Homesteading in a fantasy world

A new morning, yet I wasn’t excited about it. During my morning chores, I tried to understand what was wrong. I found myself lying on the grass and watching up at the sky as clouds passed. It took me some time before I could finally understand what was happening.

What helped me understand was an old game I used to play when I was young where sometimes the characters spend recreation time cloud watching, but also in that game they would have mental breaks if pushed too hard.

I believe I have pushed myself too hard. Before the big battle, it didn’t bother me, because I needed it but over the weeks since it, the need to push myself has disappeared and all I’m left with is just me wanting to improve all that’s around me as every human should.

But the past weeks have not been a kind of pushing, it’s been hard and relentless. The constant pain from my injuries while working might have been necessary at the beginning, but it was not easy and now that there wasn’t an army coming, I still pushed too hard.

I must enjoy what I have not just push relentlesly for the next thing. I should have known better, I have lived long enough to understand how I tick.

So, what’s the solution? I will have about two weeks until I can start making buildings, but I could already make the foundations and I should also go to some stealth hunting of rabbits.

“STOP IT!”

Relax, I need to stop trying to do something every moment. I know I do so I would not have to feel or think, but it's a bad habit and something that I must learn to control better.

There will be more hard times ahead but also good, so why not enjoy it? The question becomes how to enjoy it. There is no entertainment here like there was on earth. Perhaps connecting with other humans would help, but for some reason, I do not think that. If it was the correct people, perhaps.

I know humans, and I do not suspect them to be any different here. The strong will prey on the weak that have survived the plague, at least in this corner of the world.

Lots of places will not be pleasant, but I still think there will be cities or even counties that will have law and order and can keep themselves from anarchy. I suspect them to be further away from here.

This place is too small for too many to have survived and those that to will go feral from the experience. All the family I had in this world is lying under the tree. From my mother’s side, her brother and his son were also living here.

That’s why there were so many of us living here at the end. The rest of our family died in the first wave of the plague, when it hit people around level 20 to 40. Which now that I think about it is quite weird. Perhaps it was some sort of a magical plague.

It’s kind of nice just to think about stuff. I should have done this week’s ago just thinking about the world. I wonder how the goblins are doing, haven’t heard from them for a while. Hopefully, they won’t take too long to come back. I really want to get my hands on that powder that will help cure leather.

One thing that always bothers me constantly is the lightning and why it’s kept striking that one place and presumably that tree that stands there. I wonder how long I could keep from going there because presumably it would be a dangerous place, but danger has only ever kept me out for a bit.

Thinking back on the fight, it’s a bit of a blur, but I still can’t believe I survived it. I’ve never regretted killing anyone but I do feel bad every time even if it's necessary.

I wouldn’t want that to happen to me, but then again, I’m willing to die for stupid things. Could have just left this place, found a big city and probably could have made a good living just making bows.

I wonder how good this world's craftsmen are. I know that I am extremely knowledgeable and probably up there in this corner of the world for bow making, not so much for anything else.

Oh, my brother would have been so jealous. He built stuff like bridges and barns for private citizens that owned farms. If only he knew how much time superhuman strength can take off building stuff, he would be cursing in his grave. I would just love to see his face. It would be so funny.

Thinking about my family from this world and from earth brings up feelings of loss and regret but also love and caring. I could feel tears falling down the sides of my face. I just let myself feel all that has happened.

Whoever said you should never cry was the stupidest person I’ve ever heard of. The euphoria I feel now, there are only a few things that feel better.

It was time to get up, and so I did. Looking at the sun, I have spent more than half a day lying here. I will need to make some changes to my routines, but perhaps I made the mistake of not choosing to be an adventurer. Because holy shit, all my commanders were correct. I truly am meant for battle.

But that does not mean I must do it. I have struggled with that question for more than 20 years and I thought this argument was left by the wayside, but then again, my body was old by then.

Now I was still growing, and my life was still ahead of me. Why am I good at fighting and more importantly, surviving battles I might never know, but I think I will not need to seek out battle, I have a feeling it will find me.

I am in absolutely no hurry, and I must get that through my thick skull. Hopefully when the puppies get a bit older, there will be a good distraction. I wonder if I should train them as well to be hunting companions, we will see.

The rest of the day I will take it easy. It's a nice and warm day. Perhaps I should go swimming. I am a free man after all and get to make my own choices. And so I did, the rest of the day I just spent on myself. I didn’t even do any energy training or anything else, just enjoy the summer.

Next day, as I did my chores, I wanted to think up a better balance between work and enjoyment and I came to a pretty bad revelation because there wasn't much enjoyment to be had.

Technically bow making would be work but I do enjoy that a lot more than any other work so perhaps I should make that more important than other tasks.

