Chapter 63: We Found the Wasp Nest... Something Bigger Is Inside [Review Bonus]

Only the currency had changed.

When his mana reached eleven, Raven stood up.

Valeria noticed.

"No."

"I’m fine."

"You said that two hours ago."

"Now it’s true."

"According to who?"

"Me."

"Unreliable source."

Raven picked up his backpack.

"I’m not attacking the nest."

"We still don’t know where it is."

"Then we’re going to find it."

Roland looked up.

"We have about three hours of daylight left."

"Enough."

Valeria sighed.

"Are you always like this?"

Raven thought about it.

"Probably worse before."

"That doesn’t make sense."

"I slept less."

She rubbed her forehead.

"Let’s go before you decide resting was a moral weakness."

Raven hadn’t decided that.

Yet.

They returned to the flight route while avoiding the Burstpod area.

Raven marked the plant on the map.

Then marked two more just like it.

Once he knew what to look for, they were easy to recognize: brown bulbs surrounded by small yellow leaves.

That annoyed him.

The plant that had nearly taken him down had been less than three feet away before he noticed it.

Sablewood didn’t attack like Blackthorn.

It didn’t need to chase.

It simply waited for you to make a mistake.

Raven respected that more than he wanted to.

The food cache was still active.

They didn’t approach it.

They circled around from the south and began following the workers leaving with their loads.

It wasn’t difficult once they understood the pattern.

Each wasp gained altitude, flew roughly two hundred yards east, then disappeared among much taller trees.

They followed from below.

Slowly.

Never in a straight line.

Roland chose the terrain.

Valeria used small droplets of blood to detect nearby movement without extending too much mana.

Raven listened.

The buzzing gradually grew louder.

At first, it sounded like one.

Then five.

Then it became impossible to count.

Valeria was the first to say it.

"That is not a small colony."

Roland didn’t answer.

His expression already had.

They continued for another ten minutes.

The vegetation changed again.

Fewer flowers.

More black resin coating the trunks.

Raven found remains of small animals stuck to branches.

Not food.

Waste.

Useless parts.

A wing.

Bones.

Shells.

The wasps were altering the environment around the nest.

Then the first structure appeared.

Raven stopped.

A gray mass hung between two trees.

Maybe ten feet long.

Built from layers of plant fiber, mud, and resin.

It wasn’t the nest.

It was a tunnel.

Arc Needle Wasps entered through one end and exited through the other.

Roland spoke very quietly.

"External conduit."

Raven watched it.

"What for?"

"Protection. Some colonies connect trees before the central nest."

Valeria pointed upward.

"There’s another one."

Raven followed her finger.

Another tunnel.

Then another.

All of them converged toward a deeper section of the forest.

Raven stopped walking.

"Back."

No one argued.

They retreated about sixty feet and changed direction to find higher ground.

They found a moss-covered rocky slope and climbed without touching unfamiliar vegetation.

From the top, they could finally see it.

Raven understood why hunters avoided nests.

The central tree was enormous.

An old Silkroot.

Maybe a hundred feet across at the base.

He couldn’t tell where the bark ended and the construction began.

A black-and-gray structure wrapped around the entire trunk, climbing into the branches like an organic city. Dozens of tunnels extended toward nearby trees. Open cavities served as entrances. Shining resin covered entire sections.

And the wasps...

Hundreds.

Maybe more.

Entering.

Leaving.

A foot long.

Sixteen inches.

Some nearly two feet.

Raven watched several workers carrying entire animals.

Others hauled plant fiber.

A group dragged the corpse of something resembling a small deer toward a low opening.

Valeria barely spoke above a whisper.

"That is much larger than I expected."

Roland remained completely still.

"It’s an old colony."

"How old?"

"Years."

Raven studied the tree.

He didn’t bother trying to count individuals.

It was pointless.

FORGE began reacting continuously as different creatures moved close enough to enter its effective range.

«Multiple compatible sources detected.

Arc Needle Wasp — Mature Worker

Arc Needle Wasp — Mature Worker

Arc Needle Wasp — Mature Worker

Arc Needle Wasp — Soldier Variant

Arc Needle Wasp — Mature Worker

Data saturation detected.»

