What the villagers put together as payment for stronger wood from me is a lot more than I expected. Then again, even just five households here can harvest quite a bit extra in just a week or two if they tried. This might have been something Thomas was already discussing with them before yesterday.
Two 50lb sacks of wheat, a 50lb sack of sugar, a 10lb sack of salt, fifty eggs, nine gallons of milk, seven pounds of butter, a wheel of each of three different types of cheese, a large ball of mozzarella cheese, two pounds of cream cheese, various cuts of beef and pork, what looks like all of the meat from three chickens, a gallon of honey, and a gallon of syrup.
The cream cheese is interesting, as I don't normally find that people in the sticks know how to make it even if it's an invention from our kingdom. Considering what Thomas has told me about the area so far, it's unlikely the locals actually know how to make stuff with it.
Which means he probably bought it in town. The same goes for the beef and pork since we're not really in the season for that, not somewhere as low in population as here.
"Yeah," he answers when as I ask while transferring it. "That's from Chief and me. Figured, what with your knowledge of foods, you probably know how to do stuff with cream cheese. And we ain't got fresh beef and pork yet, too early in the year. Figured you might like the added variety for meats, too."
"Don't mind it at all," I say. "See that section of wood there?" Thomas looks at where I'm pointing. "That's the tougher wood that's also been treated to resist rot and such from water. Suitable for replacing the docks with. And here are the tools."
I hold out my hand, and a saw appears on it. Thomas takes it and puts it into the spatial pocket bracelet he's borrowing for the time being, then the hammers, nails, and other tools I summon.
"Have you eaten breakfast yet?" I ask.
"Had something 'fore leaving to come here."
"Want something else?" I ask. "Dylan and Nolan eat with me now on lesson days, since it gives them the fuel they need to do the work for paying it off. It won't take any extra effort to include you."
Thomas thinks about it for a few moments, and a curiosity enters his mind.
"If you're willing," he definitely wants to know what I make for breakfast. "Also, would it be fine for me to join for the lessons? Rather than coming back tomorrow? We were expecting it to take the full morning or more to get the wood down to the docks, if you agreed."
"Depends on Dylan and Nolan," I look at the two of them. "Are you fine with it?"
Dylan's clearly uncomfortable, and I don't think Nolan actually understands the question.
"Yeah," Dylan answers.
"Alright," I say, then look at Thomas. "Oh, and the magic lesson normally takes place after lunch. We do the reading lesson, then the work, then lunch, the Nolan's afternoon nap, then the magic lesson. If you want to take the wood down to the docks during the nap portion and come back after an hour, then you can."
"Alright," he says.
"Why don't you two pack up some of the wood?" I ask. "I'll start fixing breakfast. The spatial pocket on the bracelet is seventy-five feet on each side, so it can fit all of the planks and beams over there. You can take as much as you think you'll need to replace the dock."
"Thanks," Thomas says, then looks at Dylan.
While neither of them fidget, I can tell they're both feeling awkward.
"Hey, Nolan?" I ask, and the kid looks at me. "Want to help me cook while your father helps Thomas get wood?"
Nolan looks at his father, then at Thomas, then at me, then starts shifting in a way which I've learned means he wants down.
"Alright, alright," Dylan sets Nolan down, and Nolan waddles over to me. Once his son reaches me, Dylan looks at Thomas. "I guess we should get working, then…"
"Yeah…"
The two of them head over to the wood, and I look at Nolan, who looks up at me. I lift him up and set him on the food prep table, then set three cards down on it.
"This one is for a breakfast hash," I tell him. "It's a meal with potatoes, peppers, some sausage – these ones made with pig meat – some eggs, some cheese, and a little bit of seasoning, with maybe a few more veggies. This one here is for biscuits and gravy. Biscuits are a type of bread, sort of like the rolls we've had, and gravy is a type of sauce. I'll make it with sausage, too. This one here is for pancakes with sausage links. Rather than just the chunks of sausage, this one will come in a shape sort of like fingers. You haven't gotten to eat sausage with me yet, but I promise that it's really good. And pancakes are a type of bread, too. They're thin circles of it that go really well with honey, and I can include some other stuff in them, like berries."
I've found all of the seasonings needed to make the sausages in the area and included them in my garden, so they'll have a proper taste as well rather than just being ground pork. That's something new to everyone around here except me, since the area doesn't have minced/ground meat as a thing.
Silveroak just… never developed it for some reason. Only about half of the kingdoms I've been in have minced/ground meat. We apparently just prefer chunks, slabs, and slices here.
