When I woke up I felt weird. Everything felt fuzzy. My vision came into focus and I saw why. I looked like a praying mantis mummy.

Someone had bandaged me up. I was wrapped quite haphazardly with cotton bandages. Barely any of me was free of the white cloth. This was good news. Or at least better news than being left for dead in the forest and waking up as a glass ball on a table in Lady Luck's living room.

Yay, not dead. Now, where am I?

The room I was in looked quite familiar. It had the wood paneling of that beastmaster compound. I doubt that there is a ton of variation to the building in this forest, but with only the school and the compound to compare it to, I would bet it was the compound.

I flicked my unbandaged antenna in the air. Yep, this place had that animal smell.

So, I was back here again. Well, I bet the boss doesn’t want me near his little girl anymore. Giant man eating bug monsters make terrible pets.

I was pretty much crippled though, and that sucked. I was missing most of an arm, a leg, and the rest of my body had chunks missing here and there. I couldn’t even stand, I was stuck lying here on this cushion that was acting as my bed.

The fact that I was still alive was a testament to an insect’s life force. I had survived being turned to hamburger and poisoned. Even with treatment this was really impressive.

I was satisfied though.

I saved a little girl. Living and killing all those @$#hats who tried to take her away from her family was just a bonus.

I don’t know if any survived but I doubt it. Those elves did not seem like the type to take prisoners. I don’t really have a clue how the justice system here works. That’s bad considering I ate some people.

I don’t think ‘they deserved it’ is a reasonable defense in any court of law. Saving a little girl might be though. Well, there’s nothing I can do about it.

I tried to use my shape shifting to close my wounds. It worked okay, but there were a lot of holes and gashes to close. Sealing up all the missing portions stretched my exoskeleton kinda thin. I could use my extra biomass. It wasn’t like I was full size, so it was possible to increase the amount of exoskeleton I had, but that wasn’t really a proper solution.

I felt really stiff. The wounds were still there, they just were covered up or pinched shut. Adding the way my exoskeleton was awkwardly stretched and I was going to have trouble moving anywhere. Not like I was going to try. Even if I could break out easily, I doubted I could escape the two bird riding elves.

The door clicked and was unlocked from the other side. I shifted a bit as I looked towards the opening door.

Speak of the devil… It was Mero’s dad. He did not look happy either. His eyes narrowed as he saw I was awake.

I waved. It was really awkward.

“You were the gold tree monk that Anthus found aren’t you?”

I gave a nod. He still looked skeptical, so I turned my exoskeleton blue, then red, then back to the default greenish brown I had been favoring lately. His only response was to raise an eyebrow and stare at me for a long time.

Wow, this so super awkward…

He snorted through his nose as he spoke to me.

“Well, aren’t you going to say anything?”

What, you think I can speak? I’m a giant bug!

“Hhhkhktkktkhth…”

“Wait, you can’t speak? That’s weird, A magic beast of your intelligence should have some way of communicating…”

He looked puzzled for a second before realizing he was supposed to be glaring at me. When he focused on me again I could feel his mind appraising me.

“...I don’t know what to do with you.”

???

“You ate those people. I saw the remains, you ran them down and devoured them. You are a monster, not just a magic beast.”

Oh yeah… In retrospect that was kind of insane. I had been focused on saving the girl, but eating someone while they are still alive is all kinds of messed up. In fact, why am I not more upset?

I had been so determined to stay human, then started eating people the first chance I had. I didn’t regret things though…

I suppose in the end it was because I would have been betraying myself if I had left the kid to her fate. I would rather become a monster than stop being me. Or was it avoiding becoming a bigger monster? Man, philosophy is hard.

“Normally I would kill you, man eaters are just too dangerous. The problem is that you weren’t indiscriminate. You didn’t eat Anthus, Mellina, Mero, or me.”

He paused, his expression turning odd for a second.

“You saved my daughter.”

We stood there, staring at each other for a long time, before he spoke again. His voice cracked as he spoke.

“Thank you.”

