I… was bored. Unbelievably, unequivocally, bored out of my mind. How long had I been waiting for something to happen? Honestly, I had no idea. I could only really tell the passing of days by when the ground felt hotter or colder, or when I focused to observe the light on a few of the fruits within my one tree.

  At the very least, I knew that a couple of weeks had passed by, just using these metrics. In that time, I had not gotten a single point from anything, my balance still completely emptied out.

  That wasn’t to say that nobody had visited my territory. In fact, there were two different times when I noticed people walking along the small stretch of road at my border. When this happened, I found that I could sense them the same way as I sensed the tree when it appeared. The people themselves felt as if they were extensions of my senses.

  If I focused, I found myself able to temporarily see through the eyes of one of the passersby, which let me know that I was surrounded on all sides by more grassland. Far on the horizon, I could just barely make out a forest looming, but I didn’t see any nearby villages or other signs of civilization.

  Thus, I waited…

  Night was beginning to fall over the caravan as it traveled down the road, the adventurer in the lead raising a hand to signal for the group to stop. “We should set up camp here,” she said calmly, looking back at the merchants riding in their carriage.

  “Of course, Lydia,” the merchant said with a kind smile, looking around. The surrounding area was rather empty, meaning that they could see an enemy approach from a considerable distance, and there was plenty of room to set up a few tents.

  Lydia let out a sigh of relief, glad that the merchant wasn’t being difficult. She looked at her teammates. “Sarah, Mica, you two get the tents set up, and I’ll secure the area.”

  The two girls, one an elf and the other with rabbit ears, smiled and got to work pulling the tents from their bags. “You got it, Lyd!” Mica called out as she carried the supplies over to the side of the road.

  Meanwhile, Lydia grasped her short sword, walking towards the lone tree nearby. If there was going to be anything threatening in the area, it would likely burrow inside or beneath the tree itself.

  Thankfully, when Lydia reached the tree, she found that it was home to nothing but a harmless bird’s nest. Though, her eyes did linger on the fruits hanging from the branches, curiosity evident in her gaze. Reaching up, she plucked one of the low-hanging fruits and carried it back to the merchants, watching as they set up their own tents as well. “Do any of you have an appraiser’s monocle?” she asked, though knew that it was likely a silly question to direct at a group of merchants.

  The leading merchant, Charles Devoy, chuckled knowingly and nodded his head. “Of course, dear. Have you found something interesting?”

  Lydia held out the fruit that she had plucked from the tree. “As far as I know, these aren’t in season for another few months, so I was curious about them. If they’re good, we can use them in tonight’s dinner, but I wanted to get them appraised first, just to be safe.”

  The merchant blinked, but agreed nonetheless. “Well, it doesn’t take much to perform such a simple appraisal, so let’s see.” After saying that, he pulled a monocle out of his breast pocket and held it over his eye. “Oh my. Well, it’s certainly not poisonous. That appears to be a high-quality appa. That would certainly do well as a side dish.”

  Putting the monocle away, he turned to look at the nearby tree. “Quite curious to see such a tree all the way out here. There were no signs of monsters or demons nearby, were there?”

  Lydia sighed, shaking her head. “No. No tracks of any sort around the tree. Still, as long as it’s safe to eat, that’s good.”

  Afterwards, Lydia went back to the tree, gathering more fruits until her arms were full, bringing them back to the others. Sarah perked up, looking at the bundle of appas. “We get to eat something other than dried rations tonight?” she asked hopefully, beaming when she saw Lydia nod her head.

  “Guess that means we’re not cutting the tree down for firewood, huh?” Mica teased, looking towards the only source of wood nearby.

  “We still have plenty of kindling, so it would be best to save that. We may need to stop by here on our way back through,” Lydia chuckled, shaking her head at Mica’s joke.

  The group set up their camp, assigning their shifts for the night and having a light stew. Then, the caravan drifted off to sleep.

  The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

  When they awoke, everyone had a small breakfast while they took down their camp. Mica looked at the tree, her rabbit ears folded suspiciously. Seeing this, Lydia walked over towards her. “Something the matter?” she asked, following Mica’s gaze. She didn’t see any monsters in the distance, though she knew that Mica’s eyesight was naturally heightened as a beastfolk.

  “I was just looking at that tree. Aren’t there a few too many fruits on it now?” she asked, drawing Lydia’s attention to the fruits hanging from the branches.

  Lydia blinked, before pursing her lips. She had to admit, Mica was right. If she didn’t know better, she wouldn’t even think that she had picked a full bundle of appas the previous night. “It may just have a fast-growing effect on it. We’ll come by and investigate again on our way back through.”

