Chương 46: Merlotus/June Pt 1

Month of Merlotus (June) Days 53-83 The first two weeks of Merlotus were pretty similar to Mai. Colin and I finished building our corral for Gerald. It was a sturdy thing built with fourteen-foot pole logs two feet thick stuck six feet in the ground with a full eight feet above ground. The breed of goats we had could jump up to six feet in the air so the eight foot height wasn't just overkill. We placed those poles every eight feet.

We then ran three strands of two by twelve boards that we'd cut out of the extra trees we brought back from the forest with the tractor. We used nails we bought from the blacksmith that were every bit as good as the mass-produced ones I could get on Earth. Making nails was a basic class perk that most frontier blacksmiths took because it made good money with very little material needed.

We also bought a proper gate from a Craftsman and it was so great that it made me decide to spend more gold to buy a proper gate for the garden as well. Our wire one worked well enough, but it was a pain in the rear for Emily to use it, so I deemed it a wise expenditure. But honestly, June felt a lot like a waiting month for the three of us. On July 4th, or Arturos 4th as this world called it, Colin would turn sixteen, and the three of us would go into town to get his classes.

The weekend of July 5th and 6th was when I'd have my militia duty. I would head into town with them for the ceremony, then they'd stay in the inn that night and head home on the 5th. July was also when a lot of our veggies would begin to ripen, and the last of the early spring veggies would need to be pickled for the winter. That magnificent patch of blackberry bushes on the other side of the river would ripen around then, and we'd have jam to make.

The sweet corn that Emily had planted would be ready to pick then as well. I'd actually had a good ten-year period as a young adult where I could barely handle eating sweet corn because we always had so much of it. My dad would plant an entire acre of a few different varieties that ripened at different rates at the end of one of the potato fields so we would have sweet corn all summer long. I ate so much of it I just got sick of it.

My dad and brothers never tired of it, but at least it never got to grape jelly level bad where I couldn't even stand the smell of it. We had a huge wall of concord grapes on the farm that my great-great grandmother had planted that put out an unreal amount of grapes every summer.

My grandmother and mom would make jelly out of it and despite me not caring for it, my mom refused to buy any other jams or jellies until I was a teenager and just refused to eat any more peanut butter and jelly sandwiches until I got strawberry or raspberry jam. I still shudder even thinking about grape jelly... Hopefully, we would make enough money this fall to make sure that we didn't have to eat one food so often that I grew sick and tired of it!

After I watered the corn and potatoes at the end of the second week, Emily and I decided Colin needed one last hunting trip before he got his class, and I was free enough to take a few days off from the homestead and we could have a proper hunt. It wouldn't hurt to get an extra kill in before he took his class. As my own class had proven, you got credit for XP earned before you got your levels. Colin had been complaining for almost two months that he wasn't seeing any sign of deer on this side of the river.

He wanted to go to the other side to see if he could find anything, but his mother was steadfastly against that now that they weren't in danger of starving if he didn't find something to kill. I found it hard to truly be afraid of the fantastical creatures they claimed could be out there because I'd never seen them myself. Aside from the System stuff I hadn't seen a whole lot of anything fantastical in this world so far.

I had to admit that was probably a net positive considering the alternative of having to survive in a grimdark world where I had to kill or be killed. But, once I told Colin I'd go with him, Emily agreed to let him go. We decided we'd make our way to the foothills proper and camp there for a night while we looked around for any deer to hunt. If we managed to find an elk we would consider killing it too, but it would be hard to bring enough of the meat back to justify that.

Our Bhealtaine bonus was long gone, and while I was feeling like I was in great shape, I was still a long way from packing back a thousand pounds of meat. If we didn't find a deer, and didn't find anything concerning in the foothills, we would make the trek closer to the Barrier Mountains fifteen miles to our west. Emily wasn't a big fan of this plan, but I wanted to see what things looked like on the other side of the river.

Day 66 Dydd Sadwrn Merlotus 14th (Saturday, June 14th) We set off for the foothills right after we got the chores done and ate a good breakfast. We packed venison jerky, a couple of loaves of bread, beans and salt pork, a single pot, a bowl and spork apiece, and a couple of water skins each. We also brought our rifles and twenty-five cartridges and caps each. If we needed more ammunition than that we had bigger issues than what a few more rounds would afford us.

I also brought my enchanted axe and Colin had his big hunting knife. We also each brought a single change of clothes, but all of our extra socks just in case. Keeping your feet dry is a lifesaver after all. Lastly, we had our bedrolls to sleep in while we were out. My pack was considerably heavier than Colin's since I could handle it. He kept some jerky and his waterskin and spare clothes just in case we somehow got separated, but otherwise I took the rest of the bigger items. This text was taken from Royal Road.

