When they finally stopped Kit felt like he was going to vomit. Thankfully he wouldn’t have to ride Pint on the way back, he could just use the teleportation stones. Although they’d made great time getting to his farm, he didn’t want to experience riding a horse again for a long time.
Kit practically slid off Pint onto the ground when he dismounted. He felt like his legs were made of goo, they buckled when his feet touched the ground, and he sank onto soft grass. Mars started laughing at his actions.
“Kit it wasn’t that bad.”
“Says you. I never want to experience riding him again. I feel like my arms and legs are now made from jelly.” Kit flopped onto his back he was exhausted from clenching his legs and arms for so long to stay seated on the horse. He was worried he had left bruises on Mars’ waist, he’d held him so tight with fear.
Kit watched Mars gaze around the area from his vantage point on the ground. He didn’t want to move, his body ached. “Kit I can’t see a farmhouse anywhere. Check the farm menu to see if you need to build one. If you are going to hire someone to take care of your farm, you’ll need a place for them to live.”
Kit opened his menu while he laid on the ground. The menu had the same layout as his restaurant and boarding house. A 3D birds eye view of his land was on one side of the screen and a list of tabs on the other.
He couldn’t tell how big his land was from looking at the screen. He started to zoom in on the land to get a better understanding of how large it was. After using the zoom function, he still had no clue how big it was. He hoped the information would appear in one of the tabs. All he could guess from looking at the bird’s eye view that it was bloody big!
He tapped his finger on the farm general information tab.
Farm general information
Farm size: Large 2,000ha
Farm funds: 0
Crops: 0
Livestock: 0
Employees: 0
Facilities: 0
Round orange large pumpkins! How big was this farm? “Hey Mars, do you know how big 2,000 hectares is? What I mean is from here, where would my property end.”
Kit closed his menu then stood up and glanced at Mars. “See that hill off in the distance.” Mars pointed to a large hill about 20 kilometres away.
“Yeah.”
“It would stop around that hill then span the same distance again in the opposite direction. So around 20 kilometres squared. It’s quite big. I own the one next to yours as well, so basically you can double your farm if you need to in the future.”
“Splattered tomatoes! Is it too big? I don’t think I need this much land.” Kit started to worry about how many employees he would need to manage such a large farm.
“I think you’ll be surprised how much land you’ll need if you are going to grow or raise your own food for the restaurant. Our two farms combined mightn’t be enough. I suppose it all depends on how many dishes you want to sell.”
Kit thought seriously about Mars’ opinion. It really did come down to how many items he wanted to sell on the menu. His goal was a 5 star restaurant, he had no idea how many recipes he would need to achieve this. He had a rough idea it wouldn’t be a small amount though.
He wouldn’t just need ingredients for meals but drinks as well. This would equal a hell of a lot of ingredients of all different kinds.
“You might be right Mars. I’ll purchase another farm when we get back. Hopefully the land around this one is still available. It would be better to have one central farm than a bunch spread out.”
As he gazed roamed over his farm with a little bit of disappointment. The land wasn’t anything special at the moment. It was just sprawling grass with trees scattered throughout. Kit couldn’t wait to see what it looked like once it was up and running.
Kit reopened the farm menu. There was a tab for crops, livestock, and facilities. Currently each section had nothing under it. He then went to the last tab farm promotion requirements.
Farm Promotion Requirements
0/1 promotion token
0/1 Farm manager
0/1 crops/livestock
0/1 Harvest
0/1 Farm house
(unavailable until Spartan Fire size: village)
Damn it, the farm was the same as the restaurant and boarding house. Why could it just not be a simple farm that didn’t need upgrading. He had a feeling he would need to pay just as much attention to the farm promotion as the restaurant.
He was sure the quality of his produce would be determined by the level of his farm. He wasn’t planning to the run the farm himself. He had no clue about farming and didn’t really want to learn. He had his hands full with the restaurant and growing Spartan Fire.
