A very peculiar Hive Queen
I don't want to be the Hive Queen
is a Web Novel series written by Valethehowl.
In our world, Marcus, a young man, was having a very bad day. He got in a fight at work, he got fired and to top it all off he was shot dead during a robbery.
Luckily for him, that wasn't the end, as he somehow found his soul reincarnated in another world.
Unluckily for him, his new body is that of a Vex Hive Queen, and the world he ended up in is a Standard Fantasy Setting chocked full of dangerous creatures that would like nothing more than have him for dinner. Literally.
So now Marcus has to use his wits, courage and the minions he create by laying eggs to survive in this dangerous new world.
In October 2022, chapters 1-78 were published as an eBook under the title Swarm. Most of those chapters have been taken down from the Royal Road page, but new chapters are still posted there periodically and can be read for free.
I don't want to be the Hive Queen contains example of:
- Adaptive Ability: The goblins have a peculiar version this ability as their racial magic, as they can develop traits of the creatures they are fighting against. The Vex can also do this with their genetic manipulation, creating new drones with the right characteristics for any new situation.
- Alien Kudzu: The Vex mold-wax definitely qualifies. It consumes every bit of organic matter it comes in contact with and grows exponentially fast. It is also the main source of food for the Vex.
- Alien Sky: Aos has three moons — one red, one white, and one yellow-green.
- Always a Bigger Fish: Marcus ends up being saved by the nightwolves when the appearance of a dragon called the King of Ashwood Hills make them run away.
- Arc Villain:
- The first is General Trakk of the goblins, who wages war against the Vex in the Caligare Forest before leading his armies to attack the human city of Brettholz. He turns out to be a Noble Demon who wants to ally with the humans against the orcs, and feared that the goblins wouldn't be taken seriously unless they demonstrated their new military might. Which leads to...
- Blueskin, the Dark Messiah of the orcs, who aims to conquer Aos and devour all in their path. Unlike Trakk, there's absolutely nothing sympathetic about him, and the fact that he's a reincarnated human like Marcus makes him even more reprehensible.
- Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: Both the original Vex Queen and the King of the Ashwood Hills are huge, easily 30 meters long.
- Big Bad Wannabe: The Rantul and the Piraca both aspire to conquer the humans and spread across the world, but get curb-stomped by the orcs before they can even tame the Caligare Forest. Their leaders are enslaved and forced to serve the orcs' war machine instead.
- Big Creepy-Crawlies: Vex Drones are definitely insectoid, although their actual shape varies wildly, with some being more similar to reptiles.
- Blood Knight: Alya Vilka, despite being one of the greatest Aura Masters of the Federation of Thule, isn't really a hero so much as a mercenary who enjoys testing her mettle against particularly tough enemies.
- Blow You Away: Yasen's powers have a hint of this, due to his Air Djinni heritage.
- Creepy Good: Even to those who know and trust Marcus, the Vex are terrifying insectoid monsters that breed extremely fast and can fight together with perfect coordination thanks to their Hive Mind. It isn't lost on anyone that they could become an apocalyptic threat if Marcus decides to stop playing nice.
- Cute Monster Girl: Marcus in his new body does qualify, although he's not exactly happy with it. Though he does acknowledge that it could have been much worse.
- Dark Messiah: The orcs, Rantul, and Piraca have each unified under a charismatic leader who wishes to lead their respective race to supremacy. All three are reincarnated humans from Earth.
- Death World: The Caligare Forest (which includes Ashwood Hills, where Marcus woke up in his new body) has a Thin Dimensional Barrier with the magical plane, resulting in lots of bizarre and hostile species, many of them sapient. The Dark Heart within the forest has virtually no barrier, and exploring it is pretty much a death sentence to all but the best-prepared.
- Deliberately Cute Child: A maid tasked with making Marcus presentable for a feast advices him to look and act like a sweet young girl, reasoning that the Vex are terrifying enough to humans but they might avoid extermination if their Queen appears as unthreatening as possible. Marcus is rather disgruntled by the prospect but nonetheless agrees it's an excellent point.
- Drunk on Milk: Marcus can chug actual alcoholic beverages like it's nothing, but a mug of coffee is enough to make him completely drunk.
- Face Full of Alien Wing-Wong: The Rantul are sentient Spider People who lay their eggs inside a living host so the babies will have a fresh supply of food ready for them when they hatch.
- Gender Bender: Marcus is less than thrilled to be stuck in a female body. While he does get used to it and doesn't mind being referred to as female, his gender identity is still male, and both he and the narration continue to refer to him using male pronouns.
- Godzilla Threshold: Marcus has the ability to make his drones hatch much faster from the eggs, but this comes with the drawback of having them gestate inside his body, thus making the actual birth much, much more painful for him. Thus, he only does it when absolutely necessary.
- Greater-Scope Villain: The original Vex Queen is still out there somewhere, and is presumably following an agenda of her own.
- Half-Human Hybrid: Marcus is technically one, as his Vex body was created from the DNA of Sarah, the woman captured in the prologue. Felix and Yasen also have Djinni heritage.
- Hermaphrodite: Orcs have both male and female genitalia; they tend to adopt a male role when mating with an inferior, and a female role with a superior.
- Hive Mind: The Vex are one. All the drones share their Queen's will, although they do have some basic instincts they follow by default when no further instructions are forthcoming.
- Hive Queen: The main character is one.
- Horde of Alien Locusts: The Vex are driven to expand in all directions and consume all in their path, although Marcus defies these instincts and stubbornly holds on to his human identity.
- Invading Refugees: The goblins have invaded Brettholz because they were chased out of the forest by the orcs.
