David sat at a table, slowly picking pine needles from a branch alongside several others. Each one would have to be separated from all the rest and then put into a mason jar for storage. Later, he would have to remove the outer bark and put that in a separate mason jar before collecting the inner bark to set aside for something called "bark flour". Finally, the remainder of the branches would be set aside to be tied up into bundles. It was tedious work that took up several hours of his work each day, but the work wasn't nearly as bad as some of his other jobs in the past.

Earlier that week, David had stopped by the local tavern to try and sell some of the sweets and black tea he had gotten from Violet to the tavern owner. Sweets were better off being sold to merchants usually, but, after some digging around, he found out that there was unlikely to be anyone else coming through anytime soon. Apparently, someone had just come through last week and they wouldn't be returning for another few weeks.

The tavern owner had happily bought the tea, but was only able to offer half of the usual price for the sweets. As this town was still small, the amount of income that could be earned from renting out rooms, selling alcohol, and offering meals was still rather limited. The tavern owner was confident that the tea would sell well to his patrons and that some of them may even be willing to buy the sweets, but there was no way they'd fetch nearly as much as selling it to a noble family.

David had managed to negotiate with them in order to get some basic staples like flour, butter, and eggs instead of accepting the coins for the sweets. The tea was still a fair price, though, and he still needed to be able to buy some more goods to trade to Violet, so it was sold at the offered price. It wasn't ideal, but it would certainly help alleviate some of the concerns regarding food that they had at the moment.

Before leaving, he had gone to check the community board for any jobs that might suit him. Usually, the adventurers' guild or a merchants' association would be a better place to look for odd jobs that needed doing. However, both of those were missing from a town as small as this one still was. So, it was only natural that the tavern, which saw the most people coming and going, would fulfill the role instead.

There, David had found a listing from Avorn recruiting some people to help them process foraged goods. In exchange, they were offering to teach others how to process tree bark and acorns into a flour of sorts as well as offering 50 Units worth of dried firewood. The job was simple enough sounding and David could only surmise that the request was either recently put up or was unpopular due to not offering an actual coin reward.

There had been quite a bit of awkwardness as David met Avorn for the "first" time. He hadn't gotten their names when they were in the dungeon and their first impressions of each other hadn't been the best. However, neither group was willing to let a misunderstanding stand in the way of getting what they needed. So, a contract was signed by each party and the job was accepted.

Each afternoon Avorn and his wife would stop by Gregory's house and drop off a large pile of branches, decaying tree trunks, etc. that they had likely collected from the nearby forest. After showing David how to differentiate the outer bark, inner bark, and the rest of the wood, the rest was left to him for processing. Gregory had seemed to feel a bit awkward about having his own family roped into the work, but he had easily accepted it once he knew it would help keep his family fed and warm for the winter.

There weren't just pine branches to process, but those seemed to be the ones that Avorn was most interested in. He even insisted on them keeping a count of how many of everything there were. That tended to result in one of them having to dump out a full jar and count out the contents before recording how much there was and putting it all back in again. That was, unfortunately, left to David himself as he had the best education among the older individuals in their household.

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There was public education available for all children from the spring through the fall. It only cost a small fee that was affordable even for commoners, but that didn't mean that everyone could afford to send their children off to school. Those who did farm work often needed help managing things from day to day more than they cared about whether their children could read, write, and count. So, children often only ended up getting the most basic education before being forced to drop out of school for good when they came of age.

Really, David felt that Henry was a rather fortunate soul. His father was giving him the chance to learn swordsmanship and attempt to build a better life for himself instead of forcing a life of farming on him. Most commoners couldn't afford to get their children appraised and didn't want to risk their children dying in a dungeon, so they just forced them to manage their expectations from a rather young age. It was an unfortunate fact of life, but it was sad nonetheless.

Noble knights tended to be strong adventurers, so it was unlikely that Henry could get an official title without being one of the lucky ones to earn a class. However, David was sure that he'd still be capable of becoming a local guard with slightly better pay than your average farmer, even if he never awakened any abilities.

David shook his head, he was letting his mind wander again. A rather unsurprising fact considering he had nothing better to do while he worked. Still, it would be time to pack up and get ready to go to the dungeon soon. Apparently, this would be the last time they'd be expected to do this work. So, David needed to bring along everything when he went to the dungeon today so that he could hand it over to Avorn and his wife when he saw them.

He was going to keep all but a small sample of each of the barks. Apparently, Avorn would be stopping by as soon as the next day to fulfill his end of the bargain. They'd be bringing them a large pouch of acorns as well as the dried firewood. Then they would teach everyone in their house how to turn the acorns and barks into flour. The children seemed quite excited about the idea, even Alice, so David was happy that Avorn had been so agreeable about teaching everyone instead of just him.

While they had a few large bags of flour from his deal with the tavern owner, David was sure that it would be good to have alternate options. Alice had even already started excitedly collecting acorns whenever they went to the dungeon. Well, even he could admit that some nice homemade bread to dip in their nightly supper of soup would be quite nice.

"Come on Alice, it's time to go!"

David said. Alice rushed out of the bedroom she had been staying in with Luna in tow. The wolf cub was getting larger by the day and was easily already half his daughter's height. Soon enough the wolf was likely to be full grown, even if it would still be a bit immature.

"Daddy, I'm cold! Are we almost there yet?"

David just pursed his lips, shaking his head in disbelief as he reassured her

"We'll be there soon enough, just hang in there a little longer."

The trek to the dungeon was a bit long and Alice frequently complained about how cold it was. She was at an awkward age where she was both rather mature in her thinking and a bit emotional due to her immaturity. David didn't mind the occasional emotional outburst or complaining, but he also couldn't help but feel like he wasn't the most suited for comforting a small child. It was really a shame his wife had passed away so soon as he knew she would have known just what to do in such situations.

Eventually, they made it to the dungeon. David made sure to head to the room meant for tributes first. It was still empty, but he still wanted to respect Violet's wishes as best he could. Then he pulled out a burnt bread roll and set it down carefully on the ground. He wasn't so sure that Violet was going to consume such a thing herself, so he hoped that it didn't matter what state it was in. Most of the rolls in this batch had been fine, but this one had been a little too exposed to the hearth and ended up a bit burnt. Rather than forcing anyone to eat it, he had hidden it away in his pocket until it came time to go to the dungeon.

Despite David's attempts to respect Violet's wishes, she still couldn't quite see how hard he was trying lately. All she knew is that David was just as watchful as ever and that she had once again gotten a single DP for his tribute.