This felt awkward, but it was nice. Knowing that I had saved the little girl had been good, but this helped it sink in. Again, I felt that nearly dying was worth it. The one sided conversation stalled again.

“I can’t let you leave, freeing a man eating monster would be gross negligence, and I can’t just imprison you. My daughter formed a contract with you, and killing you or separating you from my daughter would cripple any chance she had of progressing as a beastmaster…”

Wait, she contracted me? When did that happen?

Man, does the contract not need the victim to be conscious for the process? That’s a little unfair.

“That said, I would rather have you gone forever than put her in danger, so I need you to come with me. Someone needs to speak to you.”

...I have no clue what’s happening anymore.

Am I safe? Is he going to kill me, imprison me, or make me his daughter’s slave? I feel like he’s either trying to mess with me or is completely indecisive. Either way he seems to want me to follow him.

I forced myself to stand. With one of my legs gone I was forced to hobble along on only three. It’s funny, back when I only had two legs I was fine, but now I’m so used to four that this feels wrong. I guess it makes sense, my center of gravity is different.

I kept a claw against the wall for stability as I limped after him. He seemed to resist the urge to help me. He probably didn’t want to get too attached.

I was still waist high. Normally it didn’t matter, but he was leading me up stairs. The steps were a lot bigger. At first I heaved myself up each step with a claw, but it was slow and painful. Three legs wasn’t going to cut it.

Using my shapeshifting I grew a blunt spike out of the stump of my missing leg. It made a pretty good peg leg. With that I managed to barely get up the first flight of stairs.

Yes! I did it!

That’s when I saw the long, spiralling flight of stairs…

A bee flew past, buzzing down from a ridiculous height. I wasn’t going to be having an easy time.

It wasn’t like it was impossible, I still had my inhuman stamina, but each step was tall and awkward, and there were at least a hundred, probably more.

Mero’s dad seemed to sense my reluctance, and came to a decision. He reached for me, it looked like he was going to carry me up the stairs.

I shooed him away with my good claw. I still had my pride.

Growing from his waist height to as tall as he was was surprisingly painful, like the patch jobs all over my body were stretching out. It ached, but I didn’t want help anymore. I was going to get up these stairs under my own power.

This set of stairs had more bees than rest of the building. The school hadn’t had any bees inside either. It was kind of weird, since there were bees everywhere in this forest. The only time you didn’t see any was at night.

To distract myself from the pain I focused on my memories of the forest. It was truly beautiful. There were so many flowering trees. That was probably the reason there were so many bees. I couldn’t remember ever seeing a place with so much life when I was a human.

These trees were amazing too. A good chunk of this town was nestled in the branches of these trees. This place was amazing. Even if I would have rather been human, I’m glad I was dropped here.

These stairs went on forever. There weren’t even any landings. Where are we even going? Is there something at the top of this thing?

Eventually we reached the top. I could tell Astera’s dad was walking slowly so I could keep up. He was pretty patient and thoughtful. I think the only reason he’s so cold to me was because of the whole daughter-contracted-to-a-man-eating-bug issue.

“Alright, we’re here.”

At the top of the stairs there was an odd looking door. A faint buzzing came from the other side. We traveled far enough upwards that we must be in the thickest part of the tree’s crown.

The door slid open smoothly. It turned out to be a sliding door, not one with hinges. The sound of buzzing grew incredibly loud. We emerged into a bees nest that filled the tree.

It was enormous. Honeycombs the size of storage containers hung from from thick branches. There were dozens of them, all covered with bees and almost dripping with honey. Light shown between the leaves and glistened off the giant sheets of beeswax.

It’s a golden cathedral. No, it’s golden palace.

The song of thousands of millions of thumb sized honey bees flying about was almost deafening. Astera’s dad walked into the room and kneeled.

“Your majesty.”

Wait, the elves are ruled by bees? That’s weird…

When the elf spoke the countless bees grew still. All the bees in the air flew to a branch, leaf or piece of honeycomb and landed before resting quietly. The omnipresent noise of buzzing disappeared, with dead silence replacing it.

