Reincarnated To Evolve My Bee Empire

I marched onward through the cave entrance, then stopped abruptly when there was nowhere more to walk.

In front of me was the most beautiful and vertigo-inspiring sight of my life.

An endless red forest with bits of blue and green was spanning down many meters below, stretching to the horizon; and above me were dozens of stone pillars, which grew from the body of the mountain I was in. They leaned in all angles, sometimes even perpendicular to the ground—absolutely gravity-defying. Some vegetation was growing on their surface, but it was too far to see the details.

More blue-gray mountains, like my own, were visible in the distance. They all had a similar shape: a huge pillar coming from the ground to somewhere too high to see, and dozens of smaller pillars protruding from the upper parts of them.

Truly alien.

"What is out there?" I asked the Foragers, pointing at the pillar-mountains.

"Pillars. Below them, there are forests with flowers, and in them other bee colonies have built their hives. There are no other beehives close enough to compete with us for flowers, though."

So my beehive wasn't alone in the world. Obviously. The drone whose body I inhabited had to be from one of them originally.

Well, the forest below looked forest-like enough to have leaves.

I wanted a leaf skirt to protect my precious jewels! I wanted everybody here to wear some fucking clothes! Especially after my daughters will be born—or, well, hatched.

***

It took me and my guards a minute to reach the ground at the full speed of controlled flight. Outside of the hive there were no obstacles, and we flew fast as cars under a city's speed limit.

The forest wasn't at all like the forests on Earth, even beyond its coloring. It smelled like leaves and tree resin, but the vegetation was weird.

Most trees were replaced by tree-sized red ferns. Underneath their giant leaves grew smaller trees with smooth yellow trunks, which reminded me of bamboo groves.

At least the grass under my feet looked normal enough, just too red.

The leaves rustled over our heads. From the distance, I heard strange animal cries, as if some cats had mating season. I tensed, but they seemed far enough away that I relaxed again.

Then I looked up and shrieked like a girl.

A dozen meters away from me, a massive creature straight out of a horror movie was hanging upside down from a fern leaf.

It looked like a truck-sized red-and-green leather sock with a dozen pairs of short, pudgy arms sticking out of it in all directions. One side of the leather sock ended with a massive toothy mouth, which was biting and chewing on the fern.

〔Caterpillar〕 

〔Health〕: 15 / 15

〔Stamina〕: 8 / 10

〔Species〕: Purple Hawk Moth 

〔Age〕: 18 d 

〔Remaining lifespan〕: 182 d 

〔Attributes〕 

> Strength: 12 

> Agility: 8 

> Endurance: 12 

> Defense: 9 

> Intelligence: 1 

> Perception: 6 

〔Special abilities〕 

Fat Padding, Basic Camouflage 

〔〕〔〕〔〕 

'Yeah, that's a caterpillar. Thanks, system, I would have never realized this myself… FUCKING HELL, ARE ALL INSECTS IN THIS WORLD SO FUCKED UP?! What about other animals?! Are they going to be some eldritch horrors?!! What kind of thing makes those background sounds I hear?!'

"Drone? What's wrong?" a Forager asked in alarm.

It almost gave me a heart attack! And my 'guards' barely paid it a glance!

"Hey, hey, hey!" I pointed at the caterpillar. "That thing isn't dangerous, no?"

"Probably? I think not. No, I think it's fine! Feels safe," another Forager replied. I wanted to give them nicknames in my head, but couldn't distinguish between the three. They looked like identical twins.

I sighed.

'They can't even tell me that… With 3 intelligence these worker bees can only follow their instincts. Oh well. Caterpillars don't normally eat bees. Forget nicknames, and forget this caterpillar. Clothing!'

It was warm here, but walking around naked got old as quickly as bees. I turned away from the creepy caterpillar and searched for suitable materials.

When looking closer, I immediately noticed many other creatures skulking around, mostly hidden from me by shadows. 

I tried to steer clear from them all as I flew up to gather some leaves and leafy branches of fitting size from the small trees, while my escorts watched in dumb puzzlement.

My claws were small, but they helped a lot there.

After the leaves—something to hold the clothing together. I had no string, but I used my claws to cut narrow stripes of bark from the trees.

Like I hoped, the bark was thin enough to be tied into knots. But there were a lot of knots to tie.

I felt like at least an hour had passed since I sat in a fern's shade and began making my skirt. During that time, I saw several more human-hybrid versions of insects around: caterpillars, a few small bugs, and an ant.

None of them acknowledged my group with more than a glance. I and my Foragers did the same.

Finally, I held *IT* in my tired hands.

"Behold!" I said, proudly showing my creation to my Foragers. "This is clothing!"

"Uh… Clothing? What's that?"

"That's this thing, no?"

"But… what *is* it?"

I waved my hand at the helplessly stupid girls with their 3 intelligence.

"Let me show you. Just… Ta-da!"

Now I stood in front of them in a shitty leaf skirt. It was still *breezy* in it, but at least my junk was covered.

"It protects me from cold and scratches. You can make your own skirts and wear them, too! And extra skirts from your chests, you know?"

Their faces said, 'No, we don't.'

〔Primitive clothing〕 

Brainpower requirement: 7 

Resilience: +1 per 1 thousand affected populace.

〔〕〔〕〔〕 

At least the system had my back. Although…

'What is this brainpower requirement?'

Yeah, that checked out. I spent an hour on just one shitty skirt. It was not time-effective at all, and the Foragers didn't even understand why it was useful.

"This won't protect us from a hunter," a Forager said. "Even the small ones have teeth or stingers that go through leaves easily."

I shuddered to imagine.

"Fine, if you aren't impressed by that… Let's craft something more useful!"