Chương 62: A Farmer In The Woods

Mark woke early today; he had a lot of things on his mind and many things to figure out. The most important thing was to help this new family adjust to their new reality. The second biggest is he needs to really look at his new class and figure out what he can and should do with it. Dale was already up cooking when he came out to the fire. They greeted each other, and Mark sat down at the table and brought up his new class screen.

Current Active Growth Opportunities: Expand maintained pathways • Improve settlement infrastructure • Increase regional connectivity • Support settlement specialization • Stabilize frontier territory He had already planned to expand the pathways, as there were many trails they had made over the last month but not so many true pathways. Infrastructure he was going to need to think about how/what he wanted to work on. Maybe look into what the next upgrade for their outpost was and start to work on that.

Also, Cave Camp had asked him to come and manage their outpost, and that definitely would need infrastructure, as the group that formed it had focused on the cave runs only. Settlement specialization really piqued his interest. Lakeside, their main things were fishing, the smokehouse and preserved meats, and the chickens and goats. But Forest's Rest had a few people and interests but no specialization. And lastly, stabilize the frontier? Did that mean he would run around picking up new people?

Or would that be putting out metaphorical fires? That one he would need to think about. Before he could think further, Finn came out of his a-frame. He was the son of the other two people Mark had found last night. Mark told him to pull up a chair and eat some breakfast and said that when his parents were up, they could talk in more detail.

While they were waiting, Ava got up and gave a puzzling look at the new person and told Mark that yesterday she had tracked an Irontusk Boar and that she was going to find and kill it today. She grabbed some food from Dale for herself and Bramble and left camp. Tom joined the group a little after Ava left and looked at the new guy and said.

"Hello, do we have another visitor from Lakeside?" Mark replied.

"No, Finn and his parents first day was yesterday; I rescued them south of here. I received an alert message from my new class and went and found them."

"You leveled up and got your class; congrats. I am getting really close to the level; it will most likely be today." The camp seemed to have made enough noise, and Elias and Mara joined them at the table for breakfast. They went through introductions first. Mark, Dale, and Tom all introduced themselves. And Mark told them about the other members of this outpost along with Cora, who is frequently around.

He then explained to them how to bring up the settlement interface and settlement map so they would know where they were and save paths to follow in the area. The family then introduced themselves. Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere. Elias the father is a farmer, or well, rather, was a farmer yesterday. He was a row crop farmer on a really large farm. They also raised other animals for personal use, like pigs and chickens.

He said and told them he enjoyed fixing things around his farm when not doing the actual farm work. Mara, the wife and mother, took care of the home, including food preservation from her garden and dairy work from her milk cows, along with cooking. Finn, their son, was preparing to go to college soon but when home helped around the farm, doing fencing, animal handling, helping his mother in the garden, and other general labor around the farm.

Mark, Dale, and Tom explained to them the rough time they each had in their first month in this world. They wanted to share things to make the new family's life easier and maybe quicker to adjust to than they had without help. They explained classes, inventory, and leveling, as the whole family were all level 1 still. They explained the new things they had learned over the last few days about the outpost and the ability to work for outpost improvements and that they could and would get XP.

They also told them about fighting and leveling up, doing that also if they were interested. The family were extremely overwhelmed with this information but were extremely grateful for their rescue. Last night they were near the point that they would not have survived without the timely rescue Mark did. Dale then spoke to them about classes and explained his Survival Chef class.

He explained that formal classes are not offered until level 8 but that their actions between now and then would influence the choices of class they could take. It was late afternoon by the time all of the discussions had ended and Mark was about to take them around to see the things in the general facility when Ava came back into camp. She had a huge smile on her face and her arms were full. In her arms were 3 baby pigs. Mark identified one and found it was an irontusk boar piglet.

Then, to his surprise bramble walked up and dropped another one on the ground at Ava's feet. He did not look happy at his having to pack the thing back. Ava explained to them about her hunt; it took hours to track it down and corner it. She killed the large iron-tusked boar. While looting it, she had heard the little piglets squealing. She told them how her bird wanted to eat them and she had to convince it to back off. Ava said.

"Mark, they were just so, so cute. I could not kill them or leave them to die." Dale spoke.

"Those things are murder pigs. One chased me a few days back. They are anything but cute." Ava replied.

"They are just babies and so cute. I used my Beast Tamer class and was able to calm them and make them stop running around. I am keeping them, and you can't stop me." Tom just started laughing at the situation. Finn and Elias just looked at the piglets in fascination. Then Mara spoke up.

"They are just babies. They were taken so little; they have the potential to be domesticated breeding stock. We had pigs on our farm. They were great for disposing of the trash and leftover slop, and oh, you can never turn down bacon." Ava replied in disgust.

"You're not eating my babies." Finn then replied with a smirk.

"No, we won't eat the babies; we will let them grow up first." Ava looked at Finn.

"Who is this guy anyway he is not going to be eating my babies." That caused a round of laughs from everyone. Then the discussion turned to what they would need to raise and care for them. The new family gave them requirements to care for them. How to feed them if they were not yet eating solid food? What type of pen they would need. What type of covering so they had shade and protection from weather? Mark just smiled.

Even though those things were dangerous, they gave the new family a direction and purpose that had already pulled them out of their funk of having been dumped in an unknown world. This would give them a reason to level up by building the pen and then taking care of them. The first real hurdle of his day had been solved. Ava agreed to watch the murder pigs, as Dale called them, until the family and Mark could gather the wood and other items they would need to build the cage and shelter for them.