A single goliath honeybee, thick and long as a man’s thigh, crawled out of a thicker clump of honeycombs. She walked casually towards us.

As she approached, the bees closest to her ran up and pressed against her. At first it wasn’t much, but eventually they formed a moving pile of bees. More and more piled up and soon the lump of bees was the size of a minivan.

Soon the queen wasn’t visible anymore. All that was left was a small hill of living insects. It was quite scary. When they stopped in front of us the bees started shifting about, changing the shape of the pile.

The pile rose and took the shape of a titanic woman sitting on a throne. It was still made of bees, but the shape was unmistakable. Then a buzzing came from within the pile and the light hitting the countless wings of the bees refracted. Slowly an illusion covered the bees woman, making her look like a real lady and not a writhing nightmare.

In front of us sat a giant elf lady dressed as a queen. She stared down at us in a regal, but somehow kindly way.

“Hello Arizel, is this the little fellow you spoke of?”

“Yes your majesty.”

“Thank you, you may leave for now. We will call you back after we have spoken with the little hero.”

Arizel nodded and silently walked back through the door, sliding it closed behind him.

“Now, what is your name?”

My name is ____…? Wait, why can’t I think of my name? Did Lady luck erase it?

Of Course I Did, It Makes Things More Interesting~

Man, I wish I could ask Her. Actually on second thought, I’m fine not knowing if I don’t have to deal with Her anymore. She was scary.

The queen raised an illusory eyebrow as she waited for a response. The problem was I could only make hissing and clicking noises. She was a bug, ...well, a lot of bugs, so could she understand that?

I don’t have a name and I can’t actually talk, how am I supposed to communicate? Charades?

“No name? I suppose you are rather young… Oh well, if you pass our test I suppose little Astera can name you.”

Why do giant not-actually-women keep putting me in life or death tests!?

Wait, was she assuming I didn’t have a name because I didn’t speak or did she actually hear my thoughts?

“We heard your thoughts. We are the empress of the mother bees, a thousand hives are merely extensions of our will. Communicating mentally is as easy as breathing to us. You are an insect within our hive, even if we can’t control you easily we can still read your surface thoughts.”

Well that’s terrifying.

“Good, we need you to know where you stand.”

The giant empress shifted, her eyes glinting at me.

“You are quite a surprise. With the bees as our eyes there is little that happens in this forest that we do not know of. The stealthiest assassins and spies have died under the stingers of our subjects. Yet you appeared from nowhere only a few days ago and managed to cause quite a bit of chaos.”

The faint sound of buzzing came from her body as she leaned down towards me. The giant face hovering over me was beautiful as a painting, but knowing what was under the skin sort of ruined it.

“A newborn, yet holding more power than even we had guessed. A vicious bloodthirstiness, yet used for surprisingly heroic reasons. Of all the mutant beasts that have appeared in our forest, you are by far the most unique.”

Umm… Thank you?

“You are welcome.”

So what happens now?

“Well normally we would have let you alone. We nurtured this forest for centuries, and the mother bees before us raised it a millenia ago. We prefer to let the creatures that are born within it live as they please, ...So long as they don’t disrupt the balance.”

She leaned back in her chair and rested her smooth cheek on her knuckles.

“You are something that has great potential to destroy balance. We might have killed you already had you not used your power to save our subject. The Greenbul clan, and by extension the elves that live within our realm, are precious to us. You showed moral fiber we wouldn’t have expected from a young tree monk.

So, you will be given a choice: Serve us as our agent or die.”

Her voice grew cold as she made her ultimatum. I was going to immediately submit. She gave off a regal aura that made me want to obey her. Besides, I didn’t want to die.

Just as I was about to kneel something deep inside me made me freeze.

The feeling of surrendering, of giving up any hope of commanding my own fate…

I wasn’t going to give up again.

I couldn’t match this empress of bees, but compared to Her this overgrown pile of insects was nothing.

I was not going to kneel before anyone else.

No.

“No?”

