Homesteading in a fantasy world

As soon as the speaker finished speaking, my heart finally relaxed. Risking my life like this was nerve-wracking, and I honestly just wanted to break. Now that I was once again a free man, I was going to get the fuck out of this madhouse.

Absolutely everything here was annoying, from the 7 people who could snuff me out with a single finger to the annoying people who think if you aren't wearing clothes with gold embroidery, you are somehow lesser. The discussion around this room was still quite loud, so only a few noticed as I put the chair back under the table and calmly started to walk out.

Halfway up the stairs, I looked to my right at the person who spoke up and probably saved my life. I didn’t know who he was, but I continued to walk and gave him a nod that every man knows what it means. He hadn't expected that, but he returned the nod, and I continued to walk up the stairs.

As soon as I was out of the room, I let my long legs do the work and quickly walked towards the portal station. I had already set up and purchased a portal to Verdia, and only after a 5-minute wait, I escaped the people who probably wanted to talk to me.

Just in case, I didn’t stop and went straight to our compound as fast as my walking legs could take me. Roger wasn’t here, but the other people I met the last time I was here were. They were incredibly glad to see that I was safe, and after about half an hour, the portal engineer was able to take time from his critical work to open a portal for me to go back home. I just wanted to go back and sleep in my bed. But there was a lot we needed to discuss, fortunately, it was basically just good news.

Everyone here was worried to death about me. "I am glad to be back. But from the sound of it, you were just waiting to see what happened and not preparing for the possibility of me not coming back?" Immediately, David answered, "Of course not, don't even think like that. Besides, there's no one else like you. I honestly don’t think anyone can replace you."

"Now, that might be the case, but this is a dangerous world. If there's no one who can replace me, then we should work on having multiple people who could do that. In fact, we shouldn't just think about me. Without you, David, I suspect this place would collapse even faster than without me."

"While I would have liked for this situation not to have happened, it showed us all, I believe, a huge oversight. This is a dangerous world, and any one of us could die at any point, but that shouldn't mean that United Freeholds should suffer because of it," I said.

"I think you’re right, Rich. I’ve been so focused on my own work that I didn’t notice that my disappearance would mean our entire economic system would stop functioning in a week or two. I also bet there are more people like me in the government who are crucial, but no one else knows exactly how to do their work." The discussion continued, and while I would have liked to go home, crucial mistakes like this needed to be addressed as soon as possible.

When I did finally get home, I found Tim digging his home's foundation. "Rich, you’re back!" He yelled as he started to walk towards me. "Is it true that you were arrested? We were all awfully worried. I'm so glad you're safely back home." He said, extending his arm for a handshake.

I returned the gesture. "It was a little dicey for a moment, but things should be calm for quite a long while. Anyways, should we go and take a look at how you're doing with your foundation?" I asked.

"There's always time for that later. You should go and get that armour off. In the meantime, I’m going to go and fire up the sauna. Then, let's cook some barbeque and enjoy a few beers from Val’s latest batch," Tim told me, and his joyous mood was quite infectious.

"That actually sounds really good. What sort of meat do we have?" And like that, we talked a little bit longer until we separated, and I went inside to take the armour off. It needed a bit of work after my underground exploration, but that would be for later. Putting on more comfortable clothing, I went back outside to see Goose speeding towards here, holding onto what looked like a dog-sized rabbit.

He had been quite far away hunting, and while usually he could fly quite fast, he was currently carrying quite a lot of weight. I had truly missed him, but unfortunately, he couldn't perch on me anymore because he was simply a bit too big for that.

Talking with Tim and Goose, who basically never left my side, helped me relax quite a lot. The weather was quite nice, but I guess to a normal human, it would still be quite cold. The sauna helped me relax even more, and when I finally got to bed, I felt good once again.

When I woke, I realized I had slept in. Going to the common room, I found some leftover breakfast. After eating it, I went outside and found Tim already working. I left him to his work; instead, I went to the smith.

I took a few moments to just look around and came to the decision that I needed a proper workshop to make bows. Doing it in the smithy just felt a bit too cramped, and I wouldn’t have the space for more specialized equipment.

I already had the spot picked out, but what I didn't have was enough lumber to actually build it. That brought a smile to my face, and I went and got my lumbering gear. But I didn’t head over the bridge; instead, I went towards the inn where I took a right turn that would take me to Adam’s place and the quarry and mines past that.

I didn’t go that far, only until the road reached the forest. The forest was a little bit too close to the road in my opinion. If it was too close during a storm, trees could fall onto the road, or animals could use it as places to ambush anyone walking down the road.

I didn’t use any energy to boost myself instead I suppressed it, so I actually had to work to fell every tree. However, I did have to use my energy to boost my body when I gathered 2 logs onto my shoulders and walked back home.

This was incredibly inefficient, but it felt good to work out my body, and this type of work actually made me sweat a little bit, especially with the larger trees. It will take me a while to gather enough logs to be able to build my new workshop and have some ready supply for anything else I wanted to make.

The next day in the morning, I went into the capital to give my lessons, and then after that, I spent a little time doing some government work that I really needed to do, as I didn’t want a huge pile of paperwork stacking up on my table.

This time, when I went to cut down trees, I did bring my logging cart because otherwise, it would just be inefficient, and I had other things I wanted to do as well. During the night, I decided to concentrate only on studying kinetic energy, as I wanted to level that skill up and also learn to use it in combat.

It was an incredibly difficult thing to learn, mostly because it felt so foreign and different. The best description I could give is trying to learn to breathe underwater. It was just that foreign. Still, I could see the potential it had.

While it didn't work exactly like telekinesis, it could produce similar effects. I was never going to be able to pick up and move an object to a specific location, but I certainly was going to be able to violently move it from its current location. I should also be able to make quite solid walls with it, but currently, it was barely deflecting dropped coins.

The potential, however, was incredible, and I could just imagine how useful this would be in a fight. Being attacked by multiple enemies? Just push one of them away. Don't have enough time to block? Just make a wall of kinetic energy. The possibilities were quite literally endless, and it would give me even more flexibility, which I already had quite a lot of.