The relief I felt from landing in the stream was unlike anything I had ever felt. I hadn’t even realized how thirsty I was! The cool, gentle pressure washing over my burned thorax and dry throat felt like the soft embrace of a thousand angels.
Well, I assumed. Apparently angels weren’t a thing if my death was anything to go by.
“Such relief! You know, I think we might be alright. Thank you for saving my- no, our life, Enno.”
“Aw, thanks Queen. Sucks that something terrible is about to happen exactly ‘cause you said that!” I exclaimed between prolonged drinks of water.
I was only half joking. As relieving as the water was, I tried my best to stay alert. This dead forest had, barring the thunder, been entirely silent from the moment I woke up. Even while flying around, I didn’t hear anything or see anything move. The problem was, this was the exact type of situation where I would let down my guard and get attacked by a crazy forest troll or something.
“With our injuries treated, I would say we have a chance. If we start a new hive, survival would be trivial!”
“Uh. Sure. I’ll just give birth to a bunch of babies and feed them some ash.”
Oh. I hadn’t thought about it, but as a queen bee, laying eggs was, essentially, my whole purpose. Thankfully it seemed like I could use abilities to do it instead of… typical methods. In any case, making a hive was definitely the way to go regarding safety.
Would probably still be super weird though.
I could only assume it would benefit me considering my new species, but something more immediately important required my attention.
[Name: (Unnamed)]
[Age: 2 months]
[Subtype: Queen]
[Status: Severely Wounded]
[Abilities:
Create Egg (Lv.1) Combined Mind Queen Piping (Lv.1) Venomous Stinger]
[Mind: 10th Degree]
[Tapped Mind: 0% / 95%]
[Mind Locks:
Life (5%)]
The only change was my status in a good way, thankfully. Well, information is power, so learning more about what I can do is priority numero uno. A bit of experimenting taught me that there wasn’t much I could actually inspect for more info. My Abilities, Tapped Mind, and Mind Locks could be inspected, but that was it.
“I think learning more about Creating offspring would be very beneficial.”
Seriously? Queen’s obsession with this hive thing was only getting stronger.
“Can you be quiet for a second? I just want to learn more about what I can do,” my agitation grew, “In fact, I think I would like you to be quiet for a long while. Since I can’t be alone ever again I would at least like some quiet when I need it.”
My words came out harsher than expected, and the sudden disappearance of the almost constant gentle meaningless humming told me I might have gone too far. No matter.
With that familiar feeling in my stomach I carefully inspected everything I could in my menu.
[Subtype: Queen
Of the Bee species. A matriarchal figure which births offspring of the species and manages the collective conscious ‘hive’.
Capabilities include the creation, communication, and control of offspring.
]
Nothing crazy there. I was a Queen bee and I… birth things.
Fun. Speaking of…
[Create Egg:
Level 1
Acquired by: Birth
Using mass and mind, create an egg that will hatch into a member of your species.
Subtype Options:
Simple Worker: A drone with no unique capabilities. (Min Mind Tap: 1%) Simple Warrior: A drone built for combat. (Min Mind Tap: 1.5%)
Level up: Unlock 2 subtype options
]
The immediate problem I noticed is the mention of mass to create the egg. That meant I needed food to even start thinking about making a hive, so Queen’s desperation was moot until I managed to find some food.
[Combined Mind:
Acquired by: Attaining the impossible feat of hosting multiple Minds in one body
Impossibly, you have multiple Minds within your body. This unique trait caught the gods' attention, and this Ability was granted. Efficiency of Mind = Base Efficiency x Number of Minds.
Mind Efficiency: 2x
]
Excuse me? If my eyes could bulge, they would be falling out of my head right now. Of course, I had no frame of reference for this Ability. For all I knew, doubling Mind efficiency amounted to practically nothing.
But I wasn’t about to complain about a free power boost!
Most of the other Abilities honestly felt pretty boring in comparison.
[Queen Piping:
Level 1
Acquired by: Birth
Acoustic signals empowered by Mind. Communicate without a direct mind connection.
