Chương 5

Work worth of what felt like hours to Sobelle passed by in a blur of splashing water and constant running. It had taken her far longer than she expected to get tired, but she eventually did. Sobelle wiped the sweat off her brow and deeply exhaled. She placed the empty bucket next to the short table's legs and grinned at the woman, the work had exhausted her and gave her an insight to just how much work she needed to do before her body felt tired.

"Eight buckets to fill three vases with spring water, I'm done now right?"

'Wait, but what if I start the day off without being tired? I can definitely do more than just carry eight buckets back and forth across great distances.' With this in mind—and the logic did sound reasonable to Sobelle— she technically hadn't figured out her true potential. [+1 Wisdom!] The Gods had agreed with how Sobelle assessed herself and rewarded her for her brilliance. She saw it as a good omen and a great end to testing her new blessing, which was practically amazing.

Anyone in her size and position would be unable to walk after all the work she just did but Sobelle? She did it nigh effortlessly.

"I doubted you at first but when I saw you bring in the fifth bucket? I couldn't help but cheer for you, even when I didn't believe you'd get all eight." The woman opened a jar and took out three Levs, which she handed to Sobelle.

"Get yourself something nice, Gods knows you won't be able to once you're wed. It's a busy life~""Thanks! I will!" Sobelle giggled at the teasing but didn't take it to heart. While it was admirable to give birth to healthy children and raise the next generation, she wanted to be a knight! And that dream would be impossible if she were to be stuck all day raising children. She left the house feeling tired, yes, but also refreshed.

She had earned her first Levs and the Gods had rewarded her with another stat on top of her blessing, her day couldn't have gone any better! Now all that was left was for her to go out into the forest and forage for food. Sobelle grabbed the basket she had left earlier and went beyond the trail. Out here, plants and shrubbery grew abundant, boots were highly recommended for those who dared traverse it. Sobelle did not have the luxury of owning boots, but she was blessed so how bad could it be?

She could power through heavy physical work, grazed skin from plants and bite makes from insects were nothing!... What Sobelle believed about the forest and foraging proved to be wrong after only a few minutes. She did not know how her sisters or brothers managed to grit their teeth and ignore all the things that happened to them while they moved along thick underbrush and searched for food items at the same time. Foraging sounded simple when people talked about it yet the process was anything but.

Sobelle huffed in annoyance when she accidentally crashed against another web. She reached for the crawling sensation in her forearm and crushed the spider in her palm right then and there. She didn't bother throwing it this time, she only wanted to kill it. She reached for a tree bark and wiped off the spider's entrails. Her eyes went to the sky, to be more specific, she glared at the sun.

The trees in this forest were sparse, they grew far apart from each other, thus most of the forest was exposed to the sunlight rather than being kept from it.

"AGH!" Sobelle screamed, frustrated that something mistook her curly brown hair for another shrub. She grabbed the damned insect, threw it at the ground, and crushed it underfoot. The unfortunate beetle was the color of the night and had a pair of serrated mandibles so large they looked like they could cut through flesh. The sun hit her constantly, insects nipped at her skin, and the forest itself fought to keep her out. How could anyone search for anything in such conditions?

The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there. And all of this happened before Sobelle could even find ONE food item. She hadn't spotted a mushroom or anything. Not even a fruit in the tree tops caught her eye. Sobelle wanted to give up, and she would have if the Gods hadn't intervened. [Foraging is a hard skill to do, but it can be easy to learn. When foraging, it is vital to ask yourself these questions: Where do mushrooms grow? What kind of Trees grow fruits and is it their season? Do animals know how to forage? Do I know the smell of an animal? Can I do things that animals couldn't? Like reaching higher places? And so on. The forest is alive, and everything exists for a reason. Find them.] Just in the nick of time, the Gods had chosen to pity her and they guided her to the solution. If she was so intelligent, how come she hadn't gone to such conclusions?

It was such a simple task and yet she failed so hard that the Gods chose to advise her. Sobelle silently thanked the Gods then swiftly followed their advice. She noticed that they hadn't told her how to navigate the forest and believed that it was her job to do that. They didn't intend to make foraging easy for her, they just wanted to point her in the right direction. Which was exactly how Sobelle wanted it to be, she didn't want to be coddled so this felt perfect.

She bore through the annoyance of being in a forest and followed the Gods' word of advice. Sobelle asked herself where mushrooms grew and all her memories were mostly composed of seeing caps within wet areas, so in wet places? Under shade? Mushrooms grow plenty when it rains so her idea had merit, however, Sobelle couldn't help but think that she missed something. Did... Mushrooms grow in cold areas? A mixture of both?

'Fallen logs have plenty of mushrooms inside of them, and they are damp and cool. So that must be it.' Sobelle tested her guess by going to places she believed were cold and damp; fallen logs, the shade of trees, wet rocks, river banks, between stones, under rocks, and within bushes. Among them, she found out that for some strange reason, mushrooms hadn't grown near rivers or rocks but were abundant in places with trees and plant life. It made sense, mushrooms were plants and so grew in places that they populated.

It was basic logic. However, some rocks had moss in them, and some moss had mushrooms. Small ones, yes, but mushrooms all the same.

'It didn't make sense. Unless the mushrooms needed a lot of plants before they could grow? Is that why the mushrooms that grew in moss were small?' So mushrooms needed plants! That was the final thread she missed; damp, cool areas with plenty of plants was where the mushrooms grew! Sobelle didn't know if her parents knew this but for her? It was new information and she was excited to use it!

She ran around and searched for areas that possessed the traits mushrooms needed to grow and found herself seeing plenty of them. After a while, she managed to get a quarter of the basket full with just mushrooms alone. At the same time, she also got bit by bugs so she didn't just gather mushrooms, bug bites were part of it too. Sobelle didn't care however, she was just excited to finally get her hands on something edible.

Now it was time for her to search the canopies for fruits, the Gods told her the secrets of finding them and they were never wrong so Sobelle thought long and hard to answer her self directed questions despite her doubting that fruits needed to be in season.

'What kind of trees grew fruits?' Sobelle had no clue how to answer that question, as all the trees looked the same to her. She knew that fruits came from trees, but apparently there were different types of trees and they all produced different fruits and if the Gods said there were, then this must be the case. So which tree grew fruits? Sobelle looked at the canopy long enough that a bug landed on her face. She slapped it off her cheek and used the hem of her shirt to wipe its juices off.

Her mind clicked once her nose picked up the tangy, rotting smell of the dead bug. She had found a solution. Bugs ate fruits, and Sobelle knew the smell of some of them. Actually, a few bugs smelled so bad that you'd notice their scent from far away, and these same bugs often gathered around fruits her mother ripened, this was how their scent ingrained itself to Sobelle's brain.

'Fighting off those bugs was annoying but it was worth it.' Sobelle went around the forest until her nose picked up the smell those stupid bugs let off. She then ran around the vicinity of the smell, if the smell disappeared, then it meant that she was far from the bug. If it came back, she was close. Sobelle used this method to pinpoint the location of the bug and she came upon a scene that made her hair rise and goosebumps to grow on her skin. On the dead tree in front of her, countless bugs gathered.

The swarm writhed and moved as though they were one entity, and the smell they let off was so strong that Sobelle had to physically stay away from them. But they were a clue, and Sobelle used this clue to the best of her ability. She looked at the nearby trees and soon found herself standing at the base of one, this tree had dark brown bark and leaves of gold, and next to these leaves was a spiky fruit that had tough yellow skin.