Bzzzzzz.

I stood there blankly, staring at Ranghu, who had appeared out of nowhere.

With a quick buzz, Ranghu barked a few orders to the worker wasps before hopping onto my shoulder.

Tang Hwa-eun, who had followed me in, finally spotted Ranghu and widened her eyes in astonishment.

No one expected her to be waiting for us here of all places.

“Ranghu?”

Bzz.

As if to say, “Just like you said yesterday, I’m ready to travel with you now,” Ranghu lifted her chin, and immediately, Hwa-eun’s voice rang in my ear through sound transmission.

[So-ryong, wh-what’s going on? Why is Ranghu here?]

[You’re the one who said you wanted to bring her along... and now you’re asking me?]

[Huh? Me? I did?]

[Yes. Yesterday, you told Ranghu it was a shame you couldn’t travel together...]

She clearly didn’t remember what she’d said yesterday. But when I explained it briefly, her face flushed in embarrassment.

[Oh no! Wh-what do I do now?]

To settle things, I summoned Do Sagong to confirm the situation.

“How did this happen?”

“Wasn’t it on your orders, Lord So-ryong? She came to us late last night, poking around, and when I asked if you had sent her, she nodded. She seemed like the young miss you mentioned, so I led her to the prow.”

“I remembered you talking about the Golden-Furred Wasp Kings, after all. Did I make a mistake?”

“Oh, should I have prepared a cabin for her?”

“Ah, no—it’s fine.”

Do Sagong must’ve seen Ranghu and assumed, naturally, that I’d sent her. She was a spirit beast, after all, so he assigned her a place without second thought.

As he wrapped up his explanation, I rubbed my aching temple, and just then, the Dragon Fangs arrived, blinking at Ranghu with surprise.

“I’ve only ever seen the Golden-Furred Wasp King from afar. You’re bringing her with us this time?”

“You could bring her along this whole time?”

“She seems a bit different from the usual Wasp King though. More fur or something?”

“Right? I don’t know much about them, but she looks... prettier?”

It seemed they’d assumed I was taking Ranghu along for the journey. Just as Brother Kwon-ryong commented on how pretty she looked, Ranghu crossed her arms and gave him a sideways glance, puffing her chin with a snort.

Bzz!

Yeah, yeah, I know I’m pretty.

That kind of reaction, maybe?

Still, she must’ve been in a good mood, since her antennae were softly curled.

Then she turned toward the prow again and flapped her wings once more.

Bzz.

A second later, a worker wasp zipped over from the prow and bowed deeply before her, twitching its antennae in a show of respect.

Bzzzz. Bzz.

After that, Ranghu pointed toward Brother Kwon-ryong with her wing, and the wasp—evidently having received some kind of command—darted over and clung to him.

“Wh-what? H-Hey! S-So-ryong?!”

Given his martial prowess, he could’ve easily swatted it away, but realizing it was one of mine, he froze and panicked instead.

As the Wasp King clung to the lapel of his robe, he flailed his arms in surprise and stumbled back—catching a rope along the deck and falling flat.

Thud!

But the wasp didn’t care in the slightest. It just kept moving toward his mouth.

Suddenly, I remembered something from before.

“No way...”

I turned to Ranghu, eyes wide.

She nodded.

“Ohhh no!”

Realizing exactly what was about to happen, my eyes widened further just as Brother Kwon-ryong cried out for help.

“S-So-ryong! Help! Please!”

But I couldn’t decide whether to intervene.

Why?

Because she was probably trying to feed him honey as a reward for calling her pretty.

And the honey of the Golden-Furred Wasp King—though faint—could increase one’s inner energy. To martial artists, that was practically a stroke of destiny.

Do I rescue him? Or let him accept this gift of fortune?

While I hesitated, Tang Hwa-eun’s calm voice came from beside me.

“It doesn’t look like she means harm. Just let her do what she wants.”

And that decided his fate.

“...A-Alright then,” he replied nervously.