Level up: increase the efficiency of piping
]
[Venomous Stinger:
Acquired by: Birth
A natural weapon empowered by Mind. Tapping Mind increases the potency of venom.
]
Simple abilities with simple uses, nothing to get excited about. Looking at my Abilities did raise some questions. What was the point of some of them exactly? If I didn’t have the Stinger Ability, would I not be able to sting? So would I- or rather Queen have been born without a stinger?
Also, why list how an Ability was obtained? Was that something important about Abilties?
[Tapped Mind:
Current Mind capacity: 95%
Currently Tapped Mind: 0%
Tapped Breakdown:
None
]
Honestly, Tapped Mind only raised more questions about Abilities. Clearly, Mind was some sort of psychic power that I had judging by my assisted flying. Nothing indicated that I had obtained it somehow, and Queen’s knowledge about it seemed to imply she was born with it. So I could just use psychic superpowers without needing Abilities at all. Did everything have psychic powers in this world?
[Life:
The essence of existence. 5% of a living being’s Mind is locked to maintain Life.
WARNING: If this Lock is Deactivated or changed, you will die.
]
Oh. Well, that answers that.
I took a closer look at Mind Locks. If 5% of my mind was ‘reserved’ by the Lock, what other locks could I make?
Cringing in anticipation, I slowly ascended above the river water, the cooling stream no longer soothing my burns. Despite the renewed pain, I once again inspected my menu.
[Tapped Mind:
Current Mind capacity: 95%
Currently Tapped Mind: 1%
Tapped Breakdown:
Floating (1%)
]
Alright, so far so good.
Now, the idea was to create a Mind Lock reserving 1% of my Mind for floating. Currently, even Tapping that 1% required concentration. Since I wasn’t exactly concentrating on living (well, considering my injuries maybe a little), maybe I wouldn’t need to concentrate on floating with Mind?
Only one problem. I had absolutely no idea how to make a Mind Lock.
So far the System of this world had been incredibly intuitive, responding more to my instinct and intentions than keywords or instruction. Maybe making Locks was just as easy. I thought really hard about making a Lock, and a pressure mounted in my brain.
It was working! Suddenly my stomach lurched. Wait! The pressure broke my concentration!
I hit the riverbed with a thud as white-hot fire exploded across my body. I hadn’t fallen very far, but with injuries as bad as mine that didn’t exactly matter.
My burns were aggravated as I rolled around in pain, worsening the experience. I wasn’t exactly great at being in mortal danger.
“I cannot tell if you were sent to save my life or torture me.”
Queen’s humming reappeared for a moment before immediately going silent. Seems like she simply couldn’t help herself from making that comment. She reminded me of my coworkers in a way. She just couldn’t give up.
As the pain subsided I refocused my efforts on creating the Mind Lock. Until smacking into the ground I hadn’t considered the fact that maybe I didn’t want to be floating all the time, just in case I needed to touch burned grass.
Regardless, I knew the floating Mind Lock could work from the pressure in my brain, so it was as good as anything to experiment with. Besides, if the Life description was anything to go by then Locks could be changed or deleted anyways.
It took much longer for the pressure to build this time as I thought about creating the Lock. Maybe creating a lock on something you were already doing was easier? Or maybe it was tougher to make a Lock purely with imagination, so knowing or experiencing the desired effects made it easier to create?
The pressure built until it became closer to a headache, and a moment later, a single click echoed in my brain, and the pressure suddenly disappeared.
Without a thought, I suddenly began to float a few meters off the ground. Success!
[Tapped Mind:
Current Mind capacity: 94%
Currently Tapped Mind: 0%
Tapped Breakdown:
None]
[Mind Locks:
Life (5%) Float (1%)]
Everything was going smoothly. Almost… too smoothly. I focused on the Float Lock and a new interface popped up.
[Lock: Float - Disable - Delete - Modify]
This was such a flexible System! I modified the Lock to use less and less Mind, lowering me almost to the ground. I did have to concentrate to do so, making it clear that Locks were not to be messed with unless I was safe.
In other words, I fell. Seems like modifying a Lock was close enough to disable it.