This would mean that he would need to hire a capable farm manager. He felt his purse tighten at the thought of how much a good one would cost. He shook his head. He needed to come to terms with spending a large sum, he didn’t have time to learn how to run the farm himself.
Kit quickly sent out a recruitment request for a farm manager before he changed his mind. Hopefully he would get a reply by the time he logged back into the game. He only had three more days in game before he was due to log out. He didn’t think he would get a response before then.
With the farm manager position posted, Kit purchased a farmhouse from the blueprints section. He would get Twix and Leonard to build it, he didn’t want to waste his time on the building if he didn’t have to.
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Now that he had visited his farm, and made plans, it was time to return. Kit placed the travel stone on the ground then looked at Pint. “Ahh Mars, how do we get Pint back?”
“I’m sure we can activate the stone for him.” Mars eyed the large horse.
“That’s not what I’m worried about. Won’t he hurt himself if he is spat out of the stone?”
Mars frowned at Kit’s words. “I didn’t think of that. Pint, what do you think? Do you want to try the stone or go back by yourself.”
Pint walked over to the stone and placed a hoof on top of the rock. “Well I guess that answered the question.”
Kit activated the stone with the phrase Snickers had given him with a small twitch to his eye. She really loved to mess with him.
He nervously watched as Pint disappeared. Mars quickly followed the horse through the stone. Kit took one last look at his farm, hopefully next time he visited it would be because he was showing the new farm manager to his new home.
When Kit emerged from the stone Mars and Pint were waiting off to the side. “Is he alright?” Kit ran his eyes over the horse to check for injury’s.
“He is fine.” Mars ran his hands over Pint’s coat as he spoke.
“Well thank you for taking us today, Pint. I will give you a taste of Musical spiced rum as a reward for your hard work. Though I’ll have to give it to you later. I have to make some more first.” Kit felt his lip twitch as he thought about the horse trying to sing. He couldn’t wait to see what would happen.
When Kit emerged from the stone, he noticed it was placed not far from the back door of the restaurant. Cupcake had walked outside to see what the noise was. “Hello Cupcake.” Kit waved at the large man.
“Boss.” Cupcake stood still as if waiting for instructions.
“I’ll come back and help in the kitchen soon. I just have to go to the town hall first it won’t take long.” Kit waved Cupcake back to work.
“Are you coming Mars or are you off to do something else?”
“No, I’m going to go find Twix, he was going to work on raising the town prestige today.”
“Ok, then can you let him know about the farmhouse needing to be built please. Hopefully he and Leonard will have time to complete it.” Mars nodded the walked off with Pint in tow.
Kit headed to the town hall and purchased another farm. The plot next to his existing farm was still available and at an affordable price. Kit was thrilled at being able to be able to get it.
Ding!
Merge land available.
Yes/No
“Haha, yes.”
Ding!
Player Kit is now the owner of an enormous farm.
Kit was giddy with happiness. He hadn’t realized that merging land was even an option. He was so excited he brought three more plots of land next to his original farm. By the time he had finished merging his land he ended up with a ginormous farm.
He thought it was better to have left over farmland than not have enough. With a skip in his step, he headed back to the restaurant. Cupcake and Crackers stopped working when he returned to the restaurant.
He noticed Crackers had a sour look on her face when she looked at him. “Crackers is anything wrong?”
“Ai Kit there is. You be promising Cupcake and I that ya would let us watch next time ya were creating a new stats item. Yesterday ya not only be makin’ one but two new stats items and we didn’t get to witness any of the process.”
Kit’s mouth made an oh shape. “Crackers, Cupcake, my apologies. I was too wrapped up in making the rum that I completely forgot. Can you please forgive me?” Kit felt terrible. The thought hadn’t even crossed his mind to invite them to watch. He could just imagine their disappointment.
If it had been him that had missed out, he would have been devastated. He would need to make it up to the pair somehow. He heard a sigh escape Crackers mouth. “It be fine. Just remember us for next time. Luckily, I have faith that ya creations will not stop at just these meals and drinks.”
