Select a Skill.

The prompt hung before me, wholly incessant from the moment I awoke. I looked at it emptily for a while, brain slow and filled with heavy fog. I had not slept well this night. But the System gave no fucks, and it was happy to let me know that fact.

With little choice, I dragged my tired eyes across the small selection of Skills that hovered before me.

Hew The Earth offered no hidden surprises. Within the mental image, a farmer methodically did as described. A hoe rent through the earth, weeds cleaved from their roots with every cut. I felt the vague sense that this would also enable me to more easily work the dirt overall. Tasks that involved displacing and moving ground would be ever so slightly easier.

Choke The Weeds made a compelling argument for its own selection. Unlike the previous selection, it required no actual work. A very specific skill, but a powerful one. Again, a vague sense informed me that upon all my farmland, weeds would find the soil inhospitable. No matter how rich and damp it actually was.

I gave serious consideration to this skill. Most of the spring and early summer of a farmer’s life was an endless war against weeds. Even with the proper equipment and specific chemicals, it consumed so much time. And without those and naught but a hoe in hand to root them out? My days ahead looked monotonous indeed.

Raise The Crops did not seem like overmuch, at first glance. It simply inspired the crops to grow just a small bit faster. A pathetic amount, really. A farmer that selected this could expect to harvest their crops about a week before others planted at a similar time. Definitely not worth an investment of your first Skill slot.

That was where I happily diverged from most people, however. Courtesy of the old Garek, I possessed Gold Is Power. Now, I was not the happy owner of a small stache of gold. I carried a small fucking fortune, and I was about to prove the old saying about unspent gold being useless so fucking wrong.

Choke The Weeds was the easy way out. All it promised was less work for me. Hew The Earth whispered promises that my work would be easier. And yet, I did not even need to engage myself in the mind-numbing monotony of these tasks. Why do it when I could simply hire Ishila and focus my efforts on other enterprises?

It was not a given if I could hire her services full-time, but given her work yesterday, the half-orc girl’s help would make things much faster. The perks of being raised in a farm environment were that you came with all the necessary skills to work upon another farm built-in. Without much other thought, I selected Raise The Crops and watched the words vanish before my eyes.

A quick check made sure that my new skill was indeed already delivered. Another to make sure it was turned on and hard at work.

With Ishila not yet arrived, I instead had to be satisfied with Gol’s meager company as I planned out my day. I would need to make a trip to Hullbretch soon, simply for wood. I had trees that had been carved to serve the purpose, but I sorely wanted proper stakes and fence posts. Even with the cost in coin, they were a far better investment than settling for tree branches. I wrote that off for another day in the near future and instead looked over my field. For now, I had a single crop seeded in with as much of the wheat as possible, and then barley for the rest. I would need more room. A second crop of oats would be optimal, and then a third, empty piece of land I would rotate the crop into to prevent land fatigue.

In short order, I would need bins or whatever I could substitute those with in this new world, stables for horses, and shelter for other animals. Like as not, unless I was particularly fond of pulling wagons filled with grain myself, I would have to get animals to do it for me. They were a cost to buy and provide for, but a necessary one.

And so, I would need stables. They could mingle with the cows, but I would need a significant pasture. Which called for significant fence posts and significant costs. Yay. I had to visit the Huntress and buy hides in bulk, to properly cover all these buildings I had planned. Ishila sauntered up shortly later, happy as you please. Happiness that remarkably didn’t falter as I handed her my axe and instructed her to clear the stream.

I could probably have done that myself, with some time, but I had a dozen different matters that I all wanted attended to yesterday. With instructions to begin clearing the second field once she was finished, Armed with a minotaur-sized claymore instead, I set off for the Huntress’s cabin.

A bearded elf sat on the porch of a house larger than my own a few miles up the road, pipe in his lips and expression cross. He offered no greeting, and I chose not to disturb the man as I lumbered past his farmstead. His crops were already half-grown, I noticed, and nary a bird disturbed his skies. Respectable.

It was late morning when I finally arrived at the first crossroads. Further up towards the mountain, the path diverged. One directly towards the Redtip, the other a different, slower path in the same direction. Ishila’s instructions guided me down the slower path, and I followed. It was less of a road and more of a worn, choked trail between the trees that loomed to either side.

Any remnants of the trail disappeared when next I turned and began to follow only landmarks. Now, I was in the wilderness, with only vague gleams of the sun overhead to guide me.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

I emerged from the shrouded overgrowth into a clearing and stopped cold. Not for surprise, but because of the wire I had felt mid-stride. With careful movements, I slowly eased my foot backward. Not today. Whatever traps there were, I had not sprung them.

The Huntress’s home resembled a lodge. All manner of hides were being cured across racks along one side, stretched and fleshed.