Disabling did exactly what it said. I barely dropped as the Lock was disabled but with some concentration, I rose a pinch above the ground, the Lock enabled once again. Finally, I tried deleting the Lock.
[Warning: You are about to delete a Lock. Confirm?]
Oh, that was nice. Sure, it seemed like deleting a lock would require you to specifically seek out its deletion, but I guess you could accidentally delete a Lock in your sleep. This System just felt weird at times.
I confirmed the deletion. Creating a Lock took a significant amount of time, effort, and concentration, so disabling them seemed much more practical. In this case, I wasn’t exactly in desperate need of auto-flight. I could afford to delete it.
Of course, I immediately realized that flying around to search for food would be a bit easier if I could automate it at least a little.
Right. Next on the survival checklist was food. Quenching my insane thirst only made me realize how hungry I was. Eating would also kill two birds, considering I needed mass to start making eggs.
Ah yes, I was incredibly excited to lay magic fucking bee eggs as a human dude who was just trying to get by until recently.
As much as it pained me to admit, making some drones to ‘automate’ food gathering, protection, exploration, and shelter construction was just too convenient. An army of little bees who did exactly what I told them? Absolutely, yes. Reminded me of a certain factory game’s little robots that cost me years of my life…
Unfortunately, another issue crossed my mind.
“Uh, Queen? What exactly do you eat?”
Silence.
“Oh, right. Queen, I’m sorry about what I said before. I’m not used to being with other people for so long so I was starting to get antsy,” I sighed. The feeling in my stomach returned.
“I… I need you. To survive. This whole situation is fucking crazy, and I just wanted a bit of normalcy, but I went too far,” my feelings poured out, uncontrollably flowing straight from the gross stomach feeling, “I don’t usually open up to people but I guess I have no choice now do I? For better or worse we’re stuck together. So please. Help me- no, help us survive. I hadn’t considered how you felt trapped in your own mind, so I promise, I’ll help you with what you want. I guess… I’m not the only one who got a second chance.”
I held my breath. I hadn’t spoken that much to someone in… well a very long time. Silence. My nerves kept building as Queen stayed quiet.
“...Jelly.”
I blinked. Or, tried. I’d have to get used to my new face.
“Jelly?”
“Jelly.”
“Queen… thank you.”
“I’ll be holding you to that promise by the way. About helping me achieve what I want.”
“Well I did promise, so I guess that’s fair enough. Now,” I triumphantly stood on wobbly legs, “Where the hell am I supposed to get Jelly?!”
“Ah. Good point. Usually the workers brought me jelly on their heads, but there are no workers left,” Queen paused, humming thoughtfully, “There should be benefits to our strong Mind. Surely we could eat anything nutritious, providing it is not actively harmful.”
Hm. As far as I could think, animals can have pretty delicate diets, so a bee eating a cheeseburger didn’t exactly sound like a genius idea.
Man, a cheeseburger would be nice. The only kind of meat around were well-done forest beasts.
Actually…
“How does meat treat your stomach?”
“Meat…? It does not sound particularly appetizing, but neither do my instincts warn me against it. Would those murdered forest creatures be meat?”
“Exactly! This doesn’t just solve our food problem, it eliminates it completely!”
I was getting excited. A clean source of water. Food as far as the eye could see. With a start like this, we wouldn’t just survive. We could thrive!
I floated over to the nearest blackened lump, vaguely shaped like a pig or boar. Compared to me it was huge, three or four times bigger at least. I wasn’t exactly a fan of burned meat, but maybe somewhere under the surface, this little piggy had some tastier bits.
I tried scraping some char off with my leg with little success, switching to my wicked stinger. My stomach rumbled. Well, maybe this bee body wouldn’t hate the taste of char?
Hungrily I chomped down on the lump, barely able to contain my hunger. Or break the tough hide. Riiiiight, eating the meat would probably be better than tough leathery hide…
The corpse moved.
I snapped to attention, slowly backing away from the body as squishing noises sounded out. Before I could do much else, the corpse burst open. A huge rat with rows of pointy teeth and sharp-looking fur emerged and locked eyes with me.
Looks like I interrupted lunchtime and this guy didn’t seem intent on sharing.
Oops.