Kit felt buoyed that Crackers had such a belief in him. “Thank you Crackers I won’t disappoint you next time! While I have both of your attention, I would like to bring something up. I’ll have to go away for six days soon, do you both think you can manage the restaurant by yourselves?”
Cupcake thumped his chest. “Yes.”
Crackers laughed at the big man. “What he said.”
“Great! I would like you both to have a day off before I leave, so who would like tomorrow off?” Cupcake and Crackers both stared at each other, neither one spoke.
“Ok then I will pick. Crackers you can have tomorrow off, then Cupcake can have the next day off.” Kit watched as they both reluctantly agreed. Why did they not want a day off? He felt it was important to give them time to themselves whether they wanted it or not.
He made plans to make a roster for when he returned so they could all get some time off, including the floor staff. With this thought he realized he would need some more staff to properly cover days off. Until he could get new staff maybe it would be better to shut the restaurant one day a week.
He decided he should talk to Snickers about this problem. “I’m going to go find Snickers, then I’ll come and help with cooking.”
Snickers was talking to a customer as he walked into the dining area. A smile bloomed on his face at the sight of all the tables filled. He didn’t think this sight would ever get old.
He waited patiently for Snickers to finish before attracting her attention.
“Kit you are finally inside the restaurant. You have been skipping work since you got new staff. Are you staying for the rest of the day?” Snickers pursed her lips and squinted at him.
Kit was glad that he was staying inside the restaurant today. He had a feeling that if he told Snickers he was leaving again he would get an ear full of complaints. “Yes, I’m staying today. I only have 3 more days after today until I need to log out. This is why I came to find you. I need to talk about some management issues.”
Snickers nodded in understanding. “Ok, let’s go out the back, then we can talk.” Kit followed Snickers to the back of the restaurant. They used some wooden barrels as chairs to make themselves more comfortable.
“What’s on your mid Kit?”
“I want all the staff to be able to take two days off a week. I don’t think it’s good from them to work without a break. Currently we don’t have enough staff to facilitate this. I think we need to hire more staff. The only problem is I only have one free room in the boarding house.”
Snickers gave him a look as if he was stupid. “Kit honestly how does your brain work? Mars, Twix, and you have a house outside the boarding house. You can just move out until the boarding house is upgraded.”
Kit had forgotten about this. He now classed the boarding house as his home, so the idea of moving out pained him. He sighed, he mightn’t have any other choice. What would he do with the midnight guardians though?
He was sure they would want to be in the same house as Snowball. Kit pictured all seven of them squeezing into his small mud hut. A shiver went down his spine at the visual in his head.
“You’re right Snickers. The only problem will be the midnight guardians. I don’t think we can all fit inside my current mud hut.”
“Ohh I forgot, you have those smelly traitorous cats following you now.” Kit almost laughed at Snickers face. She had scrunched up her small nose at the mention of them. He could tell she was still sore about losing them as contract animals.
“You’ll have to upgrade your house then. The wooden cabins are available now Spartan Fire is a small village.”
Kit hadn’t even realized he could upgrade his house. If he was going to fit them all in, he thought it would be a good idea to go ahead with the upgrade. “Ok I’ll do that. As much as I don’t want to leave the boarding house, my restaurant running properly is more important.”
“Look at you turning into a proper restaurant owner. I didn’t think you would make this much progress so fast. It wasn’t that long ago that you were clueless about the functions available inside the restaurant. I’m very proud of you right now Kit.”
Kit felt his cheeks flush at Snickers praise. It was nice to get a compliment from Snickers, it didn’t happen very often. He felt it was more genuine because of this. “Thank you Snickers.”
“You’re welcome, Kit. I will organize hiring more staff. Hopefully they should be hired before you return from your holiday.”
Kit had a little chuckle at Snickers calling his log out time a holiday. He looked forward to logging out and seeing his sister. He couldn’t wait for the time when she could join him in the game. He was positive she would love it here in Spartan Fire.
Snickers and Kit returned to the restaurant. He would organize his house upgrade after closing. The rest of the day went smoothly and in a blink, it was closing time.