The routine that I had fallen into was interrupted when one of the scouts reported something interesting. It seems that the herd of horses that I saw last year had made their way back here. This could be good news but that would depend if the horses wanted to come back.
Perhaps they have gotten used to their freedom and actually prefer that kind of lifestyle. Still, I must try as horses are simply too useful to not at least try to get them back.
I got ready quite quickly and notified people when I went past them of what I was doing. Some wanted to come with me, but I had a feeling that that would not be a good idea. I have no idea how humans used to treat them and seeing too many of them might bring back bad memories.
Walking through the village I had a hard time not smiling like a crazy person. There was constant work going on and people looked determined. We had all worked hard and in only three weeks we have gotten everything ready for planting.
It was good that the crops in this world had quite different and loose requirements when planting so we would not run into any time concerns and could focus on getting everything done properly.
We ended up with hundreds of acres of fields for different kinds of plants. For vegetables, we did not do the same as back on my farm but something similar to potatoes by using the ploughs to raise them up a bit from the rest of the ground.
Moving past the readied fields felt amazing and I could picture them all being full of life during the summer. This food will sustain us and hopefully bring us some money as well if we can sell it. My biggest concern was that we simply didn’t have enough people to work the jobs that needed to be done.
We had very few experts and the ones we did were extremely narrowly focused on one field. We had more military and fighters than we know what to do with. Because basically, all the younger people wanted to be adventurers or soldiers.
But I could not deny them their choices as it went against what I believed. I’m still glad that they are willing to do the work that needs to be done and not just focusing all their time on training. It seems that there will be a lot of problems going forward but I believed that we can slowly work through them. Let's just hope that there won't be any big hurdles that could break us.
The scouts seemed to need some better training as it was kind of hard to understand the directions that she gave me. Perhaps I should have brought her with me, but I could move so much faster on my own.
Thankfully Goose was here to help me. Like that we quite quickly found the horses and I started to observe them from far away. There were 42 of them and it seems that the winter had been hard on them but not because of the lack of food.
Looks like some predators had tried to hunt them but it didn’t seem to work out too well for the predators. Some of the horses seemed to have scratches on them and only a few had deeper wounds.
It seems that they were able to fight off whatever was trying to eat them but I’m still guessing they lost quite a few. After a bit more observations I found that quite a few of them were pregnant as well. Then I noticed the horse that still had his bridle on.
It was the same one that I saw all those months back. I didn't take the time to observe the horses back then but this horse with its bridle on was quite a big specimen and had quite a few battle scars on him.
I would not be surprised if predators that hunted in packs would target him because he stood out from the rest of the herd. That might also be the reason why so few horses were lost. The predators that targeted this horse would find a hard time taking it down.
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But the bridle had done more damage than just making this horse stand out. Some of the parts that were made from iron and were close to the skin have done a lot of damage because of the cold weather.
Its face had quite a lot of freeze burns as I saw that I felt pretty guilty. I should have taken the time to at least remove the bridle when I last saw the horses. I don’t even remember why I didn’t do it but I guess I had something else urgent to do.
Before I figured out what I was doing I had slowly closed in on the herd that was now fully focused on me. As I suspected the horse with the reins moved forward so all the other horses were behind him taking a defensive but quite aggressive posture.
“Hi, there fellow. Don't mind me I’m just here to help you a little bit.”
I tried to show that I wanted to remove its bridle and it took quite a while before the horse understood that I wasn’t there to attack them. Then it took even longer for it to understand that I was trying to help but after a few hours, I was able to get close to it. It still took five tries before it didn't flinch and back away from my touch before I could start to remove the bridle.
I had to go slow as some of the wounds had started to heal around the iron part. If the bridle isn’t removed, I would guess that the next winter would be this horse’s last one. Still when it understood what I wanted to do it endured the pain and I was able to remove all iron parts without doing too much damage.
After that, all the horses relaxed as I was able to scratch their protector’s mane. I had brought some grain with me and fed him some. He ate it quite gently but before I could do anything further, I could sense goblins entering my lands. I was wondering when they would come by it seems that the ground has started to dry up from the winter melt and they were finally able to start travelling at a normal pace.
While this was important it will still take them quite a while to reach the bridge, so I had some time. But before I could focus back on the horse, I was interrupted again this time by my cows. It seems that one of them started labor and I would be surprised if the other one will not follow soon.
It seems that the horses will have to wait but perhaps it was a good idea to not try to get them back to the village today taking things slow might be the best option. So, I just dumped the small bag of grain I brought on the ground and gave some parting words before I quickly started to run towards the village.
This day is turning out to be quite an exciting one. So many different things happening all at the same time hopefully this isn't a sign for the future as I have gotten quite used to the routine of the past weeks. While running I thought about not going to the village as it would be a bit faster to just run to my farm, but George has expressed interest in being present at the delivery and wanting to help out.
During the past weeks, I have worked with my apprentices on their plans for their homes and even helped them with scouting and advising them on what kind of land would suit them best. George was quite big into animals and wanted to have lots of them. I have not yet told him, but I will give some of my chickens and cows to him. That way he would have a starting point but getting more animals would be quite difficult.
Having animals was not that common in the Kingdom. There was a rule that if you wanted to raise animals you had to have a relevant class or abilities with that animal to be able to get the license to own and raise them.
It was almost as stupid as everyone not planting fruit trees or berry bushes but that's still more stupid because there weren’t any rules preventing that except for the market price of the saplings.
I was quite worried about animals, berry bushes and fruit trees as they were all important. They would not only be an excellent source of food but with them, we could make a lot of other products as well. While selling food will be necessary for the near future, I would eventually want to sell things that would be processed like jam, as it would have a lot more market value.
I was about halfway back to the village when I got a notification. As I opened my achievement page the first thing to jump out at me was that my age was no longer 12 but 13. It seems that today is my birthday. Has it really just been one year? It feels like it's been a lot longer than that. I even paused my running as I was quite distracted by remembering everything that had happened this year.
I opened the notification expecting some sort of graduation for surviving your first year or something like that, but I was quite surprised with what I saw.
Achievement earned: rank one in one year
Calculating reward
New trait gained: elemental seeds
What the fuck is this. Was this achievement really time locked? My joy was dampened by my hatred for achievement or rewards that you get when the timer runs out even when you have long finished the task.