Chapter 34 The calm

Winter was rapidly approaching. For the past few weeks, the sounds of wood being sawed and hammered were the only things I could hear. Preparing for winter required expanding our home and creating a barn for the animals. The bees mostly take care of winter preparation themselves. If winter drags on, I might have to give them some sugar cakes to outlast the entire thing, but that wouldn’t be for months.

Winding down and preparing for winter, my experience slowed to a crawl. There were some people who focused on making seeds that could grow in winter, and it was a good idea for the future, but currently, it wasn’t something I was worried about. There was too much to do this first winter; my first children would be born during it, we could still cut back the forest another few hundred feet, and I could dig up the stumps in preparation for expanding the fields even further in the future.

Turning plants into seeds wasn’t that difficult; most did so automatically when they sensed it was getting cold. Some plants just needed to be left out without being consumed, and some had the seeds already inside the fruit or vegetables waiting to be pulled out to grow next year. It wasn’t worth sorting the different quality seeds besides the rare or higher ones, I wouldn’t get much use out of them myself anyway.

Someone who couldn’t produce higher-quality fruits and vegetables would get much more out of the higher-quality seeds than I would. Heirloom might have been an epic modifier, but the chances of seeds retaining the produce rank weren’t one hundred percent; it wasn’t even fifty percent. So it stalled out at rare, at least that’s where I would put that modifier, unless I had someone scan my skills(which I never would purposely), I wouldn’t know what rarity my modifiers were, and I mostly guessed.

The reason was simple: the fewer people who knew about my symbiotic enduring bond, the better. Symbiotic was easily epic, but I also thought enduring was high up there as well. It was a one-in-a-thousand chance for double modifiers, and I had two separate skills with them now. Luck had to play a huge part, from what I understood, mine was far higher than normal.

Without my wives’ bonuses, luck was my highest stat. It seemed to go up even faster with every wife I collected. The universe knew how lucky I truly was and rewarded me so. That being said, the chances were most likely much better to get a higher rank or multiple modifiers because of my luck. Most common classes didn’t score above one in luck, which just went to show what having three meant; it was well above most, even some rare rank classes wouldn’t compare to my luck.

That had to play a part in why women flocked to me, right? Either way, I needed to go sell some herbs to the local alchemist for far under what they’re worth because they’re only of common quality. I wasn’t sure if spending that much to grow herbs would ever pay off at this point, but it was something out of the ordinary to work on in my downtime.

…

Sarah’s Point of View

“No way! They already have more bundles ready?” I looked at the handful of luxury bundles left to sell as I followed the source back to where it came from. It was a tedious process, but the boost in leveling speed was well worth it. Even now, they were flying off the shelves like hotcakes. I made small talk with the salesman, and in the process, two more bundles were sold. It wouldn’t even take the rest of the day for them to completely sell out, I did the math in my head, increased the number by ten for ones that sold outside the village, and… Holy fucking crapbaskets, the person I was headed towards was a rich little fucker.

What was I really signing myself up for? Was I headed to some wacky scientist, was it even a man? I wasn’t sure, I just knew I needed to get to the bottom of it for the sake of my class. I was getting more lecherous looks from the passersby. It wasn’t the first time, but the number was certainly higher than in a normal village. The men also looked… Rugged, if I was being kind, but I wasn’t, so they looked like bandits.

I made my way out of the village and right off the road, waiting for men to follow me out. As I did so, expecting them to appear, they didn’t. That didn’t make me feel better, it made me even more wary. My mind began to piece things together as I thought about what that meant for the person who was creating these luxury bundles. They might be here looking for him.

…

Bandit Leader’s Point of View

It was time. Soon our plan would take place as we all began to move. The distraction needed to take place, but most of it is real. We were really leaving behind the worst members of our bandit group to start a fight here in this town, right next to the village we were going to invade. Finally, I would have my revenge on Marcus.

I could take what was mine. “Boss!” A bandit came running in, he was out of breath as he did so. “The bandits burned down another house. We can’t keep them reined in any longer, they’z about to freak out and raze the city to the groundz.” I thought about it before including it in the plan.

“We’ll have them wait a few hours, then they really should burn this place to the ground.” I felt my insides churn at the thought of taking what was mine from him.

…

A man ran into the village, covered in blood, holding a crippled arm. He yelled out. “H-help! Bandits in t-the connecting village.” The man could barely get his sentence out before the mayor was out of his house and in front of him. “Explain further.” Slowly over the course of a conversation, the truth came to pass. The sheriff rounded up two dozen of the more able-bodied men before heading off toward the village.

The large crowd drew most of the attention of the villagers, including the new arrivals to the village. Sarah hadn’t talked to more than two people about where she could meet the bundle creator before all that happened. She didn’t realize the man she was looking for had also entered despite all the commotion. The bandit plan didn’t hold up under any scrutiny, it was a good thing no bandits really thought about it, because it served another purpose. Splitting the forces so that the village was easier to conquer.