The relief I felt from landing in the stream was unlike anything I had ever felt. I hadn’t even realized how thirsty I was! The cool, gentle pressure washing over my burned thorax and dry throat felt like the soft embrace of a thousand angels.
Well, I assumed. Apparently angels weren’t a thing if my death was anything to go by.
“Such relief! You know, I think we might be alright. Thank you for saving my- no, our life, Enno.”
“Aw, thanks Queen. Sucks that something terrible is about to happen exactly ‘cause you said that!” I exclaimed between prolonged drinks of water.
I was only half joking. As relieving as the water was, I tried my best to stay alert. This dead forest had, barring the thunder, been entirely silent from the moment I woke up. Even while flying around, I didn’t hear anything or see anything move. The problem was, this was the exact type of situation where I would let down my guard and get attacked by a crazy forest troll or something.
“With our injuries treated, I would say we have a chance. If we start a new hive, survival would be trivial!”
“Uh. Sure. I’ll just give birth to a bunch of babies and feed them some ash.”
Oh. I hadn’t thought about it, but as a queen bee, laying eggs was, essentially, my whole purpose. Thankfully it seemed like I could use abilities to do it instead of… typical methods. In any case, making a hive was definitely the way to go regarding safety.
Would probably still be super weird though.
I could only assume it would benefit me considering my new species, but something more immediately important required my attention.
[Name: (Unnamed)]
[Age: 2 months]
[Subtype: Queen]
[Status: Severely Wounded]
[Abilities:
Create Egg (Lv.1) Combined Mind Queen Piping (Lv.1) Venomous Stinger]
[Mind: 10th Degree]
[Tapped Mind: 0% / 95%]
[Mind Locks:
Life (5%)]
The only change was my status in a good way, thankfully. Well, information is power, so learning more about what I can do is priority numero uno. A bit of experimenting taught me that there wasn’t much I could actually inspect for more info. My Abilities, Tapped Mind, and Mind Locks could be inspected, but that was it.
“I think learning more about Creating offspring would be very beneficial.”
Seriously? Queen’s obsession with this hive thing was only getting stronger.
“Can you be quiet for a second? I just want to learn more about what I can do,” my agitation grew, “In fact, I think I would like you to be quiet for a long while. Since I can’t be alone ever again I would at least like some quiet when I need it.”
My words came out harsher than expected, and the sudden disappearance of the almost constant gentle meaningless humming told me I might have gone too far. No matter.
With that familiar feeling in my stomach I carefully inspected everything I could in my menu.
[Subtype: Queen
Of the Bee species. A matriarchal figure which births offspring of the species and manages the collective conscious ‘hive’.
Capabilities include the creation, communication, and control of offspring.
]
Nothing crazy there. I was a Queen bee and I… birth things.
Fun. Speaking of…
[Create Egg:
Level 1
Acquired by: Birth
Using mass and mind, create an egg that will hatch into a member of your species.
Subtype Options:
Simple Worker: A drone with no unique capabilities. (Min Mind Tap: 1%) Simple Warrior: A drone built for combat. (Min Mind Tap: 1.5%)
Level up: Unlock 2 subtype options
]
The immediate problem I noticed is the mention of mass to create the egg. That meant I needed food to even start thinking about making a hive, so Queen’s desperation was moot until I managed to find some food.
[Combined Mind:
Acquired by: Attaining the impossible feat of hosting multiple Minds in one body
Impossibly, you have multiple Minds within your body. This unique trait caught the gods' attention, and this Ability was granted. Efficiency of Mind = Base Efficiency x Number of Minds.
Mind Efficiency: 2x
]
Excuse me? If my eyes could bulge, they would be falling out of my head right now. Of course, I had no frame of reference for this Ability. For all I knew, doubling Mind efficiency amounted to practically nothing.
But I wasn’t about to complain about a free power boost!
Most of the other Abilities honestly felt pretty boring in comparison.
[Queen Piping:
Level 1
Acquired by: Birth
Acoustic signals empowered by Mind. Communicate without a direct mind connection.
