Book 2: Chapter 21

Book 2: Chapter 21

The last two weeks had been productive in a number of ways, including making four fields for Rhia to grow crops in. She’d promised that she could handle the work by herself, and it seemed like she was managing. Apparently, she’d gotten a rarer Skill when she got her Novice Farmer Class that reduced the work she had to do.

The four fields weren’t that big, but they also didn’t have a huge population or an overlord to send taxes to, so they could afford to start small and build up. Across the four fields, Rhia was growing a kind of bean Kay hadn’t heard of on Earth, gimoz beans, called homesteaders’ friend because they grew quickly and had large yields. The other three fields had potatoes, yams, and a grain called Silkwheat. Those four crops were apparently the standard set to bring when starting new commodities because they covered the full circle needed for crop rotation. Kay didn’t know anything about crop rotation except that it needed to happen, so he said “good job” and felt comfortable with their food stocks.

Or at least he would if he didn’t have to worry about giant birds eating their crops.

“They showed up while I was with everyone else at the tunnel!” Rhia shouted as she followed Kay back to the fields. They’d cut them out of the forest to the north and gotten a number of trees for lumber out of it.

Kay waved with his open hand in acknowledgment and focused on running. Losing their food supply now could cripple them.

The four fields had a singular solid stone wall around them about waist high. Kay vaulted the fence with one hand and swung his halberd up into a ready position as he landed.

Then he paused to stare.

Four gigantic turkeys were pecking the ground in the potato field and scratching at the dirt with their claws, trying to unearth the potatoes. Each of them was almost five feet tall and twice as thick as the farm-raised turkeys Kay had seen on a field trip in school one time. They looked like walking turkey blimps that had escaped a Thanksgiving Day parade.N0v3lTr0ve served as the original host for this chapter's release on N0v3l--B1n.

“Are... are those giant turkeys?”

Rhia glanced from the birds to Kay. “I don’t know; what’s a turkey?”

“Turkeys are a kind of bird that are a bit like chickens, I guess? People raise them for food like chickens back home, although I don’t know if you can get eggs from them.” Kay stared at the oblivious birds for a second. “It’s not the end of the world if we lose a few potatoes, right?”

“We can lose a few without it being a big deal,” Rhia agreed, “I can grow potatoes from other potatoes, but I don’t have much seed left over for the other crops. Why?”

“Cause I’m going to take a second and practice my Inspect Skill on them,” Kay muttered his response while he concentrated on the closest turkey. He felt a trickle of mana flow into his eyes as he stared, and a moment later, a box popped up.

[————————————————————]

Voracious Drop Turkey - Tier II Equivalent

- A species of monster turkey that attacks by falling on enemies, they lack intelligence. Constantly on the search for food to bulk up their bodies, they will ravenously attack smaller animals and are considered a pest by the communities whose food they eat.

[————————————————————]

“Huh. They’re tier two equivalent turkey monsters. They fall on their enemies as an attack.”

Kay watched as one of the monsters managed to successfully dig up a potato, which it threw into its mouth. The turkey monster’s beak split in three as it choked down the potato hole.

“Well, that’s creepy.” Kay walked forward with his weapon ready. “I’d like to grab the others who need combat training, but apparently, they’ll eat everything around, so they need to die now.” He glanced over his shoulder, “Rhia, keep a safe distance, please!”

“Got it!” She scrambled over the wall and peaked her head up just enough to see.

The turkeys managed to finally notice Kay after he’d shouted, and they raised their wings at him in a threat display. The wings were massive and absolutely covered in feathers that helped the creature look even bigger than its already enormous size.

Kay cocked his head and examined the creature’s feathers. “Hey, we can finally make some beds out of you.” He grinned and started gathering blood above his hand. While the turkeys danced back and forth, making deep-toned gobbles in an attempt to drive him away, he compressed the blood down. With a flick of his will, he released the compressed blood like a bullet and blew the head off the closest turkey.

