4 Just a Bee Hunter

The plan was relatively simple. Bait them and kill them together. What was to be done was even simpler. Someone had to beat the drums in front of the fortress, disturbing the peace. And who was the lucky one to do that? Of course, the prized meat who held the wrath of the bee's!

"Lady Tianya, are you sure everything will be alright..?" spoke Lan, gulping down a mouthful of his own saliva.

"Its gonna be alright, just go and make some noise, after their failure earlier, they will surely be wrathful towards you! Don't worry, if the worst comes to worst , we will save you and follow plan B."

Hearing her, Lan actuay disdn't feel reassured at all. The so called plan B was actually...Retreat at full speed. Just by hearing that they have such a plan B, Lan's confidence ln them plummeted down. Clearly, they themselves felt their winning chances were slim..

Looking at the wry smile on Lan's face, Mark immediatly tried to speak a few words of encouragement to him.

"Don't worry Lan, we will be here for you, you don't have to worry about anything..."

"Then why don't you do it yourself!" barked Lan annoyed.

Giving off a silly laugh, Mark immediatly dodged the question and started humming off looking at the sky and exclaiming to himself "what a beautiful day"

Seeing the carefree manner of Mark, Lan was totally resigned before slowly moving towards the bee nest. With the Silver Sword in hand, Lan paved a way through the scattered bee's that appeared on his way. Lan's movements were lightning fast, not giving the chance to any bee to alert their friends until Lan was only a few meters before the bee nest.

Once Lan got closer of only fifty meters away, some scattered bees immediatly noticed him, before the buzzing started. What started as a minor buzzing from a bee, like the rain, immediatly buzzing from the thousand bees in the vecinity resounded even higher, trembling the heavens and earth. No matter how weak the bee's were, nobody would doubt the strenght of an enraged tidal bee wave of two thousands units.

The buzzing has not faded away, but it was slowly growing stronger than ever, as all the bee's in the vecinity gathered back to the nest , forming layer upon layer of defenses for the nest. It was truly a sight to behold, the actions of these bees resembled a true formation of defense against the attacks from an enemy.

Sweat started pouring on Lan's back like a downpour, slowly losing his footing. Lan was truly intimidated by the bees!

"What are you doing, are you stupid?! RUN!" a thunderous voice resounded in the forest, full of anxiety and dread. Clearly this voice belonged to Lady Tianya.

Without delaying any further, Lan ran straight into the direction of the group at the highest speed he was capable of. Seeing the wrathful human run away once more, the bees were enraged and ran straight towards him. However, not all the bees left. Half of them chased him, while the other half stayed behind to defend the nest. Despite the fact that the bees were stupid creatures, their biggest instinct was to protect their own nest. No matter what, the safety of the nest was of the highest priority, especially since their Bee Queen was currently residing inside.

The group seeing that only half of the bee's chased Lan was slightly disappointed, but immediatly regained their tempers. No matter what, reducing their fighting force in half was better than fighting against all of them!

"Everyone, i'll stop them for a brief moment, the rest of you, launch your strongest attacks so we'll get rid of these insects in one go! Failure is not permitted this time, there's too much at stake." said Lady Tianya to the group. Normally, they wouldn't take such dangerous missions such as attacking a fortress of bee's, but this time, because of a silly argument at the Mercenary Guild's Tavern with another mercenary, they have no choice but to fulfill it.

The group inhaled and exhaled foul air, before taking proper stances and weapons slowly appeared on everyones hands. On Lady Tianyas hands appeared a Wand, clearly she must be a magician while Widi wielded her longbow and Mark had his treasured Longsword while the others were all equipped with swords.

As Lan was getting closer and closer towards the group, so was the swarm, which looked like black hole ready to swallow eveeything inside.

Lady Tianya slowly hit the ground, before starting to chant softly, using an unknown language that made it hard to understand.

In just a matter of time, two boulders materialzed before flying towards the right and left side of the bee swarm, as if wishing to squash all the bee's alive. However, in no more than two seconds, all the bee's suddenly halted in mid-air, as if paralyzed and Lady Tianyas panting voice could be heard.

"Do it, i can't hold the Earth Magnetic Field any longer! You have two seconds, attack!"

Before her words even left her mouth, Widi's arrow flew towards the unmoving killer bee's from mid-air. Once more, after the arrow hit, an explosion occured, killing more than half of the Killer Bee's inside. The rest of the group members immediatly ran straight towards the bees after the explosion. Widi was shooting normal arrows, managing to kill two-three bee's per shot. As for the others, their actions were more or less impressive, because they were only swinging their swords, not using any skills. Lan was slightly disappointed seeing this scene, since he truly wanted to see the true strenght of the group.

