Once I could, I closed out my Character Tab and looked at Emily and Colin.

  “Hey, how long was I in that character screen? It seems like it could be a liability.”

  Emily looked at me with those pursed lips again. “Like always, it is instantaneous.”

  My cheeks reddened. “Sorry, I’ve never been close to Level 20 before, I wasn’t sure if that changed things.” That wasn’t a lie, but it was also a pretty lame excuse.

  Emily’s eyebrows raised, and Colin’s eyes looked like they would pop out of his head. He said, “What, for real!? You’re a Level 20 Homesteader!?”

  Emily looked at me with her head slightly tilted and said, “John Jacobson, you are a mystery.”

  I smiled slyly and gave an exaggerated wink, hoping to get a genuine laugh out of her. “I don’t know about that, but I have some pretty helpful skills and perks right now. Would you like me to tell you about them? Maybe over some lunch?”

  Emily laughed weakly and said lunch was ready, and that she’d be happy to hear about my new skills and perks while we ate.

  I noticed that she didn’t invite me inside, but both she and Colin seemed a little more at ease with me than I had any right to hope so soon.

  I was going to let her and Colin have the cabin as their safe space until they invited me in.

  We ate our thin but delicious rabbit stew while standing outside in the beautiful spring weather.

  Once we had eaten, I brought up my UI to look at the fields on my farm. I could see the plots were pre-planned; each plot was twenty acres. My hundred acre plot of land was twenty acres wide, and five acres deep, ending at the riverbank.

  From north to south, which is the direction the river flowed, my first field started right on the border. It was four acres deep, and five acres wide. That left an acre, about 200 feet, between the river and the first field. The second field was right next to it, with the same dimensions.

  Then we had the homestead area. It took up ?forty acres, since it went right to the river. That felt like a lot, but it included the barnyard area, and was where the garden and animal pens should be. That also included the entire stretch of ground between the fields and the river. They labeled much of the ground as possible grazing area. There was a big red spot on the mini-map, showing I couldn’t grow row crops there.

  That left one more plot of farmland to the south of the homestead area. There were only sixty acres of actual ground in total for farming. I would want to dig a ditch to irrigate my ground. Then I’d set up fencing, so I’d have more grazing area for cows, sheep, and goats.

  I asked Emily how much a homestead cost. It looked like if I had the money I could buy any of the homesteads to my north, south, and east as long as they touched my current ground.

  “Thinking of expanding already are we?” she asked, the barest hint of amusement in her voice. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. This first year is going to be difficult. You should plant your wheat quickly, as soon as we get the seed would be best. I can let you look at my almanac until the bishop brings you one.”

  “Indulge me, how much is an extra homestead?” I asked.

  She gave me a thin smile and began explaining. “For this year, and next year, the first extra one is 5,000 gold, then an extra 5,000 on top of that for each extra. 10,000 for a second, 15,000 for a third, 20,000 for a fourth. 25,000 for a fifth. You cannot buy more than that. I do not think anyone will go over their second plot before the next round of the lottery.”

  If I could actually get 65,000 gold for my potatoes, I could buy four more homesteads!

  “Then after next year there will be another round of the lottery?” I asked. “Will that reset the purchase prices?”

  “Yes, and it will,” Emily responded.

  “Even if I have bought plots already? Like, if I have four plots will a 5th only cost 5,000 gold again?” I asked.

  “That is correct.” Emily nodded.

  “How many rounds of the lottery will they have?” I was curious whether this would be an ongoing thing.

  She said, “Parliament and the Emperor have signed off on two rounds for sure. A third is likely, it will help bring down unemployment at home, and help the emperor level. But, the upper class will be chomping at the bit to get their hands on this land. Any unsold plots after the Grand Quest is complete will sell for 5,000 gold. The emperor is very popular, but his power is not absolute.”

  That made sense. Based on my limited knowledge so far, the only surprising thing was that there might be three rounds where people could get their own lands before the power players got to gobble everything up.

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  I told her that borrowing her almanac would be super helpful. I was impressed when she brought it out of the cabin. The book looked like it was 500 pages long. It was leather-bound and was a full two feet by two feet. I wanted to just dive into it and read it from front to back, but that wasn’t my aim for now.

  As she reached out to hand the book to me, she said, “The almanacs are connected to the System. They are given out to anyone with any sort of class connected to the land. Other classes get their own versions. They cannot be destroyed, pages cannot be torn out, or altered. The empire updates them yearly, through the System. So as long as you do not lose it, you cannot cause it any harm. Alright?” She accompanied the “alright” with a firm nod of her head. Lips already pursed again.

  All of that lip-pursing made her look severe. I was sure it was a defense mechanism, but it made it hard for me to refrain from making a comment.

