Abigail's POV

"Ugh," As I sat up in my bed I let out a groan. It had been a stressful two weeks and recent events hadn't made it any easier.

I had been wholly unprepared for anyone to visit and hadn't had anything set up for guests. We barely had enough time to move a table and chairs into the cabin for a place to talk.

This entire tutorial was pushing my boundaries and I couldn't handle all the stress. Coming up with things for Anna and Josh to do, making plans and keeping track of everyone in the family, making sure we had enough food for dinner, and everything else.

It was an extremely stressful time and it was bordering on being worse than when I finished my nursing degree. That had been a whirlwind of studying for finals while working to pay for college with the added benefit of internships to pad my resume.

The only good thing going for me so far was I wasn't in charge of making the decisions. Granddad had stepped up and took care of most decision-making and had people decide where the executive approach wouldn't work. Then it would be up to me to plan it out.

Who would forage for food, who would scout the forest, who would work on building shelter, and who was in charge of cooking. I swear the next person to ask me for anything better have a damn good reason.

I had to wake up earlier than most to make sure that breakfast was being prepared, and if it wasn't, either prepare it myself or wake up the person who was supposed to be doing it.

I did my best to exit the tent silently without waking Jonathan or the kids but the close proximity made it difficult. I made it out without waking any of them, fortunately, and was relieved to find Sam and Ashley up already working on breakfast.

It gave me one less thing to deal with and let me focus toward the plans for the day. Labor schedules were easier now than in the beginning because most everyone was working on the trench with only a few people doing something else. Kyle mainly was out in the woods searching for plants to add to our diet while one or two others scouted.

We had sent scouts out every day and nothing changed but Granddad was adamant about doing it, so it was done. I thought it would be better to use the manpower elsewhere but he disagreed. The scouts were keeping track of the bear in the woods along with noting anything else that changed.

Lately, they had said there had been a decline in the amount of boars near the camp and a scout found a body of one that had been picked at by different animals. I had a sneaking suspicion about whose fault that was but I didn't say anything.

That was another thing that I didn't have time to worry about. Chris, and his partner in crime Austin, running off every morning to god knows where to do god knows what.

I knew that Chris felt like we needed to do more and level up quicker, but there wasn't much more I could do in the day, I was spread thin already as it was. He and Austin would come back around breakfast soaking wet with scratches and scrapes that I have to heal but they never tell me what happened.

It was a good way to level up and I had recently hit level 6 the other day after healing a particularly bad wound that Austin had. I didn't know who they think they were fooling because most people knew they were out there doing something, and if their glaring absence in the morning didn't give them away, their levels did.

They were the only people at level 7 and it was painfully obvious that they were up to something, but no one said anything. They weren't coming back with anything too bad of an injury and I healed them up before anyone could see them too closely, but people weren't stupid.

I wanted to use my buffing skill on them before they left but they said it wasn't necessary and since it didn't last very long it wouldn't be very helpful. I wanted to buff them so they wouldn't get as hurt out fighting, but a part of it was so that I would be considered contributing to their fight and get some points.

I wasn't hurting from points or anything, but after Chris said he was over halfway to buying a skill it made me realize how far behind I was. Taking care of two kids costs more than anticipated.

I couldn't let them eat nothing but meat so Jon and I split the cost of buying some fruits and vegetables so they could have a balanced diet. We also caved and bought some sweets so they could have something nice.

Josh absolutely loved the furs and thought they were cool, but Anna thought they were rough and scratchy so we had to buy a blanket for her to sleep at night. Little things here and there added up and at this rate, it would take a few weeks to be able to afford a skill

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I also had to think about what profession I wanted to get and plan some time in the day in order to practice doing it. Scott and a few others were still going through the Carpentry book and none of them had unlocked the profession yet. Scott was the closest but that was because he spent almost every waking moment either reading the book or practicing what was written.

After Derek died, he threw himself into work and spent all his time doing something with his hands trying to keep his mind occupied. Diana was the exact opposite, she was a shell of her former self and spent most of the time sleeping. No one had the heart to tell her not to, we went over when we could to comfort her but I don't think it did much.

She lost her only child and I couldn't even imagine losing Anna or Josh. I don't know if I would be able to do it. I brought her meals to make sure that she ate something but there was nothing I could do to make her feel better. The only thing that could help now was time.

