The whole of Yiwi unfolded beneath me. Well, beneath Ben. I was just watching through his eyes. Benita and Bennet, I saw, were together with the rest of my bees, hiding from a heavily armed party of adventurers. Technically, my bees could probably destroy these guys. Hell, Belphegora alone could most likely take them out.
But that wasn't what we needed right now. Not yet, at least.
“Ben, move closer to the city center, but be sure to stay out of sight. I think we’re about to witness a spectacle,” I instructed.
“Yessir, mooma!” Ben responded with a tiny salute. He buzzed over to the Rotor itself, hiding himself in plain sight against the enormous metal structure. From there, I could see the gathering crowd of regular townspeople watching with bated breath as a group of townspeople carrying guns solemnly marched to a large building. The City Lord’s office.
Nobody noticed the boxes the Yiwi Fighters carried. Or they didn’t pay attention to the unassuming packages. Either way, when the Yiwi Fighters placed a few of the boxes at the front of the building, nobody seemed to know what to make of it.
So when the Fighters began to point their guns at the crowd and demand them to back away, people began to get a little suspicious. I know I would have. Actually, I probably would’ve run away screaming.
“Get ready Belphegora. On my signal…”
When the crowd was far enough, a Fighter who looked even more well-equipped than the rest stepped forth. He began shouting something about ‘fairness’ and ‘poor leadership’. I got the gist. The man turned to the City Lord’s office and gestured, and a chunk of the group broke off and streamed inside, emerging a few minuted later with people in tow. It seemed that the City lord didn’t take his secretaries into hiding. The well-equipped man took a second to look at the secretaries, nodded, then closed his eyes.
Then the building exploded.
“Now, Belphegora!”
I watched as the team of mercenaries that had been tracking my bees suddenly stopped, pointing their guns into their surroundings, shouting at each other. Some began to fire, but any bullets that came close to the bees stopped in mid-air. One of the mercs shot one of his teammates, which is when the real disaster began. Some of them even turned to shoot each other. One got a knife out and stabbed his friend.
A few of them, however, grouped together and backed away from the group. Belphegora’s demonic powers, I knew, were based on fucking with people. Instead of speed and strength like Beelzebub or the unknown vision powers of Belial, Belphegora was a master of messing with people’s senses.
At the moment, most of the mercenaries were likely seeing and hearing things that weren’t there. The small cluster of four or so humans must’ve been stronger than the rest, or maybe had more experience. Whatever the case, they were remaining calm and gathering themselves.
Belphegora wasn’t so merciful.
She commanded the warriors to charge at the four humans who weren’t fighting each other, simultaneously picking up stones and blasting them at the humans at alarming speed. Some stones missed, and the ones that didn’t got stopped by the humans and their Minds. Of course, those were a distraction to allow the warriors to rush in.
One of the humans wasn’t fooled. While the others stopped the rocks, he aimed his rifle and fired, almost scoring hits on a couple warriors. Unfortunately, psychic powers on Belphegora’s level made regular bullets useless. It wasn’t long before buzzing wings and sharp stingers overwhelmed the lone man’s gunshots, and his companions were too occupied to help.
All that was left was cleanup.
“Good work, everyone. You, that human is still moving. Finish it. The rest of you get to work moving the bodies. We need to continue moving.”
I forced myself to stare at the dead humans through Belphegora’s uncaring eyes. It was done. I had killed humans. Either way, I had commanded it. Who were these people? What were their lives like? Did they have families?
Mothers?
I shifted my gaze back to the Rotor. Chunks of metal were scattered around the city center, and there wasn’t a person to be seen. The ruins of the City Lord’s office spat plumes of black smoke (fueled by… something?) into the sky, where it got slowly blended by the Rotor’s blades. I saw a few other plumes of smoke around the city. This was the Yiwi Fighter’s opening move, using bombs to destroy key points of interest. I saw there wasn’t a single plume coming from the mercenary district, though.
Things had gotten really radical. Well, I wasn’t free of blame either; I had added a few targets to the list as well, intended to cause as much fear and confusion as possible. These bombings would be a distraction that couldn’t be ignored, signaling the start of a real war. Belphegora’s movements to eliminate the scouting mercenaries would not be able to garner a response, even if Yelah wanted to take us out at all costs.
After all, she wasn’t actually in charge. And the ones who were didn’t truly understand what they were dealing with.
“Hey. How are you doing?”
Oh, ya know. Killing people, inciting bloody conflict. Classic leadership stuff going on over here.
