FiOP Chapter 19 (Patreon)

“There it is!” Tems shouted in joy at the sight and I was about to tell her to stay quiet but I don’t think the bees would freak out with us this far away. Still, I needed to warn her as we got closer. “You were right. There is a beehive over there. Please don't yell when we start to transport it.” I couldn’t believe our luck at this. Almost all the honey came from a single farmer.

The cities were laid out in a circle around the capital and the beemaking farmer was important enough to be placed in the first circle. The skills he acquired allowed him to keep the bees docile and I needed to get it before a monsterized queen was born, otherwise, they could attack our village. That’s what happened when the last farmer died, when he died so did his control over the bees.

I only heard about what happened because I was originally brought up in a fourth-circle orphanage, two circles away from the city, in the western area while I was in the southwest. When the bees went wild, almost ten percent of the city was killed. Only the high-level mages in the village kept it from being far worse, their large-scale magic killing hundreds of monsterized bees in an instant.

That’s why I had to be careful, it was both a blessing and a curse. If I didn’t gain the bee-keeping skills before the queen died or was replaced with a monsterized one then I’d have to give up on the idea of growing specialized honey. Once again, the honey grown by the second-circle city was specialized around bulk production, any time the person was offered a choice he’d choose more rather than higher quality or additional effects.

That was how most farmers produced, I was one of the very few who was attempting to specialize because it could all blow up in my face if it went wrong. The luxury goods was a decent idea but if it was too expensive it didn’t matter the quality of the product, no one would buy it. The beehive was also right on the edge of the dungeon, so we didn’t have to worry about the dungeon turning the bees against us as we walked back through the dungeon area.

The three of us started a fire around the massive beehive. We didn’t have the smoker to spray the outside to make them remain inside, so this was the best we could do. Spraying around the nest with a sugar and water mix would help calm them, but I was waiting until we made it home with the nest to waste valuable sugar. Silk kept guard as Tems and I dug the layers at the bottom of the beehive, separating it from the ground.

 I hadn’t seen a nest on the ground like this before, but I also never seen a nest this big either. It was half the size of me, the nest looked to be started in the crook of a tree but it expanded so large it eventually reached the ground. Carefully pulling it off the tree we lost a portion that built around the stump and branches as we did so.

Bees began to pour out until we moved the entire nest closer to the fire. They avoided us as we loaded it onto the cart. We pushed it away from the smoke before waiting for the guard bees to go back inside. The rest of the day was spent slowly making our way home as we tried not to jostle the hive too much. Another portion fell off about halfway through and was only hanging on by a few beeswax sheets.

The hand-size clump had enough bees inside that we had to abandon the cart again otherwise we’d be stung and more would come out to attack us. It wasn’t one bee sting you had to worry about, it was the hundreds after the first. The first was the signal to the rest that you were a threat. Waiting for them to calm down again we made our way back. 

The bees were placed on the opposite side of the farm away from our home. Honey was valuable but most people didn’t know how to collect it, it meant it was relatively safe to leave by itself and could work in defense of the village as the bees grew stronger. A farmer with a high enough specialty might not need any guards to keep his farm safe.

It was only five hours to bring the bees back but I felt exhausted from the process. I was getting to be well known. This village was outside of the rings as it was on the border, which meant that the food sources they could get a hold of were far more limited than anywhere else. It meant the meat, potatoes, wheat, and dungeon foodstuffs were now bolstered by the produce the village I lived in didn’t need.

Radishes, tomatoes, and corn were all over the cap of what people could eat here, which meant the next closest village was buying them to eat. It meant that people now knew there was a farmer nearby, it meant I had to begin to worry about bandits heading to attack me. I was stronger than most farmers just starting out… The same went for my wives, most wouldn’t have a wife that could fight but I had two. They gave me more than sixty levels worth of stats for free as I was far stronger, smarter, and faster than a farmer just starting out had any right to be.

It made me want to snowball that effect. Another wife or two would give me well over an entire rarity class to my fighting ability. I wasn’t that strong, but my partners also got an increased effect on their stats. We confirmed it with Tems as her bonuses went up when Silk became my wife. I tried it with one of the prostitutes in the village but the second they slept with someone else it locked us both out of the stats it gave us.

She was mad at the skill she lost, but that was par for the course with her profession. I didn’t even know the prostitute's name and she was perhaps one of the ugliest women in the village. At least compared to the ridiculous standard the village set for itself. In a normal village/city, she’d have been above average but this village was just built different.

Almost everyone living here was attractive beyond what was normal except myself. I would say I was above average but somehow managed to snag two wives over the bullshit pretty boys like the mayor or some of the guardsmen and adventurers. It was because of the food I could provide. 

Most members of the village might eat their favorite food once, maybe twice a year on their birthday and a holiday. Now, if any of the vegetables I grew was their favorite they could eat it almost every day. Not only that but the food I was producing was already a higher quality than they were used to. People were simple. Sure, they could function on meat and potatoes for most of their life but once they got a taste of something better they’d crave it. People consuming the food I produced made them like me more.

It was four hours into our normal day of work when the cart with my fertilizer, casks, and wine aging barrels finally arrived.