The wasp crawled up to his face and pried his mouth open with four of its front legs.

Brother Kwon-ryong’s eyes bulged as he looked toward Hwa-eun.

‘Didn’t you say to let it happen?!’ His expression seemed to scream that unspoken protest.

Then, hovering above his open mouth, the wasp wiggled into position and began to drop its honey, drop by drop.

Plop.

A large golden droplet fell directly into his mouth.

His throat gulped it down with a loud swallow.

“W-What is that...?”

“Isn’t that the honey of the Golden-Furred Wasp King? I heard it slightly enhances internal energy?”

“And she’s feeding it to him directly? T-This... this must be a divine encounter!”

The crowd erupted, calling it a miraculous stroke of luck. But some of the women visibly shivered at the sight of a bug dripping honey straight into someone’s mouth.

“Well... that’s not a kind of fortune I envy.”

“M-Me neither.”

After dropping about three doses of honey, the wasp zipped away back to the prow, and Brother Kwon-ryong lay there, still doing his energy circulation practice.

The effect wasn’t that miraculous, so he finished up quickly. But now, with sticky honey on his lips, his mouth was gleaming as he turned to me with teary eyes.

“Sniff... So-ryong...”

I guess the whole thing had shaken him up. I patted his shoulder to console him.

“Come on, hyung. You just had to drink it. Back then, I had to kiss the thing.”

Seriously, crying over getting fed honey?

Back in my day, it was a deep kiss.

***

Though Ranghu’s sudden decision to feed Brother Kwon-ryong honey had stirred up quite the commotion, once things settled, I turned my attention to what really mattered—convincing Ranghu.

Not because I had any objection to bringing her along.

There was absolutely no problem with traveling with Ranghu.

She’d already claimed a spot in the prow, and that wasn’t a bad choice at all.

Some might wonder how one could possibly travel with bees, but even in my previous life, there were beekeepers who roamed the entire country with their hives.

When the acacia flowers started blooming, they’d move from the southern seas up to northern Gyeonggi in sync with the blossoms, harvesting honey. Then, as chestnut trees began to flower, they’d move again to follow those blooms. That’s how we got acacia and chestnut honey.

I’d seen such documentaries, and I’d even featured them in my own videos. So moving around with the Golden-Furred Wasp Kings wasn’t weird at all.

Besides, bees hibernate in winter. As long as there’s honey in the hive, they can survive in tight quarters for months.

So then—what was the problem?

The issue was that when we reached the prow, only around a hundred worker wasps were present.

Golden-Furred Wasp Kings, due to their size, don’t have very large colonies—just a few hundred bees in total.

Even so, with their size, a hundred was already an intimidating number. But if Ranghu had brought only a hundred, that meant she’d left the rest behind in the hive.

The hive must be in chaos right now.

And that ✧ NоvеIight ✧ (Original source) was a serious problem.

The rise and fall of a hive depends entirely on its queen. Without her, it’s an emergency.

Normally, if a queen dies or disappears, the workers try to create a new queen—but if conditions aren’t right, the hive collapses.

When a queen disappears, bees often become unstable. They start drumming on the hive or performing odd dances to alert everyone inside that something’s wrong.

That hive was probably in a full-blown panic right now.

Until a new queen emerged.

Ordinary honeybees feed royal jelly to a larva to raise a new queen.

But the Golden-Furred Wasp King line doesn’t work like that. Their queens directly give birth to new queens, so it wasn’t a simple fix.

The rest of the hive might remain trapped in anxiety until Ranghu returned.

So I asked Hyang to translate and turned to Ranghu.

“Ranghu, what about the others?”

Bzz.

Tsrriiip.

『She says... she swapped them, Dad.』

“Swapped? Swapped what exactly?”

Bzzzz.

Tsrriiip.

『The house. She changed houses.』

“Wait, you abandoned a perfectly good hive to move here? Why?”

Bzz.

Tsrriiip.

