Homesteading in a fantasy world

The journey seemed quite peaceful, which was unnatural. Goose was high up, flying and keeping a lookout, but none of the beasts chose to come close to us, which was the reason why everything felt so unnatural.

"Hey, let's switch?" I said to one of the lookouts on the roof. He didn't seem to mind, and we switched places. I needed to figure out why we weren't being attacked.

It took me longer than it should have to realize that I was the problem. We were currently in the wilderness that did have first-rank beasts, but most of the things were still below rank one. I, on the other hand, was rank three. Of course, it would make sense that beasts would be able to tell if there was danger in the area; otherwise, they wouldn't have survived in this place.

So, for the next few hours, I worked on pulling back this emanation that was coming from me. It was harder to do than I expected because it wasn’t just to do with my energy output that was easily tamped down; it was the presence my rank three energy gave that was the problem. Slowly, however, I managed to start blocking this emanation.

What followed was Goose almost immediately reporting that animals were no longer trying to avoid us, although some still did. It would make sense that not every beast would be searching for food or even want to fight. It took almost an hour before a fox-like beast tried to attack us.

While I kept my eyes open and readied myself for action, this fight wouldn’t give me anything, so the other company members got to fight. Luke and two others followed protocol.

This was still early days, and things would change over time, but right now, the job was to get Francis unhooked, lower the ramp, open the door, and get him inside. Luke handled most of the logistics while the other two readied to defend if anything posed a threat to Luke or Francis.

They had just gotten in when the fox-like beast was killed. This would get annoying for them soon, and I think I can already see some changes that need to be made.

We followed this routine, moving during the day and resting during the night. We always had someone on guard so that we could be safe during the day and at night-time when everyone was inside the wagon.

Slowly, we improved on how we dealt with danger. Now, depending on the threat, Francis sometimes even joined in on the fight alongside Luke.

From everyone here, Goose and Francis were the ones who enjoyed being out here the most. They couldn’t simply gain levels as they didn’t have classes, but they were still slowly getting stronger by just doing the things that they liked to do, which was nice to see. However, I did see some changes that we needed to make.

"Everyone, gather around. We have been out in the wilderness for five days now. During this time, we have had many fights, but I’m seeing everyone starting to tire out. Because of this, we will start our days a bit later and end them sooner.”

“This does not mean that this time would go to waste. Everyone will pick a hobby that they will do during their downtime. I will also be adding a time when everyone will be training fighting skills. This training time is not meant for you to be grinding your fighting skill; instead, you will be learning how to fight with your chosen disciplines.”

“Luke, I see you favor the spear, and I’ve noticed you asking around about combat classes. I am assuming you have either a chance to upgrade your existing class to a combat one, or you want to add one. You have access to people who know a lot about fighting. You do not need to be so hesitant to ask for help. That goes for everyone."

"While we're here on company business, we are also here to train all of you. So, let's learn to improve not just by ourselves but with the help of our company members. Each one of you individually is important, but together we make a stronger whole. So, let’s all rise together so we can help even more people rise with us."

During the next few days, I found that everyone was looking a lot more alert, and there weren’t any of the tired eyes I saw a few days ago. Everyone was a little bit hesitant about what hobby they should pick, but I explained to them that we had plenty of room, so we could set up any workshop needed. Everyone relaxed even more when I told them that they do not have to stick with one hobby.

It seems that for some reason, they thought that once they picked one, they would need to stick with that. That was a truly misguided way of thinking. Everyone was gaining levels slowly. Goose was advancing the fastest, but that was because he was flying a bit further into the wilderness to hunt some stronger prey.

We weren’t moving fast, but we were still making steady time going through the snowy wilderness. We had stopped a few times to chop down some trees, but we had yet to find a big enough place to set up for a longer time.

When we started to run into rank two beasts, I knew it was time to find a more permanent place to set up for a while, and hopefully, a place where we could get some stone and wood.

Flying on Goose was always exciting, and I couldn’t imagine how annoying it would have been if I didn’t have him to help me scout. We found a decent enough place a few days away that seemed to have a hill with at least rank one stone and a decently thick patch of forest with beautiful-looking rank one trees, perfect for making houses.

Every night as we headed towards this location, I wanted to push us, but I needed to keep to a schedule. This area we were currently in was simply too dangerous to just do whatever I wanted to do.

When we finally made it there, it was everything that I knew it would be. Here we should be able to load up everything we need, well, except for metal. That we would need to buy, but we should also be able to bring back more materials that we could sell, so we can buy the metal we need to make a proper company compound.

I was not the only one who started to harvest the surrounding resources, but half of our members were always on guard and ready for a fight. We were attacked about three or five times a day, and I really started to wonder why there were so many beasts here.

We were not the only ones to fight, as we could hear savage fights that happened quite regularly every day. Most of them were far enough away that we didn't have to worry, but all of this truly made me wonder about the reproduction of the beasts in this wilderness.

During this time, I have had to fight only twice. One was against a pack of wolves that had 30 members. They would have simply overwhelmed my company members, and while most would have survived, Luke and Francis probably would not have. The other fight was against a flock of birds. I have come to learn that these types of monsters are the most feared around here.

Goose and I weren’t always at the wagon. We have made multiple trips back to the Connection to get some items that turned out to be necessary. During the next outing, we would already bring them with us, but this current outing we were on was a test mission after all, so we could work out all the kinks. We also went to the Fort and did some missions so we wouldn’t miss our monthly quotas.

After being out here for close to a month, we started to head back. While I have adjusted the schedule, after so long of constantly fighting and working, people simply get tired even when they get enough sleep.

The journey back was a bit more difficult because there was more snow, but Francis was magnificent, and thanks to Luke, he was getting better daily at pulling the wagon. Thanks to this pace, we will easily be back in time for the winter solstice.