“I cannot understand how you must feel - well, technically, I understand exactly how you feel. But I’d like to at least show some sympathy for your situation, as embittered as I might be towards your kind.”
Well, I appreciate the sentiment at least. But sentimentality can come later. I groaned as I spit up another Linker egg, which was promptly carried away by Beverly, one of Belle’s helpers. Despite our food situation, Beatrice had insisted on building up our number of Linkers in preparation for the occupation of Yiwi. Well, Bella’s team would ideally be alleviating everything soon.
Despite the situation at Yiwi, the hive was progressing nicely. Mostly, at least. Beatrice had employed a rationing directive, limiting Bess’ ability to construct the hive from wax. Despite that, she had creatively devised a way to form the hive dome’s structure using the remaining vulture bones, metal spikes, and the limited wax she was allowed.
Yes, the hive was doing well. Besides the fact that most of the bees were focused on Yiwi. I really needed more bees. Speaking of, I focused on the human city again. Benita, on Belphegora’s instruction, had joined Ben in his scouting. A risk, but fine. I couldn’t deny that the real-time information was helpful.
Benita had switched places with Ben, allowing the more experienced bee to scout the mercenary district due to the danger the place presented. Most of the mercenary district of the city was under enemy control, and I watched as scores of mercs ran out of the Hayrey building. They had been alerted by the bombings, and were probably finally taking the situation seriously.
And so, the numbers game would begin. Civilians and mercenaries, and maybe a few Harven goons and City lord elite guards in the mix. From the merchants, I knew that the Fighters planned to take control of the city by holding the City Lord hostage. In order to do that, they would attack his property, kill whoever defended him, and draw him out.
Of course, I knew that the desires of the merchants and the actual Yiwi Fighter organization were completely misaligned. The merchants planned to capture the City Lord, blackmail and threaten him, then install their agents into his inner circle to create incredible economic opportunities for themselves. They knew that the idealistic desires of the civilians to capture the Lord and make demands from the kingdom were impossible. Certainly, disrupting the upper class might create a shakeup, but it probably wouldn’t bring the prosperity promised by the organization’s original founders.
It didn’t matter to me. Capturing the City Lord would create the proper illusion for the civilian population and for the merchants’ companies, but it wouldn’t let me control the city. Not after Yelah’s little stunt.
No, what I needed was complete and undisputed control. Could I obtain that by Linking the leaders of the enemy mercenary companies? Unlikely. Too many of the individual mercenaries had info, were too curious and free-willed.
As morbid as it was, the best-case scenario would be for lots of people to die. The hundreds of mercenaries would need to be contained and silenced until I could Link them.
Nope. It was all shit.
“Is there anything we can do to speed things up? Obtain control without killing?”
Mm. Speeding things up would require direct involvement of the bees. Which would happen. Belphegora’s current mission of thinning out the mercenaries was temporary; her power wouldn’t be held back for long. Once all the mercenaries that had been forced to search the city’s borders were dealt with, our bees could strike from the shadows. We didn’t want too many people to know the actual situation, after all.
Instead, I was relegated to being a spectator. Mostly. The only combatants I could influence were Toh and his friends, which I had expanded by having Toh Link the rest of his mercenary team. So I directly controlled a team of mercenaries, a bunch of rich assholes, a trio of inexperienced children, and a bunch of middle-ish management.
How could the Operation fail?
“Beatrice, please reassure me.”
“Of course, Mother. That is my job. One of them at least…” Beatrice said from the entrance to my room. I could always rely on her to randomly appear, whether she was needed or not.
“For now, I will focus on the Operation. The crier trio has proven themselves invaluable; they have been working closely with Beck to enhance the leader’s capabilities. As a result, not only have the Yiwi Fighters gathered with amazing speed, but they have even managed to recruit a not insubstantial number of last-minute combatants.”
“We already had the numerical advantage against the enemy, but that was never the danger; the enemy is much more powerful. Mercenaries are naturally much more adept at combat than regular people, much like warrior bees are incomparable to workers. They are better armed, more experienced, and, unlike the general populace, have Abilities designed for combat. With the forces from the large companies, one might think to be nervous.”
I watched as Beatrice’s normally stern face twisted into a grim smile. My face did the same; I knew exactly where she was going with this.
“But as you have shown me, there are more… ethereal elements to consider. Will the enemy mercenaries hesitate to kill or even seriously fight the civilians? How powerful is the passion of a people wronged? These less predictable elements, combined with our takeover of strong allies such as Yemonto Co., ensure that our advantage is solidly in place.”
