t even give them a business card. It has great taste too! But where did you hear about the existence of this honey?”
Come to think of it, if it was so effective, there was no way that Dakia and I had never heard of it.
“There must be something wrong.”
“huh. In fact, these honeys are not really ‘honey’. It was just named honey because it was created by a shady bee, a beast in the form of a bee. To be precise, this is the secretion produced by the shady bee after eating ‘something’.”
It was obvious without even looking at what ‘something’ Wolfie had avoided mentioning.
human. No, if I had to broaden it, they were intelligences of various races. Humans weren’t the only ones among the victims hardened with wax.
“Honey made by ingesting people as food. If you knew where this honey came from, there would be many people who would be reluctant no matter how effective it is.”
“huh. So I dried it once. Of course, as it is a very effective drug, there are quite a few places that want it even if it is not openly traded! Because I know someone who can handle this very well? If you leave it to me, I’ll dispose of it well at a really good price and bring it to you with money! Aww?! I can’t eat it!”
Even after hearing about the process of making this honey, the mother put her finger in the honey with a completely unconcerned expression, dipped it in the honey, and put it in her mouth.
‘killing!!!’
The intense reaction that it was really really too sweet. Mother shuddered and dipped her finger in the honey and licked it, enjoying the taste of the honey. Apparently, just as my mother doesn’t pay much attention to what the animals grew up on when we ate meat, it seemed that the secretions secreted by shade bees after eating people didn’t matter as long as they tasted good.
Wolfie looked at her mother, who licked the honey off her fingers, with disgusted eyes. Judging from those eyes, Wolfie never seemed to want to taste the honey himself.
I turned my head and looked at the faces of Jamel and Dacia. Both of them looked at the honey with an expression of loss of appetite after hearing Wolfie’s story.
Crackling!
I don’t even feel the taste, but I didn’t eat sweets because there was no reason to eat them. In the end, only Stroom and Mother, brought by Terzio, were the only two in the party who tasted the honey produced by the shadow bees to their heart’s content.
While my mother settled down and tasted the honey, I asked Tergio for my mother and returned with the rest to the room where the queen bee was threaded.
right! right! right! right!
Dacia looked at the queen bee, who only had a stiff jaw and was protesting meaninglessly, and asked me.
“Shall we just burn it right away?”
“Joe I think that’s a great idea! Just burn it all without leaving even ashes!!!”
Jamel glared at the queen bee with a vengeful spirit. From her point of view, who almost got eaten, that gigantic queen bee would never get angry even if she chewed it very carefully.
“Oh, no!”
Wolfie, who was watching me, quickly jumped out and blocked Dakia’s way. Dacia narrowed her eyes and glared at Wolfy.
“Take care of honey that has already been made is a problem that I can tolerate, but if you are thinking of making a farm for human-eating shady bees, stop it right away.”
Jamel waved his hand next to Dakia and shouted passionately.
“Get out of there right now!!! I’m not going to call it that now… but if you want to stop the princess who punishes that vile queen bee!!! I will call you a traitor again!!! all right?!!!!”
“Oh no. listen to me! I didn’t block it in that sense! I just thought it would be better not to burn it if I’m going to burn it anyway, but to keep the queen alive until I can retrieve that honey, and then sell it everywhere as a fresh ingredient! thats right! Burning this now is the same as burning money!”
“money…? Could that be… a gold unit…?”
Jamel’s momentum died. Wolfie added words as if he had waited.
“huh! goldfinch!”
gulp.
The sound of Jamel swallowing came to me. Jamel blinked his eyes, looked at Dakia, and asked cautiously.
“Princess. Can’t I just not burn it? If you sell it, it’s the gold coin!”
Dacia looked down at Jamel, who changed her attitude as if flipping her palm at the gold coin talk.
“There’s no need to burn it right now… but what should I do?”
The question behind it was directed at me, not Jamel. After examining the giant queen bee, I made a rough decision.
“Why don’t you just keep it alive for now and then kill it right before you sell it? Then someone won’t be able to use this queen bee to set up a farm or something.”
“If we sold the corpse instead of keeping it alive, the price would drop a bit more than if we sold it alive…”
Dakia shook her head resolutely at Wolfie’s point.
“As long as there is a possibility, I have no intention of selling that monster alive. Does Jamel think so too?”
“four…?!”
Jamel rolled his eyes and smiled awkwardly.
“Of course I think so too!!!! Ahahaha!”
Clearly Jamel would have sold that queen bee alive if it had not been for Dacia. So we decided to put the Queen Bee’s life on hold until the workers arrived here.
Wolfie was busy running around, estimating the amount of honey and the size of the queen bee, and making complicated calculations. We couldn’t just leave the corpses in the wax unattended, so we planned to report this place to the city after disposing of the honey and the queen bee’s corpse.
‘Say…Hat…’
My mother, lying on the floor, complained that her head was so dizzy. He gulped down the honey, almost like a honey-loving bear. Seeing him screaming in pain like that, it was clear that he would not go near honey for a while.
“Hey… but…”
Wolfie, who had come up next to me before I knew it, asked very carefully with his ears pricked up.
“How much do you intend to take away from me…?”
That part was decided after consulting with the other party. I replied with a smile.
“I’m thinking of splitting it up according to the number of people and giving one person a share.”
“Yes?! Really?!”
I am Jamel Tergio and my mother Dacia Wolfi. Wolfie was delighted to hear that he would give him a sixth of the money he earned.
“Are you going to give me that much? really? I’m just guiding you all the way here?! You guys did all the fighting…”
“That alone was helpful enough. Besides, aren’t you selling through Wolfie’s network? With that in mind, I thought this was a fair share. Of course, I’m thinking of helping you not only leave it, but also dispose of it. Do you not like it…?”
“Kyaaaaa!!! No, it’s so good!!!”
As Wolfie jumped up and clung to my neck, my mother, who was lying down, barely raised her head and muttered in a low voice.
‘Saal… heh…’
The voice telling him to get away from there immediately had no strength because he was drunk with honey.
***
We first stole the honey and queen bees using the workers we hired through Wolfie, and then contacted the Northern Empire to return the bodies of the soldiers to where they belonged.
A few days after that, I faced a man leading a huge group of dead. The trumpeter of rest holding a white trumpet in one hand happened to be someone with whom I had no acquaintance. The same trumpeter who dealt with the Ragged Giant together in Eradico long ago.
He looked at my face and said something in an unpleasant voice.
“I came to work. It’s the second time I see a face, but it’s not very nice. Because the walking problem mass always refuses.”
“Still, I’m pretty happy. Thanks to you, I stopped by the capital and found what I was looking for.”
When the death and rest trumpets thanked him for revealing the location of the relic the other day, he replied in a still gruff voice.
“I just taught you what I ordered from above, so don’t pretend to be close to me. So, where are the dead?”
