Beesekai [A Monster Reincarnation Isekai]

Vlugh flinched, the sounds of distant explosions surprising him. The noises were coming from the main street, where Greyan and Beelzebub were fighting. As if Beelzebub’s wild buzzing in his head wasn’t enough, the pressure from those two powerful Minds colliding nearly swept him off his feet.

This was all so stupid. He couldn’t help but lament the good old days, even in the heat of battle. But he couldn’t stay distracted for long. Meyara hit Grehn with a severe backhand, so Vlugh did as he’d done a dozen times in the battle and screamed, channeling his Mind into his voice to douse the Knight in fire. And, as usual, it barely did anything other than a momentary distraction to allow Grehn to keep struggling his heart out.

He fired his pistols, aiming towards the exposed form of Muweh, but she was too far, and safely made it behind the cover of a wooden wagon. He felt next to useless. Already his supply of bullets was next to depleted, his Mind felt like jelly, and his fire was barely effective in the first place. The new gamble by the hive would probably work, but there was no telling how long it would take for the Linkers to find their targets. And even then, it hinged on the Knights’ actions.

Then, he spotted him. By some miracle, Lahim, the Lemonholmian government official, stood off to one side, desperately whacking Herwen with one of those basket sticks. He was one of the Linker targets, and he was right there, so what was delaying the Linker?

Well, it would probably be the Mind-encased armored Knight himself. Lahim was simply too close, and Herwen, while mostly encumbered by dozens of angry cultists beating down on him, looked no worse for wear. Bullet by bullet, punch by punch, stab by stab, Herwen was thinning the numbers of the cultists, slowly but surely. It often took more than one bullet, and a punch didn’t down them for long, but the cultists simply stood no chance.

Vlugh had to act decisively. If only he had ever done something like that before. But if he didn’t, they were just going to get worn down.

A sudden shout broke Vlugh from his stupor. “Get out of our town!”

It came from a burly figure, one of the men that had previously helped keep the Lemonholmians under control at the beginning of the investigation. He had broken away from the group assaulting Herwen and was sprinting towards Meyara, brandishing a large club which he swung wildly, his massive muscles bulging out of his cultist robes.

“Get away!”

Grehn’s plea fell on deaf ears. The man was simply too angry or too stupid to listen. When the man reached Meyara, Grehn gave up trying to stop him and joined him, his sword glowing bright blue as he attacked. But Meyara was ready. She had already swung her bayonet in Grehn’s direction and had turned around, content to let her invisible attacks stop his attempt. When the burly man attacked, his club bounced uselessly against her head and her arm shot out, grabbing the man by the neck. His musculature rivaled Meyara’s own, but even then, she squeezed the front of his neck and lifted him off the ground, her fist squeezing.

Vlugh growled. This was his chance to act! Grehn was still struggling against invisible blades, and the man’s windpipe surely wouldn’t last long. Without further caution, Vlugh charged forward, making Elofan jerk in surprise. Grehn saw and nodded slightly. He managed to end the struggle with the invisible attacks and swung for Meyara, still occupied with the burly man.

She only spoke a single word. “Damn.”

Mind flooded into her hand, instantly crushing the burly man’s throat. He fell to the ground, dead. She jumped into a spin, avoiding Grehn’s attack, and prepared to stab Vlugh. But he wasn’t there. Using the moment, he had pivoted away and was running towards Herwen.

Meyara wasted no time in warning her companion, even as she clashed with Grehn again. “Herwen! Incoming!”

He turned to see what she meant, but Herwen’s distraction allowed the cultists to intensify their beating. He barely turned before Vlugh was right in his face.

No words needed to be spoken. All Vlugh did was scream. Gouts of flame manifested as he poured everything into his attack, enveloping Herwen in fire. The arrogant look on Herwen’s face quickly transformed into one of fear as he realized the flames weren’t deflected by his armor, instead appearing as if they were to break through. Most of the fire stopped at Herwen, giving the cultists time to scramble away from the heat.

This was the moment. Herwen didn’t have Meyara’s power - Vlugh’s dragon fire could hurt him. He just needed to break through.

“By the Person, this is annoying. Fuck!”

Herwen’s exasperated voice was becoming increasingly panicky, but it was also punctuated by a burst of Mind. His armor’s ghostly form actually became more ethereal, reinforced further. Vlugh’s heart sank as he realized his attack would not work.

Faint sounds rang in his ears, but his fiery breath was too loud. Then, from inside his Mind, a voice that distinctly belonged to the Mother rang out.

