Reincarnated To Evolve My Bee Empire
Chapter 345 - 345: The invention of alcohol was inevitable

There were quite a few.

Naregan Kingdom was the largest country around in terms of size, but a lot of its nominal territories were undeveloped and populated by barely civilized tribes. Even the citizens of Naregan Kingdom didn't know much about half of who lived in it outside of the more civilized areas. They weren't even all speaking the same language.

Around the Naregan Kingdom were smaller, but more concentrated countries. Some of them were poorer than Naregan, and some were somewhat the same. Neither liked us very much, same as they didn't like each other—this region had a lot of wars in the past.

At the moment, all these places were suffering from numerous plagues and waves of vermin eating everything they could. I just hoped someone out there will survive in the end.

As for the Bee Empire, by studying the primitive and unclear maps in Naregan's royal library, Explanatory concluded that we were near a massive mountain range, somewhat out of the way from anyone except Naregan Kingdom.

This mountain range separated us from half a continent we were on and wasn't a *living* mountain range. In fact, the size of *those* mountains made comparison of the stone-like trees of this world to mountains laudable.

The mountain range was so massive that a bee had to fly high into the sky to see them at all.

Humans couldn't cross them either.

And on the other side of the continent from us, on the farthest from the Bee Empire border of the Naregan Kingdom and a distance away from Naregan's capital city, was the ocean.

The blood of the local trade that carried countless ships around the world! And most notably, this was where the Vardish Empire conquered and built its Eastern Expanse Reach, as they called it.

EER was a colony. The Vardish Empire was a colonial power, and they came to this continent for cheap labor (slaves) and regional items like incense. In return, they sold firearms and drugs, but not the secrets of their making. The Vardish Empire kept their secrets.

And thanks to being a colony of a much larger power, Eastern Expanse Reach was effectively the strongest neighbor of the Naregan Kingdom.

That was why, when I announced at the Empire Council that both the Bee Empire and the Naregan Kingdom must prepare for a massive war to conquer the entire continent, I said that before we start it, we must first grow powerful enough to withstand fighting against the entire Vardish Empire.

"We must focus on improving both our technology *and* increasing our numbers," I said. "And we must think about ways to negate our small size. The events of the past showed we can't help but be dependable on the help of someone larger… This shouldn't be! Sure, humans obey us and help us, but keeping them around all the time is just hard logistically."

Workharder perked up, looking like she was about to say something. I nodded at her.

"Father, if we will expand more, we need better ways of transporting resources!" she said. "Like… faster trains? And telepathic chains that last farther?"

I nodded.

"This, too. Researchina, it's up to you to usher in the age of electricity! And combustion engines."

I already explained both concepts to her as clearly as I could (which wasn't a lot, since neither interested me much in the past and even perfect memory couldn't recall something I never heard). Now she tilted her head thoughtfully.

"Electricity can be done with anything that makes a turbine spin. But combustion engines require fuel made from earthly oil, Father—you said it yourself. Although we've discovered deposits of several ores as well as more coal, the scouts are yet to find any oil."

I shook my head.

"I doubt they ever will. The oil is usually located way deeper than we can ever dig. Human mines are much deeper than ours, too. But theoretically, I think we can make combustion engines that run on simpler fuel. Even just on pure ethanol!"

As long as it was combustible, I believed it should work.

'E-ta-nol,' Researchina wrote in her notes, thinking each syllable loudly in her head.

"It's spelled e-t-h-a-n-o-l. Pure alcohol! And… Oh no, so it was inevitable, after all. We are about to invent alcohol. Just what I feared!"

If only there was a better fuel I could think about—something as easy to produce and as highly combustible. But alas, no.

Now all the Advisers were curious.

"I think I remember you saying something about this 'alcohol', Father. After we spoke about human celebrations so we could make up the best ways to control them," Worriesgone said. "They often drink stuff made from spoiled food, which they actually make spoiled on purpose—*that* was the alcohol? Why does it make you so unhappy?"

"Maybe because we will need to waste food to produce it?" Workharder guessed. "That sure makes *me* unhappy. To expand fast, we will need a lot of food!"

I realized my fears were premature. My girls never even considered that alcohol was something *they* could drink, too! Even after knowing that humans did this, I could hear it in their thoughts—my Advisers thought that the alcohol was only edible for humans in the first place.

'Humans probably have a special gene that lets them digest some spoiled foods,' Tabletina thought, and she wasn't even too far from the truth. 'That they let food go spoiled on purpose is much more baffling.'

I smiled.

"Yes, we will lose some food, which we will need to actually farm for. But all this will be in due time. We have years of work ahead of us to develop all these technologies and build them on a wide scale. This week, I want to make a year-long plan for our development and preparations. By the end of this year, I want to fully integrate at least a third of the Naregan Kingdom of the Bee Empire, and implement the technologies that will let us dominate the humans openly instead of from the shadows and from their backs!"

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