I spent the entire night tossing and turning on the couch, fighting off the infection. I didn't have the willpower to climb up the ladder to bed, and I didn't want to soil the sheet either. I was caked in a disgusting mixture of sweat, blood and soil.

Finally, the fever broke around dawn, putting me out of my misery. I still had a way to go to be fully healed, especially since the infection debuff was still active. I probably had to wait until I was at 60/60 HP to restore my regular regeneration rate.

Around 9 o'clock, I was at 50 HP and felt well enough to start my day. I wanted nothing more than to stay rotting on the couch and feel sorry for myself, but my sense of disgust prevailed.

I stripped out of my soiled clothes and grabbed a bucket and soap from the bathroom. Outside, I hauled some water from the well and poured it over my head.

"Ah, goddammit."

The water was freezing and I clenched my teeth to keep them from chattering. I repeated the process a few times, with a thorough lather in between, until I finally felt clean. It got easier after a while.

Despite my efforts, I managed to reopen some of the wounds on my arms, giving myself a few points of damage, and setting myself back in my recovery. I just had to grin and bear it.

After that was done, I put on my least disgusting set of clothes and went to the Shop Terminal to sell the Rabidasher's skin. I finally had enough credits to buy some underwear. That was a cause of celebration. This was the first time I was going to buy a physical object and I was curious to see how it would be delivered. Would it fall off the sky with a little parachute? Would there be an alien delivery person with a company hat and vest on knocking at my door?

The reality was both extraordinary and underwhelming at the same time.

My five-pack of underwear just popped into existence in the air in front of me and plopped on the floor. There was nothing unusual about the package or the underwear itself, other than the System's standard script. I could have just picked it up from my local store.

"That's just... Fine, " I was unimpressed.

However, there was not much else to do about this other than go make some planks before breakfast, to give myself more time for Energy regen.

After using my Scavenge ability to gather wood resources for the tenth time that day, I got a System notification.

Class Skill level up! Scavenge, level 2

I cheered at the good news and immediately set out to scavenge more wood, to see if there would be much of a difference. All in all, there wasn't much. The process took slightly less time if my estimation was correct, and I didn't have to focus as hard. But all improvement was welcome, even if it was just a little bit.

After getting encumbered the first time around, I made sure to switch between making planks and transforming firewood into the wood resource. Remembering the heavy feeling, I shuddered and went back to work.

I was done in less than an hour and was now a proud owner of eight raised beds.

One coffee and breakfast later, I found myself trying to wash my clothes in a bucket at the well. It was backbreaking work and I wasn't very successful in getting the stains out.

I know you're supposed to rinse the blood as soon as it gets on, but I was a tad busy. I thought bitterly. I would never take the little creature comforts the modern world had provided us for granted ever again.

Giving up, I left the clothes to soak in the bucket and sat down on the ground.

"What am I doing?" I asked myself.

I was jumping from one task to another, without any rhyme or reason. Sure, having clean clothes is great, but I had to think long-term.

"Get it together, Dee."

From now on, I would wake up, work on making more raised beds, and then have breakfast. After breakfast, I would work on planting my seeds until I run out of raised beds. When that is all done, I would then do any odd chores around the cabin. It took 15 hours to fully restore my energy at this stage, which was less than ideal. But that was what I had to work with, and I had to get over myself.

With a renewed sense of purpose, I got up from the dirt and set out to plant some potatoes.

I fished out the net bag containing all my precious potatoes. My expert eye calculated that I had about 3kg of potatoes of various shapes and sizes. I dumped them all on the ground in front of the cabin and started sorting them into sizes, and the ones that had started sprouting already.

This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author's work.

If my memory of the brief description of potato growing was correct, you could cut up the bigger ones into pieces, making sure that they had at least one or two 'eyes' on them. That 'eye' was where the shoots were going to sprout from.

"Thank you, dude who wrote that book. I hope you're safe and alright," I mumbled while cutting a big potato into three pieces. Who knew that particular piece of information would come in handy one day?

