Chapter 81 : Summer Means Prepping Lumber for Sale
Life is so much better since we renovated the cabin.
I mean, I have my own room now. It’s got a bookshelf for my textbooks and the few books Selina has deemed “appropriate” for me, plus a real desk and chair.
My harp, my flute, and my little collection of sheet music get the best shelf, right where I can see them.
My desk has a super-smooth top made from Treant wood, and it’s where I plan to transcribe my black-dot notation into the five-line staves I remember from my old life.
I used to try doing it at the living room table, but I never got very far because Selina would always hover over my shoulder, asking a million questions. Besides, the old table was so wobbly you could barely write on it anyway.
Selina bought me a bed, which is ridiculously comfortable. I even made a new duvet for it from Big Bird feathers, and I’m planning to make a matching bedspread before winter hits.
The room even has a glass window, so it’s always bright and full of light.
Selina got an armchair for her room, but I bet she’ll spend most of her time stretched out on the big sofa in front of the fireplace, reading.
We decided to only put a fireplace in the living room, so she installed a magical heating device in her room.
I don’t think I need one. I’m only in my room to sleep, after all.
I’ll see how it feels when winter comes. Maybe I’ll just try to build one myself by copying hers.
We replaced the dining table and chairs with Treant wood, too, and I made the library shelves adjustable so they can hold way more books.
They’re all sorted by genre, but the ones I’m not supposed to read are locked away.
Knowing Selina, though, the whole system will be a complete mess in a month. She’s terrible at keeping things organized.
I guess I’ll just wait until then to see what’s in those forbidden books.
“Selina, I still need more sheet music!” I complain.
She’s not budging. “I bought you a bed, didn’t I?”
Well, she has a point.
But still… she might have helped a little, but I did most of the work myself.
She was especially demanding about the floor, insisting on a parquet pattern made from Treant wood.
That was a serious pain. Treant wood is super hard, which makes it a nightmare to work with.
Still, I gotta admit, I’m proud to live in such a nice cabin.
I even built a new bathtub out of Treant wood and installed a magic tool that fills it with hot water.
And a flush toilet! I even figured out the plumbing. All it took was catching a slime to live in our new septic tank.
You don’t find many slimes in the Great Forest. The monsters here are too strong and scare them off.
I had to hike all the way to the river near Lang Village and hunt under rocks to find one.
Defeating a slime is one thing, but actually catching one alive turned out to be a huge pain.
“In the big towns, they release slimes into the sewers,” Selina told me. “But you have to cull them every so often, or they turn into Big Slimes. Be careful, Zoe.”
Come to think of it, I remember seeing a no-star Copper-rank quest for sewer cleaning.
Maybe that’s what they’re doing? Culling the slimes before they get too big.
Oh, right, we also bought two horses to pull the wagon. I asked the old man who runs the guild stables, and he set it up for me right away.
“There’s no way I’m letting a fine horse like yours pull a wagon!” he’d grumbled, glaring in Noah’s direction.
So now we have two brown horses, both a little on the large side. They cost ten guldens for the pair.
I have no idea if that’s expensive or cheap, but they’re calm and easy to handle. Even Noah seems to have accepted them with a kind of, “I suppose you’ll do,” attitude.
“Give them names, and be good to them!” the stable master insisted. He really loves his horses.
“Names, huh? They’re both brown, and they look so much alike. I can’t really tell them apart.”
That earned me an endless lecture.
“You can’t even tell the mare from the stallion?!” he started, then launched into a full-blown speech about the white markings on their foreheads. “The stallion’s marking is a thick blaze that goes down to his nose. The mare’s is a star!”
For a second, the old word Stella pops into my head, but that feels way too fancy for a workhorse.
They need something simpler.
“I’ll call them Pat and Patty!”
The old man seemed satisfied.
“Alright, alright, Pat! Patty! You make sure she takes good care of you!” he said, patting their necks.
Selina just laughed and said I have zero taste in names.
Pat and Patty are strong, and they don’t even flinch when we teleport. They’re so good-natured, they pull the wagon without any fuss at all.
Noah may be a fine horse, but he’s definitely a little fussy.
I guess that’s part of his charm, though. I think he’s starting to understand me better, too. It’s not like I’m a tamer, but it feels like we’re learning how to communicate.
I practice with Pat and Patty pulling a used wagon. It goes pretty well, so I decide to just build a brand-new one.
The blacksmith in Lang made the axles, but I built the whole rest of it myself. My building skills have gotten so much better since the renovation.
At this point, I’m not even sure if I’m an alchemist or a carpenter anymore.
Just as summer is getting into full swing, Selina finally says it. “I suppose it’s about time we head to Alina City to sell that lumber.”
We have a huge stack of it from all the trees we’ve cleared.
Yes! We’re finally getting closer to the royal capital!