As I lay curled up on a broken highway, covering my head from the swarm of angry bees the size of plums with saw blades for stingers, one thought echoed loudly through my head. Man the Apocalypse sucks. The fact that being literally covered by giant bees doing they're damnedest to cut me to ribbons was one of the least bad things to happen to me in the four days since the old world had been forcibly killed did a lot to reinforce this idle thought. Mind, the fact said Apocalypse had left me coated in thick metal scales did a lot to keep said situation fairly low on the list.

  I would have rather kept my humanity though, being a giant snake was not worth the hassle that came with it.

  "Are you two done yet!?" I shouted hoping to be heard through my own hide and the buzzing of hundreds of angry bees.

  "Working on it," a humming almost buzzy voice I identified as Matilda answered, "A few more and I think it will be enough."

  I felt several somethings brush by my armored hide. That would either be her spitting out globs of sticky silk or her tiny moth minions trying to catch entire swaths of the bees using woven silk nets. Could be either or, Matilda has been getting pretty into weaving lately.

  "Any sign of Damian?" I shouted, shifting around hoping to keep the bees' attention fully on me. Though, seeing as I'd literally thrown myself through their massive hive under the bridge and was still covered in honey I felt fairly sure I still had their attention. Doesn't hurt to be safe though.

  Taste pretty good too. I thought to myself as I flicked some of the dark gray, to my monochrome vision anyway, fluid. Oddly smoky and woody in flavor, similar to Applewood, would probably taste great on meat.

  "I got the bitch!" Damian screamed, the deinonychus with compound eyes and cat ears suddenly appeared on my tremorsense with a shoe box under one arm running for his life. "Fry 'em Joe! Matilda! Get these things off of me!"

  With all our actual objectives complete, it was time to wrap up this System cursed quest. Activating my Myoelectric mutagen, electricity rippled along my body. It made me way stronger, but the important part was that it discharged enough power to potentially stun anyone touching me. If it was enough to take a rhino, then I suspected it would cook the bees.

  –Lumberjack Bee inflicted with Stun! x163–

  Not good enough. A low yowling sound escaped my throat as I Focused my attention on the mutagen and focused my power into it. The sounds of electricity suddenly jumped from snaps and pops to the angry electric buzz of a tesla coil. The smell of smoke assured me that the bees were more than stunned.

  Finally free of the burden of several hundred pounds of bees, I pulled my head out of my coils and gazed over the 'battlefield'. Most of the oversized bugs were still clustered around me, surging forwards only to attract a branch of electricity that would fry dozens of the little boogers at once. A decent number were breaking off to try and attack the almost human sized moth who was surrounded by a cloud of smaller moths, ranging from the size of a banana to a large cat. Considering how quick the cloud was being picked apart by spat webs and swinging nets, I was fairly certain Matilda had things under control. Considering the size of the cloud chasing Damian, he might actually need the help.

  Crouching low and aiming myself just behind the sprinting lizard man, I activated one of my favorite skills, Lunge.

  As always, there was a heavy tugging sensation as my massive body fought the skill to try and stay at rest. Despite this, the skill won out over inertia and jerked me violently one body length forwards, which for a massive snake like me was fifty feet. Then good ol' inertia decided that if I was going to be in motion, I could just stay in motion, sending me skipping and skidding along the ground. Seeing as I was still lit up like a faulty Christmas tree, that led to a mildly devastating impact on the cloud of bees I went skidding through.

  –Lunge has leveled up!–

  –Gained 3xp–

  The cloud that had been chasing Damian seemed to scatter and reform as it wobbled indecisively before it was joined by the still mildly peeved swarm chasing me. The two joined into one massive blob and surged forwards in a tide. I smiled gleefully as I Focused on one of my oldest skills, prehensile tail. Using the super charged skill I widened the massively oversized blade at the end of my tail into something resembling a giant fan or comedic sized frying pan. As I swung the oversized electrified appendage down like a hammer the swarm seemed to freeze just before it was squashed, zapped, and blown about.

  –Prehensile Tail has leveled up! x2–

  –Skill: E → D–

  –Gained 6xp!–

  Despite having just lost roughly two thirds of their numbers the bees seemed to be trying to drunkenly reform their swarm. Damian appearing amongst them swinging his knife, slashing his claws, and biting madly seemed to finally 'break' the bees as they scattered and fled.

  –Quest: Break the Hive complete!–

  –386/450 Beasts Defeated!–

  –CalculatingParticipation…–

  –126/386 Enemies Disabled - 241 Killing Blows.–

  –Performance: Exceptional–

  –SysAutoGen_EQReward…–

  –Received: Flexibility Mutagen E–

  –SysAutoGen_BonusLoot…–

  –Received 3pt!–

  –Gained 150xp!–

  Flexibility Mutagen? I'm actually a bit curious what that would do to me. How does a snake get more flexible? Shame I'm all out of slots to find out.

  This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  "Well that was certainly an invigorating way to start the day," I happily declared, cutting off the flow of energy my skills and mutagens before taking a quick glance at my health and stamina levels.

  –Health: 482/482–

  –Stamina: 31/110–

  Looks like stamina consumption is still an issue, going to need to keep an eye out for something to fix that.

  "Says the guy who didn't have to crawl around in that hive looking for that hoe," Damian grumbled giving himself a full body shake, tossing thick viscous fluids everywhere, and spitting. "For reference, bees taste terrible and honey in your weird fur feathers feels awful. I don't even want to think about what this will do to my clothes."

  "I did warn you this quest was likely to be messy," I reminded him, gesturing to my own body coated in burnt honey and bee corpses so charred as to probably count as charcoal. Did actually smell rather nice though, kind of like a scented candle. "Reason I left everything back at those high end apartments."

