Homesteading in a fantasy world

For the rest of the night and half of the next day, the fever got worse and I’m pretty sure no human should be as hot as I was. When the fever finally broke, and I started to feel better, I was glad not to die of an infection. It’s not my preferred way of dying.

I was still exhausted, but I used the time in bed not just to rest but to circulate my energy faster, hoping that will help me recover faster.

The next morning, I woke up and felt like myself again until I had to move. The rest of the wounds haven’t healed, but they did seem to be healing at an incredible rate.

I’m guessing that about 40% increase in all my stats had something to do with that. I have so much to go over, but currently I just wanted to eat something.

I took one of the wheels of cheese up to eat. Today’s breakfast was just smoked meat and cheese. But the cheese felt a bit too soft.

I try to remember more about cheese making and the new trait I got from my intelligence stat helps me out because putting together a few hazy memories, I’m pretty sure that I fucked up the cheese by smoking it.

It will not be good for long term storage, it’s going to go bad. The cold temperature in the cellar helps, but it will not last for years, so I need to start eating it fast.

There was not much cheese taste. I’m guessing I will need to add salt for it to taste correct, like with any other food, salt helps bring out the taste.

I’m quite lucky that the smoking actually gave flavour, otherwise I think it would be quite bland. But it was still food and helped me kept going.

I quickly did my morning chores and found that the last cow stopped giving milk as well, which was weird. Pregnant cows should give milk. I’m guessing that perhaps in the early stages they do not. That’s why they stop and such similar times.

As I remember my abilities, I hit my forehead with my palm, of course there was probably some sort of an ability that could produce the same effect for cows so they will give milk and it probably ran out.

I looked at the bull and hoped that he’s doing a good job because if the cows are not pregnant I will not get milk and I’d really like some milk it's a good food source and helps my growing body get a lot of calcium.

It was time to go see the battlefield. To my surprise, it was cleaned up remarkably well and halfway towards the forest there was a small campsite where a single goblin was, doing absolutely nothing.

Next to the campsite was a spear where a goblin's head was placed. I was able to see a lot better at that distance now and I could recognize the head. It was the biggest goblin's head that I killed.

As I got to the bridge, I still had goblin corpses on my side. I have no idea how I was able to pull it up, but as I look at the mechanism, I see that it’s actually working as intended. The only thing that broke was the holding mechanism.

But for the future, I should probably make some chains that are attached to the raising part and that I can attach to the rest of the bridge, so there is no way someone will be able to pull down the bridge without breaking it.

I got a few more metal pieces from these goblins. These were quite big ones and hopefully will come in handy and the big spear was still here and quite deeply buried in the wood.

I pulled it out, and it was an excellent spear it was a bit rusty but with a bit of help it would make an excellent spear it weighed a lot more than mine and had a bigger head. I am surprised I was able to survive it.

I tossed the goblin corpses into the river. They were starting to go bad. I lowered the bridge and started to walk towards the goblin.

Looking around, I could see huge piles of ash. I’m guessing they burned all the bodies, but I did not see any armor or weapons in the piles or the rest of the field. I’m guessing that everything useful is cleaned up.

When the goblin finally noticed me, he quickly started to remove some covering from a pile and when he finished, I noticed my arrows broken and whole, the ballista bolt, a huge hide and two horns one small and one big I’m guessing from the woolly rhino.

After the goblin had revealed everything, he sat down cross-legged. I’m guessing to show that he was not a threat. I have never been that close to a living goblin before that wasn’t trying to kill me.

I looked over all the things left for me. I was quite happy but unfortunately all the metal armor and weapons were gone but at the end of the day they could have killed me and took everything, so it’s good enough, I guess.

I’ll see what they want. I watched the goblin and waited a spear in my hand. It didn't take long until it spoke in broken common, barely understandable.

“Leader left things yours, trophy kill.” As he said the last thing, he pointed that the horn and hide. He then continued by pointing all around him.

“All your land, not goblin land. Leader want talk peace I go tell, later leader come.”

Interesting, so the new leader wants to negotiate. I guess I owe that much, and a break from those hostilities will give me a chance to recover my fighting form for the future.

The goblin starts to tell the same thing as before. I bet he doesn’t know a word he’s saying, just memorised what he needs to tell.

I do a shooing motion and the goblin stops and quickly gets up and starts packing up a few things and then runs into the forest.

It will be a while before he or the leader return, so I had no reason to stay here and wait. I start to gather up all my things and when I passed the bridge, I shake off the head into the water and get my spear back. I had a lot of maintenance to do with all my weapons.

The short bow had seen better days and I think I will need to retire this one. Luckily, I had spares to use. The longbow seems to have held up great, a pity that I didn’t get to use it more.

The ballista, however, was a lifesaver, and I oil it up lovingly. I still had the covering that I put back on to ballista, helping it better resist the environment. Later on, I would love to make that waterproof as well.

I had used a lot of arrows, about half of the short bow arrows, but thanks to the goblins I got back about half that were used ready to be fired right now. The rest were broken in some way and a lot needed a stone head.

The feathers could be used again even from the broken arrows thanks to me not gluing but using string to attach them.

Only one of the longbow arrows was completely broken, but I still was able to use the fletching and the head when I made new ones.

The spear I used needed some work and after I sharpened it, it was ready for use again. The big goblins spear needed even more work than my spear, but it wasn’t strenuous work, and I was able to keep my hand moving to help it recover better.

When I was done with it, I was quite pleased with how big and how much weight it has. The ballista bolt only needed a bit of cleaning and sharpening, and was ready for use again.

The worst damage was to the sword, and with my heating it up to burn my wound, I made it worse. I honestly don’t know if it’s usable as a weapon anymore.

But as a test it out it seemed to still be workable but as soon as I get a replacement, I will retire it. It is dull and chipped, and it was even bent in two places.

The upper part was bent because I heated it up, but the bottom bend was probably because I used both piercing strike and counterweight at the same time to cleave through shields and goblins.

I don’t think using the counterweight was a conscious decision because it was all quite hazy and I’m pretty sure I was in my battle mindset not that much active thinking going on there but a lot of passive thinking at least that’s how I explained it to myself.

Either way, it seemed to have been an excellent choice. Even if it didn't provide much, it still provided help.

Thanks to my new strength that I was still getting used to and constantly needed to circulate my energy to make use of it, I bent the sword as straight as I could and then sharpened it as well as I could.

There were a few nicks that were too deep to get rid of, but as I always have thought, swords were tools, not something to use sparingly.

A sword is meant to keep you alive, and this sword did its job extremely well, saving me from the lightning and helping me drive back the goblins during the last push. I would have been proud to die using this weapon.