"Well, that was disappointing, " I mumbled.

The Raw Zerathian Skymbala Wool Cloud gave us only netted 150 credits. It was more money than we had before, but I guess I expected more than that.

"Perhaps if we could process it somehow, we would get more?" Laura suggested as we stood next to the Shop Terminal.

I typed Zeranthian Skymbala into the search bar and there were dozens of hits. I filtered out the clothing and armour which started at ten thousand credits for minor items like hats and gloves, not bothering to look at bigger ones.

"A skein of a hundred meters of yarn costs 300 credits. A square meter of fabric is 2500, " I said.

We both stood there contemplating this in silence for some time.

"This is still a good haul, " Laura said.

I nodded.

"However, I don't know how often we can get more. I don't know how to shear a sheep and I doubt Cloud would like that anyway. "

The strange creature was a mystery. All the other ones I saw were monsters dead set on killing me, so I was somewhat apprehensive about the Skymbala. But where did it come from? Why is it not aggressive?

"Either way, I am glad that it showed up. Tobi seems to enjoy taking care of it," Laura paused, obviously mulling over something. "This apocalypse... Whatever you call it... Tobi hasn't taken it well. "

"I don't think any of us have."

"Yes, but... He is behaving differently. He used to be a typical teenager, you know? Angsty and defiant and trying to act all grown up."

I waited for her to continue, not knowing what to say. Her eyes filled with tears and she wiped them with the sleeve of her shirt.

"It's almost as if he aged back a few years. Like he is a little kid again."

She started crying outright and I pulled her for a hug. She sobbed into my shoulder for a few minutes, trying to keep it quiet so her son wouldn't hear her. Tobi was outside, hanging out with his new pet.

Laura pulled away and chuckled awkwardly through her tears.

"I'm sorry. Your shirt is all wet now. "

"You have nothing to apologize for," I said, squeezing her hand in mine. "I can't imagine how you're feeling. I'm not a mother, but I know it can't be easy. He is your son. You want him to be happy. This is a fucked up situation to raise kids in. "

"All my mom had to worry about when I was 16 was me drinking too much peppermint schnapps at a sleepover, " she laughed again. "I am jealous."

"He will be okay. We will be okay, " I said, trying to pour as much confidence into my voice as possible.

◣━━━━━━━━━━━◢

Despite my hopes, Cloud didn't drop any more wool for us to sell. We figured it would happen at some point, but we had no idea how to encourage him to do it. All we could do was continue to work on the garden and watch the woods for monsters.

For some reason, the lack of activity around the cabin made me nervous. The scene from my first night with the System was burned into my mind. Grizmorph, the monstrous bear thing was still around, I was sure of it.

Another thing that became increasingly obvious was that 1000 square meters wasn't all that large. The space in front of the cabin was already used up with four rows of seven raised beds I've made and planted. The back had the shed, the now-useless generator, and the stacks of firewood that needed replenishing.

The cabin was also getting a bit stuffy with the three of us sleeping in one room without any privacy. The list of things to be tackled kept growing, and I spent an awful amount of time trying to figure out how to start.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

To be fair, I had no prior experience with building projects, especially not housing. In the before times, the biggest project I worked on was building a bookshelf from a cheap mass-produced furniture store. Laura didn't either, given that she and Tobi also lived in an apartment in the city.

"Dee?" Tobi called out to me, bringing me out of my thoughts. I was sitting on the front porch, taking a breather.

"What's up?"

"I was looking through the Shop Terminal and I've found a blueprint for a small sheep barn, enough for two or three sheep," he paused, looking more nervous than usual.

"Okay, " I said, trying to keep him going.

"Cloud needs a shelter and I was thinking we could build him one. This blueprint I found costs 50 credits, and I could help to build it. I looked at the plan and it would even have space for me to stay with him inside." The words came out of him like a waterfall.

"Bleeeeugh, " Cloud added.

"Did you talk to your mother about this?" I asked, ignoring the alien sheep.

"She told me to ask you, as this is your property. "

"That's fair."

I took a moment to mull over his proposal. I wasn't against the idea on principle, but even some back-of-the-napkin math was telling me that this was going to be a serious credit and energy investment. On one hand, I was kinda sick of making the same four raised beds every day for the past week.

We had 28 of them in total, and they were pretty evenly seeded with carrots, beets, beans, peas, zucchini, and onions. We'd have our first harvest of veggies in about five weeks, which was not great, but we would power through with the Snack Packs. We were almost out of real food, having enough for two or three days more.

I sighed and looked at the boy and sheep duo.

"Can you please call your mother over?"

He disappeared inside to call her, leaving me to have a staring contest with the bug-eyed Skymbala.

"What's going on?" Laura asked.

"Tobi asked me about building a small barn for Cloud. "

"I told him that it wasn't my call. This is your property."

"That's true. But this is now your home too," I said. "But I won't be able to build a barn by myself. It would take months at the pace I can work at now. "

"We'll help!" Tobi said enthusiastically.

"I was getting to that, " I said and took a deep breath, preparing myself for what I was going to say next. "We need to get you and Tobi to level 1. "

Laura stared at me like I lost my mind. "Out of the question. "

"I'm the only one who has access to Energy and to System-assisted crafting. We're running out of food and need to make things to sell, if we are going to do this. "

"You're suggesting we get out there and kill monsters. Are you out of your mind?"

"We can do it safely, Mom, " Tobi said, his voice betraying that he wasn't so sure of that.

"You stay out of this, Tobi, " she was getting angrier by the second. I tried to keep myself calm, but it was hard.

"You've already killed some monsters before, " I said.

"Because we had to! We weren't going out of our way to get ourselves killed! "

"Mom, Dee is right. We have to get stronger. "

"I'm not going to put my son in danger!" her voice got a shrieking quality and her hands, balled into fists, were shaking.

I closed my eyes and pinched the bridge of my nose. This was as difficult as I predicted it would be. However, I had to keep my ground on this topic. It was getting increasingly obvious to me that we needed the System to make a difference in this new world. It did get in this mess, but that was done now. Raising our skills and levelling up was the way forward. Otherwise, we will barely scrape by. And we will be royally fucked once the aliens came to mine the Earth's resources.

"Look, just think about it. You need 30 more EXP and Tobi needs 20. That's ten level 1 monsters, " she opened her mouth to protest once again but I cut her off. "We can prepare and take it slowly. We'd stay as close to the cabin as possible. Besides, according to the System description for Rabidashers, we have an infestation on our hands. We will have to do something about that anyway. "

She seemed to deflate somewhat. She glanced at her son, who was absent-mindedly petting the Skymbala on his side.

"We can do it, Mom. We have to, " he said.

"Let me think about it, " she said and walked away behind the cabin. Soon, we heard the sounds of chopping wood. Somehow, the chopping had a distinct angry quality to it.

Tobi, Cloud and I stayed where we were, all of us lost in our thoughts. After less than half an hour later, the chopping sound stopped and Laura returned, a determined look on her face.

"I'm sorry I yelled at you, " she said.

"That's okay. I know what I'm suggesting is crazy, but we don't have much choice. "

"How do you suggest we do this?"

I gave her and Tobi a wild grin. "I've got some ideas."

Name: Diana Mond

Age: 25

Class: Homesteader

Level: 1, 70/200 exp

Strength: 4 (+1)

Constitution: 6

Intelligence: 6

Wisdom: 4

HP: 60/60

Energy: 6/60

Points to distribute: 0