Chapter 7

Spring has ended, and the heat of summer has taken over Mineral Town. On the first day of summer, Yuto was invited to participate in the fetch festival. He had to turn the invitation down due to the fact that he doesn’t have any pets other than Dusty. He feels that it might be a good idea to have a dog around the farm, so he adopts a dog from Van the traveling merchant. He names the dog Milo, a brown medium sized dog with floppy ears. Yuto hopes that Milo will be able to protect the farm from other stray dogs and wild animals.

As Yuto spends his days working on the farm, Jennifer spends her days mainly caring for Dusty and Milo. To help Dusty grow big and strong, she makes treats out of colored grass and herbs to feed it. Each time Dusty eats the treats, Jennifer can feel it’s positive energy radiating with happiness when she pets it.

Yuto is trying desperately to work harder and grow more crops. Tony’s old tools are very heavy and don’t work as efficiently as he would like them to. He still grits his teeth and pushes ahead to till as much soil to plant more seeds each day. Thinking about how hard Tony must have worked all these years encourages him to keep pushing on. As he continues to till the dirt, he runs out of stamina and falls on his knee gasping for air. The pressure of the hot summer sun is not helping him at all.

Jennifer rushes over to Yuto quickly and asks, “you’ve collapsed! Are you exhausted?”

Yuto stands up and wipes the sweat off his brow and answers, “I’ll be fine. I just need to keep working, I need to plant sixty more bags of seeds before the end of the week.” As soon as he think he can go on, he tries to till some more. It doesn’t take long before he falls over from exhaustion once again.

Jennifer helps him back to the farm house where Yuto can cool off and drink some water. As soon as Yuto is feeling better, Jennifer says, “You have been working tirelessly the last few days. If you keep this up, you will fall ill.”

“I know, but we are falling behind.” Yuto then pulls out his bank statement to see how much he has saved up. He sighs as he continues, “we only have sixteen grand so far. This is fine if we are only working to make ends meet. I need to pick up the pace if we are going to save enough money to save Mineral Town.”

Jennifer frowns. She understands why Yuto needs to work so hard, but she is also concerned for his health. She looks at Yuto’s heavy and dull tools. She thinks that maybe she can help with some of the heavier work, but she knows that she can’t work as hard or as long as Yuto can. She then suddenly remembers an idea she had earlier and says, “I know, we should upgrade your tools!”

“Hm? What do you mean?” asked Yuto.

She then pulls out a small book from her bag and begins to flip through some pages. She then hands him the book and answers, “I read all about it at the library. We can improve your tools by having a blacksmith work on them.”

Yuto takes a look at what Jennifer means, and reads all about tools and how different metals can make them more efficient. He compared his tools to the ones in the book and realizes that they are make of cheap iron. Iron is heavy and get blunt very easily. If he can reforge his tools to make them lighter and stronger with better metals.

He then scratches his head and says, “I guess we can give it a try. There is a forge in town with a blacksmith, we should drop by and see if they can help us.”

Jennifer nods cheerfully. If they can make Yuto’s job easier, she won’t need to worry about him so much. Later that day, Yuto and Jennifer arrive at Saibara’s forge. Saibara is an older man who has been working as a blacksmith and artisan since he was a teenager. He now trains his grandson Gray to work the forge hoping he can retire eventually. After a brief conversation, Saibara checks the tools Yuto brought with him for inspection.

“Ah, yes! I recognize these tools. I forged them for Tony a good fifty years ago when I was young and spiffy. They may be old, but they are still in good and usable shape. My work is legendary around these parts!” bragged Saibara.

Yuto chuckles sheepishly as Saibara praises his own work. “I was wondering if you can reforge them to make them lighter. I’m sure Tony had no problem using them, but they are a bit heavy for me.”

Saibara inspects them one more time then answers, “I can work on them if you want. Do you have any metal on you?”

“Um, I haven’t been mining yet, sorry. Don’t you have some on hand?” asked Yuto.

“I have some copper I can sell you. But if you ever want to reforge them with stronger metal, you’ll need to mine the ore yourself. Even if you don’t need ores, you can always ship them for Zack to sell.”

“I see.” Yuto then begins to imagine what kind of stuff he can find in the mines. If he can ship some ores along with the crops, it could help him make some extra money in the long run. He only hopes that the upgraded tools will help him enough to let him mine occasionally. “So I guess I’ll pick up the tools later then?” asked Yuto.

“I’ll be done in about two days,” answered Saibara.

“Two days? But I’m going to need to use them to work on the farm!” cried Yuto.

Saibara places the tools on the work bench then says, “this craft takes time to do it right. I need to smelt the copper to ingots, then melt the iron to mix with the copper. Then I have to bend, mold, and strengthen the metals back into tools. If you can’t afford to wait that long, then I suggest you come back at the end of the season when you won’t need them.”

Yuto sighs feeling defeated. He knows he needs his tools to work, but he can’t work as efficiently without reforging them. He imagines himself collapsing every day from exhaustion until he gets sick and unable to work at all. After weighing his options he says, “Fine, I guess it’s only two days. We’ll be back once you’re done.”

Yuto pays Saibara and leaves his tools in his care. He then leaves the forge with Jennifer heading back to the farm. Jennifer notices Yuto’s worried mood on the way back to the farm. Yuto may have plenty of seeds to plant, but he already planted the pineapple seeds earlier. Without his watering can, the seeds won’t grow in time for harvest or dry out and die. Yuto sighs remembering how expensive they were to buy from Huang.

“Yuto, is everything all right?” asked Jennifer.

Yuto shakes his head no and answers, “we need to find the way to water the seeds I’ve already planted. I can deal with the weeds by hand without a problem, but I can’t water the seeds until Saibara is done. I was thinking about getting a bucket or something, but that won’t work. Each seeds needs a very specific amount of water, and a bucket will be too heavy and awkward to water my crops. I just wish we had an idea.”

Jennifer jumps in front of Yuto and says, “I have an idea! We can ask the Harvest Goddess for help!”

Yuto tilts his head in confusion and answers, “how can the Harvest Goddess help us?”

“We can make an offering to her and wish for rain to fall tomorrow. This way the earth can stay moist until we get the tools back.”

Yuto thinks about her idea for a while. It sounds crazy to him, but any ideas she had before had been right so far. He doesn’t have any better ideas, so he decides to give it a try. Yuto agrees, then they head to the Goddess Pond near the hot springs.

At the Goddess Pond, Jennifer takes out a small fragrant satchel from her bag. She begins to pray in a strange language before tossing the bag in the pond. The satchel floats towards the waterfall where it is pulled into the bottom of the pond never to be seen again.

“What was that you threw in there?” asked Yuto.

It’s Potpourri that I make with wild herbs and spices. It’s not much, but I can feel that the goddess enjoys her offering.”

“Are you sure this is going to work?”

Jennifer smiles and answers, “trust me and the goddess.”