Lan immediatly joined the fight as well, killing randomly scattered bee's that appeared on his way. What made Lan surprised however, was that no matter after killing over 50 bees, he still showed no signs of leveling up, making him slightly depressed.

The group of bees were easily taken care off after that. After the combination of Lady Tianyas Earth Field and Widi's Explosive Shot, the bees were slightly confused and terrified, putting a lower display of power and resistance on the fight.

Some of the bees slowly started regrouping and retreating toward the nest. After a bitter fight against them, Lan's group finally stopped their massacre and of the one thousand bee's that were, more than eighty percent were lying dead on the floor, becoming fertilizer for the nature.

This group of people, no matter who it was, was clearly stronger compared to the bandits Lan met in the past. No wonder they could travel so carefree in these forests, their strenght was on another level ! Lan did not doubt thay any of these people could be compared to or even stronger than the Crimson Bandit he has met earlier. This is the difference between quality and quantity. That bandit group had the numbers, but how many of them truly cared of growing stronger? They were just intoxicated fools by carnal pleasure and bullying the weak.

The current situation went according more or less to Lady Tianya's expectations. She was pleased to find that more that half of the Killer Bee army was taken down, but the same tactic wouldn't work again. The Bee Protectors role was mainly to protect the Queen, but they had another role. Leading the Killer Bee's in searching new places to build nests onto and fight for territories! Eating such a loss, it was only to be expected that the Bee Protectors will soon step in and lead the Killer Bee to fight.

"This is truly annoying, i think it's time for that" said Tianya

"Should we take them out now..?" replied Mark, clearly a little bit excited

"Yes, the Bee Protectors are gonna come out soon, once they are out, just focus fire on them! As long as they die, the Queen Bee will come out and that's when the true fight will begin."

After that, the wand slowly disappeared from Tianya's hands and instead, a gun appeared. The gun resembled a pistol, but it was bigger and was slightly weird looking, considering that the barrel was as big as a ping pong ball. Obviously, it shouldn't be using normal bullets.

In the hands of Mark and another two persons also appeared these strange guns, exactly like the one Lady Tianya had.

"Lady Tianya, what is that?" asked Lan, intrigued

"A Magical Gun"

"Magical Gun? How is it possible to have guns in this world and why did my grandpa never tell me about them?"

"Silly kid, obviously your grandpa never told you about them. The Magical Guns of this world are different than the ones we have on Earth. Instead of bullets, we are using marbles inscribed with elemental power, created by Inscription Masters. The strongest Magical Guns around are barely able to contend with monsters of level 20 with lower defences... Other than that, they are useless. Considering your sword skills, focusing on a sword is better than playing with these trashy things, that offer you no future."

However, the guns truly piqued Lan's interest. Why are the guns so weak? On Earth, a gun is the strongest weapon that a man wields! Lan loved swords, but he also felt a minor attraction for guns. Using a gun was clearly safer and the destructive power was also stronger than when using a sword!

"Watch and learn, kid" exclaimed Mark, before pointing his Magical Gun toward a bee.

As soon as Mark pressed on the trigger, the marble like bullet flew with a very high speed that could be comparable to normal guns before it penetrated the bee. But, nothing happened, as the bee continued moving closer towards the nest.

"Why is the bee still fine?" asked Lan clearly annoyed that the bee didn't die from one hit.

"Haha, just wait and see."

And then, Mark started muttering to himself in a voice that everyone could hear as he watched the bee getting closer to the formation.

5...4...3...2...1. Boom!

The bee exploded into pieces just as the countdown ended, igniting the bee into flames that spread to other bee's in the vecinity.

"Now! Use the common bullets, leave the elemental ones for the Bee Protectors!" Ordered Lady Tianya

As her words fell, the Magical Gun from her hands opened fire. The others, following her, started shooting as well towards the bee. Every bullet, once reaching the bee's gave off a soft explosion before two or three bee's exploded into pieces. Clearly, the 'common' bullets Lady Tianya meant were inscriptioned with less than 10 percent of the power of an explosive shot that Widi's arrows wielded.

Each Magical Gun had 12 shots before they had to be reloaded. As the gunfire continued, more and more bee's died before only a few hundred were left alive.

At this time, as everyone stopped firing, seven massive bee's rushed out ot the nest, before flying in front of the bee formation. Normally, Killer Bee's were the size of a a human's head, but the bee's that rushed out were actually as big as a human! They also had two hands which held silver spears.

Lan's was immediatly intrigued by them.

'Identify!'

Bee Protector. Level 9

The Bee Protector is in charge of protecting her majesty, The Queen Bee. It also leads the Killer Bee's in attacks to fight for territories.

'Damn, they are just as strong as all the other members of the group. What the f**k, if they are level 9, just what level is the Queen Bee at?' muttered Lan to himself looking at the stats..