Our first job from the guild takes us to another frontier village. This one seems to be pretty far from the wilderness to be considered a frontier village. I guess it is just a matter of time before it becomes a town with a minor lord to oversee it. There are a few hundred people living in the town, but no guild branch yet. As we approach the centre of the village the usual small hill of the original settlement appears. The old farmhold buildings have been cleared away and replaced by a new town hall.

At the town hall we meet the village head. "So good of you to be able to get here this quick." His words does not correspond with his eyes. He is probably annoyed that the guild did not send someone sooner. The middle aged man continues to explain the purpose of his request. Just over a week ago some boys from the village found a nest of giant bees to the north-east of the village. Close to main road going to the nearest town. The bees have been putting people off coming to the village. The ambitious village head seems upset by this, he clearly has plans for the village.

As we head towards the nest I update the girls with what I have learned about these bees from the guild library. The bees can grow to about the size of a horse head. They have four wings on their back which gives them the mobility to both fly and hover. "If they grow that big, wouldn't it be hard from them to fly." Kira's question is a fair one. "Actually, their bodies are inflated with flammable gasses that make them lighter." I am guessing their bodies produce hydrogen inside their bodies to give them buoyancy. "They are weak to fire, as it makes them explode." In response to my comment Kira grins. Wonder what she is planning.

As we approach the nest, I spot three bees heading in our direction. They still haven't sensed us so I alert the team and we hide. Looks like the bees will be heading right through our scattered group. "Let me have a go at them first." Kira seems keen to try something out. Not waiting for permission she jumps up and launches a throwing knife at the middle bee. Just as I am thinking that the knife won't do enough damage to kill the bee it blows up.

The rest of us charge the two remaining bees. Another gets hit by a knife from Kira and goes up like another Hindenburg. Definitely packed full of hydrogen. I bring out a homemade longsword and sweep it around the back of the last bee. With half of its wings cut off it tumbles to ground like a balloon. A stab with the sword finishes it off in a much more quite manner than the previous two. "I get it, you heated your knives with magic to ignite the gas inside the bees. Very smart, but I think you might have woken up the whole nest." The look on Kira's face tells me she hadn't thought that far.

We pick a small open field as the place to meet the oncoming swarm. The bees aren't particularly fast, but there are many of them and their stingers, the size of stiletto daggers, inject a paralyzing poison. While I will need to act as a vanguard to protect Rin and Kira, I start the battle with my bow. The bees are easy to hit, but an arrow to the body only slows them down unless the arrow tip is heated to ignite the gas. An arrow to the head still does the trick.

Kira applies her fire technique to the bolts of her crossbow, and greatly increase her efficiency. Even though I could easily copy the trick I refrain from doing so as I can still take out the bees in one shot by shooting for the head. Blown up carcasses are likely to be a lot less valuable than a whole one. Nadi is holding a longsword in each hand waiting for any of the bees to get too close. Rin's arrows are having less effect than my own and Kira's as her arrows are not hitting the head and aren't heated with magic.

As the swarm gets within striking distance I switch from my bow to a polearm I cobbled together last minute before we left. Hardly my best work but after hearing about the bee mission I wanted to try to get longer reach than a longword. The polearm is no more than a spear with a blade attached to the end, a glaive. Crippling bees with a glaive prove far easier than hitting them with arrows.

More than a few crippled bees later I notice Rin following my footsteps finishing off the crippled bees with her dagger. The regular booms are telling me Kira is still blowing up bees with either throwing knives or bolts from her crossbow. Glancing towards my co-vanguard I notice Nadi making short works of bees in quick succession with her two longsword. Dual wielding might be pretty useless against a strong opponent, but against vulnerable bee wings using two blades doubles the efficiency. Really hope I pick that skill up soon. Being ambidextrous can be handy.

As if reading my mind my menu notification from my analysis skill tells me I have picked up a skill. To my slight disappointment, I have learned the polearm skill. The menu map also tells me that we have finished off the swarm with the exception of a couple of stragglers. A couple of booms later from Kira, and the stragglers disappear. "Hopefully the nest will have fewer guards now." Rin's comment echoes my own thoughts.

With the rest of the team hiding a stone throw behind me, I scout the nest. The nest is surprisingly a giant sized canopy the size of a circus tent using trees as the poles. Must get crowded in here when it rains. The texture of the roof looks similar to what wasp nests are made of, just stronger. Hanging from the roof are what looks like normal wasp nests, but my analysis skill tells me that they are containers for honey. Honey exist in this world too, and since the bees are bigger it exists in much larger quantity. Wonder how they make it? Must be some equally big flowers around.

Near the center of the nest, high up in the trees is a podium of sorts. On it sits the largest bee I have seen so far. The queen bee. I head back to the group to report the number of guard bees at the nest. Their heavily depleted numbers means that we can walk right into the nest without any trouble.

As we enter Kira is holding my glaive. Having seen me use it, she wanted to give it a try, but she is clearly finding the head of the glaive to be a bit too heavy to wield. Still she manages to cripple a couple of bees at the nest while Nadi and me take care of the rest with swords. Using fire magic inside the nest is clearly not a good idea as the canopy is very flammable.

With all her nearby subjects dead, the queen sits atop her podium looking at us. Wonder if she feels fear. She is unsuited for combat, so she is entirely at our mercy. Lucky for her our mission is to clear out the adult male bees and take enough honey that the next generation of bees is more manageable. The village wants to harvest this nest in the future. Taking 1/3 of the honey is unlikely to impact the numbers, so we need to take close to half.

While the girls keep lookout I climb the nearest tree to get to the harvest dangling close to the canopy roof. Harvesting would normally be a difficult job, but with the size of my soul storage, I can easily store the bulbs as soon as I cut the connection to the canopy. As I quickly work my way across the roof, I hear Kira shouting for me to be careful. A fall from this high would hurt most normal people, but I suspect most hunters my level will get off with a couple of bruises, so she shouldn't worry. It is also the reason why I volunteered to do the job alone. My regeneration will easily heal any injury. Neither mine nor Kira's healing skills are able to do more than first aid.

While I am climbing the canopy I notice some more bees at the edge of my map radar. These are much smaller than the bees we fought and seem to be keeping their distance from us. These must be the worker bees I read about. While the male bees mostly just guard the nest and the queen, the worker bees, which are basically infertile female bees, do most of the work. As long they are left alive along with the queen, the nest will survive. Since they shy away from humans, the village will only have to deal with the male bees on a regular basis to be able to harvest the nest for honey.

Later that evening we meet the hodgepodge group of boys who have been assigned the task of harvesting the nest going forward. Seems we are all a bit concerned about their ability to do this job and staying alive. Kira happily share her knowledge, though it is unlikely that any of the boys can do magic, even the simple heat magic that is required. They seem a lot more interest in my glaive and I suggest a simple modification to some farm tools that will make them into effective weapons against bees.