Days passed peacefully in the settlement.
I kept myself busy doing things that made life here more comfortable. Every day I upgraded the houses, slowly turning them into uniform two-storey homes with fully functioning essentials.
Like how real estate would sell them.
I added more houses too. Just in case. I wouldn't know what the future held.
Like how Gringo eventually asked to live separately from his parents. I let him. He wanted independence, even while still eating every meal with everyone else. A teenager hitting puberty just wanted his own privacy.
The farm fields were getting greener. Everything had sprouted. I felt a sense of fulfillment from it, since I had sowed almost everything myself.
I made another patch of land, plowing the soil and planting the herbs I had brought back from the Abyssal Forest. As for the fruit-bearing trees, I lined them up neatly at the corner of the plots, giving them their own dedicated area.
From up above, the settlement looked organized. The residential zone to the east, the orchards to the north, and the rest all farmlands.
The southeast corner was where the infrastructure sat. For now just the storehouse and the bathhouse, but there was room for more.
Everything was getting better. Each day showed progress.
They were comfortable.
They were secure.
They were healthy.
They were no longer doing back-breaking labor just to survive.
And...
They benefited from my own desire for comfort.
That's how I rationalized it to myself.
It was easier to deny than to admit I was getting attached to them.
Still, there was a problem I hadn't dealt with yet.
Clothes.
The Kingdom of Singrael was known for its fabrics. I needed to pay a visit and buy some. Or get the source directly.
I came back down from the mountain after finishing my patrol and found Elder Elka standing at the edge of the farm fields, looking around with a worried expression.
"Leigh, can you come over here?"
I walked over and fell into step beside her without saying anything.
"Winter's coming soon. The nights have been getting colder. If not for the bathhouse and that thing you put in our houses..." She looked at me with such fondness. "What do you call it again?"
"Heating system."
"Yes, that. It's helped so much. The farm's getting lush too. We've already started harvesting the spinach slowly. And the herbs you planted have started settling in. You have a green thumb, Leigh."
I could hear the gratefulness in her voice. But she still hadn't said what was actually worrying her, even though her eyes gave it away every time she looked around the fields.
I wanted to ask.
But it was still hard for me to do that.
"Leigh, winter's around the corner. During winter we stock up on crops. But every winter..." She paused. "Someone dies."
I stopped walking and looked at her.
That was what she was worried about. Despite all the changes, all the upgrades I had made, she was still bracing for the cycle.
Like it was inevitable.
Like it had happened enough times that she no longer expected anything different.
If it were still the same as before, she would have been right.
"Not happening." I said, and teleported away without another word.
Not to Singrael's capital, but to Fabrica. A province ruled by a count who monopolized the source of the kingdom's most prized material.
A monster called the Weaving Tarantula. Harmless when well fed, and farmed here in a fenced forest protected by mages and knights.
The count had built an entire industry around their webs. Precious, versatile, and expensive enough that only nobles and wealthy commoners could afford quality fabric made from them.
I entered the farm using invisibility magic.
I wasn't here for the fabric. I was here for the monster itself.
The tarantulas noticed me immediately even if the humans didn't.
I've heard from one of my expedition as the Hero, that a female produces more web than a male, and higher quality too.
They also hibernate during winter, which meant I needed to move quickly. I scanned each one and found what I was looking for.
The mother tarantula.
The moment I moved toward her, the others became agitated. They started advancing, defensive. I let a thread of bloodlust leak out, just enough, and they froze.
Every one of them stopped mid-movement. The web production halted entirely.
The farm fell into chaos. The knights scrambled. The mages tried to calm the tarantulas and get them spinning again, but nothing worked.
I didn't care about any of that.
"Submit." I stared at the mother tarantula.
She quivered. Then went still and lowered herself.
I opened my item box and looked at her.
"Enter. Before I force you."
She went in without a fight. She knew better.
I left the farm the way I came in. Whatever happened to their winter production after that was not my concern.
I had what I needed. Now I needed someone who knew how to use it.
The skilled seamstresses were in Singrael's capital. I teleported to the clock tower above the city, then down into a side alley, and walked into the first boutique I found.
The owner took one look at me and stepped back. Dirty, ragged, out of place. She didn't bother with a greeting. She called for the knights instead.
Four of them surrounded me with swords drawn.
I hadn't moved once.
"I need a seamstress or a seamster." I said flatly.
"Get out. If you want one of those, go back to the slums where you belong."
I tilted my head slowly toward the knight on my left.
He flinched.
When I looked back at the owner, four broken swords were on the floor. The knights were already stepping back.
They had only seen me tilt my head. They hadn't seen anything else.
But what they didn't saw was how I broke their swords in lightning speed with just my fingers.
"A seamstress or a seamster." I repeated.
The owner stumbled backward, knocking into the display case behind her. She looked terrified and about to faint.
But who cares?
Because I don't.
"Someone bring Olivia and Oliver out here. Right now!"
Her staff scattered toward the back room.
They returned with two young people. Twins, by the look of them. Commoners, bought to work in the shop.
"Take them and leave." The owner shoved them toward me, already straightening her dress with shaking hands.
"How much?"
"Like you could even afford them. I paid fifty gold each for the two of them."
I pulled a coin pouch from my belt and dropped it at her feet. The gold coins scattered, clinking on the floor.
I could see the owner's eyes in disbelief. Questioning how a man looking like a beggar could have such money.
"Two hundred. The extra is for the swords."
I put a hand on each of the twins' shoulders and teleported us back to the settlement.
We arrived at the same spot where Elder Elka and I had been standing earlier.
"Leigh, there you are. You just disappeared." Elder Elka's voice came from behind me.
"Brother Leigh!"
Torra came running. I saw him coming and coated him in an invisible barrier the moment before he launched himself at me. I caught him by the collar and let him dangle.
Olivia and Oliver went rigid at the sight of it. A child caught by the collar at that speed should have snapped his neck.
What they heard instead was laughter.
I had learned that lesson the hard way on Torra's first jump. I had caught him the same way, heard a crack, and gone pale in a way I had not gone pale in eight years of war. I healed him immediately and stood there for a moment doing nothing else.
Torra hadn't learned anything from it. He kept jumping.
So now, every time I saw him coming, the barrier went up first.
"Brother Leigh! You left without me again."
I didn't respond to the dangling, pouting Torra and turned to Elder Elka instead.
"Who are they, Leigh?" She asked, already moving toward the twins with that open expression of hers.
"Ask them."
I took Torra with me and headed back up toward the mountain.
Elder Elka watched me go and shook her head slowly.
"I'm so sorry about Leigh. He's just like that, but he's a good man. Now, come with me first, you both look absolutely terrified." She took their hands gently and led them toward the Sequoia tree.
The others gathered almost immediately, curiosity drawing them in.
"They're both so pretty." Maya was already tugging at Olivia's sleeve, arms up, asking to be lifted.
"Sorry about my sister." Gringo appeared beside her, rubbing the back of his neck, not quite looking at Olivia directly.
The settlement had gained two new residents.
Forced, maybe.
But they were an addition. And they could make clothes.
That was what mattered.