Then I looked at the running bee again and relaxed.
"Father, look at this!" she shouted, waving a wax tablet. "Father, Father, please!"
"Hey, hey, don't run like that—you will make yourself more sick, girl!"
I walked up to the sick bee and caught her shoulders before she bumped into me. She gasped and made a step back, suddenly looking shy.
The young bee was a head shorter than me. Despite being technically mature, she and her sick sisters looked five years younger than their age because of their thinness.
It was hard to consider them more than teenagers at the best of times, but now…
"What was it, girl?" I asked in my gentlest tone.
The Nurse Bee behind the sick girl gave up on running and walked up to us. She opened the mouth to say something, but I shushed her with a gesture.
"Father, we made a well wish for you! Please, take it!"
I slowly took the wax tablet the young bee gave me, but I couldn't see anything on it. My eyesight suddenly became too blurry to see much at all.
The young bee kept chirping while wrangling her arms nervously.
"So you won't worry about us. We realized you must worry the most, because you are the smartest bee of all, and smarter bees always worry more. Researcher Bees worry most of all, but they say you are even smarter than them, so you must worry so much I can't even imagine! Uh… Father? Why are you leaking water so suddenly?"
"Ah, Father, are you alright? Please, take this leaf to clean your face! Are you hungry? Or do you want something to drink?"
I sniffed and took the leaf the Nurse Bee gave me.
"Thanks… That was just a grain of sand in my eye! I'm all fine now, all fine! Thank you very much for this well wish!"
With my eyes clear, I could look at it properly, although it made it hard to stop crying. Incredibly hard…
It was just too touching.
The bees who drew it put all their minuscule skills into it. A great horde of bees, perhaps a hundred, were depicted in a circle around the central figure. I was recognizable by my bone crown and shorter hair.
In the picture, I had a dozen arms, and all of them were patting the heads of surrounding bees.
Many hands to pat many bees. Oh. My. God.
"Did it work?" the young bee asked hopefully. "You don't worry anymore?"
"Not at all!" I forced a smile onto my face. What a total lie… "Poof! All my worries—gone!"
The bee smiled back at me, too.
"I . Can I have that name? Worriesgone?"
"Of course. Now… Don't worry your caretakers and go with the others. Rest… I mean, draw more well wishes. But keep yourself rested enough so quality doesn't fall!"
"I will, Father. Thank you!"
Worriesgone waved at me and went back inside the quarantine village.
I watched her and the Nurse Bee with her go there and clenched my teeth.
Shit, now I was *definitely* going to find a way to cure these sick girls, even if I will have to eat fried glass shards every morning for breakfast!
"Alright, Council! I was holding off this plan because it's risky, not guaranteed to work at all, but is guaranteed to give someone food poisoning. Or worse. But right now I feel that if we don't start with it *now*, in a couple weeks, it will be too late."
My Advisers listened to me with serious faces. If they were glancing at the picture of 10-armed head-patting Nectus god I hanged next to the wall map, it was hard to tell with their facetious eyes.
Researchina's interest was palpable and focused only on me, though.
"A plan? More deep knowledge?" She frowned. "I wish we all had time to listen to everything you know…"
"Eh-eh… This might take several years, Researchina. Trust me, I wish you'd know all that I know, but—priorities."
"Of course, Father. Tell us—I'm documenting it all."
"I've already taught you that honey makes wounds heal better… But there are other substances that can have various effects on the body. Medicines, cures, drugs… Among them are those who can even cure illnesses, or at least diminish their symptoms."
Ambrosia narrowed her eyes.
"If there was a substance that cures Paleness, you'd tell about it already, Nectus. It would make no sense otherwise."
"Of course, Amby!" I sighed. "That's because I don't know it. But I know where to start looking for something similar, at least. However, this search will require experimentation… Dangerous experimentation."
I didn't want to suggest something —but if my life in this world taught me something, it's that sometimes, sacrifices were impossible to avoid.
And from the history of my world, I knew that medicine was built on bodies, and only some of them were opened up *after* death.
"Some of the healing substances can be ordinary plants that grow in the nearby forests. And the only way to find whether a plant heals is to try it out and see the effects."
I turned to the Industry Adviser.
"Things-Things, I want your Material Foragers to focus on gathering all sorts of plants they can find around."
"Researchina, keep up the observations of sick bees—but I need most of your hands on this project."
"It will need some rearrangement… Father, permission to train more Research Bees?"
"Yes! But… Can you do it alongside work?"
She pursed her lips for a moment.
"I can try. The young ones at least know the scientific method. But, Father—there are a lot of plants in the forests, and only a few sick bees right now. It will be hard to find out what helps them with so few people to run tests on."
"We won't test the plant medicines on the sick people. No… If the plants turn out to be poisonous, the sick bees might easily die! This is unacceptable. No…"
I turned to Bloodhero and Workharder.
"Call for volunteers!"