I will not be your servant or slave. You can kill me,

I grew blades out of every section of my body. The bandages that were already stretched by my growth shredded to bits as I stood tall.

...but I won’t go down without a fight.

The giant smiled then opened her mouth.

“Freeze.”

I couldn’t move.

She reached down and picked me up. Her body felt like normal flesh and not a pile of bees, but I didn’t care about that. No matter how I screamed in my mind, I couldn’t even twitch. My body had betrayed me.

“You underestimate us. We are older than many nations and our status as royalty is more fundamental, more deserved, than any mortal ruler. If we desired we could make you a slave within your own body. We are the Empress. You cannot fight us, and you cannot resist dying by our hand.”

...Then do it. A puppet or a corpse, either way you won’t have my mind or my soul.

Her fingers wrapped around us threateningly and I knew that my spines would not threaten her.

Then she placed on the ground and smiled warmly once more.

“We are glad you passed our test.”

Wait, what?

“We needed to test your resolve. We already have watched you, but we wanted to know the limits of your will. If you are to be Astera’s first contract then you must be capable of loyalty. We can sense lies and you have not lied to us. You will be the perfect guardian for the littlest of the Greenbul clan.”

Wait, so you tested my loyalty and I passed by not being loyal?

The enormous empress raised an eyebrow and stifled a chuckle.

“You might look at it that way, but we see it as staying loyal to your principles. You were willing to risk your life to save an unrelated child, and willing to die rather than be enslaved. Those who are willing to betray their principles to save their skin will betray everything else in the end. We would not allow something like that near our subjects.”

Then why do you expect me to obey the little girl?

“Obey? A contract is not some mere master slave relationship, it is a bond. We are contracted to the Greenbul clan yet they cannot command us. The beasts they contract are not slaves either, it is a mutual relationship and a bond of minds. That is why we know you shall protect her.”

The Empress leaned forward with an amused smile.

“After all, she put her faith in you enough to contract you, and you are not the being to betray something like that.”

That threw me for a loop. I knew, in the back of my mind, that I was going to keep taking care of the kid. If she hadn’t contracted me I would have run off right after I healed, but now, she was depending on me. I wasn’t enslaved or manipulated, and that made all the difference.

I suppose you are right…

“Of course we are. We have not lived as long as we have to be so inept as to be unable to read others. You would not have killed if those humans had they not kidnapped little Astera. We can read your intentions and that is why we tested you. If you had shown any desire to attack the elves you would already be dead you know? We would not have bothered testing someone dangerous to our subjects.”

I suppose mind reading comes with a lot of other clever little tricks. This kind of invasive surveillance is insanely powerful.

“Now, you have a job to do. Don’t worry about the girl’s father, I will explain things. He is a competent leader but a doting father.”

She tapped her chin theatrically and looked at me.

“Of course, you cannot complete your task in that state… We think we shall grant you a gift to aid your recovery.”

An enormous finger hovered over me and a droplet of strange looking honey formed at the tip. It fell and I formed a spoon at the end of my claw to catch it.

It was a deep gold with a purple iridescence. There was a sense of power, authority, and life force about it. That tiny teaspoon felt like it weighed a ton. I hungered for it, a deep, instinctual hunger that tried to take over my mind.

“That is a portion of our royal honey. Compared to that of normal mother bees’ royal honey ours is much more potent. Be grateful, since nations have gone to war over such treasures as this.”

Thank you.

I brought the droplet up and drank it. It was warm, so warm it almost burned as travelled down my throat. It felt like drinking sunlight and fire.

My body creaked and cracked. Every wound I had creased shut with exoskeleton practically burst as they healed instantly. My exoskeleton itself shattered as I outgrew it.

I moulted, my skin practically flying off from my violent growth spurt.

A magnificent pair of wings burst out of my abdomen. I was an adult now.

Man, that stuff is powerful!

“Indeed. You are the first who has been given a taste in decades, so we ask that you not speak of it to others. Arizel should realize how you were healed, but he has discretion.”

