The rain continued on for the rest of the night, leaving Sylphy and Brock to stay the night in one of the unused houses. Although they were uncertain how they felt spending the night within an awakened land, the fact of the matter was that they had not come properly prepared for the weather. If they went outside to set up their camp, it was very likely that they could just end up getting sick. Better to stay in a comfortable home with regulated temperatures and soft beds…

  When dawn broke, there was a knock on the door that broke the two from their slumber. Brock was briefly astounded because he had always prided himself on being a light sleeper, but had failed to keep himself from completely drifting off after laying down in the bed.

  As for Sylphy, she simply groaned, moving down to the first floor to open the door, wearing the linens that she wore beneath her armor. Standing outside, Prim had a pot full of stew, smiling at the duo. “I hope you don’t mind, but I made some breakfast.”

  “Free food…?” Sylphy muttered under her breath, her stomach immediately winning any mental debate she might have. She stepped aside, allowing Prim inside.

  “It’s not much, just something made with the appas and barnas grown on our trees. Once we’re able to produce wheat or other food items, we will have a lot more options with cooking. That or when we get the tavern, but that one is a bit tricky…”

  “Why’s that tricky?” Sylphy asked, confused, as she went to grab three bowls and set the table.

  “Well, in order to be able to get it, we would need a stable supply of guests. If the two of you stayed here every night, we would be able to build it in six more days, less if others arrived. And once it’s built, it consumes money to purchase automatically prepared food and drink. However, that money is consumed directly by the tavern, and likely won’t be able to be brought back into circulation. There might be some solution for that later but, as I said last night, we’re still learning these things ourselves.”

  Sylphy nodded her head slowly, sitting down as Brock descended the stairs, smelling the food. “And you don’t have any way to bring in money from outside?” he asked, having heard their conversation from above. The house was rather small, so it was hard to miss such things. “Why don’t you go to the nearby cities to sell your produce? You could make a fair bit of money just doing that, right?”

  Prim put on a rather complicated expression, glancing towards the east again. “Unfortunately, due to my circumstances, I’m unable to leave the Land. Moreover, I’m worried that we may crash the local markets due to the scale of our trees’ production. The appa tree produces five bushels of appas, and resets every day, with the barna tree not far behind that.”

  “And you don’t have any source of meat or anything, so all you have are those right now,” Sylphy pointed out. “Though, it takes a few days to walk between here and either Leonin or Corvath. Even if you had a dedicated merchant doing round trips, they’d only be able to make deliveries once a week.”

  Brock nodded his head in agreement, crunching the numbers in his head. “You might be able to make twenty thousand gol a day with those outputs. Though, obviously you won’t make as much if you need to eat some of the products yourself. But that would be more than enough for you to buy meat and other necessities from nearby towns.”

  “That’s only if we managed to partner with a decent merchant, who would also be taking a share of the profits,” Prim pointed out. “I believe that, as the land develops, there will be more wonderful things that can be exported. If we simply spend all day harvesting from the trees, we would only make a small amount of short-term profit…”

  After saying that, Prim’s voice trailed off, her eyes narrowing to the east. “Something the matter?” Brock asked, but Prim quickly lifted a hand to silence him. When she spoke again, it was in a hushed tone.

  “You two are adventurers, correct? If you are out here, you must be confident in dealing with any local monsters?” When the two heard that, their faces immediately turned serious.

  “Did you notice something?” Sylphy asked, mimicking Prim’s quiet tone.

  “Ten goblins just stepped onto the territory on the north-east side. Two of them are riding black, mangy canines.”

  Hearing this, Prim and Brock hesitated. Alone, goblins were only D-rank, nothing to worry about. A well-trained man could easily defeat one. However, when they grouped up, they became more difficult to deal with. Not to mention that there were two goblin riders among the group.

  Their first instinct was to sneak away, as they were unlikely to come away from such a fight without some level of injuries. However, Sylphy looked at Prim, remembering that she said that she was unable to leave this patch of Land. If they left, they would be leaving Prim to die.

  Without saying anything, she stood up, walking towards the stairs. “Get ready, Brock,” she said, her voice filled with conviction.

  Brock let out a small sigh, moving towards the stairs as well. He knew what Sylphy meant, but he wasn’t about to stop her. Normally, killing a few goblins like this would earn a half-decent reward, but Prim clearly had nothing to offer them in exchange. “Consider this payment for the place to sleep,” he said, scratching his cheek as he went to arm himself.

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  Outside, the goblins were slowly advancing, their hounds sniffing at the grass. They were following the trail of one of their own that had been abducted a few days prior, which had led them here. In the distance, they could see a small settlement, and their rage grew, already assuming that these were the ones that had killed their kin.

  One of the dogs suddenly perked its ears up, hearing a faint voice in the distance. It was naturally not smart enough to make sense of the words, but it could feel a tremble of magical energy. It growled to signal its rider, who immediately pulled out its spear.

  “Wind arrow,” Sylphy’s voice cut through the open air, her figure stepping out from behind one of the buildings. Five magic circles appeared around her body, and then condensed into one, shooting a glowing arrow at the goblin rider. It let out a screech as it was pierced through the chest, sending its fellows into a rage.

  They charged forward, spears and clubs at the ready, but another figure emerged behind Sylphy, wielding a hammer and a large shield. “Rampart!” With Brock’s shout, he slammed the shield into the ground. Unlike Sylphy’s display, there were no magic circles, but a wall of stone arose between them and the goblins, halting their momentum.

