Chapter 23 - The Farm in Irttat
Before entering the mountains, Lucita sent Skloot a message saying that Violet would sign for the bed upon delivery in three days and pay the remaining forty-five silver coins.
Skloot's reply came back after a long while.
"Dear Lucita,
Hello, I have received your message and will do as you requested.
However, I’m very sorry to inform you that custom furniture orders at my shop normally do not require a deposit. Those five silver coins were swindled by my gluttonous little daughter to buy candy.
Next time if Jessica tries the same trick again, please don't indulge her.
Sorry for the trouble.
Very apologetic, Skloot"
Lucita put away the letter. Thinking of that clever and mischievous little girl, she couldn't help but smile.
She counted out four gold coins and five silver coins for Violet, packed some fresh fruits and vegetables into her storage space, and then set off for the forest.
Spring was deepening. The leaves in the forest had also grown much denser. The sun leaked through gaps in the treetops in long beams of light.
Lucita walked through the forest with her longbow on her back.
As she gradually went deeper, the various magic herbs growing in the forest became increasingly dense. Colored magical light points flickered faintly. Lucita swept her gaze across them and suddenly felt a sense of discord.
Had these colored light points in the magic herbs been this clear before?
She paused.
In the few days since her vision recovered, she'd been busy settling Violet and seemed to have overlooked some extremely subtle changes—both the density and clarity of the magical light points in her field of vision had undergone an inconspicuous improvement.
She seemed to be getting closer and closer to touching the magical world layer.
As for why she was certain of this judgment rather than suspecting she'd seen wrong?
She extended her palm and gently clenched it.
Occasionally, pale green light points would change from incorporeal to physical, escaping from that colorful world and seeping beneath her skin.
Rustling, swift, elusive energy spun at her fingertips. A sense of lightness seemed to come from the bones and flesh of her fingertips.
It was the wind.
These light points were beginning to solidify in her field of vision, to the extent that her body could actually contain them.
Her body was mixed with long-lived race bloodlines and originally had a natural barrier to the magical world layer. As for why she could gradually approach it, Lucita speculated it was because her soul was different from ordinary mixed-bloods.
Violet had once said her soul was a pure human and didn't belong to this world, thus suffering dual rejection from her body and world rules.
Now her soul was slowly passing through the world barrier, merging here.
If Violet hadn't lied, then this should be the reason she was gradually approaching the magical world layer.
If that was the case...
Then the racial talents of long-lived races lay in the body, while humanity's magical talent lay in the soul?
Lucita secretly noted her speculation, planning to find an opportunity to verify it.
Lucita's understanding of magic was extremely limited. She hadn't read specialized magic books, let alone used any magical skills.
With her simple perception, containing "wind" seemed to make the body somewhat lighter, with certain improvements in both speed and flexibility.
It greatly aided her hunting.
Mavis usually returned from the mountains every three or four days, partly because she could not endure the hunter’s cabin’s limited provisions and the life of eating roasted and stewed meat every day, and partly to prevent prey from rotting.
But Lucita could create spaces herself. They were very useful both for carrying food and preserving prey, so she stayed in the mountains for a full seven days.
It wasn't that she couldn't stay longer, it was just that her space maintenance time wasn't enough. Violet's food could only be preserved for seven days.
This time Lucita's harvest was very abundant. The most important progress was that she was no longer just hunting rabbits.
She hunted a fifty-pound wild river deer, plus nearly twenty rabbits.
She felt her archery skills, boosted by wind magic, were already sufficient to hunt adult stag. Unfortunately, her luck wasn't great, she hadn't encountered any.
Fortunately, river deer were rarer than stag, and river deer meat was much more expensive, three silver coins per pound. Adding the rabbit harvest, the total value was over two hundred silver coins.
On her way back near the town, she noticed several newly built wooden houses.
These houses weren't as crude as Mavis's hunter's cabin. They were built securely and beautifully. Some had white spider plants hanging on the outer walls, some had yellow daffodils on the windowsills. All were in full bloom, lending the scene a quiet charm.
Lucita took note of this. Passing by Aurora's mill, she indeed saw several unfamiliar elves and couldn't help but confirm: "Aunt Aurora, this is...?"
Aurora lifted her eyelids to glance at her: "These are our new neighbors, living in the Peace Forest to the west. They came to buy some food. Seeing you just came from there, didn't you see the newly built houses?"
"I did." Lucita nodded: "Is it just these few friends who moved over, or...?"
A round-faced young elf interjected: "We moved early. Many more elves will follow later."
Lucita was stunned: "Did your high priestess arrange this?"
