Homesteading in a fantasy world

I was back at my office in the capital doing some paperwork. It has only been two weeks since I returned with Goose, but this time I’m being a bit more diligent in doing my paperwork, so I’ve been coming to the office more regularly.

I don’t want to repeat what I did during the winter when I didn’t visit for a few months. However, there was another report from Arabella that I needed to address.

We have already sent two teams to supply and gather more information about that place while also protecting our new asset. That wasn’t the problematic thing; the problem was in our fort.

I had at first assumed that perhaps the fort connected to Supply would bring trouble, but apparently, when they found out who I actually was, they decided not to push the idiotic narrative they had come up with.

That mind-reading asshole was already messing with my people, but our company wasn’t the only one targeted. Apparently, he has some grand plans and somehow got the leader of the fort to somewhat back him.

Still, he was being really careful, making sure nothing could be traced back. Fortunately, he is scared of Arabella enough that he hasn't directly moved against our members. Arabella, however, can’t stay there for too long, as she’s mainly needed back at Connection.

This wasn’t the only problem on my mind. While we had secured a way to manufacture new wagons, we did not have more than one Francis who could pull them. There is no way the current horses we had could do the job, and they would be too squishy even if they could pull them.

Another problem was the iron oak saplings. They were growing fast, and I needed to transport them before they got too big. While physically it should be possible even if they are larger, it would certainly not be good for the trees themselves to go through such shock.

We would also need someone to take care of them, and I couldn’t wait until we expanded westward. Even with the best estimate, it would still take a year or two before our presence would be noticeable towards the West.

I tapped my fingers against the table while I thought. Perhaps murder was the best choice for the first problem. However, he would need to be the one who attacked first.

I will need to apologize to the teams currently in Breach; we're going to need to use them as bait. I would need to wait until Arabella left, but I already started to write instructions for her to follow. This needs to be done carefully.

The third problem might have a solution, as one of the current apprentices is quite interested in trees. I would need to test her and see how loyal she was and if she could be trusted with this kind of secret. This would solve the problem of there not being anything towards the west yet, as she could just claim the land there as her homestead.

Homesteader's land was a bit more flexible than I originally thought; there might be some interesting opportunities in the future, but we will see as the population of homesteaders grows.

The second problem—that's where I was stuck at. Not even hours of paperwork and intermittent thinking were helping me find the solution. “Let's go back to the beginning,” what did the salesman say about its origins? That's right, woolly rhinoceroses were the animals to pull it. But there weren't any, wait.

A memory came back to me of the first goblin battle. They were using woolly rhinoceroses. Perhaps there is a way to domesticate them and actually find them in nature.

I had checked, but there wasn’t any for sale on the animal markets, but perhaps towards the north, there were free-roaming ones. Perhaps I should make a visit to the goblin town. Let's just write a letter for now and see if they have any information.

Then I headed back to my home but grabbed lunch with Val in the inn. The dungeons were not as busy now because a lot of new ones were being opened in other homesteaders' lands.

We were still trying to clump them up as much as possible, and there was even one with five that were relatively close to each other. There were two inns open there, and from my understanding, they were doing good business.

Near evening, we had a meeting with every apprentice and Tim. It was finally time to start the planting season. Everyone was given different tasks, but unfortunately, I would only be able to focus on my personal project, as others just needed to experience more than me.

They would be doing all of the work, from preparing the land to seeding everything and then making sure that wildlife didn't mess up their hard work.

It will still be nice to continue my plant evolution project. Val already said that last year's harvest of the plants, where I was changing the sugar content, had been excellent for cider. There was probably a sweet spot before the sugar got too overwhelming, but I would also be continuing to make them even sweeter as I wanted an alternative way to harvest sugar as well.

It had been a few days of hard work when I found the girl, who was interested in trees, checking over every sapling I had planted, making sure that they were all doing well.

"How are they looking?" I asked her, which scared her, as she was so focused she hadn’t noticed that I had approached. "You know that you should always be aware of your surroundings. But you are new to this, you will learn."

"I hope I do because I never want to be scared like that again. They're doing quite well, at least most of them. There were some bugs on some of them, but I removed them.”

“I am, however, a little bit worried about the oaks. I think they’re a bit too close to each other. Now, I know that in the forest they can grow quite close to each other and they would get tall, but these feel like they want to grow big."

I raised an eyebrow, which made her immediately explain herself. "I don’t know if you have seen, but if an oak grows outside the forest where it has room to spread out, they don't just get taller; they grow so large. It’s like the one in your family graveyard. I think they are one of the most beautiful trees when they get to grow out like that."

"I wholeheartedly agree with you. But where would you plant them then?" The question seemed innocent, but I hoped she would pass this test. She thought for a while but eventually started to speak hesitantly.

"I am not sure. Usually, it isn't that hard. But for some reason, nothing feels quite right. Like, it would not be any problem planting them basically anywhere around here, but for some reason, it feels like they would be missing something." Finally, she looked up and towards me. "Do you get the same feeling?" I gave her a slow nod.

"You are on the right track. Perhaps you need to think a bit outside the box. Perhaps these trees have evolved a bit and have some special requirements. Because of me, this land now has much more energy than it normally would. You should know what that means." It didn’t take her long to understand what I meant, and I could see how her eyes started to sparkle.

I could also see that she wanted to ask me a lot of questions, but she held herself back as she already knew that I wouldn’t answer questions that she should try to find answers to by herself.

It seems like she would need some time to think through her thoughts, so I left. When she finally had some questions that wouldn't directly give her the answers, she would find me.

I checked a new notification that came up: my mentoring skill leveled up. That was nice. When I made it back home, it seemed that I had received a letter. Opening it up and reading what was inside made a large smile appear on my face.

Looks like the goblins might have some answers for my beasts of burden problem. I couldn’t go today or tomorrow, but with Goose, I should be able to go after that. It would be nice to see how they have advanced. I wonder if any other goblins are close to getting a class.