FROM THIS DAY ON, JAREM "RAMWILL" RAMWILL ENJOYED POPULARITY NEVER SEEN BEFORE IN HIS LIFE.
The bee-pixies of the forest were capricious and terrifying creatures, but Ramwill didn’t regret working for them. Especially when they claimed that he was going to be the new emperor of his forsaken country!
The Vardish Empire might have lived in name alone, but being a king of the pile of garbage was still better in Ramwill’s mind than being a janitor at the bottom like he was before.
Especially with the blood magic the bees used on him, letting him sleep with any whores without worry about catching their prick-rotting illnesses.
So far, being bees’ servant was easy—chatting people up and convincing them about how right he was and how wrong they were was second nature for Ramwill.
This changed near the announcement of his future royal status.
’Soon, people’s crops will be destroyed by usnea trees. They don’t know yet that these trees can feed them better than any of their former crops, so they will be full of fear. Use your way with words and turn this fear into anger at the current emperor,’ the sweet-talking Eloquence told him. ’You can do it, Ramwill.’
Eloquence was the bee who spoke with Ramwill often. Her mind-voice was like honey, and her words were like poison. Ramwill could recognise another charmer when he heard one, and he didn’t trust her one bit.
However, he would rather speak with her than with the other one, who watched his every move on the way to Ferwall. "Malevolence" was a fitting name for her—this bee didn’t seem to like anyone except for their beloved common "Father".
Ramwill didn’t doubt that she would kill him and all the Wildmen if she wanted to. Even if she didn’t kill anyone YET, he still had this sixth feeling that saved him more than once in his life as an outlaw...
So he knew he didn’t really have much choice but to obey and take the most out of it.
’Of course I can do it, Miss Eloquence,’ Ramwill thought. ’But His Majesty will want me dead real quick! Can you save me from hanging in the process?’
’Sure. We will place a guard around you. A hundred Beemarines will be enough to kill anyone who wants to capture you... They are also good at stealthy assassinations if you need it.’
He knew by now, from bees themselves and from men who had been worshipping them for a while, that there were different kinds of bees, and that Beemarines were the most deadly of them. And that Malevolence was a Beemarine...
’Well, that’s just peachy. Time to start serious business, then.’
Ramwill’s money was running out, but he still could get some free drinks from his new "friends" in local pubs. The beer was so watered down it tasted barely like anything, but Ramwill didn’t see good beer since Mother-Nature became a wrathful bitch, proving that she was the only goddess worthy of worship. At least this beer wasn’t poisonous.
This time, as he shared his usual stories from surviving in the wild, on the gifts Mother-Nature grudgingly spared for him—a dead animal there, an edible wild fruit here—Ramwill also dropped some words about whose fault it was that Mother-Nature got angry.
The rich people’s, of course!
They had the freshest grain, the darkest beer, and all that—despite pissing off Mother-Nature with whatever debauchery they were doing behind closed wars.
Eloquence hinted to him to blame this all on a war, too.
The war on another continent, which carried away so many lives, that people didn’t even know what to think. Entire fleets of soldiers just disappeared, and only foreign traders coming to the Vardish Empire later told that these people were killed or taken prisoner.
There were no negotiations, no orders to pay reparations to the victor. Just a hole in a nation, a loss of many men who could’ve been working on the fields that were already turning into traps.
Then the old emperor fell mortally ill, and it went into even bigger shit.
So when Ramwill said that it was the old emperor’s fault for picking fights with a nation favoured by Mother-Nature, many people believed him outright.
The next day, the thing that Ramwill was warned about happened. Farmers from surrounding fields came to the city, telling about the terrible weeds that sprouted on their fields overnight.
The cursed plants froze terribly anyone who even got closer, killed all other crops, and were growing so fast you could see it with the naked eye.
And now dozens of thousands of people were suddenly fearful for their next meal.
’This is a good opportunity to start converting people to your cause,’ Eloquence advised Ramwill.
’No. It’s too early. Trust me, I can tell!’
The people couldn’t believe how bad things were going to get just now. But the next day, more fields were destroyed by the freezing trees, and the next day, this only continued.
Now, more people have become aware of the problem. The merchants began raising their already high food prices, and many people gathered to protest and shout at them.
In some places, city guards had to interfere.
The emperor himself reacted swiftly, sending exterminator squads to the fields. They carried torches and oil with which they had destroyed dangerous plants in the past.
However, when they tried to do it with the "freezing weed", a catastrophe ensued!
Freezing weeds exposed to fire swallowed it like candy and grew faster with incredible speed. Several teams of exterminators suffered frostbite, and some even died as a result of not being careful near patches of freezing weeds.
The farmers tried to cut them down with scythes, but the weeds grew faster than they could cut them down. ɴᴇᴡ ɴᴏᴠᴇʟ ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀs ᴀʀᴇ ᴘᴜʙʟɪsʜᴇᴅ ᴏɴ novel(ꜰ)ire.net
With these realisations, true despair began to seep into people’s heads.
And this was when Ramwill knew he had to leave his favourite pubs, shake mandibles with his beloved whores and lead people to a revolt.