  Just as the goblins were starting to split up to circle the wall, Sylphy’s figure dashed over it, her feet seeming to walk on air. She held a short sword in one hand, her expression solemn. “Wind arrow!” Another collection of circles gathered to shoot out a second arrow, this one targeting the now-lonely wolf.

  Several goblins retreated from the fallen canine on sheer instinct, allowing her to land in between them. Of course, their fear was short-lived, once again replaced with anger that had them charging forward. Sylphy spun, one foot lifted in the air to knock aside a pair of clubs as her sword cut at two spears aimed for her body. “Do it, Brock!” she shouted, jumping away from the stone wall and crossing her arms over her face.

  “Stone Shatter!” Brock’s voice rang out, striking the hammer against the stone wall. Immediately, the wall shattered, sending shards of stone flying out in the direction of the goblins. A few unlucky ones were killed outright, but all of them took some damage from this attack. Even Sylphy had a few rock shards embedded in her body, despite jumping away before the attack.

  While the goblins were reeling from the attack, the duo swept in to quickly finish them off. As soon as the last goblin died, Prim rushed out in alarm, looking at Sylphy. “Are you alright? Why would you use a tactic like that if you know that you’ll get hurt?”

  Sylphy grinned through the pain, pulling the rock shards out of her before retrieving a potion from her satchel. “It’s the safest way to deal with a group like that. If we had a more narrow space, we could just shatter the wall and attack like that, but in an open area like this, we need someone to act as bait to prevent the enemies from going around while Brock gets his hammer ready.”

  Brock grunted, pulling out a knife to retrieve the magic stones of the twelve monsters. “It’s barely worth the cost of the health potion, though. I’d rather fight a single enemy, even if they’re stronger.”

  Prim sighed softly, before her warm smile returned to her face. “Well, either way, I believe the two of you deserve a reward. Though, I’m not sure if you could really call this a reward.”

  Prim lifted her hand, and the space immediately beside Brock seemed to shimmer. Stone and wood materialized into the frame of a large building, ten meters wide and twenty long. This building had three floors, with the door appearing directly next to Brock himself.

  Sylphy stared at the building, blinking in confusion. “I thought you said that it would take another week of us staying here for you to be able to build the tavern?”

  However, Prim kept that same smile. “Another way to gain power is to kill monsters on the Land. Since these kills were done within the Land’s borders, there is now just enough energy saved up to make the tavern.”

  Brock and Sylphy looked at each other, unsure what to do. While they were tempted to explore the tavern, they had just eaten. Granted, what they had eaten was just a small stew, so that was hardly a full meal. “Let me finish getting the stones and clean up,” Brock said. “Sylphy… you can go on first.”

  “You sure?” she asked, eyes wide.

  “Yeah, yeah. You’re the one that’s always getting injured for this attack plan, so let me handle the cleanup.” Brock smiled as he said this, ushering her inside.

  Sylphy quickly nodded her head, following Prim into the tavern. There were a dozen tables, each with four chairs placed around them. At the far end of the building was a long counter, though there was nobody standing behind it. “So, how do we do this?”

  “I’m not sure myself. You try sitting at the table, and I’ll approach the counter. If anything happens for either of us, we’ll let the other know,” Prim offered, moving towards the counter.

  Sylphy hesitated, but soon moved to sit down. As soon as she did, a translucent window appeared in front of her face, startling her. She had seen such windows on numerous occasions, typically during appraisals. However, this one seemed to be an assortment of meal options, many of which she found unfamiliar. “Macaroni? Chicken and dumplings? And what are these drinks…?”

  “I’ll just take the dumplings, with macaroni as a side, and this ‘grape soda’?” she muttered, pointing at each option as it appeared, the price displaying in front of her. “Eighteen hundred gol? I mean, that’s not too bad for a restaurant. Though, I’m not sure what to expect out of a tavern.”

  As she said this, she reached into her satchel to pull out a gold coin, which promptly disappeared. In its place, eight large silver coins and two small ones fell into her hand, making her fumble to catch them. By the time she caught them and put them away, she saw that a large plate had appeared in front of her, full of steaming food. A large portion of meat and dumplings covered with creamy white sauce, a cheesy pasta dish, and a bowl of fruits she was unfamiliar with. Then, beside the dish was a tall glass of dark liquid that bubbled ominously.

  Sylphy reached out with a shaking hand to take the glass, bringing it up to her lips to drink. As soon as the fizzy soda hit her tongue, her eyes widened in shock. She had to stop herself from dropping the entire glass, afraid she’d spill it. Instead, she tilted it back, quickly drinking the entire thing.

  With a happy sigh, she slammed the empty glass down on the table, her eyes closed as if she had just enjoyed a hearty ale. “That’s good!” she said, before opening her eyes to find, to her surprise, that the glass had completely refilled itself. “What?!”

  “It seems that there are free refills on carbonated beverages,” Prim said with mild amusement as Brock pushed the door open, his hands still bloodied from collecting the magic stones.

  “What’s wrong?! I heard screaming.” He looked at the two, seeing Sylphy’s table of food and the strange drink, as well as Prim’s amused expression.

  Sylphy slowly turned her head to look at Brock, her eyes wide. “Brock… we’re moving to this village.”