- It Can Think: Goblins are usually considered savages and incapable of strategy. The Goblin General actually takes advantage from this.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Marcus is, by his own admission, an asshole with anger issues. Despite this, when push comes to shove, he'll try to protect the people around him even at great risk to himself. The whole reason he died and was reincarnated is that he tried to help a woman who was being mugged, and got shot in the stomach for his trouble. He grows out of the jerkassery as the story progresses.
- LEGO Genetics: This is the Vex's hat. Vex Queens can absorb DNA from whatever they eat and pick whatever genetic traits they want for their new drones. So far, however, this power has the limitation of not being able to replicate magical powers.
- Loads and Loads of Races: There are quite a few non-human sapient species living in the Caligare Forest and beyond. The Vex, goblins, and orcs are the big players of the story so far (along with the humans, of course), but the Rantul and Piraca are also involved, and many more have been referenced and may yet appear in the future.
- Loophole Abuse: Because the Vex only unlock new abilities by consuming the DNA of new species, Marcus eventually starts to run into creatures too powerful for his existing drones to defeat. His solution is to take a page out of Jurassic Park and engineer a mosquito-like drone that can extract blood from specific targets, returning it to the hive to be consumed in safety. Later on, he befriends a taxidermist in Brettholz who offers samples from various exotic species, some of which have been extinct for centuries.
- Mirror Character: The orc leader, Blueskin, is this to Marcus. Both are humans from Earth who died and were reincarnated in Aos as a different species, but while Marcus is a Jerk with a Heart of Gold who clings to his human identity and values, Blueskin is a sadist who embraces his new, monstrous life and seeks to lead the orcs to dominion over Aos heedless of the human cost.
- Non-Mammal Mammaries: Averted. Marcus is not a mammal and he is completely flat. He doesn't really care either, so he also avoids A-Cup Angst.
- Off the Rails: What Marcus essentially does to the Vex. They're supposed to be a Horde of Alien Locusts that grow stronger by indiscriminately devouring all in their path, but he instead uses them to ally with the Kingdom of Medlan against the goblins, and later the orcs, earning himself friends, allies, and a large plot of land to develop to his heart's content.
- Off with His Head!: Blueskin is fond of biting the heads off of his enemies.
- Our Orcs Are Different: Orcs in this setting are brutish humanoids who devour just about any living thing they can catch, often unhinging their jaws to swallow their prey whole. They absorb part of the Aura of whatever they eat, becoming more powerful with each meal; orcs who pass a critical limit evolve into ogres, which are larger and capable of limited shapeshifting, and ogres themselves can (very rarely) evolve into onis, who have full shapeshifting abilities and can regenerate any wounds within seconds.
- Playing with Fire: Felix's specialty, due to his Fire Djinni heritage.
- Prophetic Fallacy: The Crimson Emperor of the Piraca can read the future, but only in the form of a likelihood (expressed as a percentage) that a specific scenario will come to pass.
- Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil: Blueskin molests the Pale Matriarch during her captivity, extorts sexual favors from his Number Two, and intends to create a harem of Sex Slaves once he's conquered the human kingdoms. The fact that he's a reincarnated human like Marcus makes this even more disturbing.
- Red Baron: The leaders of the orcs, Rantul, and Piraca are known as the Blue Terror, the Pale Matriarch, and the Crimson Devil, respectively.
- Reincarnate in Another World: How Marcus ended up in his current body. While reincarnation isn't uncommon in the setting, it's rare for someone to carry memories of their previous life into adulthood, and there's no precedent for someone reincarnating as a different species, much less from another world entirely. It turns out that the new leaders of the orcs, Rantul, and Piraca are also reincarnated humans from Earth.
- Sir Swears-a-Lot: Marcus is quite fond of the creative use of profanities.
- Standard Fantasy Setting: The northern part of Aos (that we've seen thus far) consists of various human kingdoms, while the south consists of the Caligare Forest and the savage non-human races that reside within. Magic and sorcery are real and accessible to both the humans and the other races, and are understood well enough to enable the use of Magitek.
- Staring Down Cthulhu: During the Battle of Brettholz, Marcus faces off with a forest gargoyle — a Giant Mook that had just made mincemeat of his best drones — to buy time for Klara and Felix to escape. Armed with nothing but a sword and a defiant Slasher Smile, he nonetheless stands his ground and manages to intimidate the gargoyle, stalling its advance long enough for help to arrive.
- Stupid Sexy Flanders: Marcus, who still identifies as a heterosexual male, is mortified to find that he's attracted to Yasen in his new body.
- Summon Bigger Fish:
- When the goblins attack his first hive, Marcus uses two of his flying drones to provoke the King of the Ashwood Hills into attacking the goblins, and flees for his life while they're distracted.
- Arag the spider-goblin uses the same trick to try to assassinate Blueskin later on, but it backfires when the oni manages to kill the dragon and assimilates part of its aura, becoming much stronger as a result.
- Telepathy: This is how Marcus controls his minions. It has a range of about twenty-five kilometers (although he can push that to thirty on a good day); beyond that the drones will function autonomously in pursuit of Marcus' last instructions. His telepathy is also how he communicates so well with the natives, despite having just learned their language.
- Transhuman Treachery: It turns out that the new leaders of the orcs, Rantul, and Piraca are reincarnated humans from Earth who have embraced their new lives rather than cling to their human identities as Marcus has.
- Traumatic Superpower Awakening: Felix unlocks his full Fire Djinn abilities after witnessing a friend from his village get killed by goblins at Brettholz.
- The Worf Effect: Blueskin manages to kill the King of the Ashwood Hills, absorbing its aura in the process. Downplayed in that it was still an epic battle that could have gone either way.
