My avatar is becoming the final boss

Chapter 318 Su Wei and Qiao, the Bookstore's Beekeeper (Seeking Monthly Tickets)

Night had fallen. The giant bee, Hou Qiao, departed from its hive on the nameless island, unfurling its pair of hexagonal wings. It soared to the top of the sky and then flew towards Osaka, Japan.

Shortly after that, Su Wei's bookstore welcomed a customer.

Su Wei paused slightly, raised her head, squinted, and looked at the bookstore entrance from behind her glasses.

From the dimly lit street, a long, sharp tail suddenly stepped over the threshold and into the street, as if to greet him.

Two seconds later, the strange creature finally entered the bookstore.

Su Wei silently observed the other party, and what came into view was clearly a creature that was half human and half bee.

It has a long tail, its entire body is black, its facial features are no different from a human's, and its high-set pupils emit a terrifying golden light. It has two pairs of hexagonal wings on its back, each wing resembling a honeycomb.

"A bee lord?" Su Wei wondered.

“What a rare guest…” he murmured.

"This is the only bookstore that's still open late at night." Qiao walked in slowly and stopped in front of the bookshelves.

“I see. I was wondering why you would choose a small shop like mine,” Su Wei said. “After all, I’m probably the only bookstore that’s open late at night.”

Joe reached out and took a book from the shelf, then gently scratched the protective film with his paw. He sat down on the spot, crossed his legs, and silently turned the pages.

Su Wei didn't make a move against him; she simply took a sip of coffee and glanced at the time on the wall.

It was three in the morning. At this hour, even though the streets of Osaka were nearly deserted, his bookstore was greeted by a light-eating bee; if he weren't afraid of offending it, he would have already taken out his camera to take a picture.

After a moment, Joe suddenly spoke up: "You're not a superhuman. I've eaten superhumans before, and you taste different from them. But I can tell... you're very strong."

Su Wei adjusted her glasses and smiled, "Praise from a foreign race? That doesn't make me happy at all."

"You didn't attack me immediately, were you waiting for your companions?" Qiao asked, looking down as he read.

"No, I welcome every customer who comes to the store to read, as long as they don't cause trouble."

“Interesting… there are actually humans like this.” Joe murmured, then said without looking up, “I can also smell that you don’t really have any hostility towards me.”

"Can you smell it?" Su Wei said. "The light-devouring bees have a really special nose."

“Lower organisms shouldn’t try to understand the structure of higher organisms,” Joe scoffed.

"Are you interested in human knowledge?" Su Wei put down her coffee cup and asked casually.

"Actually, I'm not that interested."

"Hehe, you don't seem uninterested at all. You suddenly flew dozens of kilometers from that nameless island in the middle of the night just to find a bookstore to look at books."

“I just want to seek meaning… Most creatures like us only know how to reproduce and kill, but what is the meaning of reproduction and killing?” Joe said slowly. “Humans have existed for far longer than we light-eating bees, so I think I can gain some inspiration from human knowledge.”

“I see,” Su Wei said. “Then there is still a lot you can learn.”

"Is that so? I don't deny that."

“I thought queen bees were arrogant creatures, after all, the next queen bee will be born from among you,” Su Wei said with a sigh. “But it seems that the reality is quite different from what I understood.”

“I have no interest in becoming king.” Joe said, then suddenly turned to look at Su Wei. “But you… do you really understand your situation? I eat people, rather than saying that only humans can satisfy our nutritional needs and allow us to evolve further.”

Su Wei silently raised her head and met Qiao's gaze. The non-human creature's eyes were empty and cold, and the golden light in its pupils was like that of a wild beast ready to devour its prey, almost bursting out of its eyes.

“You know what…” Su Wei suddenly took off her glasses and took out a pair of glasses cases from the drawer.

"What do you want to say?" Joe asked.

Su Wei squinted, took out a glasses cloth from the box, and quietly wiped her rimless glasses.

“People eat people too,” he said softly, his voice still calm and even.

Qiao was silent for a moment, quietly observing Su Wei's expression for a while, before suddenly resting his hand on his chin. "I understand. You want to exploit the conflict between our race and those superhumans to achieve some goal."

"You're quite perceptive." Su Wei paused for a moment, then put on her glasses and asked with a smile, "Is this a special ability? Or is it that every Light-Eating Bee has such a keen sense of smell as you?"

“No, it was just a test,” Joe sneered. “And you fell for it.”

Su Wei raised an eyebrow and said in surprise, "Wow, I just never thought an insect could have such intelligence."

"I hope you have the self-awareness. When insects are generally stronger than humans, in our eyes, humans are the insects."

Su Wei chuckled, seemingly not intending to argue with him. "Now that you understand my purpose, we can sit down and read quietly."

“If I’m not mistaken, you killed over a hundred of our Light-Eating Bees in the basement,” Joe said expressionlessly.

Su Wei was taken aback.