  Mica nodded her head tentatively, before turning to rejoin the rest of the caravan preparing to leave.

  I ‘watched’ the caravan leaving with baited breath, my attention focused almost solely on the points balance on my interface, which now showed 10/10 C. In addition, there was a new item available for me to purchase…

  I was sorely tempted to buy the house immediately, thinking that it might encourage their return. However, hearing that they were planning to come back later caused me to rethink my plan. If a house suddenly appeared in front of a band of merchants without reason, they may report it to a city’s guard. I didn’t know how common sentient plots of land like myself were, so I didn’t want a small army to come and ruin my hard work.

  Better to let the house appear after they’re gone, and maybe they’ll think that someone had built it since they were last in the area. Though, I didn’t know how the house would look yet, so I wasn’t even sure on that idea, but it was the best that I had at the moment.

  Once they left, I made sure to give it plenty of time before I selected the option to purchase the house. Immediately, I had a sense of its dimensions, five meters by ten meters, and focused on putting it along the road.

  There was no shaking of the ground, no discernible phenomenon that I could measure. The house just simply appeared. When I focused on it, I found that I could see into the house as if there were a floating security camera. I couldn’t look out through the wooden flaps that made the windows, but I could see the interior.

  This was a two-story timber-framed house with decent furnishings, having three bedrooms, a kitchen, and a simple bathroom. Each bed had a simple, straw mattress and a linen blanket. Not enough to pass in a modern era, but this should be quite comfortable for a rural home, judging by the carriages that I saw from the caravan.

  Of course, now that that was done… it was back to waiting again. There wasn’t exactly much else that I could do until another band of travelers came by.

  “It was around here, wasn’t it?” Sarah asked curiously, walking along with the two other members of her party. As they crested over a hill, the trio spotted the appa tree that they had seen on their first trek down this road. They had even purchased a special monocle to help investigate it.

  However, the trio froze when they saw the house sitting along the side of the road. It had been barely a week since they were last here, so it was hard to imagine that such a well-built home had been built in that time, especially given the lack of available timber in the area.

  “Proceed with caution,” Lydia warned, grabbing the hilt of her short sword as she advanced towards the house. The other two followed behind her, with Sarah pulling out a bow and Mica retrieving a pair of twin daggers.

  Silence filled the air as they approached the house, their weapons at the ready. They reached the front of the house, and Lydia gave a brief nod towards Mica. The rogue rabbit deftly stepped forward, placing an ear against the door. After confirming that there were no sounds coming from the interior, she shook her head towards Lydia.

  Lydia stepped forward, knocking on the door and looking at Mica. “Still nothing,” the rabbit confirmed, slowly opening the door. Inside was a well-furbished home, though not one that looked particularly lived-in. All of the components of a nice house were there, but it was all too… neat.

  Lydia stepped inside, her brow furrowed as she felt something wrong with the very air around her. It was only when she stepped back outside that she was able to identify the sensation. “It’s… comfortable? The air is warmer inside. Mica, can you see anything out of place?”

  Mica peered through the doorway, slowly stepping inside. “No, nothing appears unusual… aside from it just being too clean. How could a house like this come up this fast without any signs of people?”

  “Maybe it was just a portable house?” Sarah chimed in, though even she felt that explanation was a bit of a stretch.

  “And what, they left before even stepping inside after setting it up?” Mica shook her head to deny that possibility, slowly prowling through the house. There was a fireplace in the kitchen, so she placed a hand next to it. “It doesn’t feel like anyone’s lit a fire recently--”

  Suddenly, she jumped back in alarm, her words cut off. A small fire appeared without warning in the fireplace. The other two readied their weapons once again, though nothing seemed to change apart from the lit fire.

  Mica hesitated, stepping forward and placing her hand near the flame. “Fire… off?” she asked hesitantly, the flame suddenly disappearing. “It just appeared as soon as I mentioned a fire… So, this is an automatic chimney? I’ve heard that nobles have those…”

  After saying that, she stood up, looking back at Lydia. “What do you think, Lyd?”

  “I don’t know…” the human woman muttered uncertainly. “A portable house with an automatic chimney, only an upper-ranked adventurer would have anything like that. But, there isn’t any sign of the owner. For now, let’s wait outside to see if anyone comes back. To be safe, we’ll set up camp on the other side of the road, that way the owner won’t think we’re trying to trespass if this is newly claimed land. If nobody comes back by the end of the day, we’ll continue with our investigation.”