Level up: increase the efficiency of piping
]
[Venomous Stinger:
Acquired by: Birth
A natural weapon empowered by Mind. Tapping Mind increases the potency of venom.
]
Simple abilities with simple uses, nothing to get excited about. Looking at my Abilities did raise some questions. What was the point of some of them exactly? If I didn’t have the Stinger Ability, would I not be able to sting? So would I- or rather Queen have been born without a stinger?
Also, why list how an Ability was obtained? Was that something important about Abilties?
[Tapped Mind:
Current Mind capacity: 95%
Currently Tapped Mind: 0%
Tapped Breakdown:
None
]
Honestly, Tapped Mind only raised more questions about Abilities. Clearly, Mind was some sort of psychic power that I had judging by my assisted flying. Nothing indicated that I had obtained it somehow, and Queen’s knowledge about it seemed to imply she was born with it. So I could just use psychic superpowers without needing Abilities at all. Did everything have psychic powers in this world?
[Life:
The essence of existence. 5% of a living being’s Mind is locked to maintain Life.
WARNING: If this Lock is Deactivated or changed, you will die.
]
Oh. Well, that answers that.
I took a closer look at Mind Locks. If 5% of my mind was ‘reserved’ by the Lock, what other locks could I make?
Cringing in anticipation, I slowly ascended above the river water, the cooling stream no longer soothing my burns. Despite the renewed pain, I once again inspected my menu.
[Tapped Mind:
Current Mind capacity: 95%
Currently Tapped Mind: 1%
Tapped Breakdown:
Floating (1%)
]
Alright, so far so good.
Now, the idea was to create a Mind Lock reserving 1% of my Mind for floating. Currently, even Tapping that 1% required concentration. Since I wasn’t exactly concentrating on living (well, considering my injuries maybe a little), maybe I wouldn’t need to concentrate on floating with Mind?
Only one problem. I had absolutely no idea how to make a Mind Lock.
So far the System of this world had been incredibly intuitive, responding more to my instinct and intentions than keywords or instruction. Maybe making Locks was just as easy. I thought really hard about making a Lock, and a pressure mounted in my brain.
It was working! Suddenly my stomach lurched. Wait! The pressure broke my concentration!
I hit the riverbed with a thud as white-hot fire exploded across my body. I hadn’t fallen very far, but with injuries as bad as mine that didn’t exactly matter.
My burns were aggravated as I rolled around in pain, worsening the experience. I wasn’t exactly great at being in mortal danger.
“I cannot tell if you were sent to save my life or torture me.”
Queen’s humming reappeared for a moment before immediately going silent. Seems like she simply couldn’t help herself from making that comment. She reminded me of my coworkers in a way. She just couldn’t give up.
As the pain subsided I refocused my efforts on creating the Mind Lock. Until smacking into the ground I hadn’t considered the fact that maybe I didn’t want to be floating all the time, just in case I needed to touch burned grass.
Regardless, I knew the floating Mind Lock could work from the pressure in my brain, so it was as good as anything to experiment with. Besides, if the Life description was anything to go by then Locks could be changed or deleted anyways.
It took much longer for the pressure to build this time as I thought about creating the Lock. Maybe creating a lock on something you were already doing was easier? Or maybe it was tougher to make a Lock purely with imagination, so knowing or experiencing the desired effects made it easier to create?
The pressure built until it became closer to a headache, and a moment later, a single click echoed in my brain, and the pressure suddenly disappeared.
Without a thought, I suddenly began to float a few meters off the ground. Success!
[Tapped Mind:
Current Mind capacity: 94%
Currently Tapped Mind: 0%
Tapped Breakdown:
None]
[Mind Locks:
Life (5%) Float (1%)]
Everything was going smoothly. Almost… too smoothly. I focused on the Float Lock and a new interface popped up.
[Lock: Float - Disable - Delete - Modify]
This was such a flexible System! I modified the Lock to use less and less Mind, lowering me almost to the ground. I did have to concentrate to do so, making it clear that Locks were not to be messed with unless I was safe.
In other words, I fell. Seems like modifying a Lock was close enough to disable it.