The gobbles grew louder as the birds became outraged by their comrade’s death. With a flexing of its powerful legs, one of them leaped into the air. It flapped its wings a few times to gain altitude, and upon reaching the highest point it could, it closed its wings and started to fall. It oriented itself towards Kay, who watched as the giant bird monster fell towards him.

Kay waited for a second, then took two steps to the side. The monster landed on the ground with a thud a few feet away from where he’d stopped. As it struggled to stand, Kay cut its head from its neck with one slash.

The last two turkeys had started to turn back to digging for potatoes when they noticed the second of them die. It seemed to get through their tiny brains that they needed to fight here, and one of them threw itself forward in a lunge while the other leaped into the air like its dead friend.

Kay neatly impaled the charging turkey that had headed in a straight line towards him and dealt with the last of the monsters the same exact way he had with the second.

“Sure, whatever.” He shrugged and started upstairs, “Keep as many of those feathers as you can please; we can use them for pillows or mattresses if there are enough.”

“Got it. Send someone down with a sack or something to put them in, will you?”

Kay turned around and headed down another level. “I’m sure there’s a couple of empty sacks down here... Yup. Here.” He held them above his head as he came back up.

“Huh?” Senik glanced up then returned his attention to the meat he was cutting. “Oh, good. Leave them next to the bucket, will you?”

“No problem. See you later, Senik.”

“Bye,” Senik muttered, his concentration entirely on his work.

Kay went back up to his office building and stuck his head inside. Eleniah was sitting there with Ahthia going over more papers. “Why’d you run off?”

She glanced up at him, “I didn’t see the point in standing around watching you killing weak bird monsters, so I came back.”

“You could have said something.”

“I did.”

“Oh,” Kay frowned, “Really? I didn’t hear you.”

“I told you that you had it handled and left.”

“Sorry, then.”

“Meh,” Eleniah pointed at his chair, “Sit, I have a plan.”

“A new plan?” He sat in his chair and leaned against the table, “Do we need a new plan?”

“Yes, because you are stagnating a little, and that’s no good.” She pointed at him as she leaned in. “As your teacher and mentor, I’m sending you on a training journey!”

“What?”

Ahthia rolled her eyes. “There’s nothing vital for you to do here until Meten gets back with everyone he’s bringing, so she wants you to pick an area around the valley and check it out for threats or resources. You’re basically going out scouting.”

“No! It’s a training trip! You can’t come back without the body of a powerful opponent or an interesting find!”

Ahthia rolled her eyes even harder. “Come back in a week or if you find something worth reporting before then.” She leveled a flat look at Eleniah, “You’re bored, aren’t you?”

“A bit, yeah,” Eleniah replied, “But mostly I want Kay to know that there’s going to be more to this than him sitting around solving minor problems and killing weak monsters that get too close.” She turned to him, “We still need you to get stronger and stronger, so while you’re out scouting, look for opportunities to grow.”

“We’re sending me, the leader, to scout?” Kay asked. “Not to toot my own horn, but isn’t that risky?”

“Everything in setting up a brand new settlement is risky. In this case, we have two people that can be sent out to look around us, and I’m staying here to defend everyone,” Eleniah told him, “So you get to go see if there’s anything we need to worry about before we more than double our population.”

“Should I take Darten?”

“No, because I’ll be training him up a bit, along with Dolik and Leya, and he still has work to do. Your only job left is planning things out for when we have resources we haven’t gotten yet. So my advice for you is that you should go scouting around us for threats or valuables.”

Kay thought it over for a bit, “Alright, we’ll go with that. I’ll leave tomorrow and be gone for a week at most.”

“Great.” Eleniah grinned, “I’m glad you took my advice.” She snickered when he rolled his eyes at her, “Take Murunel with you. It’ll give you another set of eyes and let her explore and see more.”

“Alright, alright! I’ll do whatever you say, number two. I’ll go start getting ready now, and I’ll grab Murunel while I pack.”