He had assumed that Joe was talking to him so calmly because she didn't know about the basement incident. But now it seemed he was wrong. "Sigh... I thought I could keep it from you. After all, we just moved here, and anyone would want to clean up the basement if they saw bugs." Su Wei scratched his head and said with a headache, "So what are you planning to do? Take action against me?"

Joe remained silent for a moment.

“No, it was they who offended us,” he said. “Human, I apologize on their behalf and to you. You are a reasonable person. It’s no pity that you killed them.”

Su Wei was silent for a moment as well, "I really didn't expect there to be an outlier like you among the Light-Eating Bees."

“Likewise,” Joe said coldly. “Before I entered the bookstore, I anticipated that if the manager panicked and started yelling because of my arrival, I would kill him, eat him, and use him as a supplement to my reading.”

"I see. That explains why you stuck there with your tail out for two seconds."

"Say it again... and I'll kill you."

"Okay, okay." Su Wei smiled.

A man and a bee sat down and read quietly for a while. The bookstore was quiet, with only the hum of the fan breaking the silence. Joe, seemingly annoyed by the noise, reached over and pressed the off button. The fan stopped spinning.

“If you want to learn about philosophy, I don’t recommend you look at the book you have now. I suggest you put it back and take the fifth book on the second row of the bookshelf. That one is a more systematic and sophisticated book for beginners,” Su Wei suddenly said.

"Humans, don't teach me to read..."

Qiao spoke coldly, but after a moment, he used his long tail to take down the book that Su Wei had mentioned.

"And there's the seventh book on the third row of the bookshelf. That one introduces the history of philosophy, and it's relatively more interesting," Su Wei continued dismissively.

Joe remained silent, then used his tail to hook the book off the shelf and placed it beside his lap.

“I’m asking you, what is the meaning of your life?” Joe asked.

"I'm already dead."

"What do you mean?"

Su Wei smiled and said, "My heart died the moment I heard the news of my daughter's death. Now I'm just a walking corpse, barely clinging to life. But I can't close my eyes and rest until I can give my daughter some closure."

"Revenge, huh..."

Joe remained expressionless, pondered for a long time, and then found a word in the concept of humanity.

"Yes, you bees probably can't understand the pain of losing someone you care about, can you?"

“Don’t be so arrogant,” Joe said, turning the pages of his book. “Our emotions are indeed not as complex as yours in the short term. But as long as we consume and evolve, in the future, we will far surpass you in both emotional and rational thinking…”

"At least you have to admit that, as of now, compared to humans, you are just toddlers learning to walk. Even with great abilities, you are just children messing around with rocket launchers," Su Wei said casually.

Ignoring his sarcasm, Qiao suddenly closed the book in her hand. "It seems... I should go."

"It seems you're quite self-aware, so there's no need for me to turn you away," Su Wei said.

He had just received a notification from the Exorcist Association, saying that the Supernatural Ability Association had reported that the lord of the Light-Eating Bees had suddenly invaded a human city in the middle of the night. However, with the equipment they had created in such a short time, they were unable to detect the lord's location.

Therefore, the Japanese government has deployed a group of people with supernatural abilities. They are searching for the location of the homing bee in the city.

It wouldn't be long before it was discovered that Joe was reading in this bookstore. The light-eating bee seemed unwilling to let trouble affect the bookstore, so it prepared to leave.

"Human, I'm taking these books with me," Joe said, turning his head away with a blank expression.

“If it were a bookstore in China, I would make you write an IOU, after all, running a bookstore is not easy,” Su Wei said. “But this bookstore was given to me by someone, so it doesn’t matter. You can just take whatever book you want to read.”

Qiao glanced at Su Wei, seemingly to confirm whether he was lying.

A moment later, Joe silently stood up, used his tail to wrap around the three introductory philosophy books piled on the ground, and then hooked them up.

“Joe, that’s my name. I’ll come back next time.” He said as he walked out of the bookstore.

"Su Wei," Su Wei replied without looking up, taking a sip of her coffee.

Joe gave a lukewarm chuckle and stepped out of the bookstore. In the thick darkness, he unfurled his enormous hexagonal wings, then flapped them, and with a deafening roar, soared upwards, disappearing into the night.

Su Wei got up from behind the counter, silently walked to the store entrance, and pulled down the shutter. After closing the store, he walked towards the stairwell and glanced at Gu Zhuoan standing at the top of the stairs.

Gu Zhuo'an looked solemn, his eyes still fixed on the direction of the shop entrance.

"Is it necessary to be so nervous?" Su Wei asked.

“Father-in-law, I’m just worried that the worm will attack you.” Gu Zhuo’an crossed his arms and murmured, “Is this the Light-Eating Bee? It doesn’t seem quite the same as I imagined.”

“Indeed, for a worm, it’s quite polite.” Su Wei smiled nonchalantly and patted his shoulder. “You have things to do tomorrow, go to bed early tonight.”

After speaking, Su Wei bypassed Gu Zhuo's case and went upstairs first, her figure swallowed up by the shadows of the second-floor corridor.

　Ask for monthly ticket orz
　　
　
(End of this chapter)