Chapter 74: Chapter 71: Progressions

As it turned out, their trust was well-placed. Regina waited in silence for a few minutes, while the humans talked. Immediately after they seemed to finish, Baron Neralt turned around and headed back to the village.

Regina felt a bit relieved. It wouldn’t have been too hard to capture him again, even with a fight against the human knights, probably. She was still glad this meeting, at least, didn’t invite violence.

Regina had kept her promise and didn’t listen in on them, mostly because she didn’t find a way to do it safely enough. She didn’t know what Skills the knights might have. Still, she couldn’t help but feel a bit curious what they’d said. It was probably nothing outside what she’d expect them to talk about given the situation, though, judging by their expressions.

Regina smiled and stepped forward a bit. “I hope that was satisfactory.”

The leader of the knights nodded politely. “Indeed, thank you for your forbearance, Hive Queen.”

“Of course. Let me know if you have any further requests.”

Regina glanced around and frowned a little. They seemed pretty reserved. She had the impression the knights didn’t have the authority to make any decisions about the situation, or didn’t want to act and potentially make a mistake, or get blamed for something. That was probably to be expected. They did seem a little less hostile after talking to the baron, going by their body language, unless that was just wishful thinking.

“We will carry your messages to the marquis,” the leader said with an air of finality.

Regina suppressed a sigh. She’d hoped for more, to get at least a bit more of an impression to work with, but that would have to do.

The knight gave them a brief nod, then turned his horse around. The rest followed.

Regina watched them ride off for a few seconds, before she turned. She wondered who would come to visit next. She expected Janis or Kiara again, or at least a diplomatic envoy. They would have longer to travel, presumably. Although, even having looked at a few maps, Regina didn’t have a good sense of how quickly you covered any set distance in this world.

“Well.” She smiled at the others. “Let’s get to work.”

She walked off with Max and the group scattered, everyone returning to their duties. Regina returned her focus to the present moment and went back to the defenses they were preparing. She spent the next few hours conjuring a few different kinds of material between letting her mana recharge. They couldn’t hope to cover the complete perimeter of the village with detailed preparations, so it was better to focus on portable stuff. That was without considering one of their biggest advantages, though: the castle in the river, which they had also taken. It would make for a great defensive base, just as it was constructed to be.

Regina spent most of the next day in the castle. She discovered, to her relief, that the damage wasn’t as bad as it had looked like at first. The walls were all still mostly intact and structurally sound. The gate would need to be reinforced and there were quite a few repairs necessary, but everything was feasible. It helped that they had the aid of an elf with an earth manipulation ability, and they even got some advice from a stonemason and builder. Regina didn’t know what he was doing as a soldier, but she figured that either the elvish army made very sure to have access to a diverse skillset, or their longer lifetimes allowed the elves to get proficient at other trades and still switch to a military career easily.

As soon as she could, she climbed the castle’s keep, the central tower, to look at the landscape below. After she reached the highest level she could go, Regina realized she’d been stupid. Carefully, she took off and folded her tunic, then stretched out her wings. It took her a minute to find a good spot to launch from, but then she soared into the air and immediately banked to the side to get onto the roof of the tower. The landing was rougher than she’d have liked, rattling her bones and making her almost fall on her face.

She straightened up and glanced around. The stone roof was mostly level, circled by low battlements. There should be an access from below, but it was presumably blocked. The tower was circular, which she vaguely remembered should have meant it was constructed in a later period than other castles, but things here didn’t line up with what she knew about the middle ages all that closely. I’m pretty sure they didn’t have any actual monsters and elves, at least. She snorted to herself.

Regina sat down and watched the horizon, focusing on sensing her mana and practicing with it. She stayed there until it had recovered quite a bit, then reluctantly got up and flew back down to keep working on the main reason they were here.

The next few days passed without any major excitement. Regina kept considering and second-guessing her decisions about the eggs in development, how many and which types she should allow herself. She still felt like she needed her mana, but in the long term, she needed to keep her drones’ numbers up. At least she could comfortably sustain batches of over a dozen at a time by now, and a single egg barely affected her mana regeneration. Of course, with a Wis score of 20, that was probably to be expected.

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