Eisen was sitting on the front bench of the carriage, looking forward through the forest he and Bree were driving through. While Caria and Aulu were in the back, the Myconid still practicing her plant control and the automaton simply laying on the ground as if she was napping. The Fey-Kin on the other hand was actually sitting right beside him, using her Scanner skill to search for an important part for the Adventure's Guild's request that Eisen took a few days ago.
She was currently looking for a beehive large enough to possibly contain a honey crystal. When they were in areas that had the right conditions, she kept doing this while Eisen was driving.
It's already been about five hours since they started driving, and they finally left the mountainous area close to Melroe and were now in relatively flat land, making the drive both much easier, as well as much, much more boring.
But Eisen didn't mind. He enjoyed the beauty of nature and hearing the forest's birds chirping all around him. And there was even something that made him even happier, as Eisen learned the 'Riding & Driving' Skill about an hour ago, and it was leveling up quite nicely. According to Bree, this skill wouldn't only help with driving the carriage, but also the control he had when riding any creature.
While checking up on it every once in a while, Eisen also continued to practice some of his other skills that he could while doing something else. This meant that Eisen activated skills like his 'Truth Seeing Eyes', or even 'A Dwarf's Hands', the latter of which he managed to gain proficiency in through simply playing with a marble in his fingers for a while.
It didn't give him much proficiency, but still enough let him gain his first ever Rank 3 skill.
[A Dwarf's Hands reached Level 100 in Rank 2, upgrading to Rank 3]
[Your hands can now withstand immense heat and pressure]
[Due to Ranking-up your A Dwarf's Hands Skill, you gained +1 AGI and +1 END]
"Immense heat? So that means I can handle metal more easily, huh?" Eisen whispered to himself, and Bree happened to overhear him.
"Hm? What do you mean?" She asked, tilting her head to the side ever so lightly, still looking into the distance to keep an eye out for the beehives.
"Ah, I just got my dwarven racial skill to rank 3, and I was talking to myself about the new effects it got." Eisen laughed lowly, smiling at the young girl next to him. And Eisen knew that she wasn't actually a young girl, despite looking like it, but compared to him, most people were young so Eisen didn't really care too much.
"Ohh~! That's cool! Ah! Eisen, stop the carriage, I found some beehives!"
The carriage came to a halt as Cabarum slowed down in response to Eisen's command. Soon enough, it seemed like Eisen would be able to finally start brewing one of his favorite alcoholic drinks! But of course, Eisen wouldn't just leave the carriage in the middle of the road, but instead he decided to park it behind a nearby thicket.
"Alright, let's check them out then! Cabarum, if anyone or anything beside us comes close to the carriage, try make as much noise at possible. We won't be too far away." Eisen explained to his automaton, hoping that it wouldn't be necessary for it to do so.
So now, Eisen, Caria, Bree and Aulu made their way in the direction that Bree saw the beehives in, and soon enough they found a small hive in a hollow treestump.
Although, 'small' was quite relative, since the bees themselves were around two or three times larger than regular bees, so of course the hive's size grew in proportion to that as well. Once Bree confirmed that these were Honeybees and that there was a Honey Crystal inside of the hive, Eisen grabbed a small mana crystal that he prepared just for this situation.
It had a simple enchantment that was supposed to expell heavy smoke. Attached to it was another small mana crystal with a regular mana storage enchantment, which Eisen then quickly began filling with his mana.
He hurried up and quickly, with the furthest distance possible, placed the mana crystal into an opening of the hive. Immediately afterward, the group quickly retreated a safe distance, and waited for about half an hour or so. Eisen didn't really know how well this method would work and whether or not bees could be smoked out regularly in the game, but at least it was worth a try.
And Eisen deliberately made the mana battery so small so that it would actually run out within half an hour, and he had already tested this a few times before. So, when the smoke finally stopped, Eisen and Bree both hurried forward to the nest and looked through it. Soon enough, Eisen managed to find the pinky-sized Honey Crystal in the center of the hive, and then quickly made his way back to a safe distance.
After inspecting the crystal a little bit, he found that it actually looked quite different to what he thought. Eisen figured that it would just be a honey-colored crystal similar to a mana crystal, but instead, it was actually made up of the the hexagonal shapes of a honeycomb, as if it was a completely crystalized part of a hive.
"Interesting. Bree, what do you actually use this for?" Eisen asked the Fey-kin next to him curiously, and she answered quite quickly.
"Hmm… As far as I know, it strengthens the whole hive, and it keeps growing and growing until it is large enough to house a significant portion of bees as its own hive. The bees that are hatched inside of it are usually stronger and more special than regular bees. I think the one that requested these was a beekeeper that wants to make more honey, probably." She explained, and Eisen nodded in response.