  Whether it was because the book was in English, or thanks to some trick of the System, I could read it just fine.

  I went to the glossary and found the crop planting dates. For potatoes, it said three weeks before the last average frost date. Looking at their calendar, it showed that the next few days would indeed be perfect for planting.

  Corn still had up to a month until it was ready to be planted. Their calendar was identical to Earth’s. Hell, even the months weren’t that different for some of their names.

  I was going to be a little late in planting my wheat, but not egregiously so. With my bonuses, I would be just fine.

  I handed the book back to Emily with a smile. “Thanks for that. Looking at it, we should be just perfect for planting potatoes. How long until they’ll be bringing us our seed after we buy it?”

  “Are you sure?” she frowned, finger still on the planting dates page. “We have done no ground work. I admit I do not know much about magical steam engines, but I have heard they are temperamental and break down as often as they run. We do not have any livestock to pull your equipment should it fail.”

  She inspected my ripper and shook her head. “I do not know if an entire team of the best horses in the empire could actually pull that monstrosity you have sitting over there.”

  I laughed out loud. Maybe the first time I’d genuinely laughed all day. “I can promise you that my tractor is special. In fact, it would probably be best if we made sure it wasn’t visible when the Bishop gets here. I won’t do any work until after he shows up, and leaves. How long will it take to get our seed? And do they bring it to us or do we need to go to town to get it?”

  She took a calming breath, smoothed her apron, and, you guessed it, pursed her lips, considering for a moment. I was seriously wondering whether that could cause problems. Can you bruise your lips doing that?

  “Assuming he gets here tomorrow. You should get your welcome package and your gold when he comes. He should also have all the contracts you need to get access to the store, and the quest-giving page. You purchase your goods instantly from the store interface. Your first delivery should be free, and as soon as they have a team available they’ll bring your goods. So four, maybe five days max?”

  That was good. I didn’t want to be burned at the stake, or whatever they did with people with unexplainable equipment. “Alright. I’m going to take my tractor to pull down some trees so we can get building. Looks like we will need plenty of lumber. We need to build pens for animals, and a barn. I will take a piece of equipment out to the forest with each trip. At the end of the day, I’ll leave the tractor out there and hide it.”

  “All right, if you say so.” She clearly thought I was crazy.

  “Hey, one last question, how far away are our closest neighbors?” I guessed at least a few miles if the scale was correct on the territory map in my UI.

  “About four miles straight to the East. There are only about five hundred homesteads still being farmed in the entire western part of the territory from what I was told the last time I visited them.”

  “They are called the Newtons by the way. Nice enough family. Husband and wife, they have two boys and two girls. The kids are fifteen on down to eight.”

  That seemed like a tiny number of homesteads, actually. “How large is the territory? You said that Weston is twenty-five miles away. Where’s the next closest town?”

  “There isn’t another town between Weston and Riverton. Most of the people who won the lottery chose to homestead closer to the capital, or along the ocean. The river by the capital opens out into a good deepwater port. It’s how people who don’t show up via mysterious portals arrive in the territory.”

  I scratched my face to hide the grimace I made at her words.

  That scratch got me sidetracked. I had a neatly trimmed goatee. Without a razor, I had two days before my neck began to itch. I didn’t grow a full beard in two days like one of my brothers did, but I’d look like a mountain man or a hobo in a few weeks without a beard trim or razor.

  I decided I needed to get back on track before I really got derailed.

  I quickly did the math in my head. “So the territory is about a hundred miles from east to west? How long north to south?”

  Emily nodded in response to the first part of my comment. “Yes, right about one hundred miles from where we are to Riverton on the east coast. The territory is around sixty miles wide up north, and more than a hundred and fifty miles wide in the south. From north to south, it is about five hundred miles long. There are more lands to the south of the territory, but it is a lot more hilly and there are just too many goblins and monsters to deal with. This territory has some hilly areas, but it’s largely coastal plains.”

  “So we’re two hundred miles from the northern border and three hundred from the southern border, got it. How many people are there in the area, and the whole territory?”

  Emily responded again right away.

  “Fewer than fifty thousand. Weston itself has fewer than eight hundred full-time residents. There are maybe three thousand people total in the surrounding area, but only a few dozen homesteads on the western side of Weston.”

  “Riverton has close to eight thousand people, with most of the rest of the colony’s population on farms within a day or two of Riverton. There are a few forts along the Border River too, one up north and another a hundred miles to the south of us.”

  I thanked Emily for the information. Not many people. That would be helpful in keeping my business quiet.

  I was still probably going to have to come up with some sort of explanation. Probably something crazy enough to be plausible, but not outright giving up the truth.