Chapter 549: Double standards
The mercenaries stared in fear and wonder at their unexpected saviours. One of them—a leader—even dared to step up and say something questioning to Malevolence’s humans nearby. Others have stared wide-eyed at the bees buzzing around.
"He asks humans who they are, and what WE are," Agent Eloquence said to Malevolence. "I suggest you let Ramwill speak with them. He’s more charismatic than any other human who knows the Vardish language..."
Malevolence nodded.
"I leave directing the negotiation to you, Eloquence. I want the mercenary patent, and if possible, mercenaries themselves. They look... weak. An easy target for conquering."
They still had combat spirit in them, but there were a lot of losses around. Even more, they already saw how deadly bees were. If Malevolence threatened them, she was sure they would cave.
Eloquence smirked and nodded, reading Malevolence’s thoughts.
"Yes, exactly. Don’t worry, it will be an easy fight. Fight with words, that is. I doubt you will need weapons again today."
The Agent was completely right.
After only a brief conversation with Ramwill, the mercenary leader bowed to him. There was a small exchange of human trinkets, and then more negotiations.
Malevolence didn’t watch them herself. She just threatened Ramwill with the consequences of stirring up trouble, left Eloquence in charge, and went to organise the looting and the cleanup.
Corpses always attracted a lot of scavengers, and someone had to guard them even if they weren’t going to be eaten. To Malevolence’s annoyance, dissecting human bodies negatively affected the morale of all the humans nearby, including her human allies.
At least since they still had a lot of crocodile carcasses, there wasn’t any actual need to dismantle human carcasses. Malevolence simply didn’t like their meat and hides going to waste.
After the negotiations were over, Eloquence came to her to report.
By human standards, the negotiations didn’t take long—only half an hour, during which other humans and bees didn’t even finish cleaning the mercenaries’ camp.
"The mercenaries gave Ramwill the patent! Temporarily, at least—but we don’t need it forever, anyway," Eloquence said proudly. "We convinced the mercenaries to accept us into their company and make Ramwill a temporary leader as gratitude for saving us and not killing them, too. They were chasing these bandits, but they ambushed them instead."
"They aren’t very competent, then," Malevolence replied. "But they will be of use, too."
"Definitely. Ramwill already bends them to his will, so as long as you keep your hold on him, Grand Commander... Oh, they also said that we should keep the heads of bandits. They can be sold for human coins in the Ferwall."
Malevolence scrunched her face in confusion.
"What? Don’t humans hate when dead human bodies are meddled with?"
"This is a special case. Just... please, do this! The coins might be useful for us later. We can always smelt them into metal, after all."
Eloquence’s efforts were in vain—Malevolence didn’t need any convincing to NOT waste human meat, bones and other materials. Even if the use was just to exchange them for metal in the form of coins.
Most bodies weren’t put into the ground yet, anyway. And the army wouldn’t continue on its way until tomorrow.
"I will give the order, Eloquence. But I hope you aren’t lying that the morale of our humans won’t be affected. These fickle creatures..."
"Oh, I question their double standards myself all the time, Grand Commander!"
This was going to be the final stretch of their journey to the mountain. After that, the army would stay in one place for a long time...
***
I wondered how Malevolence and her expedition were doing. Our connection with the Vardish continent was terribly flimsy, and at this stage, I could do nothing about it.
But my Researchers could!
Every week, they would build a new prototype of a plane—a transport that could cross an entire ocean within hours! In theory.
In practice, the prototypes I’ve seen so far were too flimsy to last in the air for long enough to reach the other continent. They were all simple old-school models with twin wings made out of living stone or even plywood.
These planes were both similar to Earth ones and nothing alike them. They were built for bees to control them, and were both more and less advanced than the first planes built on Earth. They had complex control mechanisms that required crews of bees to operate them and even used some electricity inside.
Despite being built for bees, they were gigantic—large enough to fit a human, but with no humans inside. The place was instead left for fuel and supplies.
I really liked these slightly alien designs and was really excited to see the point at which these planes could travel all the way to the Ashida continent. I and Amby took a few short trips on some of them, and it was very exciting—they flew faster than even black dragons!
Whenever Helping-Hands came to me with a new stack of reports, I would always perk up, expecting something new about the planes. Sometimes I was disappointed, sometimes not.
Today, I was shocked.
’Father,’ she said telepathically, stepping closer and leaning forward as if fearing that even her thoughts would be overheard. ’Hive Mind Precio-Us wanted to speak with you about "something that must not be mentioned aloud". They say that you will understand what they meant.’
I did.
The research in the mysterious matters of gods and their destruction... After more hive minds were (inevitably) created, I told Precio-Us to focus fully on it. All their incredible cognitive power was put into only this task.
When a hive mind focused so intently on something, even the most complex research tasks ended up solved within days (to Researchina’s excitement). But there were no advancements, even small ones, in the "mysterious sound" project ever since it started.
"Thank you, Helping-Hands dear. Leave the other reports here and tell Precio-Us that they can send someone to me."
How game-changing will this research be?