"No, no." That young elf hastily denied: "We all wanted to come ourselves. It has nothing to do with the higher-ups. The misunderstanding has been cleared up, and because Irttat's food is much tastier than what we make ourselves, everyone still likes living here."
Lucita: ...Was poor cooking truly an elven racial trait?
She mused: "If everyone moves to this vicinity, the high priestess and the others might move the temple and royal court back again?"
“Who can say?” None of the elves offered further insight.
Lucita bought ingredients for dinner at Aurora’s shop, then went to Mavis’s place to sell her game for two hundred silver coins. Townspeople who wanted wild meat always went to Mavis. As always, Lucita sold directly to her at a slightly reduced price. This way Mavis earned a modest profit, and Lucita avoided the hassle.
When she returned to the farm, dusk had fallen.
Lucita pushed open the old fence gate with a creak. Violet sensed something, pushed open the study's side window, and waved at her.
Lucita wiped the fine sweat from her forehead and smiled.
Before she could even put down the bag of vegetables in her hand, Violet pulled her to the backyard: "I took Garcia's advice and planted peas everywhere for you. Although it's not as quick to convert to cash as radishes, after harvesting they can grow again and last until summer without needing to plant anything else."
The backyard area had been forcibly expanded by Violet to double its original size. The pond that originally hugged the back wall now sat right in the center of the entire yard.
The sheep pen had also been expanded by Violet to connect with the new courtyard wall, looking much more spacious.
Right next to the original radish field, Violet had cleared a large new plot. Pea sprouts not even a foot high stretched into a new expanse of green, the delicate vines trembling in the evening breeze.
Looking at this new plot's area, it must be twice as large as the original pea field.
This way, even though it could only be harvested once by early summer, that would still yield another two hundred silver coins. The finances had suddenly become comfortable.
Besides this, Violet had also wrapped a ring of hanging wind chime vines around the courtyard's surrounding fence. Among the dense greenery, a few fire-red lanterns were already faintly hanging.
The medicinal herb plot reserved by the well in front of the yard was also filled with wild flowers blooming in spring. Recognizable ones included bluebells, buttercups, pansies, spring pheasants, and wild ginger. Their colors blended together as butterflies flitted between them, bringing the farm to life.
"These flowers were all stimulated by my meager innate abilities." Violet claimed credit: "This makes it look like a proper residence. Because of this, my wound recovery speed has even slowed down a bit."
Spring’s vitality overflowed. The entire farm looked pleasing to the eye.
Lucita hadn't expected Violet to have such leisure, but thinking again, it made sense.
Elves' nature was to be close to nature and love romance. In the past, the Elsia sisters' small shop in town had the most floral decorations. Now the newly built houses in the western forest were also very beautiful.
Amid this sea of renewal, however, the moldy, damp outer walls of the wooden house appeared painfully out of place.
Now that their situation had stabilized, Lucita resolved to repair it soon.
Of course, the most important thing now was that Lucita's long-planned intention could finally be implemented: raising sheep.
She took stock of her assets: a total of two hundred fifty-two silver coins.
On one hand, her finances were relatively comfortable. On the other hand, the sheep pen's area had also been doubled by Violet. Lucita planned to do it all at once, buying four ewes and one ram in one go.
Ida's ranch had two types of sheep: goats and wool sheep.
Goats produced more milk, but wool sheep could also produce wool.
Of course, both types of sheep produced far less milk than dairy cows. If she wanted to sell sheep's milk, she'd need to raise many more sheep. So Lucita didn't plan to sell sheep's milk.
In that case, the milk from four wool sheep would be enough for home consumption. The goat's milk production advantage didn't seem very useful.
The wool sheep's advantage was obvious. Wool was a very good byproduct. Any surplus could be sold to the tailor shop or used to make her own clothes.
Comparing the pros and cons of both sheep byproducts, Lucita spent a hundred silver coins and led five wool lambs home.
The grassland to the south of town was rarely traveled, so the pasture was lush and water sources abundant. Now in spring, yellow primroses bloomed across the hills and wilds.
Violet and Lucita began their shepherding careers.
For both of them, herding sheep was quite a novel thing.
They each wore a straw hat, put on long sleeves and pants to prevent sunburn, and enthusiastically drove the sheep, one in front and one behind, to the grassland.
Five lambs were still far from a flock's scale and didn't require too much effort to watch.
They left the sheep by the river not far away and sat under a tree, each opening a book.
Lucita's was "Introduction to Elementary Magic," and Violet's was "Five Hundred Years of Elven History."
The past, present, and future of this world had only just revealed the tip of the iceberg for these two unfamiliar souls. Many secrets still lay hidden, waiting to be unearthed.
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