"Quit squirming, you rat!"
A club smashed into the side of Miel's face. By now, so much blood was dripping down his nose that he couldn't breathe properly without drowning in his own blood.
"P-please... wha-what do you want?" Miel mumbled, his swollen lips and cracked jaw making it hard for him to speak. However, these goons didn't care. They simply laughed before smashing his head in with the club once again.
Blood splattered to the floor, dyeing Miel's humble honey shop red. Not that it mattered anyway, the goons had already trashed the place. His honey jars lay shattered on the ground, stuck in a soup of honey and his own blood.
Miel was uncertain how long he had endured their beatings. He was being held in the basement of the store. Was it day? Was it night? He had no clue.
But it felt like they had been beating him for days now, and yet they still hadn't made their demands.
"Y-you want money? I can..."
Suddenly, the door creaked open. An odd sense of relief washed over him, as if he were about to be saved.
But that hope quickly died.
"It didn't have to be this way, Miel," a voice called out. Miel tried to turn to it, but was met with a strike to his stomach.
He stumbled over himself, but was quickly dragged back up by his hair, his eyes landing on a familiar face.
"B-Bosch?"
It was a man dressed in fine silk robes, with a satisfied smirk on his old face. "I'm surprised you can still see," he said, poking at Miel's swollen eyelids with a disgusted expression.
"You guys have done quite a number on my friend here," Bosch said with a smile, patting one of the goons on the back. "Well done."
Miel was still in shock.
Bosch was one of the more successful merchants within the merchant guild. And one of Miel's investors. When his honey store had nearly been forced to shut down a year ago, it was Bosch who gave him the funds to keep it running.
"W-why?" Miel asked, still struggling to process what was going on.
"The royal family's offer, my good man," Bosch replied simply.
"You should've accepted it. It would've made us all very wealthy men," he added, taking a moment to look at the trashed honey store. "And lord knows you needed it."
A wave of disappointment washed over Miel. "Th-that's why?" he mumbled, each word sending shockwaves of pain through his skull. "The store? I-If it's just the store.... You don't need to..." he began coughing up blood before he could finish his sentence.
Bosch wagged his finger at that, smiling as Miel covered himself in vomit and blood. "The royal family wants the store," he explained. "I am after something much more valuable," he continued.
Miel had no clue what Bosch was getting at. He just wanted all the pain to end; he wanted to go home. To his wife, to his kids.
"You see, I know about the honey, Miel. About its magical properties," Bosch finally revealed. He brought out a small jar of honey from underneath his robes before pulling out a knife.
Miel squirmed in fear, but was quickly shut down with a punch to the mouth.
"The knife is not for you, friend," Bosch smiled, before slicing a thin line on his hand. He quickly applied some of the honey to the wound before whispering something under his breath.
In an instant, the wound healed.
Miel just stared in shock and awe.
His family had produced this honey for years, the store having been passed down from father to son from as far back as the family tree went. And never once had anyone spoken of this.
Bosch noticed the shocked expression on his face and began laughing.
"That look... wait, don't tell me you really didn't know," he laughed, seeming somewhat relieved.
"You know, I waited all this time to get the royal family's support to take you out. I thought you were an alchemist in hiding, or some retired sage. Because why else would you sell a high-grade ingredient for such lousy prices?"
Bosch's hysterical laughter turned into something inhuman, like the cackles of a rotting witch. Even the hired goons became uncomfortable.
"But it turns out you really were just an idiot," he continued.
"Y-you can have it," Miel said suddenly.
He didn't know anything about alchemy or magic. His profession was beekeeping. If his honey was the reason he was going to die, he would rather give it all and start over, than leave his wife a widow and his children fatherless.
"Have it? Have what?" Bosch asked, tugging at Miel's hair. "You think I'm here for the honey?" he asked.
Miel was confused.
"Don't be dumb. I'm here for the process manuscript," Bosch shouted. "Where is it? Where's the recipe?"
"Re-Recipe?"
Bosch scowled at that. "Still acting dumb, are you now?" he asked, before gesturing to the goons.
One of the goons drove Miel's face into the ground, breaking his nose and knocking out a few teeth.
Miel's world spun, he could barely see, and the stabbing pain he once felt was slowly becoming something colder... distant almost.
"The honey-making process. Now."
"I... I..." Miel tried to say, but his mouth was too messed up to speak.
He truly had no idea what Bosch was talking about. His family didn't do anything special for the honey. They just took care of the bees.
However, as his vision cleared and he got a better look at Bosch, he noticed that the other man was smiling. He seemed to be enjoying himself.
And that was when it hit him.
He was going to die today.
Bosch had no plans to actually get information from him. If he did, he would've at least asked the goons not to injure his mouth.
The realisation sent an odd calm throughout his body. The hope of living through this was what kept fear in his heart... but now there was only sadness for his family.
"Ah, come now, my good man. You're giving up already?" Bosch asked, gesturing for the goons to stop. "That's no fun, no is it?"
Miel didn't respond. He wasn't going to waste a second more on this... thing, or whatever was behind the human skin.
"Seems we've broken him already," Bosch sighed. "And I didn't even get the manuscript."
"But... perhaps your wife might know."
Miel shook his head.
"Or maybe your children?" Bosch laughed.
That set something off inside Miel.
An energy he did not know he still had rushed from the deepest depths of his being. He grabbed a shard of glass from the floor while Bosch was still laughing, and used what energy he had to strike.
However...
"Pathetic."
With a wave of Bosch's fingers, the world tilted.
Strings of blood flew through the air, painting the walls.
A cold, empty sensation ate away at Miel's consciousness as he flung through the air.
'Is that my... body?' he pondered, as his decapitated head flew past his headless corpse.
Bosch was saying something, but the world around him was slowly going dim.
'That's it? All I've worked for? All I've done? Erased with a finger flick?'
If Miel could cry, then he would.
But it was already too late.
Death had come to claim him.
'What did I do... to deserve this?'
***
Darkness swallowed him.
He was trapped in a void devoid of thought, time or the ordinary concepts of being.
He could not describe what sort of existence he was. As his only reference to himself was the presence of 'something' within this realm of nothing.
An unknown amount of time passed as he was stuck in this state, before suddenly, a cold voice echoed into his mind:
...
[Processing...]
...
[Please be patient...]
...
[Processing complete.]
[Congratulations!]
[You have been selected as The Beekeeper.]
'What?'
[New Quest available!: Summon Queen Bee!]