I don’t know why, but bow making makes me happy, so perhaps no more rushing of bows. I should really take my time and get the best results. Not just because I want to make the best bow, but because it will take a lot longer to finish.

And I just probably gave myself a lot more work because now I want to make a proper building for making bows. Son of a bitch, how many now 5-6 buildings that I want to make this summer that’s fucking crazy. Let’s not even talk about the foundry/ grinding stone where you could make flour that are powered by a water wheel.

I truly was quite crazy. I wouldn’t even have enough lumber for all those buildings. But then again, I need to be honest with myself. I wouldn’t feel good just laying on the grass every day as well. I need to do something, I just need to pace myself and not do it at full attack mode speed.

So, first things first, let’s make some soap. For that, I would want to make a specific and large tub to help with that. Now the barrels, or what I called them that are not actually barrels, just a tall round tub.

I’m pretty sure I figured out what it takes to make real barrels. Wood expands when it’s wet, so if you used dry boards to make it and have the iron rings holding it tight and then you put water in it or any other liquid, the wood will start to expand and will make itself watertight.

So, if I want one for soap making, I will actually need to make iron rings so when it expands it will not push itself apart. Luckily, I won’t have that problem with the tar barrels because of how its coated in tar, a water-resistant substance.

I start by measuring out how big I want it to be and start making the bottom out of boards that I connect with tongue-and-groove joints and use my ability to make them a lot more stable while working.

Cutting the bottom into the circle size I want I proceed to start making the boards that would make the wall. At the bottom part of the boards, I made a groove so it will fit onto the edge of the bottom. I continue to do that with them all and fitting them tightly together.

I will need to make three rings and I do have enough metal for that. I will need to forge weld armor pieces together so I would have enough material for the rings.

Merging joint makes this a lot easier because I do not need to worry about the walls falling out because even without the rings my ability still helps it hold its shape when moved.

For this tub’s intended purpose, I also carve the bottom so the center would be its lowest point. Later on I can make small holes into the center so the water can leach through the hay and ash to a container below and I would have what I need to make soap.

All of this takes a day and I fill it up with water to leave it to soak overnight. Some water escaped during the night but now it has pressed onto the rings and its completely watertight.

It’s now time for the second step. I make small holes in the middle, and I start to pack hay into the bottom. When I have a good enough layer of it tightly packed, I start to do the same with ash.

I make some rock legs so it would be off the ground, and I could put the pot underneath, then I start filling it with water. This process will most likely take days until I get a strong enough solution to use to make soap out of. I also carve out some wood moulds to use when I can pour the soap into them.

Next, I want to start preparing the foundation for the sauna. I start by finding the area where I want to build it. Removing the top layer of soil will not be too hard of a job because there isn’t much so close to the river. Even then, it’s a lot of work and I try to do it at a measured pace.

For the sauna, I want it to be big, not meant for one person but to entertain more. It will be 30 square meters split down the middle. One side will be the resting room and the other the heated and washing room. Perhaps I will make the resting room smaller.

I would also like a deck with a roof over it extended towards the river where a grilling area and a seating area with the table will be. That will not be part of the 30 square meters.

It would be a one-story building with quite a tall roof, so winter snows will not crush the building and will fall off to the side. I would love some glass windows so I will make places for them, but they would need to be made from wood at this stage.

For the heating elements, I have yet to decide on how to make them, but for the heated room I want to have a stone floor.

I will also need to set up some drainage into the river from the heated room. It would need to be insulated quite well, otherwise it will freeze during winter. For the space underneath the roof, I could make a sort of a storage area and perhaps a fish drying area, but we will see about that in the future.

The roof itself I will make out of stone tiles because it's quite easy to make them using my abilities. I didn’t want to waste the good and fertile soil, so I had Frances helping me bring it close to the fields to be used at a later date.

I was also quite tired of walking so long to water my vegetables so I might want to make a pond near here so I would have closer water to my fields and perhaps that would be a good idea as I would get more gravel that I could bring for the foundation off the sauna.

So that’s what I did. The pond was about 1/3 done with the foundation mostly filled up and packed down when it was time to start making the soap as four days had passed, and the solution was now strong enough to make the soap. The potato finally floated easily on the solution.

Making soap itself was quite easy. I just needed to heat up the fat so that it would be liquid and then pour in the ash solution until it starts to thicken up. I run into a different problem because I didn’t have a lot of fat from animals, so I had to use some vegetable oil to keep going.

Now I had a lot of soap that will hopefully last me at least until the fall, when I will most likely need to make more if I didn’t need it for anything else than washing.

I was finally able to wash my armor to make it completely clean again and I have to say fighting with rust is a lot more work than I expected it to be. For the rest of the week, I finished making the pond.