Raymond City is enormous. It even has a whole neighborhood for nobles and the wealthy perched up on a little hill… not that it has anything to do with me!
Wandering near the West Gate, I spot an apothecary. I could sell my medicinal herbs here, but the thought of haggling makes me tired already.
“I wonder if there are any grocers around?” I murmur. I’d love to buy some bread to take home.
“I should have asked for a good bakery back at The Foal’s Inn…”
Of course, some inns bake their own bread, but I’m hoping for a proper shop.
A little ways from the gate, I finally find a small cluster of shops selling groceries, general goods, and—at last!—bread.
I’ll get my other things from the store where Maggie works, so bread is all I need for now. I did promise I’d stop by and see her, after all.
The loaves here are whiter than the bread in Carlton, which means they’re more expensive, too. If it’s good, I might just have to come back for more.
I leave Raymond City and start the long walk back to the Great Forest. It’s far enough that I’m tempted to teleport, but the road is far too crowded for that sort of thing.
“I’m definitely bringing Noah next time!” My feet are already aching from all this plodding.
When I go to the guild in Raymond City, I need to sell off the magic stones and pelts piling up in my Storage. And all that wolf and bear meat that Selina and I won’t touch.
But I can’t just haul it all in at once, or I’ll draw too much attention. Gotta sell it off a little at a time.
“A basket on my back just won’t do.” I’ll start with the Almiraj parts. Even a no-star Copper-rank adventurer can hunt one of those.
“I really need to rent a small cart!” But renting one without a horse would look suspicious. Which means I have to bring Noah.
Speaking of Noah… I’d asked Selina to exercise him, but it’s obvious she hasn’t.
I unbuckle the tack from a very disgruntled-looking Noah and give him a good, long brushing. “And I even left everything on for you!” I grumble.
Agh… I really should have brought him with me. But it’s not as if I go to the Adventurers’ Guild every single day.
Besides, a horse can’t exactly have a good gallop inside the Great Forest.
“That settles it. I gotta build him a paddock! Selina sure isn’t going to ride him through the forest… not that I have high hopes of her even trying.”
I can’t picture Selina—whose best friend is the sofa—going for a daily ride through the woods.
“I’ll clear a little path he can gallop down, all the way to the lumber clearing. And I’ll build a paddock near the cottage where he can graze!” To do that, I’ll have to fell a lot of trees in the Great Forest.
“And Selina did tell me to gather lumber for her to sell!” If I have to chop down trees anyway, I might as well make it useful for Noah.
A hint of spring is in the air, which means I can’t keep felling trees at the very edge of the forest anymore. There are too many adventurers out gathering herbs.
Using magic to chop down trees and pop them into my Storage right in front of everyone would be a super bad idea. From spring through summer, I’ll have to move a little deeper into the woods to work.
So for the next few days, all I do is fell trees. I chop them down, stack the logs in the clearing, and yank the roots right out of the ground with my Storage. Then I splinter them into bits and Discharge them back into the empty holes.
Selina complains that I need to be more thorough with the stumps, but then one day, they’re simply gone. I’m sure she transported them to the Kingdom of Sarina.
I keep at it, over and over, until I’ve cleared a paddock near the cottage and a small path leading to the lumber pile. I make sure to pull every last root with my Storage so the ground is smooth for Noah to run on.
The whole place feels brighter now, and way more pleasant.
There’s something else I need to talk to Selina about, though.
“We’ll need two horses to pull a cart full of lumber,” I tell her. “Noah can’t possibly pull that much weight by himself, and people will think it’s strange if he tries.”
Selina listens, her brow furrowed. “And how, exactly, were you planning to pay for this other horse?”
Uh-oh. She sees right through me.
She knows I’ve been hoarding magic stones and pelts in my Storage.
“I’ll… figure something out for the money,” I shoot back, giving her a little taste of her own medicine. “You just make sure you buy a proper draft horse this time!”
“So you’ll buy two draft horses and sell Noah?”
“Well…” Maybe giving him a name wasn’t such a good idea. I’m far too attached.
Selina gives a little laugh. “It’s good to know how to ride. You’ll just have to work hard and earn enough for two horses!”
I can never win an argument with Selina. Or a magic duel, for that matter.
Right now, I’d love nothing more than to serve her something she hates for dinner, but our tastes are exactly the same. Neither of us can stand bear or wolf meat.
The menu at The Foal’s Inn didn’t have bear or wolf, but I’ve heard some of the food stalls sell wolf skewers.
People say stewed bear is delicious. Me though? I can’t get past the smell.
I still have some of the red wine I bought in Carlton, so I decide to make a Big Elk stew.
“Zoe,” Selina says later, poking at her bowl, “have you considered taking a few more cooking lessons?”
In other words, she doesn’t like it. How rude!
It is, I gotta admit, a little tough.
“It’ll probably be delicious by tomorrow,” I say, trying to sound hopeful. If I leave the pot by the edge of the hearth, the low heat should tenderize it.
“It ought to be delicious when you serve it at the table,” she says primly.
I really don’t want to hear cooking complaints from her. She’s the one who used to feed me lumpy porridge when I was a toddler!
But I bite my tongue. I know all too well that for every one word I say, she’ll fire back a hundred.
So I try changing the subject.
“Selling lumber is supposed to be about slowing the Great Forest’s expansion, remember?”
Wasn’t that the whole promise she made to the court mage?
But it’s no use. I can never, ever beat Selina with words.
“That,” she says, “was because I borrowed the research materials on the Troubadours for you.”
Oh, right!