CHAPTER 480: PLAN C

The ice-hole trees didn’t stop growing on day two. Even after reaching what I thought earlier was their full height, they continued to grow taller and wider. I felt that they really could’ve turned into pillar mountains, given enough time.

By this point, the emergency forces stopped trying to cut the trees and instead focused their efforts on clearing the snow and debris they could reach without freezing. They even recovered some human buildings that were only slightly covered by the avalanche, although their inhabitants were told to keep waiting in the refugee camp.

This was when my plan C entered its first stages.

A group of a thousand special Warrior Bees have travelled on a train to one of the sites affected by the avalanche. Each of these bees had a chaotic mutation that let them spit potent acid at long distances. This acid could easily deal heavy chemical burns and rapidly corrode metal, although not to the point of melting it like some acids could do.

Following their orders, the acid-spitting bees gathered at a safe distance from one of the growing ice-hole trees. There, a few humans were already waiting for them with glass jars.

Soon, these jars became full of acid spit by the bees!

With their level of acid-spitting gene, the Warrior Bees couldn’t just spit acid right at the trees, so they just put acid in the corrosion-resistant glass jars. Then, before the acid could evaporate, the humans threw the jars at the trees.

My astral projection was there to watch it. I could confirm with my own eyes, from up close, that this was incredibly effective!

The glass jars smashed on trunks and branches of the ice-hole trees, splattering acid all over. Whenever it touched the trees, they turned black. In a few places, entire branches became too damaged to hold their own weight. The trees’ needles withered and fell to the ground.

The remainder of the acid poured into the snow, melting some of it, only to freeze itself. The warmth was sucked even out of the acid, but it wasn’t enough to make the tree’s life better.

The first jar wounded the tree, but the second and the third finished it. Its trunk became corroded to the core, and all its needles fell off, even those that weren’t directly affected by acid.

More importantly, the tree stopped growing.

And none of the nearby trees had grown any faster while the first one was attacked. The acid not only dealt damage to the ice-hole trees, but it also didn’t give them the warmth they liked so much, except for some minuscule amounts!

I feared that even a lightning strike would’ve done more harm than good, but this was just what we needed.

This was my plan C—acid!

Right now, thousands more bees with the acid-spitting gene were travelling to the mountains from all over the Bee Empire. At the same time, our chemical plants were producing potent acids on overdrive and sending them to emergency forces.

Researchina and her girls worked hard on optimising the acid-making process, as well as improving the acids we used. An anti-plant gaseous or liquid poison would’ve been perfect, but it was easier said than done.

We bees didn’t use pesticides in farming before, because it was easier to just remove all pests with fire and blade!

Now, perhaps, we would have to come up with something.

At the moment, my girls just did what they could—with my help, of course.

The acid-spitting bees provided as much acid as they could, which humans threw at the ice-hole trees. This let the emergency forces advance again into the ice-trees’ territory, although the speed of it was terribly slow.

On day three, things sped up. Not only did more bees arrive to spit acid into jars, but the first barrels of industrial acids were delivered as well.

Even better, these acids came with pumps and hoses to pour them at the ice-hole trees without wasting more glass.

These pumps and hoses were primitive, makeshift things hastily gathered by Researchers and Craftsmen Bees in the last week. They were manual-powered and originally used to carry water, although now they had reinforced corrosion-resistant hoses.

The pressure these pumps could push out was low, but they were human-sized and had a long, long pole attached to the hose’s end. This was a modification made specifically to let humans pour acid at the ice-hole trees while staying at a safe distance from them.

With pumps and extra acid, things went much faster. A tree after a tree was chemically burned to death, and the chill they exuded froze all harmful vapours that this could’ve produced.

Those who worked with acids usually needed safety equipment, but in this case, the air stayed almost clear. I took it as another proof that we were doing something right.

On this day, I calculated that three more percent of the ice-hole trees were killed. By my estimates, if the emergency forces continued to advance at this speed, they would clear the avalanche in a month.

But I believed that their speed would only grow over time, as more resources and people reach the mountains.

On this day, I returned to my body with cheer and didn’t have to lie on Amby’s shoulder to complain in order to restore my morale.

For a week, this situation continued, and the emergency forces steadily progressed despite the slow growth of the ice-hole trees. Then, the situation changed again.

"Father," Workharder said, appearing personally in my office, waving a sheet of paper in one hand and a hammer in two others. "This morning, the workers and scouts near the avalanche site report that some of the ice-hole trees grew flower buds! They are about to flower! Father, you know what this means."

I scowled.

"This could mean only one thing—the ice-hole trees couldn’t just accept their death in peace. They are about to grow more seeds... and spread them. By wind, I’m sure. We can’t let them—it will be catastrophic!"