ATPnovel Chapter 300: Varden 2
Chapter 300: Varden 2
"Alright, we’ll stay for three days."
Seeing Evelyn Ford agree, the man immediately pointed to a wooden house in the distance. "That’s my place, only half an hour away. You’re free to go into the mountains to cut branches—there are no restrictions on that. But try to avoid conflict with the residents, because the village has patrols."
"Okay, so is there a place for us to cook?"
The man nodded. "The wooden house next to mine is the inn. It’s a legitimate business with a kitchen, a toilet, and a bathroom. However, you’ll have to chisel your own ice for bathing. Firewood is included in the lodging fee. One more thing—we don’t provide quilts."
Hearing this, the lodging did indeed sound like a good deal.
They followed the man to the village. When someone saw him return, they shouted a greeting from inside their wooden house.
"Langley, who are they?"
"Same as you, they’re from Rivenia. They’re going to stay at my place."
The man’s eyes lit up. "Hey, you’re from my hometown! Come by when you have a chance, I’m from Rivenia too!"
Everyone was a little surprised by how friendly the people here were. Langley rode his horse alongside the mammoths, sizing them up with a look of utter amazement.
"That’s Mr. Miller. He migrated here three years ago. He has a big family and is really friendly. Are those elephants?"
Ronan Kendrick didn’t want to talk to him, so Evelyn Ford smilingly picked up the conversation. "They’re mammoths. By the way, I was wondering, before the Little Ice Age, did you all make a living by hunting here too?"
"Definitely not. We used to grow potatoes, sweet potatoes, quinoa, and sorghum. You can grow anything here except for rice. Miss, you’re thinking of doing business, aren’t you?"
Evelyn Ford nodded with a smile. "We’re new to the area, so we’ll have to look around first."
"That’s true. But with these two big fellas, it must be easy to get anywhere. They must eat a lot of fodder, right?"
"They go through a hundred pounds of branches a day."
"That’s really not easy. There’s no grass on the ground anymore, so you can only go into the mountains for branches."
As they spoke, they arrived at the inn.
"Langley, how are you back so soon?" A woman came out of the inn. Langley jumped off his horse and led it over.
"Mom, I ran into them before I even made it to the mountains. They’re all refugees from Rivenia, staying with us for three days."
Then, Langley looked at the group. "There’s a sheep pen in the backyard. You can keep the livestock back there. It’s very safe here; no petty thieves."
Langley’s mother looked at the large group, pulled Langley aside, and the two of them spoke for a couple of minutes before she walked over.
"The inn has been empty for a while, so it’s very clean inside. Make yourselves at home. The cabins all have heated brick beds, and you can add the firewood yourselves."
"Langley, is there much game in the mountains?" Quincy asked, looking curiously at his crossbow.
Langley shook his head. "There hasn’t been much game for years. A few years ago, there were still tigers in the mountains, but they were all hunted to extinction by people from the base."
They herded the livestock into the backyard sheep pen. After unloading the carriages, everyone took their luggage and supplies into the inn.
Evelyn Ford and Ronan Kendrick took one room, Wyatt Vaughn and Wendy another. Quincy, Miles Vaughn, and Officer Graham shared a third, while Peter Owens, Taylor Vance, and Zion Lowell took the last one.
Once the rooms were assigned, everyone started boiling water to wash up. Having not bathed in months, they all stank.
Langley came over and told them there was a large pond five hundred meters behind the inn where they could chisel ice for water.
They had already given the sheep to Langley. He led away a ram. According to him, he already had a ewe at home, but it was a different breed. Evelyn Ford had no idea if his plan to breed them would actually work.
The inn didn’t provide bedding, so they took their own quilts from the carriage and made the beds. Mina and Blackie lay in a corner, and the two birds, not daring to fly out, rested motionless on a pillow.
Taylor Vance and Zion Lowell got busy in the kitchen. Officer Graham took Peter Owens to the backyard to feed the animals. Ronan Kendrick, Miles Vaughn, and Quincy went to chisel ice and fetch water. Wendy went to bathe first, and when Evelyn Ford took out a mirror, she realized her hair had gotten very long.
"My hair gets greasy from not washing it for so long, but the quality is still pretty good. It’s thick and dark, and it’s not falling out. Evelyn, you have no idea how bad my hair loss was before the apocalypse. Back then, I was on my phone all day, eating junk food, staying up late, dyeing my hair... When I tied my hair up, the ponytail was only as thick as my thumb. Now it’s as thick as my wrist."
Wyatt Vaughn came over to borrow a mirror and scissors from Evelyn Ford. Her hair had gotten a bit long, and she planned to cut it shorter to make it easier to wash.
"It’s cold, so cutting it shorter is a good idea. Otherwise, it’s hard to get it completely dry."
Wyatt Vaughn sighed. "If only we had a hairdryer. We’ve basically gone back to how society was over a hundred years ago."
Evelyn Ford smiled. "They had electricity over a hundred years ago."
"Fine, five hundred years then."
Just then, Wendy finished her bath. Since Wyatt Vaughn was going to cut her hair, Evelyn Ford went in to wash up first.
After locking the door from the inside, Evelyn Ford took shampoo and body wash out of her dimensional space. One bucket of water definitely wouldn’t be enough to get clean, so she took out another bucket of hot water.
Soaking in the hot water, Evelyn Ford let out a sigh. ’Being able to take a hot bath is just wonderful.’
After rinsing twice, Evelyn Ford felt ten pounds lighter. She wrung out her hair and quickly stepped out of the bathroom.
"Why’d you cut your hair so short?"
Looking at Wyatt Vaughn’s ear-length bob, Evelyn Ford felt it was a bit of a shame.
"Heh heh, I’m saving on shampoo." Wyatt Vaughn carried the hot water into the bathroom. Evelyn Ford crouched in front of the heated brick bed, spreading her hair out to dry it by the fire.
By the time Ronan Kendrick returned, Evelyn Ford’s hair was already dry.
"This village has over fifty households. There’s another village two kilometers away. That one’s bigger, with over a hundred households, all migrants."
"You found all that out so quickly?"
"Quincy and Miles Vaughn went to scout it out. Besides wild chickens and boars, there probably aren’t any other animals in the mountains here."
Evelyn Ford found him a set of clean clothes and then picked up the scissors and mirror.
"What do you think of this village?"
Ronan Kendrick raised an eyebrow. "Having second thoughts about going to Frelia?"
"Not exactly. It’s just... I think the person managing the two provinces is very capable. Communications are down, yet they can still manage a small village this well, even establishing a prison. It’s surprising."
Ronan Kendrick sat down, and Evelyn Ford began to trim his hair.
"The Holloway Family and the Hooper Family... who knows where they’re hiding. Mr. Vance hates them. They took off with all the supplies and food; they deserve to die. We can’t just let them get away with it, can we?"
"They’re just businessmen—unscrupulous ones at that. They don’t have that kind of vision. The person managing the two provinces can’t be one of them," Evelyn Ford said, her tone certain.
"We can talk about that later. What I’m struggling with right now is whether we should settle down in Frelia."
Ronan Kendrick turned to look at her. "When you’re struggling with a decision like this, it usually means you’ve already made up your mind."
Evelyn Ford pressed his shoulder. "Don’t move, or I’ll give you a choppy haircut."
But Ronan Kendrick was right. She already had another idea in mind.
She just didn’t know how to break the news to the others yet.