That was nice to hear, but it didn’t quite alleviate my nerves as I stared at the advancing mercenaries. Hell, the civilians who may have never fought before in their lives might even be as nervous as me!
To feel better by comparison, I looked through Oyonshe’s eyes. He wasn’t directly involved in the fighting, considering his value as a strategic asset, but he had a good vantage point for a series of streets that had been blockaded by Fighters. He was not feeling good. The kid was an idealist, someone who genuinely wanted the best for his people. He wasn’t expecting to be fighting an all-out war, even though that outcome would’ve been equally likely to happen without my involvement.
The fighting might just be a little more… brutal.
I found Oyonshe’s view of the streets near the mercenary district a bit stifling, so I went to Ben’s view. But Ben’s view was also stifling, in a different way. How to solve it?
Instead, I focused for a second, and my view split into several perspectives, as if having multiple windows open on multiple monitors. I could see the street directly through Oyonshe, an overhead view thanks to Ben, a strategic view courtesy of Beatrice, and an extra, to observe Belphegora’s ongoing mission.
“Beatrice, I gotta say, this strategic view is freaking awesome. The little Yiwi Fighter dots, the mercenary triangles. Holy hell, you’re even changing the shapes based on the individual’s power! How are you doing that, actually?”
“Simple. I am constantly conferring with Bedivere, having him give real-time estimations of the power of an individual based on his judgment. In that case, the judgement is not actually exactly accurate, but by changing the size of certain notable individuals in the strategic view, we can get a better idea of the flow of combat.”
Beatrice’s map making passion was paying dividends, and more. Though all it ended up doing was making me more nervous. Several tiny triangles fluctuated in size, becoming larger. Many had become enormous, to the point that Beatrice instead began to experiment with changing their shape and color instead.
The Yiwi Fighters were clearly outmatched in terms of power. The large circles were few and far between, mostly relegated to the occasional mercenary from Yemonto Co. who were blending into the concealed combatants.
And so, I watched with bated breath as a small crowd of Hayrey and Sons’ mercenaries turned the corner, unaware of the gun barrels pointing down the empty street from windows, alleys, and shadowy corners.
A shot rang out, and chaos overtook the streets of Yiwi.
The whole of Yiwi unfolded beneath me. Well, beneath Ben. I was just watching through his eyes. Benita and Bennet, I saw, were together with the rest of my bees, hiding from a heavily armed party of adventurers. Technically, my bees could probably destroy these guys. Hell, Belphegora alone could most likely take them out.
But that wasn't what we needed right now. Not yet, at least.
“Ben, move closer to the city center, but be sure to stay out of sight. I think we’re about to witness a spectacle,” I instructed.
“Yessir, mooma!” Ben responded with a tiny salute. He buzzed over to the Rotor itself, hiding himself in plain sight against the enormous metal structure. From there, I could see the gathering crowd of regular townspeople watching with bated breath as a group of townspeople carrying guns solemnly marched to a large building. The City Lord’s office.
Nobody noticed the boxes the Yiwi Fighters carried. Or they didn’t pay attention to the unassuming packages. Either way, when the Yiwi Fighters placed a few of the boxes at the front of the building, nobody seemed to know what to make of it.
So when the Fighters began to point their guns at the crowd and demand them to back away, people began to get a little suspicious. I know I would have. Actually, I probably would’ve run away screaming.
“Get ready Belphegora. On my signal…”
When the crowd was far enough, a Fighter who looked even more well-equipped than the rest stepped forth. He began shouting something about ‘fairness’ and ‘poor leadership’. I got the gist. The man turned to the City Lord’s office and gestured, and a chunk of the group broke off and streamed inside, emerging a few minuted later with people in tow. It seemed that the City lord didn’t take his secretaries into hiding. The well-equipped man took a second to look at the secretaries, nodded, then closed his eyes.
Then the building exploded.
“Now, Belphegora!”
I watched as the team of mercenaries that had been tracking my bees suddenly stopped, pointing their guns into their surroundings, shouting at each other. Some began to fire, but any bullets that came close to the bees stopped in mid-air. One of the mercs shot one of his teammates, which is when the real disaster began. Some of them even turned to shoot each other. One got a knife out and stabbed his friend.
A few of them, however, grouped together and backed away from the group. Belphegora’s demonic powers, I knew, were based on fucking with people. Instead of speed and strength like Beelzebub or the unknown vision powers of Belial, Belphegora was a master of messing with people’s senses.
