Chapter 10

Despite Yuto not getting enough sleep, Yuto wakes up at 6:00 am to start his work day. His head hurts, and his vision is blurry, but he still finds the strength to get up and get cleaned up. The warm shower is comforting, but he still struggles to stand up straight. He places a hand on the shower walls as he breathes heavily from the trip through the mines the day before. He feels like taking the day off and recover his stamina and fatigue, but he also knows that fall is coming in just a few short days. He needs to clear the field of the dying crops, till the soil for the fall seeds, and repair the barn to buy animals in time for the cold winter months. He feels that he can’t afford to take a day off when there is so much at stake.

At the field, Yuto and Jennifer work hard to prepare for the fall. As he cuts down the crops with his sickle, he collapses from exhaustion several times. As he holds himself up, he only hopes that Jennifer doesn’t noticing him weak and faint. He gets up and continues to work for hours without taking a break. As he cuts down the dried up crops, Jennifer collects them to be composted.

As he continues to work through the next couple of days, Jennifer worries about his health. The trip down the mines has left Yuto severely fatigued, and he refuses to rest until the evening hours. Because he is deeply fatigued, he cannot fully rest and recover his stamina normally. During the day, he exhausts any stamina he recovered and starts to build more fatigue. No matter how mush she asks him to take a full day off, Yuto refuses and continues to work saying, “if I stop to rest, we will fall behind.”

The day before the first day of fall, Yuto spends the day tilling the soil. Tilling is the hardest part of planting crops since he needs to cut through the dead roots of the summer crops and prepare for the fall seeds tomorrow. That evening after the field is prepared, he checks his ledger to see how much seeds should he plant. He takes a deep breath after realizing that he will need to grow even more crops than in fall. Time is moving faster than he can earn money, and he still needs a lot more in order to make enough money to save the town.

His copper tools has made his job easier, but the sheer amount of work he will need to do made his investment nearly inconsequential. He realizes that if he wants to increase his production, he will need to skip a few steps and upgrade straight into mithril tools. Problem is that Saibara will need extra time to forge them that much, and he can’t afford to wait that long. Only option he has is to wait until winter to have them forged in time for spring. As he looks through his paperwork, he closes his eyes and prays, “just one more season. If I can get through fall, then things will get easier.”

The next day, Jennifer heads out to the store early to pick up the fall seeds. As she walks back to the farm, Jennifer thinks about Yuto’s health the last couple of days. He has been getting increasingly more exhausted each day. His skin is getting pale, and dark circles are forming under his eyes. She looks down at the fall seeds, and imagines him planting and watering them all day without rest once again. She hopes that maybe it will rain soon and let Yuto get a day off. The days are getting colder, so it may force him to stay in and lay down. She also wonders if it would be okay to ask the goddess for rain again.

At the farm, she can immediately tell something is wrong. The energy in the air was off, and Yuto is not on the field working like he normally is at that hour. She hopes that he finally decided to take the day off to rest, but she can’t shake the odd feeling that something else may have happened. After depositing the seeds in his tool box, she decides to check on Yuto.

She knocks on his front door hoping that he is awake and eating lunch. After hearing no answer, she opens the door to see what’s going on. She gasps as she finds Yuto collapsed on the floor unconscious. She rushes to him calling out his name, but there is no response. His breathing is heavy, and his skin is cool to the touch. Yuto is so greatly fatigued, that his life energy is about to run out. Without rest, he will die.

Jennifer shakes her head and whispers, “your life energy is fading, you’ve spent too long without proper rest. I’m going to take you to the clinic for treatment right now.”

She tosses his arm over her neck and helps him up. He is heavy, but she is sure she can take him to the clinic. At this point, Yuto regains consciousness and looks over to Jennifer. “Please. . . Don’t take me to the clinic. Just take me back to bed.”

She looks back at him. She looks at him seriously, but nods. She then helps him scoot back to his bed where he can lay down and rest. After covering him with a blanket, she wonders if maybe she should take him to the clinic anyway. He will make a full recovery as long as he rests, but she knows he will very likely go back to work without fully recovering. If she takes him to the clinic, the doctor won’t discharge him until he is fully rested. She also knows that if he goes to the clinic, they will keep him for several days to recover. Yuto doesn’t want that to happen, because that means he will miss a harvest at the end of the season.

She takes a deep breath as she ponders her situation. Even though she does understand why he doesn’t want to miss a harvest, the toll on his body is too great to let him continue the way he is. She shakes her head, then asks, “Yuto, why must you work so hard. I understand that you wish to save Mineral town, but you will perish if you keep this up. Are you aware that if something happened to yu, Mineral Town will be lost?”

Yuto trembles as he looks at Jennifer’s concerned eyes. He breathes heavily as he answers, “Yes, I know that if I die, I can’t save Mineral Town. But when I think about Tony’s farm, I can’t just stop. I want to save the farm, even if it kills me.”

Jennifer stares at him curiously as he continues, “I love this farm. I loved it ever since I was a kid. I visited this farm when I was just ten years old, and I fell in love with it. This farm, this whole town is different than my hometown. This place is so peaceful and full of life. The air is clean, and the water is pure. I had so much fun playing with the animals, that I wish that summer never ended.

“I also had many friends here in Mineral Town. They all came over to my farm, and played all day while Tony watched us. We played tag, hide and seek, and took turns riding on the backs of the cows and sheep. Every day was like an adventure. Of course, those kids grew up and don’t remember me at all. But I remember them.

“I know that I need to go to the clinic and recover. But if I go to the clinic each time I don’t feel good, I’ll never make enough money to save the town. I can’t stop, and I can’t slow down for anything. Even though nobody in this town thinks I can do it, I’ll keep working for Tony. He was my friend and I’ll save this farm in his memory. I have to. . .”