"We've had the hash before," I tell the kid. "But it didn't have the sausage in it. This will make it taste even better than before. The other two are new for you. Pick up whichever one sounds most interesting to you, and that's what I'll make."
Nolan thinks really hard about this, and I take a peek into his mind after a minute to find that he's not sure if he should pick one up. Ah, right, his communication issues. It seems like he wants the pancakes most because I mentioned berries.
"Something tells me," I say, and Nolan looks at me. "That your berry-loving self wants the pancakes with berries, right?"
Nolan gives me a shy nod.
"Alright," I smile. "Then let's do the pancakes. I haven't made the sausages yet as I only just got the pork, but I can show you how it's done."
I did make casings for it yesterday, using slime goo I obtained in the mines. There were plenty of the monsters there and I obtained plenty of their balls. Enough to use up a couple of them and still have plenty left for producing slimes for the slime barn.
I put the cards away and grab everything I need for today's breakfast, then get to work on it. Nolan watches with interest as I put the meat and seasonings in the grinder and fix on the end of the casing. As I do this and make the sausages, I explain the process to him and he listens intently.
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Or rather, as intently as a two-year-old boy can listen. His companion spirit has manifested itself and is sitting on his lap, and that seems to actually help him focus.
Though the kid does play with the spirits arms a little, waving them around as he watches.
In addition to the sausages, I make scrambled eggs to go with the breakfast, including a little bit of milk, shredded cheese, red bell peppers, and spring onions in them. The pancakes themselves are plain, but I make a strawberry syrup to pour on top for those who want to.
I also let Nolan try a spoonful of it, making sure there's a piece of strawberry included for him.
"Like it?" I ask, and he gives me a big smile. "That's great, little man. Can you let your dad and Thomas know that breakfast is ready?"
He nods, so I help him down to the ground, then start transferring breakfast onto the table as Nolan fetches the others. When he reaches his dad, he just grabs onto Dylan's leg and Dylan picks him up, ruffling his hair a little. Nolan then starts bouncing and looking over in this direction, which leads to the other men looking over.
I point at the table and they laugh, then walk over.
"So you were wanting us to come over for breakfast, huh?" Dylan asks, and Nolan reaches out toward the table. "Hold on, bud."
"Am I the reason he didn't say?" Thomas asks.
"No," Dylan shifts a little, discomfort entering his mind. "Nol's never spoken."
"He's mute?" Thomas asks.
"Yeah," Dylan's avoiding looking at Thomas, his voice quiet as the discomfort within his mind grows even higher.
Mutism is also believed to be caused by a curse.
"Technically," I say, and they look at me. "It's caused by a mental block rather than a physical condition. That's why he struggles to communicate in other ways, too. Just give him time and he may one day speak. He's already nodded a little, which I've understood is a big deal. And again, Nolan's not cursed."
"R-right," Dylan says.
"Come on," I say. "Let's eat, then do the reading lesson."
Everyone sits and we dig into our breakfast, then we clean the dishes before heading over to the lessons zone. I give them their writing boards and pens and grab my own, then begin today's session.
Since Thomas only comes half as often as the other two, he's not learned quite as much as they have, but he should still be able to pick up the lesson they're given so I don't alter the plans. I start with a small review of the previous lessons, then teach the letters and words for today's breakfast. Some of the letters used were already taught, others are new to them.
"Hey, Nolan?" I ask after the lesson ends, and Nolan looks at me. "Can you hold up your board? No, I mean facing me," that causes Dylan and Thomas to chuckle a little as the toddler turns the board around. "That's a nice drawing. Is it supposed to be your friendly spirit?"
A nice drawing as far as a two-year-old is concerned. It's rather blobby and doesn't look much like an actual spirit, but there's enough there for me to tell what it's supposed to be. The kid gives me a shy nod when I ask, and I smile.
"Good job," I tell him. "Can you collect the boards and pens and put them away?"
Nolan hops off of his stool and collects the boards and pens, then puts them into the drawer when I keep them before returning to his father.
"Now for the work?" Thomas asks.
"Now for the work," I beckon them to come over to me, and a warpstone appears in my right hand. "Activate this and it'll warp you to a waystone I set up in the area where I want to harvest the trees for the cabin. Thomas, you take it. Dylan, I've got a specialized one that'll take you and one other person so long as you're in physical contact with them."
Thomas accepts the warpstone and uses it, then Dylan uses the one I hand him. Rather than using one for myself, I walk over to the waystone on my property and use it to warp there. Saving the resources on another warpstone just makes sense. I'd made the one Thomas used specifically in case he offered to help, as I'd had a feeling he might.
