Marigold – A LitRPG

They were all the same! If someone didn't have a link to tell who's who, it would be impossible to discern from each other just by status, but I must say that these [skills] really have great potential, these guys seem to be the true master craftsmen of the hive.

"Mom, aren't the new workers adorable!? Look at they vibrant color and healthy appearance! They were very well cared when they were little!"'

I can't tell if a bee is healthy just by looking at its colors.

"They look, health I guess? And they have some skills that seem really useful."

"I told you that they could help you more than me Mom!"

"Yes, but they really are very weak and wouldn't be able to do anything in a fight."

"That's why I'm here! I am the muscles!"

"Thank you Hans, I will try to wait until they finish eating and then go out to test their skills, in the meantime keep leveling up please."

"Of Course Mom! I just need a moment..."

While the workers ate happily and occasionally quarreled among themselves over what was left of honey, Hans began to approach and soon all the attention of the workers was on him.

"Hans! whats up?"

"Hi..."

"Brother, are you hungry?"

"This food is ours!"

Hans looked really happy as he watched the workers who had different reactions to his presence and after a light laugh he spoke to everyone.

"Listen, you must be finding strange that we have just a few members, but don't worry, this is no mistake or the result of a tragedy, it is just our mother's wish, until today there were only 2 of us in this hive and now we have you guys too, mother will need a lot of help, help that I cannot provide, so I ask you guys to do your best when you go out to do your job."

"You can count on me!"

"I'll try.."

"You didn't even have to talk!"

"Mama seems to be strange..."

"Shut up!"

"I only spoke the truth!"

"If you're going to talk shit, you better shut up, head of wind!"

After saying What he wanted Hans just turned around and left, while he seemed happy to start an argument among the workers, after Hans finally left I was left behind with a group of workers who were now fighting among themselves, it wans't a real fight, it even reminded me a lot how I fought with my friends in high school.

"All right guys! Attention on me!"

Soon everyone stopped fighting and started staring at me, even though their appearances were the same I could tell that each one had a unique personality, I thought it would be better to give names to everyone before starting to test their skills.

"All right, line up, I'll name each one of you!"

"Whoa!"

"R-Really?"

"I was wondering if we were going to have names like Big Brother."

"Stop talking and get in line!"

With some difficulty the Bees managed to make a queue, and soon they were eagerly waiting for the names that I would give them.

Then what? Is any name okay? Or should I find matching names? I guess I'll just try to come up with a name that matches everyone's personality.

"Well... you'll be Steve, you'll be Carl, Ken, levi, Matt and Miles."

Following these orders was the leader Bee, Steve. The distracted Carl, the foul-mouthed Ken, the delicate Levi, and the trouble maker duo Matt and Miles.

"Thank You Mom! We really like the names!"

"Y-Yes Mom... Thank you"

"Incredible indeed!"

"All right guys, now that you're all nominated I want to test your skills and know what your strengths are, Do you have anything that you prefer to do or that you enjoy?"

"I like to eat!"

"Stupid, mother is not talking about this! She's talking about work! Like make food or build!"

"I-I don't know what I like, Mom..."

"Not me either! I was just born and everything seems to be just work for me!"

"Well... How about we do a little bit of everything and then you decide what you like? I need you to help me with food production, but during free time you can do whatever you want."

After a quick conversation with the boys I flew off towards the flowers that grow near the roots of the tree we live and let the children discover themselves a little, unlike Hans who has always been serious since his birth these workers reminded me of children of 14-16 years old, very childish and curious about the world around them, for a while everyone was just drinking a little nectar, until Steve began to rub his arms in the pollen of a flower and then quietly fly to another similar flower and rubbed his arms in her pollen too, for me it seemed strange since I had never done it but Steve did it as if it were natural and after repeating the process about 3 times I got a warning.

This must be the [Pollinator] trait going into action, honestly it seemed to be a big broken trait, but Steve had to do the process several times before I only received 0,1 xp, so it shouldn't be too broken, I think this is the way the system allows workers to level up, since if they need to fight like Hans they would end up as food.

After a while leaving each one to do what they wanted I flew by each one to inspect what they were doing, Steve continued his pollination work, seeming to take the duty of a bee very seriously, Carl was chewing a honey crystal that he should have brought with him, Ken was playing with [Create Honey] making small bubbles of honey and throwing them around, little Levi looked promising, since he was exploring his skills with [Wax Making], He created small wax bubbles with honey and then molded them into delicate shapes, his work were much better than all i did so far, while Matt and Miles were fighting over a flower that had a sweet nectar even if having several similar flowers around them.

"All right, now that you've had some fun I want you to help me fill the honey tank we have at home, I want to know how fast we can fill it and what the quality of the honey will be, after that I want you all to help me insulate the whole house with wax, remember that you can start doing whatever you want after we are done with all the work, of course as long as it's something productive."

"All right!"

"Y-Yes"

"I will produce more honey than all of them mother!"

"Oh, shut up, you only know how to fight with Miles!"

"No fights! And go to work boys! we don't have all day!"