"Really? These will be quite useful at some point to me too, then. We need only four more of these for the request, let's get some for ourselves afterward." Eisen suggested, before the small group made their way over to the next hive in the area. For some reason, there really were quite a lot of them here, and Eisen could just hear light buzzing coming from basically every direction.
At least this would make it easy to finish the request.
---
Soon, Eisen packed away the tenth Honey Crystal inside of Bree's backpack. The first few that Eisen gathered were really quite small, but soon enough, there were a few larger hives with larger Honey Crystals inside.
Actually, the amount of hives also largely increased, and that seemed to be the case because of one quite large structure.
It was a giant beehive that formed itself around multiple old trees that collapsed onto a pile. It was so large that if you could hollow it out, it would be large enough for a small family to live in.
"Eisen, be careful, that's a 'Mother Hive'!" Bree exclaimed the moment that she laid eyes on it, and Eisen stared forward onto the structure.
"A Mother Hive? So it's something like the core for all of these hives in the area?" Eisen asked himself, trying to figure out the best course of action. Some of these bees certainly looked quite large, even bigger than the 'regular' honeybees that they took care of until now. And there was a large greater variety of bees as well, as if most of these had evolved into rank 1 already.
Maybe if there was a Honey Crystal there, it would be even better than a regular honey crystal!
"So, how dangerous is it?" Eisen asked his companion, who began to analyze the situation immeidately.
"Hmm, it's not too bad. Considering our level, individual bees shouldn't be able to do much, if any, damage to us, but the problem is that there are so many of them. But it might be troublesome if the hive continues to grow…"
"How so?" Eisen asked curiously, and it seemed like Bree began to shudder as she began to talk. "You see…" She started to tell Eisen about a situation that occurred when a Mother Hive was simply allowed to keep growing. This happened on a quite remote island in the south, which is also why nobody was able to get rid of it properly.
First, it started out as a regular hive that was errected above a mana vent, a central point where large amounts of natural mana came together, which let the hive grow into a mother hive.
Over years, that mother hive in the size of a small house continued to grow until it was the size of a small castle instead. And then a fortress, before it became large enough to house a whole town. And soon enough, the whole Island was taken over by a single giant hive. Luckily, since different guilds set up a barrier near the island, and due to the sheer distance between the island and the continent, none of the bees were able to escape and make their way somewhere where they could cause harm to people.
"This is weird, though. A Mother hive shouldn't come into existence without such a large mana source like a mana vent, but the only one around here should be near the mines in Melroe. Then how did it get so large…? It seems to be quite young as well."
"I think it would be best to simply destroy it, then. Maybe we can find something like a clue afterward." Eisen suggested, and immediately grabbed the smoke-enchanted mana crystal, thinking about whether or not this would be enough. He briefly thought about just burning the hive down, but he couldn't do that either because that might cause a giant forest fire in response. And just storming inside was an obvious no-go as well.
He also thought about using his Flame of the Earth transformation, but that was just way too risky. Who knew if he could even damage monsters with his flame-body, and since it drained too much mana, it was possible that he might pass out in a mass of bees.
"Bree, do you have any idea on how we should handle this?" Eisen asked his companion that kept staring at the large Beehive in front of her.
"I think I do, yes. The type of bee that makes up the largest amount of the hive's forces is really attracted to the smell of blood. Especially that of people, although beasts work too. If we can lure them away, we can try to set up a small anti-fire barrier around it, and then burn the whole thing down. Without a hive, the hive's forces will die soon enough."
Attracted to blood, huh? If that's the case, then Eisen had an idea how he could handle this. Eisen stepped behind Bree and opened up her backpack, grabbing a large wooden bowl and a knife, as well as some health pills.
For the next part of the plan, they stepped a bit further away so that they didn't accidentally attract the bees beforehand. When they were a bit away, Bree looked around into the distance as if searching for something. "It might take a while until we find a beast, so… E-Eisen, what are you doing?!"
Bree's reaction was quite reasonable considering the thing that was going on in front of her. Eisen just took the knife and cut deep into his hand letting as much of his blood drip into the bowl while keeping a close eye on his HP counter that started to slowly tick down. "Hm? Didn't you say they prefer the blood of people?"
"Y-Yes, I did, but that doesn't mean you should hurt yourself for it!" Bree exclaimed and squatted down onto the ground next to Eisen to take a look at the wound.
"Ah, but it doesn't really hurt all that much. It's fine this way. As long as my HP stays high enough, I will be alright." Eisen tried to assure Bree that everything was alright, but it seemed like she wouldn't be convinced so easily. And Eisen did understand her, since nobody wants to see their friend cut their own hand open for a plan you yourself suggested. But once Eisen managed to get enough blood and took the health pills, the cut quickly closed back up.
It was time to destroy this hive and get the giant Honey Crystal that had to be waiting at its center.