“Vlugh! Watch out!”

He saw Meyara’s rifle barrel staring up at him too late. Grehn’s slash of water, shot from far away, hit the gun as it fired, deflecting the bullet. He was saved. The last thing he heard before his vision went black was the firing of an invisible gun, and the last thing he felt was an invisible bullet entering through his open mouth.

I liked fire. Maybe it was my Drevani blood, the ties to a people who rejected the rule of the Human and instead invested themselves in the rule of dragons. I wasn’t sure about any of that; my parents had left Dreva just after I was born, after all. Unusual for a Drevani to leave their country, but I never questioned it. Why would I? I had no memory of the place and was more focused on the moment.

And at the moment, I was a bit concerned about being completely covered in fire.

“Living in the moment is a mark of wisdom indeed, young Drevani. But only one mark. For true wisdom is found in all time, of what was, what is, and what can be.”

I looked around, searching for the voice. It was exceedingly old, infinitely more so than that of Muweh Sawah or Jill Yemonto, with a deep rumble that sounded like the ground shaking under the weight of enormous boulders. What piqued my curiosity the most, though, was its pronunciation. It was a strange thing to notice, but the accent, the way they said the word Drevani, it all reminded Vlugh of his parents. And this accent was even thicker than theirs.

“Uh, sure. Hey, where am I? Did I get killed by that stupid invisible Ability?”

I had no noticeable lapse in my memory, but that only made my situation all the more strange. I didn’t necessarily trust this old voice, but it was probably better than nothing.

Hold on. Nothing?

With a start, I realized that for the first time in weeks, my Mind was completely clear. No buzzing bees. No crazy information, no dozens of voices and images flooding my Mind, no threats from Beatrice. It was peace. Total, beautiful, blissful silence. My hand reached for my neck and found it empty, save for the constantly burning flames.

“Okay, this is getting really strange. Did you unLink me?”

The voice rumbled in the darkness. “That creature’s influence has no hold in your state. Your life currently hangs in precarious balance, not quite in the heat of battle nor floating in my river. But such will not be the case for long. Your wound was not fatal, some stroke of sheer luck. The creature is unable to steal your Mind, and the Human has no claim. Curious, how the Human is so often harmed by their own genius.”

I was only becoming more confused by the second.

“The Human? What are you talking about?”

In the darkness, something stirred. In my body, which I realized was little more than a wispy form of smoke encased in fire, I felt a tremor. It was the sensation of my soul trembling. In the inky void, the shadows suddenly parted, as if a bright door opened in front of me, and there appeared a single enormous eye, blinding and entrancing me with color. Hues of green, orange, red, yellow, purple, blue, and colors I didn’t dare try to name shimmered, dazzling my imagination. In the middle of it all was a gigantic pupil, a single line reaching from top to bottom, darker than the surrounding nothingness. The eye pierced my soul with a gaze that twinkled with age and intelligence and… curiosity.

“The Minds of the Drevani belong to me. Your ancestors decided that when they, of all humans, understood the true nature of the Human. Ironic, that the ones who most understood Them would abandon Them.”

My voice caught in my nonexistent throat. It had to be a dream. Nothing could convince me that what I was experiencing was real.

“I cannot help you much. Your injury has mutilated your brain, too much for the creature’s healing Ability to restore it to its original state. That, along with this meeting I have forced upon your soul… well, I cannot predict the effects it will have on your psyche. But even so, I will not possess you and destroy the Minds of those beneath me as the Human so carelessly deems necessary. I can only keep you here for so long, so let us move on. There are two important ideas you must take with you back to the land of the living, young Drevani. The first will save you in this battle. The second will save you in your struggle with and against the creature that controls you and ultimately leads to a new natural order.”

“You… If you’re what I think you are, can’t you help me? Help us?” I looked away from the eye, unable to stare at it any longer. “That bee has caused so much suffering, and it’ll only get worse. Either they’ll keep expanding and cover the world with the hive, or the Royal Army will march on Yiwi and raze it to the ground!”

“Strictly speaking, we cannot intervene. It is both forbidden and impossible. Even the Human agreed to the restrictions, but They have commandeered the method the Bee pioneered, attempting to find a work-around for the bindings. They have bastardized it, turning into a heinous act that will destroy the Minds of their own. I have not fully dissected the Bee’s method as the Human did, so this is the best I can do. As we are now, opposing the Human and Their followers, divine and mortal alike, is pure futility. And besides, the Bee’s creature is, in truth, beneficial to us.”

