CHAPTER 488: FATHER, WOULD YOU KINDLY DONATE SOME FLESH?

I thought about the possibilities.

The bodies of bees were already growing closer to perfection more and more with each generation. But what about those bees who were left behind?

Ice-hole wood prosthetics could let them catch up with their sisters. In theory.

"This is nice and all, but in the end, those are still just wood. Why do you think that even these limbs," I gestured at some prototypes with metal claws and carapace built-in, "will be much better than the originals?"

"By themselves, they probably won’t," Tabletina said. "I put the first, experimental grafts on aphids. They had time to fully fuse with the flesh, but the new body parts acted mostly as normal ones, except tougher. However, I already have ideas about how the prosthetics could be improved."

"Yes-yes!" Things-Things piped in excitedly. "For a start, we can just make better ones! Longer hands for longer reach, extra fingers, extra arms—why not?"

Tabletina gave her a sour look.

"Please, don’t interrupt me. Father, I have a theory that the ice-hole tree wood, when grafted, mimics the capabilities of the original organism. At least partially. I want to find out what will happen if a piece of wood is grafted to two organisms at once... For example, an ordinary bee and a piece of something extremely physically strong. Like a murder hornet."

I closed my eyes for a moment, just imagining this. It was easy to imagine where Tabletina was going with this. Unholy fusions of flesh and wood of all kinds, with various devices—mechanical or even electronic—attached to them for even MORE power.

And what kind of experimentation would it take?

Compared to this, prosthetic limbs for Twohorn were child’s play! Totally innocent and not mad science at all!

Did I really want my girls to use something so creepy? Attach the results of Tabletina’s experiments to their bodies? Modify themselves, possibly to the level where they became almost unrecognisable as bees?

I opened my eyes.

"Tabletina, Things-Things—you have my permission to keep experimenting with this project. However, I won’t be saving any ice-hole trees just for you. If you don’t prove that this is worth farming them until every last tree is gone, then they will be gone and extinct."

Things-Things grinned and was about to say something, but closed her mouth shut when she saw that I wasn’t done.

"Also, I remind you again that all your experiments must be done on volunteers... But in the case of grafting weird prosthetics, these experiments must be done on animals first! That’s it."

Tabletina smiled joyfully, and it was a sight that sent a shiver down my spine.

Was I too hasty in my decision? Was I unleashing the man-made horrors beyond human comprehension?

I wanted to let my girls decide for themselves! I knew that many of them felt like they were getting behind in times and useless when they saw their younger, more powerful sisters outperform them.

"By the way, Father. Would you donate a bit of your blessed flesh for our experiments later? I think... This might, in theory, be the key to copying the power of your ’special sight’ which helps us so much!" Tabletina added excitedly. "This won’t be different from sharing your blood with us, I swear. I would never even think about doing you any harm!"

"Shit, I should’ve known this conversation would end this way," I muttered. "I will think about it, Tabletina, IF your experiments with animals go somewhere."

She just nodded at me, still smiling her greediest and most cheery smile.

I shook my head in exasperation.

"Good job, anyway. Those are nice designs... And if bees like Twohorn might return to full life again, then it was all worth it," I said, throwing a fond look at Twohorn.

The girl looked like she could faint from joy on the spot.

"And also, I want to see all new designs before they are grafted on bees," I added. "Or next thing I know, you will give them tentacles or something."

Tabletina blinked.

"Tentacles? Like those of the giant flesh-beasts that humans catch from the sea? Hm..."

Damn. Now I gave her an idea...

But if she could somehow make a tentacle from wood, then, although it promised to be an absolute abomination... It also promised to be incredibly cool.

I wanted to see it.

***

The wood augments project promised to take a white to reach anything very interesting. Until this happened, I had other worries.

Like the mountains dominated by the ice-hole trees, which would eventually throw another avalanche at us. For now, they were all out of snow, but it was only a matter of time until it accumulated again.

The bees had to advance into the mountains and destroy them. But how could they do it, if just travelling through the mountains was already an insurmountable challenge?

Bees froze to death too easily. Humans could resist cold for longer, but not forever. Mechas could be warmed up from the inside, but they couldn’t carry all their fuel so high up.

The thin air was harmful as well.

This looked like a dead end. No matter how much I meditated, I couldn’t see a way to deliver deadly acid to the ice-hole trees up in the mountains.

"I feel like we can’t deal with them without inventing some massive, really massive weaponry. Like artillery that could shoot up the mountains," I told Ambrosia one evening with my head on her shoulder. "The trees up in the mountains grow slowly, but this is the only thing that saves us. This, and the fact that their seeds can’t travel from mountaintops to the Empire by wind."

I knew that the ice-hole trees would reach the foot of the mountains by other means eventually. It was only a matter of time.

Then we will be forced to guard the foot of the mountains forever, unable to attack the trees on their territory.

Amby gently stroked my forehead.

"Don’t despair, Necty. Perhaps this just means that Researchina must invent the ’artillery’ very quickly... Can’t she do that?"