After seeing Oren making his way to rest, Jacob couldn't help but think to himself briefly.
He pushed himself to a breaking point that most people don't even know exists, that red light wasn't a gift from the system. It feels more like it was a debt he drew from his own life force.
Bran stood by the kitchen table, his heavy iron wrench still clutched in his hand. He looked toward the barn, then back at Jacob. His shoulders were slumped with the pressure of the day's adrenaline.
"I should get back home," Bran said, with a meek voice. "My folks will have heard the ruckus by now. They'll be worried."
"Go on, Bran," Jacob replied, placing a hand on his friend's shoulder. "The seeder is safe. We can finish the adjustments tomorrow once the dust has settled."
Bran gave a tired smile and headed out the back door, his silhouette disappearing into the sunlight.
Sera had already pulled a chair closer to Mira's cot. She looked at Jacob and gave him a small nod, indicating that she wouldn't be leaving the scout's side.
Jacob felt the lingering static of the morning's magic under his skin. He couldn't sit still in the peacefulness of the house while the work in the East field remained unfinished.
He turned and walked out onto the porch, squinting against the glare of the afternoon sun.
The field was a scene of grim labor. Elis, Tom, and Caleb were moving through the rows, dragging the goblin carcasses toward a pile at the edge of the woods where they would be burned.
Jacob saw his father standing near the edge of the freshly turned soil, leaning against the handle of his pitchfork.
Arthur raised a hand, signaling for Jacob to come over. As Jacob approached, he noticed the tension in his father's shoulders had begun to fade, replaced by the weight of a long day's work.
"A rider from the militia came through while you were in the house tending to the girls," Arthur said, his voice kept low so as not to carry across the open field. "They have broken the main raiding party near the stone bridge and were sending out scouts to check on the outlying farms. I told him we were fine and that the threat here had been dealt with. He seemed satisfied with that and moved on to the next neighbor."
Arthur paused, his gaze drifting toward the farmhouse. "The man never mentioned Mira or the boy. He didn't ask about who was staying in our guest rooms or whose blood was on the grass. It seems he was in a hurry to report back that the perimeter was secure."
Jacob looked toward the dark treeline where the goblins had first emerged.
The militia is focused on the big picture, Jacob thought. They want to hear that the fires are out so they can move to the next one. That suits us for now.
"I know Mira spends most of her time scouting the woods around the village," Jacob said to his father. "I am not sure who she actually reports to, but she has been watching over this valley for a while, it seems."
Then he scratched his chin in thought. "As for Oren, it was my first time meeting him today. He arrived just when the line was about to break. He didn't just fight for his own life, though. He put himself between the goblins and Elis or me numerous times during the skirmish. He seems to have a good character at the very least, so I let him nap on my bed."
Arthur nodded slowly, processing his son's words. "If he stood for his neighbors when the blades were out, then he has earned his rest in this house. We'll see what he has to say for himself when he wakes."
Arthur turned his gaze toward the rows of the East field. The sunlight caught the uneven mounds of earth where the fighting had been most intense.
He saw the places where the ground was packed hard by the weight of the raiding party, and his expression shifted into a sad look.
"I heard y'all had just finished planting the bulbs in the rest of the field," Arthur said softly, his voice carrying the understanding of a farmer who had seen his labor wasted. "It's a real shame it's been ruined."
Jacob did not share the disappointment. He looked at the trampled soil and saw only a minor delay. His mind was already calculating the speed of the brass injectors and the power of the lightness enchantment.
"Don't worry about that, Dad," Jacob replied with a confident smile. "You should come watch the seeding mechanism in action tomorrow after Bran and I finish up the tuning. Bramble is able to tow the thing with ease, so we could probably get this field done in two hours."
Arthur looked at his son with a flicker of disbelief. He was used to fields taking days of back-breaking effort, not a single effortless morning. The idea of finishing the entire East field in two hours seemed to struggle for a place in his mind.
"Two hours," Arthur repeated, his eyes drifting back to the scarred earth.