Yuto falls asleep. Jennifer strokes his hair, inspired that someone can love a farm so much, that he is willing to risk everything to save it. She wants to respect his decision to avoid the clinic, but she also wants him to fully recover before going back to work. She then thinks about just doing the work herself and let him rest, but she knows that she is neither strong enough or have enough practice doing farm work to do it. She’ll only make a mess of things, and cause him to work harder to get things in order. She also thinks about just hiring help, but that will only slow their savings in the long run.

She thinks about the situation a bit longer, then comes up with a plan. If Yuto won’t go to the clinic, she’ll have to treat him herself. She is not a doctor, but she is well experienced in holistic medicine. Luckily, it is now fall and she can gather lots of natural remedies that grows in the wild.

After making sure Yuto is warm and comfortable, she rushes out of the farm and into the mountains. Moon mountain is full of nutritious and medicinal ingredients to recover stamina and ease fatigue. The ground around the hot springs is a perfect place where edible colored grasses full of minerals grow. The forest around Moon Mountain has plenty of flowers, but she needs a rare flower called Magic Red Flowers to blend for extra potency. The trees in the farm has some bee hives, which she gathers carefully for her medicine. She then returns to her tent by Mother’s Lake, and starts combining the ingredients in a mortar. Using a pestle, she grinds the ingredients into a thick paste. The scent is strong, which is a good sign. The stronger the scent, the stronger the medicine is.

Before she extracts the mixture, she decides to add extra ingredient. Inside the tent, she has a small box that contains a power berry. The berry has powerful nutrients that can make anyone who consumes it stronger and full of stamina. She has been saving it for an emergency, and she feels like this is a good enough time to use it. She puts the berry into the mortar, and grinds it to a pulp. The scent is very bitter, but she knows that it will help Yuto recover quickly.

She puts both the medicine and the power berry pulp into a piece of cloth, and wrings it out as hard as she can to extract the medicine. A thick red liquid drips into a bottle slowly. As soon as she gets enough medicine, she covers it and rushes back to Yuto in the farm. Even though the medicine she made will heal him, it won’t be enough. She will need to take him to the hot springs to help ease his fatigue while the medicine does it’s thing.

At the farm, Yuto is still resting. She tries to wake him up, but he can’t stay awake for more than a second or two. So instead, she just puts his arm over his shoulder and walks him to the hot spring. He is drifting in and out of consciousness, which makes it harder for Jennifer take him to the spring. By the time they arrive, it was already early evening. At the hot spring, Jennifer undresses Yuto and dips him into the hot water. She is careful not to let his head fall into the water and drown. He begins to warm up, which means that his fatigue is beginning to wash away.

Jennifer pulls out the bottle of medicine, then says, “I am not sure if you can hear me, but I need you to drink this. This medicine will help you recover your stamina quickly and make you stronger. It’s not much, but this is all I can do for you.”

Yuto continues to breathe heavily, but doesn’t respond. She holds his chin, and pours the liquid into his mouth. The medicine is too bitter, which causes Yuto to cough and spit up the medicine into the spring. Jennifer looks at the bottle’s remaining contents, if Yuto spits the medicine out again, she won’t have enough to heal him. She will have to take a more drastic measure to make sure he drinks the medicine. So she undresses herself, and jumps into the spring with him. She then takes the medicine into her own mouth; it’s bitter but she will need to hold it. She then lifts Yuto’s chin up, and presses her lips against his. She pours the medicine from her mouth into his making sure she locks tightly so Yuto can’t spit out. This forces him to swallow instead making sure it goes into his body. As soon as she is sure he swallowed all of it, she stands back and checks his recovery.

After a moment, Yuto’s breathing begins to lighten up, and the color of his skin starts to go back to normal. You can see by the look on his relaxed face that his stamina is recovering quickly. A few hours later, Yuto is completely fine. Jennifer feels his forehead, and notices that his life energy is stabilizing. She then pulls him out of the spring before he is cooked alive. She then dresses him, and helps him walk back to his house where he can rest. She lays him on his bed, and covers him with a blanket. She strokes his hair, and decides to sleep inside the house tonight in case something happens.

The next morning, Yuto wakes up with a jerk. He is full of energy, and his dizziness is gone, He grips his hands, they don’t feel as tires as they have the last couple of days. His body is as light as a feather, and he feels like he can work all day without getting tired. He checks his phone, and feels relieved that it is the second day of fall, he only missed one day.

He looks over to the kitchen, and sees Jennifer’s long golden hair. She is humming a happy tune as she makes breakfast. She quickly notices Yuto awake, then she rushes to him to check him. She places her hand on his head, and takes a breath of relief feeling him warm and healthy.

“What happened?” asked Yuto.

Jennifer smiles cheerfully and answers, “I am aware that you do not wish to go to the clinic, so I made an herbal remedy, and treated you myself. Pretty impressive, if I say so myself.”

He rubs his temples as he continues, “I had a weird dream last night. We were at the hot springs together.”

“That was no dream,” answered Jennifer. “Your life energy was weakened, so I took you to the springs myself, so you can warm up before taking the medicine I’ve made.”

Slowly, Yuto begins to remember what happened at the hot springs. His face turns red as soon as he realizes that Jennifer had to undress him to put him into the water. His eyes bulges as soon as he remembers Jennifer being in the spring with him. His nose bleeds as soon as he remembers Jennifer pressing her lips against him to force him to drink the medicine that was in her mouth. His mind blows as he collapses back on his bed.

“Yuto! Are you feeling unwell?” cried Jennifer.

His mind spins out of control as he answers, “I’m fine, I’m just trying to piece together what happened. Don’t mind me, I’m just a bit embarrassed, that’s all.”