At the moment, most of the mercenaries were likely seeing and hearing things that weren’t there. The small cluster of four or so humans must’ve been stronger than the rest, or maybe had more experience. Whatever the case, they were remaining calm and gathering themselves.
Belphegora wasn’t so merciful.
She commanded the warriors to charge at the four humans who weren’t fighting each other, simultaneously picking up stones and blasting them at the humans at alarming speed. Some stones missed, and the ones that didn’t got stopped by the humans and their Minds. Of course, those were a distraction to allow the warriors to rush in.
One of the humans wasn’t fooled. While the others stopped the rocks, he aimed his rifle and fired, almost scoring hits on a couple warriors. Unfortunately, psychic powers on Belphegora’s level made regular bullets useless. It wasn’t long before buzzing wings and sharp stingers overwhelmed the lone man’s gunshots, and his companions were too occupied to help.
All that was left was cleanup.
“Good work, everyone. You, that human is still moving. Finish it. The rest of you get to work moving the bodies. We need to continue moving.”
I forced myself to stare at the dead humans through Belphegora’s uncaring eyes. It was done. I had killed humans. Either way, I had commanded it. Who were these people? What were their lives like? Did they have families?
Mothers?
I shifted my gaze back to the Rotor. Chunks of metal were scattered around the city center, and there wasn’t a person to be seen. The ruins of the City Lord’s office spat plumes of black smoke (fueled by… something?) into the sky, where it got slowly blended by the Rotor’s blades. I saw a few other plumes of smoke around the city. This was the Yiwi Fighter’s opening move, using bombs to destroy key points of interest. I saw there wasn’t a single plume coming from the mercenary district, though.
Things had gotten really radical. Well, I wasn’t free of blame either; I had added a few targets to the list as well, intended to cause as much fear and confusion as possible. These bombings would be a distraction that couldn’t be ignored, signaling the start of a real war. Belphegora’s movements to eliminate the scouting mercenaries would not be able to garner a response, even if Yelah wanted to take us out at all costs.
After all, she wasn’t actually in charge. And the ones who were didn’t truly understand what they were dealing with.
“Hey. How are you doing?”
Oh, ya know. Killing people, inciting bloody conflict. Classic leadership stuff going on over here.
“I cannot understand how you must feel - well, technically, I understand exactly how you feel. But I’d like to at least show some sympathy for your situation, as embittered as I might be towards your kind.”
Well, I appreciate the sentiment at least. But sentimentality can come later. I groaned as I spit up another Linker egg, which was promptly carried away by Beverly, one of Belle’s helpers. Despite our food situation, Beatrice had insisted on building up our number of Linkers in preparation for the occupation of Yiwi. Well, Bella’s team would ideally be alleviating everything soon.
Despite the situation at Yiwi, the hive was progressing nicely. Mostly, at least. Beatrice had employed a rationing directive, limiting Bess’ ability to construct the hive from wax. Despite that, she had creatively devised a way to form the hive dome’s structure using the remaining vulture bones, metal spikes, and the limited wax she was allowed.
Yes, the hive was doing well. Besides the fact that most of the bees were focused on Yiwi. I really needed more bees. Speaking of, I focused on the human city again. Benita, on Belphegora’s instruction, had joined Ben in his scouting. A risk, but fine. I couldn’t deny that the real-time information was helpful.
Benita had switched places with Ben, allowing the more experienced bee to scout the mercenary district due to the danger the place presented. Most of the mercenary district of the city was under enemy control, and I watched as scores of mercs ran out of the Hayrey building. They had been alerted by the bombings, and were probably finally taking the situation seriously.
And so, the numbers game would begin. Civilians and mercenaries, and maybe a few Harven goons and City lord elite guards in the mix. From the merchants, I knew that the Fighters planned to take control of the city by holding the City Lord hostage. In order to do that, they would attack his property, kill whoever defended him, and draw him out.
Of course, I knew that the desires of the merchants and the actual Yiwi Fighter organization were completely misaligned. The merchants planned to capture the City Lord, blackmail and threaten him, then install their agents into his inner circle to create incredible economic opportunities for themselves. They knew that the idealistic desires of the civilians to capture the Lord and make demands from the kingdom were impossible. Certainly, disrupting the upper class might create a shakeup, but it probably wouldn’t bring the prosperity promised by the organization’s original founders.
It didn’t matter to me. Capturing the City Lord would create the proper illusion for the civilian population and for the merchants’ companies, but it wouldn’t let me control the city. Not after Yelah’s little stunt.