"Maybe even less once the enchantments are fully dialed in," Jacob added.
He looked toward the barn where the seeder waited. "We'll let the soil rest for tonight while we get the equipment ready and give Bramble some time to calm down. Tomorrow morning, we will have these bulbs back in the ground before the sun is even high."
Arthur nodded, though a trace of skepticism remained in the corners of his eyes. He reached out and squeezed Jacob's shoulder, acknowledging the optimism even if he couldn't quite grasp the scale of the change his son was bringing to the farm.
Jacob then helped the rest of the men work on the fields, dragging bodies to the pile before smoothing out ruts.
Once the work was done, they burned the bodies with some firewood. The fact that monsters dried out after their cores dispersed was very helpful in these situations.
They walked back toward the farmhouse while the orange light of the setting sun stretched across the trampled grass. The house was quiet when they entered, possessing the calm of a home that had survived a storm.
Jacob checked on Oren, who remained in a deep, restorative sleep, and then found a pallet near the hearth to rest his own weary head.
The night passed in a strange blur of sleep that seemed to end as soon as it began. Jacob woke with the first pale light of dawn and headed straight for the barn, his mind already turning back to the tuning for the mechanism they still needed to finish for the fields.
He found Bran already there. The morning light filtered through the gaps in the barn's wooden slats, casting long ribbons of gold across the dirt floor.
Bran was hunched over the seeding mechanism with his fingers stained by oil. The brass plates of the seeder had been wiped clean of the previous day's grime, and the central assembly sat open to reveal the interlocking gears.
Bran looked up as Jacob approached, tapping a small brass screw near the timing plate with the tip of his screwdriver.
"I spent the first few hours of light checking the physical tolerances," Bran explained. "The impact from fleeing from the goblins didn't break anything, but the sudden jolts shifted the alignment of the distribution valves. I want you to fine-tune the enchantments. They need to be more sensitive to the rotation speed of the axle before we take Bramble back out to re-plant those damaged areas."
Jacob leaned in to inspect the work while he felt the geometry of the integrated Earth Core humming within its cradle.
"The valves were lagging behind the wheels when Bramble got spooked," Bran continued. "If we're going to fix the rows that were trampled, the machine needs to handle the uneven ground without throwing off the seed spacing. Can you make the lightness enchantment more reactive to the vertical pressure on the injectors?"
Jacob placed his hands on the cool metal of the frame. He reached for the Earth Core's energy, focusing on precision rather than a broad surge of power.
He visualized the relationship between the rotation of the wheels and the opening of the valves. He suggested to the mana that the two movements should be inseparable, like a shadow follows its owner.
Then he reinforced the smoothing intent he had applied previously, making sure the magic acted as a cushion between the mechanical parts.
"I'm tightening the link between the axle's motion and the sorting runes," Jacob said while he kept his eyes closed to better sense the mana flow. "It won't just wait for the rotation, it will anticipate it. I am also adding some sharpening intent to the injectors so they work with the runes to treat the packed soil of the battle site like loose sand."
Bran watched as a faint, amber glow pulsed through the brass, settling into the joints where the mechanical friction was highest. He reached out and turned the main drive wheel by hand. The valves snapped open and shut rhythmically.
"That's it," Bran noted with a satisfied nod. "The lag is gone. It feels like the machine is thinking ahead of my hand."
"Let's get Bramble hitched up," Jacob said while he wiped his hands on a rag. "The mule seems calmer this morning. If we start now, we can have those ruined rows fixed before my mother starts the midday meal."
Getting the harness on Bramble was quick, and Jacob laid a strengthening enchantment on the leather that was turned outwards to affect the donkey instead of the material.
That should help him with the work that needs to get done today, Jacob thought to himself as they made their way to the east field.
Upon reaching the field, as the morning sun cast sufficient light across the furrows to show the damage from the day before, Jacob and Bran could see that less than half of the field had actually been ruined.
Jacob turned to Bran and said, "It looks like this will actually be quicker than we thought. Maybe we can do one of the new plots afterward."