Help the author by reading the original version there. We crossed the log to the other side and checked out the blackberry patch. Some of the earliest ripening fruit was ready to eat, so we spent a few minutes and picked ourselves a sweet snack before continuing on and entering into unknown territory for me. I couldn't help but grin widely as I felt like I was on my first real adventure in this new world. I was basically a mountain man now haha.

Colin and I made a little small talk, but we were mostly silent as we walked through the grasslands that met us when we made it past the trees on the riverbank. Looking in the distance I could see trees about two miles ahead of us before the land started to rise another mile past that. The first trees I was seeing were deciduous. They looked like oaks and maples for the most part. There were plenty of birds in the sky, as well as plenty of small animals like squirrels, but we didn't see any sign of anything larger.

When we hit the tree line, the oak and maple trees towered over us a hundred feet or more. This time of year the leaves of the canopy were green. I could see acorns and the twirly seeds of the maple trees above us, both still green as well. As we moved forward Colin finally said, "Well, it hasn't been too long since there were spark elk in the area. You see those black marks about eye level with you?" As he pointed I could see what he meant.

The bark on several trees around us looked like it had been hit with a small bolt of electricity. I nodded.

"That must be where they rub their horns?"

"Yeah," Colin agreed.

"They really like to rub their horns against trees to let off discharge if it gets too much. They instinctively know to only do it with large, older trees that are healthy so they don't burn things down around them."

"Makes sense," I said.

"These marks still have soot spots that rub away." Colin showed me his fingers after rubbing one of the black spots to give proof to his words.

"That means it hasn't been more than a couple of weeks since they were around here."

"Any sign of deer tracks yet?" I asked. He just shook his head. After looking around a bit longer, we began moving forward again. We sort of meandered as Colin looked for signs of large game. He finally did find some deer scat that was also a couple of weeks old once we hit the foothills themselves, but nothing newer.

I had to admit to being a novice in the woods, but we were still hearing plenty of birds and small forest animals, so I wasn't too worried even if Colin was clearly beginning to show signs of frustration. Just to be sure I did ask him about it though.

"If there's anything we need to worry about the forest will get quiet, right?" He shook his head.

"Where did you hear that? The forest almost never goes completely silent. The squirrels will stop chattering, and it will definitely get quieter if there are wolves or bears around, but often they'll do more chattering to warn their friends about the danger. Birds can get even louder when there are predators around."

"Huh, I guess that was just from horror stories or something. I feel stupid now." I laughed at myself. Colin smiled and shook his head, then continued on. Lunchtime found us a little over four miles past the river. The area had been completely grey on my UI when I arrived, but the small area we had wandered around now showed up on my map. The fog of war-like function of the map was just like many strategy games I'd played growing up.

You couldn't see areas you hadn't explored yet, but once you moved a unit into it the fog receded and you could see the area. We really had meandered around too. Where we were, the maple trees grew closely together. Those areas were dark and difficult to traverse. The oak trees on the other hand had plenty of space around them, even leaving rings of sunlight to filter down since they had gaps between other trees. Luckily the terrain was otherwise pretty easy to navigate. The elevation change was gradual.

We ate some jerky and bread while we sat on some large roots that provided a spot to sit off the forest floor. As soon as Colin scarfed his food down he spoke up again.

"I really don't like how we haven't seen anything large yet." I nodded and took a swig of water to help wash down the jerky before replying.

"I know, you keep saying that. I have to defer to your expertise here. You haven't seen any alarming tracks either though, right?"

"That's not necessarily good either." He pointed around himself.

"I told you there are a bunch of wolves too. I know we're only a few miles in, but this isn't too much farther than I used to go and I saw wolves this far in the last couple of years. I don't see any fresh wolf tracks either."

"So do we keep going farther in?" I asked, deferring to his expertise. He pursed his lips in a subconscious imitation of his mother and nodded.

"Yeah, I don't see why not." Wiping my hands on my pants to rid them of any remaining crumbs, I said.

"Good enough for me." We traveled forward until we were seven miles in, halfway to what was considered the Barrier Mountains proper, when the elevation would begin to sharply rise. At that point it was around 3PM and we decided that was far enough in for the day. That was also where the trees switched to a mix of mostly pine and fir and the going got a lot slower. We decided we would begin moving north and south to look for more tracks that were still frustratingly absent.

We did that until 7: 30PM when the already shadowy area got dark rapidly as the sun moved behind the mountains. We found a flat-topped boulder that stuck twelve feet off the ground that wasn't too difficult to climb onto that had a thick layer of pine needles that made a perfect spot to lay our bedrolls. We decided against a fire since the temperature was comfortable and we didn't want to have a smoke trail for the animals that we still hadn't seen. Not one sighting of anything larger than a weasel or stoat.

There were plenty of birds and squirrels still, so we weren't dealing with an ecological catastrophe or anything, but it was still beginning to become eerie. Colin's mood was as dark as the surrounding terrain. We were a long way from any other humans, and couldn't see any signs of civilization from where we were.