It took them a few hours to settle everything down, Roge writing on the screen below Alton’s bond description to keep everything accessible. They had to take multiple breaks, as Roge kept a close eye on whether or not the dracotaur looked spent or not, aided by his ability to feel the emotions Alton was feeling. He’d asked for permission early on and even put it as a stipulation into the ‘contract’.

  Alton only wanted a few, simple things. Roge would be in charge of his wellbeing and housing, which was simply staying in the hoard, and he would be allowed to enter the hoard whenever he wanted. Alton made sure to specify that, in emergencies, he could be called, but if it wasn’t important, a thought or feeling sent down the bond could be used to call him. Even though it was a huge responsibility, Roge agreed to all of it, as he could feel second-hand how tiring being around people could be for Alton. Instead of a sense of community and comradery, people felt more like an invasion of his space. Constantly having to interact and spend time and energy, even when he didn’t want to. He did want to of course, every few days, but more than that was too much for him. When asked what he wanted to do during his free time, Alton explained that he would like to work on something he hadn’t worked on in quite a while. Painting.

  Roge had been a bit confused when he’d noticed the [Drawing] skill on Alton’s sheet, but chalked it up to the Christmas celebration. He did have [Cooking] as well after all. But the dracotaur had apparently spent a majority of his free time painting in his youth, only going out and doing guard work when his father had threatened to kick him out. Apparently some stereotypes still existed, much to Roge’s annoyance.

  Once they finalized the things Alton expected out of the bond, they moved on to Roge’s side. Helping out in combat was a no-brainer, as Alton still wanted to level up his classes going forward. Past that, though, Roge felt a little stuck, so he looked around his hoard as he thought. “How are you with the kobolds and other animals…?”

  “They’re fine,” Alton replied, confusion pouring down their bond.

  “Does interacting with them feel tiring at all?”

  “Not really. The fairies were a bit energetic at first, but they learned quickly that I’m better to hang around for naps.”

  And so, Roge decided to go with his original plan. Alton would be expected to interact with his hoard at least once a day. See how everything is faring and provide Roge with any updates if things weren’t going well. Alton felt like it was a bit of a superfluous task, but Roge didn’t have anyone who’d watch out for those things.

  “It’s like keeping a boiling pot within reach in case something goes wrong, and leaving it to its own devices. Sure, most of the time nothing goes wrong. But if an unexpected fire happens, I want someone to be paying attention.”

  “Alright…” Alton replied skeptically, watching as Roge added it to the list.

  “I also want you to be in charge of increasing the hoard amount as I level up. The cap for my [Farm Hoard], for example, went up to forty thanks to the drake fight. I want you to plant the seeds needed to increase everything.” Roge sighed as he looked over his effects list, noticing that only one of the tree ones had gone up when he’d gotten everything to thirty.

  “It would be a hassle for me to handle keeping those up, and Proton has already said I’m bad at it, so it’d be nice if someone else could keep track of that for me.”

  “That’s… actually not that hard for me to do,” Alton mumbled, looking over the hoard list as he thought. “The growing up for the plants should be happening soon, so I should probably do that now.”

  “I’ll wait to harvest, then,” Roge mumbled, looking things through. “I also want you to handle the increasing of my hoard abilities, if that’s not too much?”

  “Not at all.”

  One thing that Roge really liked about their bond was the fact that he could still give Alton the ability to handle his hoard effects, this time it just required some effort on his part to enable it. With the others, he could *enact* an effect on them, but they couldn’t use the effect all on their own. Alton, meanwhile, was the same for everything except the hoards. Any hoard effect, Roge could give access to long term, and Alton could use the same powers, leading him to be excellent for doing some of the menial labor that taking care of his treasures needed.

  With all of that out of the way, Roge had one more thing he needed to do, looking around and seeing Marge playing with the fairies and Hops writing on his book next to the cave. He could sense that all of them now needed sleep in his hoard, feeling the same tingle that he’d felt before whenever the star-filled box from the admins contacted him. Apparently that part of his skill, given to him by the fairies when they pulled his consciousness in before, was patched. He could still pull himself in, but now he needed to sleep and eat properly.

  He liked the update the skill had gotten, noting that nothing else had changed drastically besides the added effects that [Farm Hoard] had gotten. Apparently their descriptions had needed altering, which Roge did appreciate.

  [Magical Bonds] would obviously stay stagnant for a while, as he was forbidden from acquiring any more plants until he’d bonded with all of the ones he had. The environments and forms, though, he could use right away. The obvious choice for the form was the drake form, Roge smiling as he imagined what he could do with it. The environment he still needed was going to be complicated, though, Roge walking to one of the blank fog walls, making sure he was equidistant from both cave entrances. He then thought of the environment he wanted, his skill initially pushing back before he thought of its purpose. A place to store and keep safe his humanoid treasures. He didn’t like thinking of them that way, but he could feel his new instincts bubbling up inside him. He had to think of them as treasures to help with his powers, proven when the new environment took shape.