Bundles of white, knotted vines hung down the side of her house, spread every few feet. They radiated heat as I approached, yet curious glances did not reveal why. Just another mystery. Knocks upon the door went unanswered, and I was presented with a choice. Leave and perhaps get more work done, or wait for her return.

It had been a gamble that she would be here, given her nature as a Huntress. But I did not believe in returning from a task empty-handed.

Instead, I took the opportunity to examine her domicile more closely. In contrast to my more traditional farmhouse, she lived in a rectangular wooden lodge. Where I had used strictly wood and nails to build my home, hers was notched logs with materials woven through to fill the gaps. Where I would have constructed a solid roof for the side overhang, she had a stretched net of hides pulled towards wooden pillars for shade.

The same hides also covered her roof. The exact reason for which I was here.

There was not an absence of noise here that could have warned me. No, everything was normal, save for the javelin-tip that suddenly introduced itself to my ribs. Not overtly rude, however. Merely a firm poke. And yet that alone was enough to make me stiffen.

“Bull.” Came the Huntress’ distinct, flat voice. “You’re on my land.”

“I’m here to trade.” I should be proud of how smoothly that response came out. I sounded cool and in control here.

The huntress snorted and withdrew. I had barely unstiffened my spine when she walked past, a carcass slung over her shoulder. A rapidly shrinking arrow she carried in one hand, and massive deer-like creature in the other. Blood still trickled from the hole torn in its neck, a fact she was supremely unconcerned about.

This close, I could make out feline features with Garek’s middling eyesight. Sharpened ears atop her head, a tail beneath her heavy cloak. The huntress has dressed for the environment, all muted brown and green. Tinged with red now that blood had dripped over her cloak. The creature she carried was tossed into the shade of the overhang as she turned to me, arms folded.

Her one good eye was distinctly feline, I recognized now. Though I didn’t take too much time to stare at it.

“Your business,” Le’rish demanded, blunt as a hammer. “Get to it.”

She remained just as unimpressed through my explanation that I needed as many hides as she could spare.

“Sold most of my stock to the tanner a while ago.” She told me, her back turned. I watched as she looped a rope around a free-standing pillar. Quick movements brought the rope down, fastened it to the deer-thing’s hind leg and then yanked it into the air. If I had to judge, that carcass weighed several hundred pounds, yet it was hauled skyward with only a modicum of effort. It was promptly tied off and despite it being midday, the huntress lit a fire next to the corpse.

“Those there still need to be completely cured before I will sell them.” She gestured at the racks that dried next to her lodge. I watched, arms folded as she squatted down and held the blade above the flame.

“I need as many as you can procure.” I reiterated. "As fast as you can source them.”

A noncommittal grunt was all that got from her. The deer-like creature that hung from the rope had a large, furred hide pocketed by crystalline growths. A closer look found that small buds grew everywhere on its back, with tendrils that skimmed across the surface like roots. An entire ecosystem of them seemed to grow from the creature, almost serene and beautiful.

“Crystalcoat.” She explained, knife’s blade almost red-hot. “Parasite.”

With that, she stood and began to dig away at the hide. Knife blade jammed into the coat, she dug out a crystalline bud, held it up and then tossed it into the fire. The small fire sparked and flared, it’s flame a sickly green for a moment.

“Don’t eat anything with these on their coat.” She growled. “Less’ you wanna die in agony. Can’t stop you then.”

She held one up to me, and I gingerly took it.

“Looks pretty, don’t it?”

I nodded in agreement. It did, in fact, look beautiful.

“Latches onto the skin and pumps in toxin that removes pain. Or the ability to feel pain. Long as it gets fed, everything is fine. If it isn’t fed, that toxic washes out. And the agony sets in. Keeps the host incentivized to feed it, see?”

That was the longest sentence I had heard from her yet.

“The point of this information is to leave them alone?”

“No.” She looked at me then, a frown on her face. “Kill them and I’ll trade them for hides. Don’t worry about meat, just leave the hides for me.”

She gestured at the flames, where I could see burnt-out buds that had rolled out from the coal.

“Alchemists want these buds. Some fool in Hullbretch is trying to make a potion to deaden pain. I have other uses. Buds for hides.”

“How about gold for hides?” I offered.

“That works as well.” She grumbled, already at work. “I have a stack inside, and more on the way. Can bring them to your farm once they are done.”

“You know where that is.” Not a question, a statement. She just shrugged and kept on extracting buds.

“Of course. Know where everyone near the redtip lives.”

I chose not to question that further. But soon, I was lighter on gold and heavier on hides. I exchanged names as a formality, although I was sure we were already familiar with each other's names. With a large bundle of hides on my shoulder, I set out for home, a rapidly clouded sky in my wake.

Life was, at this point, proceeding nicely.

And then fate proved me wrong by making it rain.