Chapter 16 – Stalker?

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In the past few weeks, I had leveled up my foraging skill and gotten quite a few wild vegetables, mushrooms, berries, fruits, and nuts. However, that was hardly enough food since I would have to provide for myself, three apprentices, the chef, the housekeeper, and five or six maids and assistants.

The only bright spot in all of this was that I had a lot of fish since I went fishing every few days. When it came to fish, at least, I was quite confident that I had enough for everyone.

What could I do? Of course, if push came to shove, I could always ask Shuye to buy food for me, but that would be the last resort for me since I disliked buying things on credit.

I racked my brains for solutions, and came up with an unfortunate conclusion: I would have to give up my pretty little [Ranch House] in order to build a mill.

Nooooo!!!

This was the worst.

Adventure Incarnate, of course, had limitations on the number of buildings a farmer could have based on their farming level.

Watering and weeding only gave a tiny amount of experience, so I had barely leveled up farming

[Player Name: Violet

Farming Skills:

Farming Level 6, Fishing Level 6, Woodcutting Level 6, Cooking Level 1, Herblaw Level 3, Foraging Level 2, Hunting Level 1, Mining Level 1]

In fact, I was only able to unlock the houses because of the reward from the rescue quest. Normally, I would only be able to build a cottage based on my level.

“There’s no helping it,” I said to myself as I once again packed up all my stuff and put it in the main house.

This was the rational choice, but I was sad because I had really set my heart on having my own place. Nevertheless, since I had to choose between food and my own house, it was really no contest at all.

I would choose delicious food every single time!

After all, the courtyard house was pretty nice. I would just have to get used to living with a bunch of people until I leveled up farming and could build another structure.

I spent a lot of time making my new set of rooms comfortable. The northernmost room of the courtyard house was a large, open-plan space, which suited me just fine. Initially, I put the living room furniture from the [Ranch House] in it, but they looked quite out of place and ruined the vibe, so I got Chinese-style chairs and tables instead. However, the one place where I didn't compromise was the bedroom. I put a folding screen between the designated area for the bedroom and living room, and placed the most comfortable bed in the corner farthest away from the door. The bed was Western-style, with a tufted leather headboard and firm mattress. The bedsheets I used were, of course, the most luxurious high thread count cotton sheets from the Cash Shop.

Though, overall, I was satisfied with the room, there was one thing that bothered me. It didn't have a good view. Unlike the [Ranch House] that had a porch where I could hang out while viewing the lovely landscape of the surrounding forest, the courtyard house was built with a totally different philosophy in mind. It was like a mini fortress whose thick and high walls provided the inhabitants with protection from the outside world. Thus, my room, like all the other rooms, only had windows facing the inner courtyard.

Since that was the case, I made sure to prettify the courtyard by adding plenty of decorative greenery from the Cash Shop, mostly treasure plants and colorful carnations.

Preparations complete, I put the [Ranch House] back in the System and placed a [Rice Mill] in its place.

[Rice Mill:

A rice mill is a food processing facility where rice is cleaned, hulled, milled, and polished, creating white rice from paddy rice.]

The mill was a circular building that contained a large, scary-looking steel machine with many moving parts. I peered into the middle part and saw a lot of gears and metal teeth. At one end was a ladder that led to a large container labeled “Place Rice Here.” On its side was a big red button saying “Start/Stop.”

That looked easy enough to operate.

I climbed the ladder and poured three sacks of rice from my inventory into the machine until the container was full. The rice from my inventory couldn’t be used by other people because it was bound to me, but I hoped that processing it would remove the “bound” status from it.

I pressed the start button and waited. And waited. In the game, this would only have taken a few seconds, but the machine made noises, and the gears turned, but no polished rice came out of the other end of it where there was an outlet and a container waiting to receive the finished product.

Since the machine looked like it was working, I went outside to do some woodcutting instead of staring at it. Throughout the rest of the day, I checked the mail to see if it had finished processing the rice, but it only continued to make metallic thrumming noises.

It wasn’t until the next day that it finished milling the three sacks of rice that I had placed inside. That was rather slow, but I was still happy because the resulting product was indeed unbound. With this, I wouldn’t have to worry that we would starve since rice was a staple food in these parts.

The rice and the fish should be good enough as long as I was able to teach the apprentices how to forage.

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If only I had meat, then I would be ecstatic.

I confided my worries to Shuye the next time that he visited, but he seemed unsympathetic.

“Why don’t you just go hunting like you said you would?” he asked me.

“Well…” I wasn’t sure how to explain that I was used to just buying meat in a grocery store. Killing animals to get their meat was a bit of a headache for me, since I wasn’t used to it. Though all I had to do was set a few traps, I felt uneasy at the thought of collecting dead animals.

“You could just buy meat,” he said.

“Never mind, it’s not important,” I said.

I thought that was the end of it, but I was wrong.

The next day, when I stepped out of the gate, I let out a small scream when I saw that there was the corpse of a demon on my doorstep.

The demon lying on the ground was a gruesome sight. Its fur was matted with blood, and its eyes were wide open, staring lifelessly into the distance. Not to mention, its mouth was open in a silent scream, revealing sharp teeth stained with blood, and its claws were outstretched, as if it was reaching for something.

Upon closer inspection, I saw that someone had placed a small piece of paper on the ground beside it, weighed down with a rock. In an elegant script, someone had written, “This is edible.” The note was unsigned.

Edible? This fearsome-looking thing?

I use the System’s Inspect function on it.

[Cow Demon:

A large, horned creature with red eyes and sharp teeth. It is covered in thick, black fur and has a long tail and sharp fangs and teeth.

Its meat is considered quite tasty.]

Well, it all checked out, therefore I put the corpse in my inventory for the Demon Chef to use later. With the size of that thing, it should be enough for us to eat for a long time.

But that wasn’t the end of it. Every few days after that, I woke up to find yet another edible demon corpse in front of the main house’s gate.

On the twelfth day, I left the body there for Shuye to find.

“What? These bodies have been appearing these last twelve days? Why haven’t you said anything?” he asked me.

“Oh, don’t worry. I think he’s just shy,” I said.

Shuye was puzzled. “Who? What are you talking about?”

“You’ll find out,” I said. When Shuye had looked over the demon and confirmed that it was safe to eat, I stored it in my inventory with the others. “I hope he makes an appearance soon.”

Despite the fact that putting dead animals in someone’s front yard was stalker-like behavior, I wasn’t alarmed.

“Who?” Shuye was totally clueless. My bear-like Farm Guide scratched his shaggy head.

“Did you tell anyone that I wanted some meat to eat?” I asked.

“Yes, I told the Prince’s people that you would probably need to buy some meat,” he said.

“I see.”

“You mean…” His eyes widened, and his mouth fell open. Shuye finally understood.

I giggled.