  "I didn't want to risk anyone stealing my stuff!" Damian protested, "We literally met them hours ago and this is all I got! How do you know they haven't stolen your stuff?"

  "Damian dearie," Matilda sighed as she fluttered over handing Damian the shoebox. The box was lightly shaking as the cat sized bee inside resumed her struggle. The rest of her flutter of smaller moths carried hundreds of irate bees struggling against the webbing bind them as unsuccessfully as their queen. "Do you really think that a bunch of people living out of apartments without a single evolved among them would willingly seek to provoke three evolved monsters over some clothing, sentimental items, and jerky?"

  "You would be shocked how stupid people can be," Damian growled as he tried licking some of the, what I guessed was honey, off his clothes with little success. Having worked in the service industry before I had to yield that point to him. "I see you didn't leave your stuff behind either."

  "Because I didn't see a need to undress," she huffed, clutching the frayed scarf she wore protectively. "Unlike you two, I don't get into the 'splash zone' in a scrap."

  Seeking to nip the budding argument before it could properly bloom, I excitedly asked, "Think the locals have those bathes heated up yet? They did promise us all hot baths if we did this, they might even have some soap!"

  Damian tried to keep looking cross as he folded his arms and grumbled, "I doubt it." But his wagging tail and perked ears betrayed his hopeful excitement.

  Matilda looked somewhat doubtful as she nibbled on one of her super fluffy moth legs. "While a bath sounds wonderful, I don't think they're very good for moths."

  "You could still splash yourself and let others wash you, you know," I offered the much older woman.

  "Did you forget she's toxic again?" Damian asked, looking at me with a surprisingly flat expression. Those ears of his were shockingly good at conveying emotion to offset his immobile eyes.

  "Maybe," I admitted. In my defense I didn't notice, seeing as I was mostly metal. Apparently even just touching her was enough for most to break out in an irritating, almost painful rash. I might never have known if she hadn't shoved one of her mini-moths up my nose the one time. "I'm sure we'll find something for you. You absolutely need some down time as well after the last few days of madness. When was the last time you slept?"

  "I sleep frequently," she fluffed herself up in a huff, "Just not all at once."

  The heck does that even mean???

  "Look, we can argue about it more after we give those people the bees they wanted." Damian said, throwing up his hands, "Preferably before the little bastards have managed to cut their way free."

  Sure enough, some of the bees were using their saw shaped stingers to try and cut the silk holding them. I doubted they'd get very far seeing as silks were shockingly stab and cut retardant. Yet most snakes also didn't discharge enough electricity to run a housing block so who could say. Better safe than sorry.

  Thankfully the apartments in question were only about five hundred feet away, so it only took us all of a minute to drag our captives over there. It looked like a modest crowd had gathered to watch the fight, a real menagier of different creatures ranging from gerbils the size of cars, to what looked like a knock off axolotl clinging to the head of an alligator with long legs. The gator walked forwards and lifted its head high to raise the little two legged horned salamander up to our eye level.

  "Thank you so much!" it gave a little gurgling squeak, its little fleshy neck horns wiggling happily. Lord have mercy! That is weapons grade adorable! "Once Suzi finishes building her bee boxes we will hopefully be able to start producing wax and honey!"

  "Not to mention not having to go a mile out of our way to avoid that hive when heading down to anything on the other side of the bridge will be nice," the gator rumbled, "You folks have done us a good turn. We'd be more than willing to shelter you if you need it."

  "Thanks for the offer but we've already got a place to stay." I waved them off, "This is just us being neighborly. We'll be heading off down 287 once the heat of the day has passed. Got family to check on down south. Though if you have any extra priests we could use a couple back in the main city."

  "Sadly no," the two legged eel lizard said, horns dropping sadly, "We actually don't have any preachers, Ms. Miller has been filling in for us. The woman's a blessing, but she's just not as good as her husband was."

  "That's a shame," I sighed, figured that quest wouldn't be so easy to complete, "Still thanks for giving us a place to sleep last night. I know we hardly look like the most trustworthy group."

  "Hardly an imposition," the gator harrumphed, "You three have been a blessing for this community. News from the north, removing that bloody hive, and best yet, your little show just now is actually convincing these lazy bums that it's actually worth doing quests and not just hoarding supplies. We might actually get some of these people to evolve properly instead of just waiting for the week to pass."

  "The week to pass?" I blinked in confusion, "What happens after a week?"

  Everyone looked at me with confusion before Matilda asked, "Joe, have you not been properly exploring the system menus?"

  "No!" I hissed, "I hate that stuff! I swear every time I try I end up breaking something or accidentally changing a setting! I'm now got my health and stamina bar forever sitting in the bottom left of my vision, and guess what! Everytime I try to look at it I can't because it is always in the bottom left of my vision so I can't look directly at it! I accidentally re-enables popups and can't turn them off now!"

  The discount axolotl tittered, a sound like squeaking a rubber ducky under water, "I've got the same issues, I'm terrible at navigating all those menus. Thankfully Nick here can explain things to me. Apparently you can get your first evolution for free after your first week, you just get a better one from leveling."

  "Huh, wish I'd known that before I'd fought a scorpion the size of a building." I grumbled. Dang it, that was actually useful information, I might actually have to try exploring the system menus again. I hope I don't accidentally end up triggering an 'invert controls' setting or something.

  "By the way, those baths we promised you should be done heating up by now," the gator, Nick? smiled, "Looks like a couple of you could really use it."

  I take it back, sometimes the apocalypse was okay. It certainly made us appreciate the little things.