"How does this work?" Thomas asks. "You just use your magic to cut them down, right?"
"Yeah," I answer as the spatial pocket cuff and the other spatial pocket bracelet both appear in my right hand. "I can fell quite a few of them at once with [Arc Slash]. What I need with from the two of you is getting them stored. They'll fit easier if the branches are removed. Thomas, take the cuff. I'll fell the trees and remove the branches. Thomas, you put the logs into the cuff, it has a spatial pocket that's a hundred and twenty-five feet on each side. Dylan, you stick the branches into the bracelet. Break the branches down as best as possible before doing so – not in half or anything, just cut off their own branches on the bigger ones. That'll help things fit in better. The space in there might be large, but we're collecting a lot of trees, and they have a lot of branches."
Even if he's had a bad diet for two years, Dylan still has some Skill Levels that's boosted his Strength. Those are permanent increases, assuming one never has their Skill Levels decreased for some reason like I did. Because of that, he has more than enough Strength to chop off even the thicker off-branches in one or two whacks, so it shouldn't take him too long.
"Nolan," I look at the toddler. "Can you help your father collect the smaller branches to put away?"
Nolan gives me a small nod.
"Thanks, bud," I ruffle his hair. "There's an axe in both pockets, so Thomas, you can help Dylan if you want while I'm cutting trees and removing their branches."
"Alright," he says.
They accept the items and slip them on, then remove the axes as I walk up to the edge of the forest.
With a swipe of two fingers through the air, I send an [Arc Slash] forward. This one is a little bit modified so that it's wider than normal, stretching thirteen feet across rather than up to three like the spell normally can. If I cast it normally, the spell would travel further but strike fewer trees, since trees don't grow in perfect lines.
The wider cast allows it to slice through more as it flies forward, and trees begin to fall as it severs them only a foot above the base. I tailored the casting angle, the shape of the arc, and a few other aspects of the spell specifically to force the trees to fall towards me, and that's exactly what they do.
With [Telekinesis], I pull one of the trees out and lift it up into the air and bring it into the clear space around us, then send another modified [Arc Slash] forward. This one is only seven inches in width, and it spins rapidly as it soars down the trunk of the tree. I maintain control over the spell rather than simply letting it fly forward, allowing me to send it towards different branches to lop them off. They each fall to the ground and once the trunk has been cleaned of all branches, I shift it further to the side and drop it down.
I repeat this process until all of the felled trees are taken care of, then send another larger [Arc Slash] forward to the side of where the first one was. Thomas and Dylan immediately get to work on picking up the branches and logs, Nolan doing his best to help but looking a little confused about where everything is going.
By the time we finish, the cuff and both spatial pocket bracelets have been filled up, including the one Thomas is borrowing for the docks. He didn't pack it full of lumber when he was collecting some earlier and there was plenty of space left in it, and we needed plenty of space for all of the branches.
In fact, we had to start storing them in the cuff as well, and there's still plenty left on the ground. I didn't realize how much space the branches of a tree took up in comparison to the trunks and had just assumed we'd be fine with what I commissioned once they were broken down into branchless logs and sticks.
Before I came out here, it was always others handling most of the breakdown after I cleared the trees, and the logs and branches were being put to immediate use. That probably contributed to my bad estimate.
That, and me not doing math correctly… but that's also still due to my experiences with this sort of thing.
"We can come back for the rest another time," I say. "Or someone else can collect some if they need it. I'm not entirely sure what all I am going to be doing with the branches. The logs were the main goal. Come on, let's head back home and I'll make lunch."
We use the waystone to return home (though we have to make sure Nolan uses it correctly, which he does), then walk over to my cooking station. I look down at Nolan, then hold out my hand and three cards appear as I crouch in front of him.
"What do you think we should do for lunch?" I ask. "This first one is kebabs, or chunks of meat and veggies on a stick, and buttered rolls. This second one is a lunch hash. This third one is fried chicken with fried onion rings. It's another thing you haven't had before, and is done by covering them in batter and then cooking them in hot oil."
Nolan stares at the cards, and the feel of his mind tells me he's already decided on one. A peek into his mind reveals that he wants the hash, mostly because it's the one he knows for sure he likes as he's had it but not the other two. That, and because I always do a little fruit mix on the side when I make hash.
"Can you grab the card for the one you want to eat?" I ask, and Nolan just keeps staring at them. "Hm… maybe I could just do plain baked potatoes-"
Nolan quickly reaches forward and grabs the card for the hash.
"A lunch hash?" I ask as his father and Thomas laugh, and Nolan nods. "Alright, then let's do a lunch hash, little man."