Homesteading in a fantasy world

When we made it back to the company compound, I introduced Luke to everyone. Four of our original members were currently out on a quest and should be back in a few days, which should not mess up any of my plans. What did make my eyes twitch a bit was my oversight of not thinking where Francis would sleep.

There was what I would call a garage-like building here, but that's where Goose slept. Both of them wouldn't fit properly through the front door. Even the wagon would barely fit into the garage, but it would fit.

Honestly, this entire building was starting to annoy me. The workmanship on it was shit, and time had done no favor to it.

It was still made out of first-rank materials, so it was a decent shelter. Goose was also not going to like that in his sleeping spot there was now a wagon. At least he should have his stomach filled when he comes back, so perhaps he wouldn't be so angry.

"Fuck it," I said out loud while pulling out my sword. "Let's make a bigger door."

Four slashes later, I had a large door cut out of a side wall. Of course, immediately, everyone rushed to my location thinking that it was an attack. "Just remodeling a bit, don’t mind me."

Next, I went and brought the necessary tools from our storage, and turned the cut-out piece of the wall into a proper door with hinges and everything. It would not be really that secure, but it didn't need to be; soon this entire building would be demolished and a new one built.

When that was done, it was time to properly inspect the wagon. I had gone inside of it once, and I was truly amazed at how big it was. The back of the wagon came down like a spaceship ramp, revealing a way inside. The ramp was 8 inches thick, but there was still a heavy door to be opened to get inside.

When I once again entered, I was still amazed at what I saw. The place was huge, much larger than it should have any right to be. It could easily fit my home and every other building I had on my land. The floor was covered in dust, but even then, you could clearly see painted lines on the ground. At the very center, there was a box outlined by a thick green line.

Then there was a larger box outlined by striped green lines. After that came a larger box outlined by a thick yellow line. After that was a striped yellow line, then came a thick red line, and near the very edge of the wagon's interior was a striped red line.

From my understanding, the further towards the edge you go, the less amount of weight you should place there. Most of the weight should be kept in the center; otherwise, the wagon will become out of balance and incredibly dangerous to everyone involved.

The height of the wagon was also impressive, and on the walls, there was a similar color pattern of stripes. The first green line was about double my height, and it just went on from there. On the ceiling was also a hatch. I guess we will need to build a staircase or a ladder there.

On the outside, there were also visible slits that I presumed could be opened. While on the outside, I could reach my hand over and touch this slit; on the inside of the wagon, I needed to walk a bit to get to the first slit.

Next to it were two cranks. When I tried to spin one, I needed to put a bit of strength into it before it started to move. The gears that started to move inside the wall sounded like they were at least 1000 years old.

Fortunately, there seemed to be a maintenance panel. However, nothing seemed to be happening. Walking outside, I saw that the slit was now a lot further in. Testing this thing out a bit, I found that one of the cranks moved a vertical panel and the other a horizontal panel.

So, if you wanted to, you could make a really small hole or open it completely, which was still quite small but good enough to shoot out of when you're trying to kill something that's outside.

This double-panel system seems also quite secure, and the metal this entire wagon was made out of was impressive. I was not able to see or understand the metal fully because of the runes and enchantments that covered the inside of the walls.

Those made it possible for it to have such good defenses. I also suspected that they enabled the wagon to be so large from the inside and be able to carry such a heavy load.

What was also pleasant to see was that there was a door in the front and a ramp. No wonder the front seats were designed that way. It was so that they would not interfere when you lowered the front ramp. I suspect this was added for convenience but also so you could quickly get your animals inside the wagon where they would be protected from the dangers of the outside world.

I finished inspecting everything and kind of wished that I would have some montage music to play as I started to fix this up. First was maintenance. I cleaned up everything and even got other company members to help me.

Then I started to oil all the moving parts. Next, I worked with Luke to make Frances a proper harness for his increased size and so we could quickly get him inside the wagon if things got too dangerous.

Next, I started to build inside the wagon. First came a sturdy ladder to the roof hatch. Then I added some simple structures that would ensure that any resources would be in their proper place and would make securing them easier.

After that, I started to build simple barracks-type housing. When we got underway, this would be the first thing I would improve, but currently, it was good enough for ten people to sleep in, even if we weren’t all going to sleep at the same time.

The last thing I added were a few workshop areas that were basically nothing more than a table and the designated area for a certain activity. It was five days later since I bought the wagon when I finished the very basics. It was not a pretty job, but I would have enough time to properly get things done when we were on our way.

Everyone already knew the plan and, since now everyone was back, it was time to move everything we were not willing to lose out of the compound and into the wagon. This way, none of our members needed to stay behind to protect anything, and we could all go on a longer mission. The goal was to do a few quests but more importantly, get resources so we could start building a proper company compound.

Of course, all of this also meant that we would be fighting quite often, which would also allow us to level up quite a bit and strengthen every member so everyone would also be able to handle the fort's quests.

Right now, I needed to be quite involved in everything, but hopefully, I can get everyone strong enough that I would not need to personally handle the monthly quotas, and with more capable people, recruiting will become a lot simpler. Fortunately, even that would be handled by Arabella, which would simply mean that I would have more time for my own pursuits.

When Francis was hooked up, and we pulled out of the company compound, I was sitting next to Luke, who was driving, and on the other side of Luke sat another member, with another two members on the roof for lookout.

This would be our normal distribution of members while we were moving. This time, quite a few heads turned when we headed towards the main road out of the city. The city guards needed to open the gate fully; otherwise, we wouldn't fit through.

That would be an unfortunate problem in the fort, as there was no way we were going to get it inside. Hopefully, we would not actually have to stay near that place for long when we eventually go there.

Right now, however, our destination was the wilderness. It didn’t take long for the road to end, and with this wagon, we could barely tell the difference. I was honestly quite excited about what was ahead of us.