My girls worked tirelessly, studying the habitat, behaviour and abilities of the cold-resistant deer. Their job would’ve been much easier if I could assign some Commando Bees with implanted "system eyes" to the job.
Sadly, these amazing augments (that cost me plenty of pain in my own eyes) didn’t allow users to see statuses through the astral projections.
I believed that this was because they projected the status panels into the retina of the eye, not into the mind itself. Astral projections were manifested mind ghosts, and although they copied the senses of the physical bodies, those were just copies (and I suspected that these senses worked as they did because of some system hack, to be honest).
In short, to see the deer’s status, someone had to see them with their own eyes. I believed that my blue-eyed Commandos were too important to risk on a long-term mission to such a distant land with very little support.
Instead, more ordinary Beehounds used their astral projections and gathered information in a more old-fashioned way. Every next report brought by the scouts was more interesting (but also alarming) than the previous one.
The population of the cold-immune deer was way too massive than it ought to be. They definitely have evolved genes for rapid growth and fertility—and I felt that this still would’ve made them unable to spread as fast as they did.
Judging by the speed with which they ate the ice-hole trees, almost all deer on the continent were the same species, and they were cold-immune!
Either their god had spent a lot of influence to spread the right genes among a large number of deer at once, or they had special genes to proliferate INCREDIBLY fast.
I was putting my bets on the latter.
If these deer were just cold-immune, they wouldn’t have survived where they were. There were a lot of creatures that would’ve liked a bite of a deer, and those were just ones I’ve seen—there were also countless viruses and bacteria.
To survive in these circumstances, a species needed a lot of genes just to counter basic dangers. Only then could they propagate.
The scouts couldn’t tell if the deer had some special powers they could use as weapons. Against the ice-hole trees, their teeth were enough, and there were no other beasts in sight that could’ve tried to attack the deer.
Alarming, to say the least.
Two more months passed in observation. At this time, deer have begun to actively eat the spreading ice-hole trees. Their herds grew even larger now that the ice-hole trees destroyed all creatures who could’ve tried to attack the beasts.
They really proliferated incredibly fast with the excess food provided to them by the ice-hole trees.
According to the reports, a female deer could give birth to a fawn every WEEK! And within a month, the fawn became an adult deer!
And the ice-hole trees appeared to be the only food source that could feed this many deer at once, since they also grew incredibly fast and required almost no sustenance.
Listening to the reports of their war was like watching a war between two kinds of bacteria—this was how fast both sides proliferated!
The deer herds went deeper into the ice-hole forests, eating massive lines into them, which were immediately covered by the ice-hole trees again.
For a time, I thought this would be a standstill between both species, but no.
The herds just grew even larger, to the point where the ice-hole trees were eaten before they could grow to full size.
Which was when I saw the first signs of evolution on the ice-hole trees.
They began growing long, sharp spikes on their branches, making it much harder for deer to eat them. These spikes could even make a deer bleed to death if it was unlucky.
The deer have evolved tougher mouths to counter this. The evolved gene spread faster among the trees than it did among the deer, but...
Deer who could do it just kept eating the ice-hole trees. The deer who couldn’t, died from spikes or from hunger–but the war was still very one-sided. This was just a fine example of the survival of the fittest.
It just slowed down a little.
And it was at this point I knew... By the time the deer will reach the Bee Empire—and they would, with the rate they were spreading—they will be unstoppable monsters.
Whatever else the ice-hole trees will evolve, the deer will evolve a counter to it. Inevitably, things like poison, physical attacks, and perhaps even fire will be among those the deer will have a counter for.
As soon as I realised that, even the news that building the water-powered power plants and their infrastructure had moved from the blueprint stage to the building stage didn’t make me as happy as they could’ve.
I wondered if electricity-based weapons, like tasers, could help us fight both the ice-hole trees and the evolved deer. However, it felt that they might evolve against this, too.
’Perhaps the reason why the trees didn’t evolve defences against the cold-immune bees was because they were evolving defences against the more dangerous opponent—these deer,’ I thought.
And this thought gave me an idea.
It was a silly one. There were ten thousand reasons why it won’t work and only a few why it could.
To even begin with it, I would have to be lucky and pray incredibly hard for success.
Praying was the first step in executing this idea! Praying to my patron gods to hear me out and actually answer instead of ignoring me like 99% of the time!
"Dalmanrach, Goddess of Bees, God of Humanity—anyone! Look, there are already plenty of gods who have been in alliance with the God of Humanity. Why not propose an alliance to the god of these trees against the deer? Just let me talk with it, please, I’m sure I can convince him that this is the only way he can win!"