  It was a simple three-story house, modeled more after the houses he grew up seeing than the ones he’d seen in this new world. Red bricks lined the brownstone, with simple windows on the front and back. Since the back windows just led to fog, he decided to link them to the outside world, showing the inside of the wagon while they were traveling. Going inside, it was fully furnished with everything they’d need to relax, including a few couches in the living room, a dining table and cooking setup in the kitchen, and bedrooms on the second and third floors. He made sure the ceilings were extra high, like he remembered from his childhood, though he extended the doorways some as well so Alton wouldn’t have to duck his head. As he stood in the living room, feeling a bit proud of himself, the three people in his hoard hesitantly shuffled in, looking at the dragon kobold as though he’d lost his mind.

  “We now need to sleep here,” Roge explained, pointing up with a smile. “So I gave you guys bedrooms. Apparently, the ability to forgo sleep was a bit of a no-no.”

  Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  “That’s a shame. I could have done a lot of research…” Hops grumbled, Marge immediately heading up the stairs to look at the bedrooms. “This building looks… strange though.”

  “It’s modeled after my childhood home,” Roge murmured, a wisp of homesickness hitting him before he shook it off. “Anyway, I’m going to head to bed. See you all in the morning?”

  ~~~

  The furnishings were all luxurious after sleeping in various inns, Roge waking up and just laying in his bed for a bit longer. He had so many plans he’d needed to enact now that he could use his powers again, starting with the harvesting of his hoard.

  Roge sighed as he noticed an uptick in some of his buffs, the main one he was excited for was the obvious one.

  If he remembered right, Alton, Marge, and Sean all had natural twenty resistance to cold effects from their fur. He also didn’t know when someone would learn the magic, as he did when his resistance skyrocketed. He *thought* it was at one hundred, and he hoped the others received it. Focusing back on the task at hand, Roge harvested all of the plants for his hoard, groaning as he felt his inventory get a bit over-capacity. ‘Need to start using those…’ he thought to himself, looking a few more things over. He couldn’t access Marge’s inventory, so he’d have to see what arrows she’d need him to make. That thought brought him up short, though, thinking back on the drake fight they’d had. While her arrows were certainly helpful, the bomb version of it did more work in causing damage, as Roge noticed that the splash damage could hit even if she missed. Her arrows, though, cost even more resources, but if they missed, the arrowhead was used up regardless. ‘But I can’t just keep her with sub-par ammunition… Too bad this world doesn’t have guns.’

  His brain suddenly sharpened as he had that thought, turning it over in his head a few times as he thought of the ramifications. With the addition of skills and abilities, introducing guns wouldn’t be that big of a deal. He could even design it so that it needed a resource to use, as he did not have the expertise required to make a gun from scratch. ‘But wouldn’t that just be another type of wand?’ Shaking his head, he realized that his wands all stated that they required [Mana Manipulation] to work, showcasing that using another resource would either make it a completely new item, or another type of wand. He couldn’t be sure until he made it.

  Knowing he had at least an hour before he had to get back to the wagon, Roge decided to pull out two ironwood branches to work on. Making the initial shape of the gun took a bit of time, the dragon kobold deciding to go with a similar design to the cowboy pistol. Most of it was superfluous, as the design he had in mind didn’t need a functioning trigger or any other mechanism. That would all be supplied by the gem dust he was going to introduce.

  He pulled out one unit of brown agate dust, knowing he wanted it to use flex to fire. It might drain Marge’s resources a little, but Roge could always ask Hops to put a battery rune on it like he’d done with all of his wands to give them some charge. The other dust he pulled out was lapis, wincing as he realized it was his last one. ‘Need to harvest the oranges…’ he thought to himself, pulling up the new screens for the trees.

  Half of the suckers changed to only drop the elemental gems, while the other half changed to the resource gems. Roge was unsure how they decided to do that, but he noticed that the trend seemed to stay the same with the new saplings he’d gotten. ‘These things are so weird…’ Getting back to his crafting project, he ordered the wood to pull in the two dusts mixed together, starting with fusing them in the trigger and making a snaking line up to the barrel, where the rest of the dust was compacted to make one long tube. Looking over the ‘finished’ project (Roge felt like he could do better to make it look nice), Roge decided to try it out in the forest, only then realizing that he’d used his crafting skill in the hoard.

  ‘Uh oh…’