Raven focused on the second-to-last line.

Soldier Variant.

A creature emerged from a side opening.

It was significantly larger.

Nearly two and a half feet long.

Reinforced mandibles.

Thicker abdomen.

The blue lines inside its body glowed far brighter.

«Species identified: Arc Needle Soldier

Level: 17

Rank: Awakened

Trait:

"High-Output Impulse Spark"

Potential Prototype Rifle Compatibility: VERY HIGH

WARNING: Specimen combat specialization detected.»

Raven followed it with his eyes. ℴℴ𝘮

Valeria noticed his expression.

"No."

"I didn’t say anything."

"I know you."

"It’s been less than two weeks."

"They have been extremely educational two weeks."

Raven didn’t answer.

The Soldier disappeared inside the nest.

Then another emerged.

And another.

Three.

It wasn’t a target.

It was a defense force.

Raven returned his attention to the entrances.

"We’re not going inside."

Roland looked relieved.

"Good."

"We need to isolate a mature worker."

Some of Roland’s relief disappeared.

"That’s more reasonable."

Valeria looked at Raven.

"More reasonable or actually reasonable?"

"Don’t abuse the language."

Raven studied the outbound routes.

There were too many.

But there was also a pattern.

The colony needed food.

The workers left the nest.

Which meant they didn’t need to approach the center.

They could choose a secondary route.

Create a stimulus.

Wait for a scout or forager to separate.

Kill it quickly.

Leave before its absence triggered a response.

Militarily, it was simple.

Peripheral infiltration.

Isolation.

Extraction.

The problem was that the enemy had wings, venom, paralyzing electrical discharges, and probably some form of chemical alarm system.

Raven started to smile.

Valeria saw it.

"I hate that expression."

"We have a plan."

"That is exactly why I hate it."

Roland looked toward the nest.

"What do you need?"

Raven pointed toward a flight route heading south.

"One worker far enough away from the others. Bait that won’t trigger a mass alarm. A position where Valeria can cut off reinforcements without touching the target’s abdomen."

Valeria raised an eyebrow.

"How thoughtful of you to include me in my own plan."

"You’re good at controlling multiple targets."

"That almost sounded nice."

"Don’t get used to it."

Raven looked at the nest again.

The first piece of his rifle was in there.

Probably hundreds of copies.

And yet obtaining just one without provoking the entire colony could be harder than killing creatures far stronger than a single worker.

FORGE displayed the project information.

«PROJECT: PROTOTYPE RIFLE

Completion: 0.8%

Functional Components Acquired: 0 / 5

Compatible sources detected within local colony:

Mature Worker "Impulse Spark" — HIGH

Soldier "High-Output Impulse Spark" — VERY HIGH

Higher caste signatures detected deeper within colony.

Analysis unavailable at current distance.»

Raven stopped at the final line.

Higher caste.

Valeria was watching him.

"What is it?"

"There’s something else inside."

"Bigger?"

"I don’t know."

Roland looked at the enormous nest.

"Queen."

Probably.

Raven closed FORGE.

He didn’t need a queen.

The system had recommended a mature worker.

That was enough.

He chose to repeat that sentence to himself because part of him already wanted to know what kind of organ belonged to the creature controlling a colony that large.

Raven took a step back.

"We’re leaving."

Valeria looked genuinely surprised.

"That easily?"

"I found what I needed."

"I thought you wanted to get closer."

"I want many things."

Roland smiled.

"Another reasonable decision."

Raven started down the slope.

"Stop commenting on them. It’s starting to feel weird."

Valeria followed him.

"Tomorrow, then."

"Tomorrow, we get a worker."

"And if the organ still isn’t enough?"

Raven stopped for only a moment.

He looked over his shoulder at the enormous nest, where hundreds of black silhouettes moved between the tunnels.

Then he continued walking.

"Then tomorrow we’ll have a bigger problem."

Behind them, something inside the nest released a buzz so deep it didn’t sound like an insect.

The entire tree seemed to vibrate.

Raven didn’t turn around.

Yet.

They had come to Sablewood for one wasp.

The forest had just shown them where it kept all the others.