Banishing the dark thoughts, I got ready for the day and made sure that everything was ready for breakfast. I did my daily search through the store to see if anything was new and prepared myself for the day to come.

Before I could walk over and help with preparing the food, Austin came up to me looking like he just finished running a marathon. He was sweaty and out of breath and looked like he was about to pass out. That said nothing of the blood that covered him.

"I need you to follow me," He said while still trying to catch his breath.

I didn't know what was happening but I nodded and started to follow him toward the gate. He wasn't running so it couldn't be anything life-threatening. Chris wasn't with him and that wasn't a good sign. What if he's not running because Chris is already dead?

My thoughts started to spiral but before it got too bad Austin led me right outside the gate where Chris was lying on the ground not moving. I immediately checked for a pulse and let out a relieved sigh when I found one. He was still alive, just unconscious.

As I looked him over I couldn't help but notice the amount of wounds he had on his body. I didn't have the Body Scan skill like Sam had but I could clearly see all the different cuts on his body. Most had already scabbed over but some were still leaking blood.

I used Healing Hands on him as soon as I touched him and looked him the rest of the way over so I wouldn't miss anything that could be wrong. Taking his armor off was difficult but Austin helped lift it off of him and it showed a few bruises but nothing too bad. After I had done a thorough once over, I kept my skill going and looked up at Austin.

"Explain." I didn't yell but it was clear that I wasn't very happy right now. Austin knew better than to mess with me and went right into the story.

"We were out hunting this morning and after seeing the guy with a higher level than us we started hunting higher-level boars. At first, it went fine and we could kill them with little difficulty but that all changed when we tried killing a level 10 boar." He was talking fast trying to get through the story and stopped to take a breath.

"We knew it wasn't the smartest idea, but we tried anyway and it was way stronger than we thought it was. It had earthen armor that we couldn't get through and all our normal attacks didn't do anything. After we realized that we couldn't damage it we knew that we had to outlast it while chipping away at its armor." This story was already off to a bad start and Chris was in for the dressing down of his life when he woke up.

"We fought for almost half an hour and eventually managed to get through, I severed an artery with my spear and that's when it all went wrong. We were already tired and the boar knew it was going to die, so it tried its hardest to take us with it."

"That's when Chris did something I didn't know was possible and managed to cut off its leg while it was facing me. He must have used everything he had because he passed out right after. The boar died soon after and I carried him back here." He finished his story pointing at Chris lying on the ground.

There was so much that I wanted to comment on but I focused on Chris to make sure that he was healed completely. It looked like he was just tired and needed time to rest and the story confirmed it, but I needed to make sure. After a few casts of Healing Hands all of his wounds closed and all that was left was the semi-dried blood that covered his clothes.

A quick cast of Cleanse got rid of that and he looked good as new. There were still holes and tears in his clothes but those were already there and there was nothing I could do about that.

"Alright, your turn. Sit down." After Chris was fine it was time to heal Austin.

He had the same kind of wounds as Chris did and he was actually a little worse off than Chris. His arms had way more cuts than Chris's and looked like he had more blood covering him.

Not long after I healed Austin up I could hear light snores coming from him showing just how tired he was. It must have taken everything in him to carry Chris back after the fight they had.

I just stood there looking over the two idiots and didn't know what to do. My mother instincts were telling me to scold them and make them stop this insanity but I knew that wouldn't do anything. Chris hated being told that he couldn't do something and most of the time would do it just to spite you.

If I told him he couldn't continue to do this he would ignore me and do it anyways. He wasn't a kid anymore and I had to trust that he would be alright.

"You're going to be the death of me." I knew that he couldn't hear me but I said it to him anyway.

He always had a way of making me worry about him that I couldn't get over. He hid most of the more crazy things he did from our parents and since I was a sibling instead he had no problem regaling me in his stupid stories.

I just hoped that he wouldn't do anything stupid. Based on the way he handled Anna and Josh he would be a great dad and I would hate to see that not come true.

I couldn't do anything more for them but leave them to rest, I would have Jonathan carry them back to their tents because there was no way I was able to carry them.

Walking away I couldn't help but think one last time, idiots.