『She says that’s not it.』

Even with Hyang translating, I still had no clue what exactly had been “swapped.” So I apologized to Hu-gae Makgok and got ready to head to the Tang residence.

“I’m sorry. Would you mind waiting just a bit? I think I need to go check on the hive.”

“Understood, So Sohyeop. We’ll be traveling by boat anyway, so there’s time. Please take your time.”

With the consent of Makgok, Lord Geolhwang’s representative, I wrapped myself in Cho and headed for the Tang residence.

Bzz.

Tsrriiip.

『Why are we going back? She asks if she’s not allowed to come too.』

On the way back, Ranghu buzzed unhappily from my shoulder.

“I just want to see what’s going on at home. You didn’t just leave them behind, did you?”

Bzz!

Tsrriiip.

『Nope. She says she swapped.』

Still going on about that "swap," she led me to the pond.

Just as I was about to peek inside through the open window on the fifth floor, another queen poked her head out to meet mine.

Bzz?

I recognized that queen instantly.

“Nanghu?”

It was Ranghu’s daughter, Nanghu, now occupying the old hive.

So this is what she meant by “swapping houses.”

“She took your old hive?”

Nanghu flapped her wings and pointed behind herself.

Tsrriiip.

『She brought everyone here, Dad.』

With that, the situation finally clicked.

Ranghu had brought a hundred or so bees to travel with me and claimed a spot on the boat, while Nanghu had led the rest of the hive here and become the new queen.

It made sense—this building was much larger than the hollow tree they’d used before.

In beekeeping, when a weaker hive loses its queen, it’s not uncommon to combine it with another. And since these were spirit creatures, they’d done it all themselves.

Never thought I’d witness a hive merger in person.

“So that’s what you meant by swapping.”

Bzz!

As I watched the combined hive thriving inside, amazed, I heard Hyang translate again, this time with an indignant tone—something like “Did you really think I’d abandon my kids?”

I pretended I hadn’t heard it.

With the hive secured, and Ranghu still nudging me from my shoulder as if waiting for a decision—

I figured I might as well accept her as a traveling companion.

I was still a bit wary of whatever Hwa-eun had said to her the day before, but it didn’t seem right to leave her behind.

After all, what I’d learned from my time with Yo-hwa was this: as long as the spirit beasts who liked me felt satisfied emotionally, they usually didn’t act out or cause trouble.

Besides, at this point, I might as well think of it like loading an aircraft carrier with a few extra fighter jets.

I already had three bombers. Adding a hundred fighters didn’t seem like a bad deal—unless, of course, something major went down that needed the bombers.

Yeah... no way they’re gonna ask me to marry them or something. Just think of it as beefing up the aircraft carrier.

“Alright, alright. You can come. Let’s go together.”

When I said that, Ranghu perked up her antennae.

She must’ve thought I was going to leave her behind, but with permission granted, she buzzed in joy and looked back toward the old tree.

Bzz bzz.

Tsrriiip.

『Then I can take all the honey from the old tree too, Dad!』

“Really?”

Apparently, the honey stored in the hollow tree by Nanghu’s hive was now free to take.

Ranghu truly had the heart of a queen—generous and bold.

When I rushed to inform Father-in-law and Grandfather Tang Mu-seong of the situation, they immediately headed to the tree to see for themselves, and their faces lit up with joy.

And no wonder.

The inside of the tree was packed to the brim with honey, neatly arranged in hexagonal cells.

I’d heard that martial artists usually set fires to smoke out the wasps to get their honey, but the wasps would swallow most of it to protect it, so they could only retrieve small amounts. They’d never seen honey in this quantity before.

“A-All this...?”

“I-It’s incredible...”

Come on, is this really something to get all teary-eyed over?

With a whole hive’s worth of honey secured, we returned to the boat.

“Alright then, everyone—let’s set off!”

Before departure, I shared some of the honey with the others.

And as I handed out cups, Brother Kwon-ryong muttered with a tragic expression:

“I... I had to drink it straight from the source...”

He really was the most dramatic man alive.