CHAPTER 511: THE GOD OF BLUE LAND USNEA

I froze in place.

Was Usnea talking about the secret plans to stop the entire Game of Evolution and end the fun of all other gods? The plans that could lead to imprisonment or even death (if gods could die) of everybody who disagreed with the idea?

Those dangerous, rebellious plans?

If Usnea knew that they existed... If they showed them to other gods... I was doomed for sure.

But there was still hope! The fact that they didn’t do it earlier meant that they could be unsure about his information. Perhaps they were just baiting me to confirm their suspicions.

I couldn’t give in!

All these thoughts flashed through my mind in an instant. The silent pause lasted only a fraction of a second. Then I made a confused face with a dash of offence.

"What? What plans are you talking about? Against you? Mister God of Blue Land Usnea, I’m seeing you for the first time!"

Usnea studied me for a long and tense second—still not showing anything but their "beard"—before leaning back.

"I see," was their only comment on the matter. "You are as trustworthy as a human."

This didn’t sound like a good thing...

"Believe me, I won’t lie to you!" I swore profusely. After all, I didn’t say a word of lies even when I was denying knowing everything. "What would I gain from a betrayal? You know that the God of Humanity has allied with countless animals and plants in the past, and it was beneficial for both of them!"

"Most of these species had no choice but to be the God of Humanity’s allies," Usnea said. "If you ally with me, you will definitely farm my blue land usnea like all your other crops. They will grow, but only as far as you want them to. You would make sure they don’t have a chance to act on their own."

I scratched my cheek.

Of course, this was true. But how else did they imagine an alliance between plants and people? Especially since usnea trees were so dangerous to have around.

In this case, though, I was ready to promise anything as long as Usnea agreed.

"Your trees can be free! We can split territories. You will get your half of the continent, and I will have mine!"

"No. You will grow blue land usnea alongside your people. I will create a champion who can speak my words to you, and you will listen to his wishes. In exchange for that, the blue land usnea will learn to produce fruits and nectar that will be nourishing to your people. And it won’t let its seeds fly on the wind over your lands again."

Sounded like a cat-in-a-bag deal to me. The wishes of the Usnea’s champion could turn out to be just about anything...

But it was better than no deal, so I smiled and nodded.

"Sure, that’s fair! Especially after all these floods..."

"And you will help fight the smooth-back deer. Your soldiers will fly in and kill them all. The deer can’t fight poison like yours, so you will win."

I jolted.

"Mister God of Blue Land Usnea, you must understand that this isn’t so simple! It will take a long while for my soldiers to reach the deer’s territories, and they will have to fly over the areas frozen by the aura of usnea trees. There are bees who won’t have problems with this, but the ones who have the strongest venom sure will!"

"There’s still time. I heard that you are special, mortal: smart, cunning... Solve this. Kill the deer. Then—the deal. Or be late, then—no deal." Usnea paused. The aura around them became pensive. "And stop the flooding. My blue land usnea won’t let its seeds fly over your territories at this time. You won’t have to catch them to protect yourself anymore."

I raised my eyebrows, then bobbed my head in gratitude.

"Thank you, thank you! This will save a lot of people a lot of effort. So... This is a deal, I guess?"

It went easier than I feared. Perhaps the Goddess of Bees HAD NO REASON to threaten me with FUCKING HOSTAGES?

"Yes. Kill the deer, mortal. The champion will appear soon."

And with this enigmatic message, the God of Blue Land Usnea (what a mouthful!) disappeared into thin air before even shaking hands on our agreement.

For several seconds, I sat in tense silence, expecting... I wasn’t sure. For the Goddess of Bees to descend onto my head and tell me that I fucked everything up?

Congratulations, for finishing a diplomatic agreement with a god, you got a new achievement: "Divine Diplomat"! Your reward: ’Improved Empathy’ and ’Supernatural Empathy’ genes.

〔Improved Empathy: improves the ability to perceive emotions of others, improving cohesion of a society and reducing potential for conflicts.〕

〔Supernatural Empathy: allows sensing the emotions of others when using telepathy. This ability also allows using telepathy on creatures with intelligence too low to have thoughts.〕

I let out a long breath and let my head fall on the desk with relief.

The rewards could only mean that my divine slave drivers decided that these negotiations were successful!

The rewards were also good to have. These genes weren’t the most useful, but at the very least, they meant I had more gene points. I could add minor improvements to the morphotypes.

Perhaps having supernatural empathy will help some bees in their work as Artists, Nurses, Physicians or even Commandos.

But these thoughts were low priority in my mind. Right now, a lot of plans would have to change because of the agreement.

I forced myself to sit up and sent a telepathic message to Attendants Helping-Hands.

’Dear, call Bloodhero and Workharder into my office! Things must happen—asap! Tell them that it’s about the ice-hole trees. And tell Tabletina that I finally found out their actual name—she will want this information in our archives.’

The Bee Empire had to stop all the tree-cutting and send a naval expedition of the size we had never done before!