After that the Empress called in Arizel and explained things. The guy was pretty loyal and once she told him I was safe around his daughter he warmed up to me pretty quickly. As far as he was concerned, I was now part of the family.

He led me down the stairs, which were much easier now that I was healed, and brought me to his daughter.

I hadn’t gotten a good look at Astera when I was rescuing her. That was mostly because she was wrapped up. When she was free I had been basically dying, so I never commited her appearance to memory.

She was an elf of course, with pointy ears and a slim build. As far as I could tell she was between five and seven years old. She also reminded me of my little cousins. They were cute when they behaved.

“Daddy! Daddy! Is he okay? I wanna play with him!”

Yup, just like my little cousins.

As soon as she found out I was better she dragged me off to some playroom to do what felt like three different things at once. Raphina and Arizel peeked in on us, and smiled as they saw us playing catch, dress up, and having a tea party at the same time.

It should have been obnoxious, but kids are so innocent and simple that you can’t help but enjoy it. They are so sincere about enjoying things that it becomes contagious. I wouldn’t mind ‘dealing’ with babysitting Astera because of this.

Of course, after a while I was completely mentally drained. Keeping up with a kid is hard.

She was a good kid though.

Her parents had left and a maid had replaced them. The elf was surprisingly nonchalant about watching a little kid play with a giant insect monster but I suppose that in this building it wasn’t that weird.

When Astera’s parents returned, they brought Mero. The kid was obviously jealous of his little sister. Surprisingly he was trying to be mature about it. That actually impressed me, he must be having a hard time holding it in but he still acted as the big brother.

“What’s his name anyway?”

“His name is Manto!”

It is? When did she decide that? Oh well, I kind of like it.

...Well, I don’t hate it anyway.

The two kids took me on a tour throughout the compound. Astera was very careful to tell me which things I couldn’t eat. She used a tone of voice like she was imitating her mom’s lectures. It was adorable.

I don’t think the servants found it cute when she told me not to eat them though. They were too busy focusing on the fact that apparently I needed to be told not to eat them.

The kids ended up riding on my back. With my four legs and insect abdomen I was actually quite suited for it. At the very least I wasn’t going to throw out my back out like with my little cousins.

It was a long day, and somehow Astera went full speed the whole time. Even after dinner she didn’t seem to lose energy. Eventually she had to go to bed though, and that’s when I got my first break.

I picked out a balcony and rested there. The cooling wind felt amazing, and the setting sun painted the clouds. Behind me Astera’s mother sat down in a chair. I didn’t turn to look at her. I still could see her with my ridiculous field of view, but I focused on enjoying the peace and quiet.

“Thanks for looking out for her.”

I nodded without turning. She didn’t seem to have any reservations about me being around her kid. Was it because the Empress had already confirmed I wasn’t going to murder anyone who didn’t deserve it?

Either way she didn’t seem to feel the need to say anything else. We both enjoyed the sunset. Eventually Arizel came along and joined us. The three of us sat in silence till the moonlight and the stars shone over us.

When I had first been born here I had wanted power. It was a pretty logical desire. I wanted to be the very best, the pirate king, the strongest in the world, etc. etc. etc. Right now I wasn’t even close to getting there and I was having second thoughts.

There was no point to getting stronger. Sure it would be useful, but strength for strength’s sake was empty. It wasn’t like I would ever reach a level where my life would be peaceful. Even if I was the strongest on this world, Gard or whatever, I would still have to deal with Her machinations.

So power couldn’t be my goal, but it could be a tool. I could use my power for something good.

That’s when I decided, then and there, to make a difference.

This world was just like earth. Giant ladies made out of bees aside, there were greedy people who would kidnap kids for a quick buck, loving parents who wouldn’t hesitate to risk their lives, and cute little kids that looked at the world in black and white.

If I was going to be a deadly bug monster with awesome powers, I would use it to make a difference. I would protect the good things and straight up eat the bad things.

The song of distant frogs echoed from the distant river. On that beautiful night I found a purpose.

I leaned back on my back legs and sighed.

I was honestly looking forward to it.

~End of ‘book’ one~