I think it's been about 2 hours? And in the meantime the tank was full to the brim! When it was just me, it took a full day of work to do this, but now it was so fast that I still had a full day to do whatever I wanted, but well, I think all this speed has its consequences.

The quality of the Honey dropped, before it was always [Good] or [Great], but now it has dropped to [Fine] I didn't know that mixing my superior quality honey with the low quality honey of the workers would end up decreasing its quality, but well, I think it was kind of obvious that this would happen, it's not exactly a problem for me, but the workers with the [Picky Eater] skill would get a debuff for eating a [Fine] quality honey?

"Well... What do you think guys? Is that honey good for all of us to eat?"

"That honey tastes like shit!"

"It doesn't taste like shit! It's just not tasty as your honey mom!"

"i-it's not tasty as mama honey..."

"I didn't like it either!"

Me and my luck, now I need to feed 7 mouths on my own instead of 1?! Would I need to do this until they managed to level up in [Create honey] and start creating a higher quality honey?! Well it's not like they can't eat this honey, they just don't want to, but when hunger strikes they will definitely find this honey a delight.

"We still have all day! How about we use that honey to make wax and then create another one to eat? We need a lot of stuff made of wax, so we can level up your ability to [Create honey] a lot."

"All right!"

"You're in charge."

"I-I like wax!"

'Alright guys, let's do it like this, take much honey as you can and then use it to create common wax and pass it on the floor and walls, so we will create a well isolated place and protected from the cold, after we finish I want you to try to destroy the entrance to make a new and more pleasant one."

"No problem!"

As everyone ran excitedly to the honey Jug I could see something I hadn't seen before, which was the fact that their chests swelled much more than mine when they drank honey, they seemed to be able to store about twice as many resources as I could within their bodies, and it didn't seem like a Matter of [Skills] but rather a Matter of restrictions and physical advantages of each class, just like Hans could only fight, these workers could only work, and I should only be able to lay eggs and increase our numbers, the fact that I had skills like [Create honey] and [Wax creating] should only serve to feed the first workers that were born, I didn't have skills like [Precise cutting] and the trait [Pollinator] of the workers that seemed to be super useful, each class had its own way of gaining experience, Hans managed through the fights, the workers polonized the plants and I earned an xp tax from each of my descendants.

"Mom Matt and Miles are doing everything wrong! They are disrupting everyone!"

"Lies! it's Miles who's getting in my way!"

"You're the one who annoys me!"

In the short period of time I was distracted, the duo Matt and Miles started fighting again, and were throwing wax balls at each other, the problem was that the wax soon hit the floor or walls and dried, leaving a totally non-uniform surface.

"Matt and Miles! The 2 of you go outside and start breaking the entrance! If you start fighting again, I'll make you clean up this mess all by yourself!"

"...Yes, mom."

"Sorry mom."

As the 2 left with their heads down I could see Ken laughing at them and Steve shaking his head in approval at my response, while little Levi continued the wax work, Levi far was the most skilled with wax, since unlike his brothers who took a long time to cover a small piece of the floor or walls with wax, Levi could do the same work as if it were the simplest thing in the world, and soon more than half of the work had already been done by levi alone.

"Levi, what a spectacular job! You can work with Wax very well! It seems to be your natural talent!"

"T-Thank you mom.. I really like to work with wax, I can shape everything I imagine with it.."

"Butt kisser...."

"Ken stop being jealous, you all have your specialties."

"Sorry.."

"Now boys, let's finish this up soon and go see Miles and Matt's work."

With a little hard work soon the whole inside of the tree was completely covered with wax, after we finished this work we flew together to the entrance and saw Matt and Miles who seemed to be eating the walls, they would bite off whole pieces of the hard wax and after they gathered a considerable amount they would spit out small balls of hard wax which they then gathered into a small mound near the door.

"Good job guys, when you're not fighting you can be very productive!"

"It's a competition mom! To see who can destroy the wall faster!"

"YEs! and I'm winning!"

"I'm winning hollowhead!"

These guys, they looked like twins who hated each other but couldn't live without each other.

"All right guys, help the boys finish the job and then let's try to build something better, and please as you guys break the wall try to turn the wax into rectangular blocks for us to use later"

"All right! This will be over soon!"

"O-of course mom!"

"I'm already getting hungry"

The duo of Matt and Miles had managed to break about 30% of the wall by themselves, but with the help of the brothers soon the whole wall came down and the entrance was wide open again, and this time as I had a lot of help and i could do something really good, we had just a few wax bricks now, but with a little work the boys would get a satisfactory amount for my great purpose.

"All right folks, now what we're going to do is make enough honey to make several of these hard wax bricks, after that we're going to use these bricks and more hard wax to put it all together into one very firm structure."

Most seemed to not quite understand the concept of building a brick wall, but Levi the little engineer was visibly very excited about the idea, I couldn't tell if he knew what a brick wall was, but it seems that the fact that I wanted to create something that he didn't know what is, are what got him all excited, I have to admit, the boy inherited my curiosity!