## Chapter 368 – Under the World Tree (10)
‘Is this… what it feels like to fly in the sky…?’
As the surrounding scenery rapidly changed as if I were looking out from a car speeding down the highway, I was suddenly filled with awe and gradually became familiar with how to control this thing.
‘Swarm Bee.’
If I were to translate the name directly, it would be ‘bee swarm.’
Strictly speaking, if the spiders walked on the ground and acted as mobile harvesters searching for females separately.
This thing, which truly lives up to its name, wasn’t just one or two, but moved in swarms, a legion that obeyed the World Tree’s commands.
Except for the few remaining female elf hunters tracking Riel, everyone else had been summoned to focus on producing them.
Now, the number of these Swarm Bees had long surpassed dozens and reached hundreds, and thanks to the elves diligently birthing them, their population was steadily increasing.
“World Tree-nim. Please… please use me too…”
Perhaps she thought that helping me was the only way to have even a slight chance.
“Ugh… Uuuuu… Aaaah…!!”
Having done nothing but cry, Riel’s younger sister, Yurne, seemed dizzy from dehydration, swaying as she showed the hem of her skirt, her swollen eyes wide open, as she participated in the production of Swarm Bees.
With her pure skin deeply accepting the tendrils, she shed warm maiden blood, a testament to her devotion to the World Tree.
Even as her cervix opened, and multiple clumps of eggs were deposited deep inside, she was being spawned.
“Ah… Keuh…♡ Uh… Unnie-it…♡”
Seeing her cervix widen, and each time one of them was born and slipped out, she shed tears of joy at the strange pleasure and the sense of accomplishment that she was doing something for her family.
I, too, thought that I would not betray their faith and Enic’s last will, and spurred on the operation.
And as soon as I was convinced that a sufficient number had gathered, I pointed to a hole in the floor and conveyed the order to them.
‘Save them all. And kill the rest.’
It was an order that came from a slightly agitated mood, but this would be the right thing to do inside this dungeon.
Anyway, the Swarm Bees that received the order lined up and flew in formation, then disappeared as if sucked into the tunnel in the floor.
Only a few tens of minutes passed.
With a tingling sensation, I knew that the battle had begun, and as I possessed the body of one Swarm Bee, I could see the lair of the earth fairies, which had already become a mess.
The earth fairies also had a considerable number, and considering that the Swarm Bees were small, they even seemed to be trying to catch and kill them, but that was easier said than done.
‘Are you the only monsters? I’m a monster too, you know?’
The Swarm Bees, flying around the earth fairies with a heavy buzzing sound, soon pulled out long, sharp stingers from their rear ends and stabbed them into the bodies of the earth fairies.
The pain of being stung was secondary; just how sharp were those stingers?
Seeing the flesh of the struggling earth fairies being cut open, and blood flowing down, I could once again see how strong their combat power was.
Since there had never been a combat-related hive member before, seeing this made me think again about what the existence of a combatant meant.
‘If you look at a single individual, it might be ambiguous.
But if they swarm like that and slash the whole body…
In a way, they’re more dangerous than just poisonous wasps, aren’t they?’
Compared to wasps, which had a similar appearance, Swarm Bees had no poison at all.
Therefore, as a bioweapon, they were less effective than honeybees, but was it that their bellies were entirely filled with stingers?
If the stinger was about two finger-lengths long, and if you stabbed someone with it and accidentally struggled, causing the skin to be cut, it would have a value as a weapon that was more than just poison.
In fact, one earth fairy was unlucky enough to have a strong fountain of blood erupt from its neck, as if it had accidentally punctured an artery.
In the end, the earth fairies seemed to have realized that they couldn’t win, and they were now looking for places to escape to among themselves.
Some tried to dig deeper into the ground, but since it was a tunnel, they were repeatedly slashed by the Swarm Bees that followed them to the end, and lost their lives. Others seemed to have planned to go out of the surface and run quickly.
‘Running outside? They’re using their heads a bit?’
As a narrow space is more vulnerable to a swarm of bees, it is valid to choose a different option in a wide space.