I had set aside a few for tonight's dinner but I figured I might as well plant the rest if I could. It was lucky that the frosts had ended and these little spuds could grow big and strong, and feed me into the winter.

Somehow I knew I had to space them around 40 centimetres apart and that I had to plant them at about 25 centimetres deep. I guess I could thank my Tend Plants class ability for that. It was still kinda freaky how this knowledge got implanted into my head, but there was no point delving into that subject too deeply. I would just drive myself insane that way.

I crouched at the first raised bed and put 4 pieces of potatoes about 40 centimetres apart from each other. A bed was roughly one square meter, so this was the maximum amount of potatoes that I could plant in one to have them grow comfortably. As soon as I covered the fourth potato with soil, a box appeared above the plants.

Potato plants

Time until harvest: 71 days 23 hours 59 minutes

Quality: Good

Energy investment: 0/60

"This is something new, " I mumbled. Having a timer like that was pretty handy for someone like me, who had no idea how long things were supposed to grow for. The energy investment was interesting, but I didn't have much to spare, as I was saving it for making more raised beds. It would have to wait for now.

I repeated the process with the other beds, and the same timer popped up, showing that the plants grew for 72 days.

Suddenly I heard Rabidasher screeching from the western side of the cabin, and I quickly went on guard. My hatchet was on the porch so I grabbed it, trying to keep myself calm. The memory of the bite was still fresh, even though the supernatural healing this new world gave me barely left a scar.

I walked in the direction of the screeches that were only growing louder but made sure to stay within my property boundary. I had learned my lesson in blood.

The woods on that side of the cabin were thicker, so I couldn't see anything no matter how hard I strained my eyes.

A tall figure broke into the clearing from the woods, chased by three fuzzy monsters. They were carrying a person on their back, running with all their strength, but I could see even from my vantage point that they were close to losing their footing.

"Over here! Quickly!" I shouted, startling them. I saw that the person was a teenage boy, tall and lanky, carrying a middle-aged woman. One of her legs flew limply on the side and was covered in darkened blood.

The boy finally spotted me and turned to run towards me, the change in direction slowing him down.

Without thinking, I jumped into action, hoping that if I kept the monsters away from the boundary when I attacked them it wouldn't trigger another breach.

"Go inside the cabin, now!" I yelled and the boy seemed to follow my instructions in stride. The woman on his back whimpered in pain every time her leg moved.

I fell in behind them, hoping to slow down the creatures and give the two time to get to safety. A quick glance at the Rabidashers told me that two of them were level 1, and the third one was level 2.

Lucky, I thought. I could take them.

It was a foolish thought, and my actions were even more foolish. But I wasn't thinking straight anymore.

I swung my hatchet at the higher-level monster first, hitting it in the spine with the sharp blade. The red-eyed rabbit fell on the floor, while the other two snapped at my sides. I hit one with my weaponless hand, dealing more damage to my fist than to the monster. The other one bit into the side of my hip making me yell out in pain.

To say that I wasn't having a good time would be an understatement.

Still, I made myself continue fighting through sheer willpower alone. The level 2 monster was still on the floor, and I put all my might into my foot and stomped it hard. The sound of the snapping bones made the hairs on the back of my hair shiver, but I knew I killed it.

That's their weak point. The spine. Go for the spine!

I swiped the hatchet in an arch in front of me, making the two remaining monsters retreat. I took advantage of this and lunged towards the left one, my weapon finding its target.

Unfortunately, for a brief moment, I had my back turned to the other Rabidasher and it dug its claws into my lower back and slid back down to the ground, leaving behind a track of blood in my skin.

We went back and forth like this for a good few minutes, dealing damage to each other. It was only when I dealt a killing blow to one of them that I was able to believe that I would survive this.

The last of the Rabidashers finally fell in a lifeless heap in front of me not long after.

I was alive, and the boundary breach didn't trigger. The wounds would go away.

Name: Diana Mond

Age: 25

Class: Homesteader

Level: 1, 70/200 exp

Strength: 3

Constitution: 6

Intelligence: 6

Wisdom: 4

HP: 20/60

Energy: 3/60

Points to distribute: 0