My brain went numb at hearing that. Divine? That bee was… beneficial? This had to be a dream of some kind. Even if they were real, the gods could never be so unbelievably cruel. People were starving, their homes decimated, their families dead. All thanks to those bees. And things would only get worse.

“How can you say that?”

For a moment, the eye took on another emotion. Was that… embarrassment? I had to be reading that incorrectly.

“Well, we- that is to say, those I work with. They, ah, acted rather hastily,” the voice said. The eye, to my amazement, shifted, the pupil looking away from me, as if it couldn’t meet my incredulous stare. Okay, if this wasn’t a dream, it had to be an elaborate joke.

“We still do not know what the Bee did, exactly, and they have been in hiding, cowering from the Human ever since the Bee’s creature caught the Human’s attention. The other creatures that have been… misplaced, into your world are not capable of bringing about the change we desire. I can only ask that you bear the control of the Bee’s creature for the time being.”

“You’re asking us to suffer, and what? Be happy with our stolen freedom?”

“Yes.”

My legs felt weak, and I didn’t even have legs. Even so, I found a way to fall onto my non-butt as the pupil shifted away again.

“I empathize with the pain you feel. The Bee’s creature is, shall we say, an unnatural being, something that should not exist. Beyond that, it is a dastardly combination, to be both human and bee. The selfishness and selflessness of humanity, its individuality and uniformity. They complement the bees to a startling degree, conjoining and enhancing each other. And this creature, well, it is ruthless. I almost pity the state of humanity when we allow it to run rampant. None expected that the Human’s system could be exploited so. I regret the hand I had in helping Them create it. But that is what was. This is what I meant - you must understand all time to survive what comes.”

What was the voice trying to tell me, assuming it was actually real? The gods were working together? What were they doing? It felt like I was starting to really get in over my head. Was it really possible that the bee, the random monster we encountered in the Vultuous Forest that fateful day, was so important that gods were rooting for it? The thought made my stomach churn. And between all of that, there was information that felt unfinished, as if the voice couldn’t help but mention it, but didn’t care to elaborate further. Something about restrictions and agreements, of control and stolen ideas and destroying Minds. It all felt like something I wasn’t meant to learn about.

The voice rumbled, growing stronger. More confident. “I chose you, young Drevan, for your unique proximity to the Bee’s creature. Other creatures will be drawn to it as our preparations unfold, now that it has settled into a comfortable rhythm. Now, I must give to you two most crucial ideas.”

I barely registered what the voice said, but I couldn’t ignore the sudden prickling on my skin. It was the fire. I tried shaking it off, but it clung to my skin like glue. The pricking intensified into a burning sensation. It felt like actual fire was burning me.

My thoughts clouded, trying to block out the pain, but the fire ate away at me like thousands of tiny fish slowly nibbling away my flesh. A scream, my scream, echoed in the void as the voice boomed, drowning me out.

“The first is of fire. Your [Shouts of Remembrance and Fire] is not a special Ability, but it can become powerful. Admittedly, I do not enjoy the aspect of destroying what was, but it was your choice. It contains a fraction of the unique, Mind-consuming properties of dragon’s fire. Your flames are a dichotomy, one of remembrance and of fire, of creation and destruction, of what was and what will be. You are unbalanced, aiming to destroy. It is a consequence of what is. You must understand what you have destroyed, of what was. Only then can you understand the creation of what is. That will allow your Ability to strengthen. It can be strengthened again afterwards - but only through further balance. I cannot say more.”

Searing hot pain ran through my soul as the information burned itself there, ensuring it would remain when I woke up. I wasn’t really thinking of that, though, considering the sensation of being thrown into a bonfire was extremely unpleasant.

“The second… Well, it is quite important. For me. For everyone, of course, but especially so for me. You must go to Dreva. There, my own creature awaits, trapped by the Drevan Ministry. You must free them and bring them to the Bee’s creature. Ah, of course, there are many other things I would like you to do in Dreva, if you could. Finding the missing Dargonix, for one. And perhaps toppling the Drevan Ministry and reforming it entirely to save the Drevani. Those may be far-fetched until sufficient power is developed, but it would be very nice.”

My soul burned, the voice’s words not understood by my brain. But my soul knew. And it would remember. As my consciousness faded, I knew my soul would remember everything that happened here. Remember the pain, remember the fire. Remember the unfathomable power of the eye, the voice. The eye and the voice of the Dragon.