The ones that dug tunnels to the outside, facing the sunset with the sun almost setting, began to run quickly into the outside world.
‘But what can you do then?’
However, as they ran, they were caught by something that came down from the sky and snatched them up like a hawk snatching a rabbit, and their limbs were dismembered in the sky, falling to the ground like a hailstorm of meat chunks.
‘Maybe it’s because it’s Enic who lived for a long time, but the reserves are definitely different…
In the end, I won’t be able to use it for long, though…’
– Brrrrrrrrr
My expression is a problem that arises because I am describing what is heard from my point of view.
If the small Swarm Bees make the buzzing sound that bees typically make, the large ones make a heavy wing sound like a real motorcycle engine.
Seeing four or five large Swarm Bees, almost the size of a person and as thick as a pillar, looking down at the surface and waiting like machines to find their next target, I smiled with considerable admiration.
Until recently, they had ravaged the village, killed and kidnapped the elves, and even made a fool of Leah, who was an excellent hunter.
But now, they were being slaughtered in their lairs without being able to do anything.
Truly a swarm, a legion.
Seeing the appearance that seemed to be a fragment of the Enic of Chao Xing that I had seen in someone else’s memory, I was slowly finishing the battle with a subtle thrill that resonated from within.
‘Annihilation. They didn’t leave a single one? Good.
Then what about the captured elves?
Are they all alive? That’s a relief.’
In the meantime, perhaps because the Swarm Bees were also strong?
Seeing that dozens of them could lift and carry the bodies of the elves into the air like an airship, I was able to carry the elf prisoners through the tunnels that the earth fairies had dug towards the ground.
The elves who were originally targeted were mostly safe, perhaps because it wasn’t time yet.
Except for Riel, who had been collectively harassed, and her mother, who had been hit in the head with a stone, everyone else did not suffer any particularly serious injuries.
I quickly had the two most urgent patients, each tightly embraced by the legs of a large Swarm Bee, fly to the World Tree, and then I turned to look at the elves.
Since I had annihilated the enemy, I gave orders to the other elf kin who were worried about them, and I quietly watched them go to rescue the elves, taking what they needed.
‘With this, the elf rescue is completely over.
This area is safe now, so there won’t be any problems for a while.’
The really fortunate thing was that there were some male elves still alive in the earth fairies’ lair.
They were mostly seriously injured and on the verge of becoming lumps of meat, but such injuries could be healed somehow.
If all the skilled hunters and fertile men in the village were to die, there would be no future for their village.
It was a great relief that I was able to save some men in good timing so that they could continue the lineage.
‘There may be elves from outside…
But I don’t know where they are, and it’s better than complete strangers.
So, is it almost over now……?’
As I was looking around while possessing a Swarm Bee inside the lair, I briefly looked at the pile of monsters that the earth fairies had caught as food.
Just as I was about to slowly turn around and fly out, seeing that there didn’t seem to be anything in particular, I felt something strange and turned around.
At that moment, the existence of one earth fairy suddenly screaming and grabbing its neck as it jumped out of the pile of corpses.
‘One left!!’
As the Swarm Bee flew up and stabbed the head of the fleeing earth fairy, who had been hiding in the pile of monsters, the earth fairy was startled and tried to run away.
But as it followed it to the end and stabbed its stinger into the back of its neck, the earth fairy collapsed to the ground as if its nerves had been touched, and lay limp as if dead.
The earth fairy seemed to have been seriously injured from the beginning, and was dying like that, grabbing its neck, where blood was gurgling out.
‘Good. Then it’s really over…’
“Ugh… Ugh……”
I thought at that moment.
I could hear something wriggling among the collapsed pile of monsters, and a voice that seemed to be coming from it.
So, I flew gently to it and began to slowly observe the existence that had caught my attention.
“Nella… open your eyes…
Please… everyone’s gone…”
Hiding something that was now dead and unmoving beneath her body, which she was using to cover it.
Seeing a woman with red scratches, a rotting smell, and a whitish liquid scattered everywhere, trembling her back, I stared blankly at the woman for a while and fell into deep thought.
‘She looks familiar…… who is she……?’
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