Editing Dark Elf:Volume1 Chapter2 (section)

===Part 11===

Things were not going well. He had no clock, but the morning color was gone from the sky. It looked more like daytime shifting into evening.

“How am I still alive?”

Klaus Knockburn groaned after confirming he still had the earring and the stick below his belt. He would have loved to get up and find he was still a naked girl, but the magic had long since worn off.

After all, he had been hit by the same Archdragon Magic that had defeated fully-equipped knights. He had rolled a long way. It was a miracle he had not split his head open on a tree or rock. Had the dark elves failed to check on the body because he had ended up inside some thick bushes?

Whatever the case, that had not made for a comfortable bed and his entire body was aching, but he didn’t seem to have any broken bones.

“Ow…”

He wanted to get moving if he could still walk. He groaned as he extracted himself from the bushes and he noticed something wavering in front of him.

It was a white flower. A tiny white flower. He briefly froze when he saw it. He doubted it was edible or useful in luring out animals. But it seemed to shine bright. He did not consider picking it. He instead admired its beauty like someone cupping their hands around a small fire for warmth.

That tiny wave of emotion reminded him that he had to remain calm.

And even if it had ended in spectacular failure, he had just used his camouflage magic. He had eaten two meatballs and some deer meat the day before, but that would all be digested by tonight. The deficiency symptoms were fast approaching. If he could not acquire some food, he would be right back to when the hunger was dulling his mind. And he wouldn’t be able to use his one and only weapon: Camouflize.

He needed some kind of edible food with the magical derivative and it had to be something he could catch. This was not the royal capital market where meat, seafood, and even rare foreign fruits were available for purchase. Those conditions were devastating so deep in the forest. But he had an idea. He had already acquired fire using static electricity and pine resin.

“I could really use a container,” he commented while getting to work.

He was not after a land animal or a fish. He didn’t know how to store an animal long term after he killed it and fashioning a fishing rod was well past his skill level. The rod, the line, and the hook all sounded like a challenge. But he also doubted he could find any sizable fruit in this conifer forest. The enormous Witch Pumpkins were out of the question. Those were not an edible species, so he couldn’t get through the thick skin.

So there were two things he wanted. He used his note-taking stick to refresh his memory while he walked around picking small plants from the ground. These were the herbs Curvy had used to repel the termites. It had looked like they were normally dried and then soaked in water to rehydrate them before use.

The other thing was up in a tree. The round object was larger than Klaus’s own head and hanging from a tree branch, but it was not a fruit or mistletoe.

“A beehive.”

Although it was round, it didn’t seem to be a hornet’s nest. Maybe they had built this around a damaged hive.

He had heard honey’s flavor depended on the kind of flowers it was produced from, so if the bees had been collecting Ghost Turnip or Witch Pumpkin nectar, the honey would contain the magic derivative.

Larvae were also supposed to be edible. A proper lady from the royal capital might scream and push them away with her fork, but Klaus had already broken through the “eating bugs” barrier.

Bee larvae could not escape on their own and they were an excellent source of nutrients.

A hive that big would have enough honey for several days and it would even indirectly give him the magic derivative if the nectar had come from Ghost Turnip flowers. And unlike an animal full of blood and guts, it wouldn’t rot as soon as he worked so hard to kill it. He doubted he would need any specialized knowledge to preserve it.

“And maybe I could use beeswax as an adhesive for the accessory. Nuts, stones, shells – there are plenty of materials out here. I just have to trust that my future wife isn’t so picky that only a big hunk of diamond will do.”

He couldn’t afford to miss this opportunity, but all the worker bees were a problem. There were no doctors or even first-aid kits out in the forest, so an attack from a swarm of bees could be fatal.

The bees could even drive off a deadly bear attacking the hive in search of honey, but Klaus actually used his head. He rubbed some pine resin on a bundle of herbs tied together with a plant stem and then he rubbed his cloak to set the resin ablaze with static electricity. In an underhand throw, he tossed the result directly below the beehive.

The chemical-smelling smoke had a dramatic effect.

The bees swarmed around like a dark storm, but they could not find an enemy needing defeating. Meanwhile, the smoke filled the round hive and large bees fell from its surface. The fat queen bee eventually crawled out from the hive, but the smoke was too much for her and she fell to the ground instead of flying away.

Her kingdom was doomed. The queenless workers began to wander and they ended up scattering with no one in charge.

“Now to finish it off.”

Klaus cautiously waited a while longer and then threw a small stone at the hive. It didn’t look like any bees remained inside. After approaching the tree, he picked up a long stick and poked the hive until it broke loose.

The whole thing dropped to the ground.

It was made of surprisingly sturdy stuff because it didn’t break open after falling from above Klaus’s head.

“Sigh.”

He had it, but what now? His plan had been to get Slender’s help in stopping the dragon’s resurrection, but was that a lost cause now that she had launched Archdragon Magic straight at him?

He had assumed it would be safe to contact his future wife, but he had little to actually back that up. And in that case, he was rapidly running out of options.

“What ''do'' I do now? What good is this stuff really? Munch. Maybe I should switch my focus from Slender to Little Girl. Oh, this is good. No, she’s too young for me. It would be wrong. Lick, lick. And my heart already belongs to Slender anyway. Agh, how can this honey taste so good!?”

The unflavored meatballs from Little Girl had been decent, but honey tasted the same whether it was natural or farmed. It meant a lot to be eating something that tasted the same as it did at the royal capital’s markets.

He continued muttering to himself with a blank look in his eyes until something smelled off to him. Literally. He could smell something burning. Speaking of, what had he done with the herbs he had used to smoke out the beehive? The ones he had covered in flammable pine resin and lit with static electricity? When he found no answer to that question, he froze. ''Uh, oh.

Trembling, Klaus Knockburn slowly looked over his shoulder.

Red flames were spreading at the base of the tree.

“Ah.”

He dropped the large ball-shaped beehive and stood up in a panic.

Was this forest cursed so every plan you had was doomed to fail!?

“Ahhhhh!? Wait, wait, wait, no! This can’t be happening!!”

He tried to extinguish it by covering it with dirt, but he had to wave his removed cloak with all his might to deal with the embers that escaped that. If this didn’t work, he was completely out of ideas. There was a river nearby, but he had no bucket.

The dark elves used powerful Archdragon Magic, which allowed them to wield every form of devastation, but he had oddly never seen them use fire. This was why. Why would they choose to use magic that would start a forest fire if they weren’t careful? ''Oh, and that might be why they used a clearing to try and burn me at the stake. Did I really need this revelation now?

“Out! Go out!! I’m sorry! I never should have thought I was hot shit for figuring out how to use pine resin!!”

He was nearly in tears toward the end while stomping his boots on the stubborn embers. After confirming it was entirely out, he was too afraid to leave and kept dumping more dirt on top.

He had somehow gotten the fire out.

However…

“Wh-what do I do about this?”

He could only tremble and stare. He had avoided disaster, but the underbrush was scorched and dark soil covered everything after he dug it up with his bare hands. Anyone could tell a person had done this. And that revelation would put the dark elves on alert. But he had no way of hiding it.

“…”

His thoughts ground to a halt. He grabbed the ball-like beehive and curled up on the ground.

“I can think ''after'' I eat this.”