Disabling did exactly what it said. I barely dropped as the Lock was disabled but with some concentration, I rose a pinch above the ground, the Lock enabled once again. Finally, I tried deleting the Lock.
[Warning: You are about to delete a Lock. Confirm?]
Oh, that was nice. Sure, it seemed like deleting a lock would require you to specifically seek out its deletion, but I guess you could accidentally delete a Lock in your sleep. This System just felt weird at times.
I confirmed the deletion. Creating a Lock took a significant amount of time, effort, and concentration, so disabling them seemed much more practical. In this case, I wasn’t exactly in desperate need of auto-flight. I could afford to delete it.
Of course, I immediately realized that flying around to search for food would be a bit easier if I could automate it at least a little.
Right. Next on the survival checklist was food. Quenching my insane thirst only made me realize how hungry I was. Eating would also kill two birds, considering I needed mass to start making eggs.
Ah yes, I was incredibly excited to lay magic fucking bee eggs as a human dude who was just trying to get by until recently.
As much as it pained me to admit, making some drones to ‘automate’ food gathering, protection, exploration, and shelter construction was just too convenient. An army of little bees who did exactly what I told them? Absolutely, yes. Reminded me of a certain factory game’s little robots that cost me years of my life…
Unfortunately, another issue crossed my mind.
“Uh, Queen? What exactly do you eat?”
Silence.
“Oh, right. Queen, I’m sorry about what I said before. I’m not used to being with other people for so long so I was starting to get antsy,” I sighed. The feeling in my stomach returned.
“I… I need you. To survive. This whole situation is fucking crazy, and I just wanted a bit of normalcy, but I went too far,” my feelings poured out, uncontrollably flowing straight from the gross stomach feeling, “I don’t usually open up to people but I guess I have no choice now do I? For better or worse we’re stuck together. So please. Help me- no, help us survive. I hadn’t considered how you felt trapped in your own mind, so I promise, I’ll help you with what you want. I guess… I’m not the only one who got a second chance.”
I held my breath. I hadn’t spoken that much to someone in… well a very long time. Silence. My nerves kept building as Queen stayed quiet.
“...Jelly.”
I blinked. Or, tried. I’d have to get used to my new face.
“Jelly?”
“Jelly.”
“Queen… thank you.”
“I’ll be holding you to that promise by the way. About helping me achieve what I want.”
“Well I did promise, so I guess that’s fair enough. Now,” I triumphantly stood on wobbly legs, “Where the hell am I supposed to get Jelly?!”
“Ah. Good point. Usually the workers brought me jelly on their heads, but there are no workers left,” Queen paused, humming thoughtfully, “There should be benefits to our strong Mind. Surely we could eat anything nutritious, providing it is not actively harmful.”
Hm. As far as I could think, animals can have pretty delicate diets, so a bee eating a cheeseburger didn’t exactly sound like a genius idea.
Man, a cheeseburger would be nice. The only kind of meat around were well-done forest beasts.
Actually…
“How does meat treat your stomach?”
“Meat…? It does not sound particularly appetizing, but neither do my instincts warn me against it. Would those murdered forest creatures be meat?”
“Exactly! This doesn’t just solve our food problem, it eliminates it completely!”
I was getting excited. A clean source of water. Food as far as the eye could see. With a start like this, we wouldn’t just survive. We could thrive!
I floated over to the nearest blackened lump, vaguely shaped like a pig or boar. Compared to me it was huge, three or four times bigger at least. I wasn’t exactly a fan of burned meat, but maybe somewhere under the surface, this little piggy had some tastier bits.
I tried scraping some char off with my leg with little success, switching to my wicked stinger. My stomach rumbled. Well, maybe this bee body wouldn’t hate the taste of char?
Hungrily I chomped down on the lump, barely able to contain my hunger. Or break the tough hide. Riiiiight, eating the meat would probably be better than tough leathery hide…
The corpse moved.
I snapped to attention, slowly backing away from the body as squishing noises sounded out. Before I could do much else, the corpse burst open. A huge rat with rows of pointy teeth and sharp-looking fur emerged and locked eyes with me.
Looks like I interrupted lunchtime and this guy didn’t seem intent on sharing.
Oops.