No, what I needed was complete and undisputed control. Could I obtain that by Linking the leaders of the enemy mercenary companies? Unlikely. Too many of the individual mercenaries had info, were too curious and free-willed.
As morbid as it was, the best-case scenario would be for lots of people to die. The hundreds of mercenaries would need to be contained and silenced until I could Link them.
Nope. It was all shit.
“Is there anything we can do to speed things up? Obtain control without killing?”
Mm. Speeding things up would require direct involvement of the bees. Which would happen. Belphegora’s current mission of thinning out the mercenaries was temporary; her power wouldn’t be held back for long. Once all the mercenaries that had been forced to search the city’s borders were dealt with, our bees could strike from the shadows. We didn’t want too many people to know the actual situation, after all.
Instead, I was relegated to being a spectator. Mostly. The only combatants I could influence were Toh and his friends, which I had expanded by having Toh Link the rest of his mercenary team. So I directly controlled a team of mercenaries, a bunch of rich assholes, a trio of inexperienced children, and a bunch of middle-ish management.
How could the Operation fail?
“Beatrice, please reassure me.”
“Of course, Mother. That is my job. One of them at least…” Beatrice said from the entrance to my room. I could always rely on her to randomly appear, whether she was needed or not.
“For now, I will focus on the Operation. The crier trio has proven themselves invaluable; they have been working closely with Beck to enhance the leader’s capabilities. As a result, not only have the Yiwi Fighters gathered with amazing speed, but they have even managed to recruit a not insubstantial number of last-minute combatants.”
“We already had the numerical advantage against the enemy, but that was never the danger; the enemy is much more powerful. Mercenaries are naturally much more adept at combat than regular people, much like warrior bees are incomparable to workers. They are better armed, more experienced, and, unlike the general populace, have Abilities designed for combat. With the forces from the large companies, one might think to be nervous.”
I watched as Beatrice’s normally stern face twisted into a grim smile. My face did the same; I knew exactly where she was going with this.
“But as you have shown me, there are more… ethereal elements to consider. Will the enemy mercenaries hesitate to kill or even seriously fight the civilians? How powerful is the passion of a people wronged? These less predictable elements, combined with our takeover of strong allies such as Yemonto Co., ensure that our advantage is solidly in place.”
That was nice to hear, but it didn’t quite alleviate my nerves as I stared at the advancing mercenaries. Hell, the civilians who may have never fought before in their lives might even be as nervous as me!
To feel better by comparison, I looked through Oyonshe’s eyes. He wasn’t directly involved in the fighting, considering his value as a strategic asset, but he had a good vantage point for a series of streets that had been blockaded by Fighters. He was not feeling good. The kid was an idealist, someone who genuinely wanted the best for his people. He wasn’t expecting to be fighting an all-out war, even though that outcome would’ve been equally likely to happen without my involvement.
The fighting might just be a little more… brutal.
I found Oyonshe’s view of the streets near the mercenary district a bit stifling, so I went to Ben’s view. But Ben’s view was also stifling, in a different way. How to solve it?
Instead, I focused for a second, and my view split into several perspectives, as if having multiple windows open on multiple monitors. I could see the street directly through Oyonshe, an overhead view thanks to Ben, a strategic view courtesy of Beatrice, and an extra, to observe Belphegora’s ongoing mission.
“Beatrice, I gotta say, this strategic view is freaking awesome. The little Yiwi Fighter dots, the mercenary triangles. Holy hell, you’re even changing the shapes based on the individual’s power! How are you doing that, actually?”
“Simple. I am constantly conferring with Bedivere, having him give real-time estimations of the power of an individual based on his judgment. In that case, the judgement is not actually exactly accurate, but by changing the size of certain notable individuals in the strategic view, we can get a better idea of the flow of combat.”
Beatrice’s map making passion was paying dividends, and more. Though all it ended up doing was making me more nervous. Several tiny triangles fluctuated in size, becoming larger. Many had become enormous, to the point that Beatrice instead began to experiment with changing their shape and color instead.
The Yiwi Fighters were clearly outmatched in terms of power. The large circles were few and far between, mostly relegated to the occasional mercenary from Yemonto Co. who were blending into the concealed combatants.
And so, I watched with bated breath as a small crowd of Hayrey and Sons’ mercenaries turned the corner, unaware of the gun barrels pointing down the empty street from windows, alleys, and shadowy corners.
A shot rang out, and chaos overtook the streets of Yiwi.
