"You just need to watch it for a while. I'll be right back," Paige said when she noticed Waiter Erin's troubled expression.
She had brought Seven back this time because she was planning to put a rein on it.
She had heard before that horses were used as transportation, but after the apocalypse, horses had become wild and untamable. No one could ride them.
So Paige was quite curious about horse riding.
"You stay at the door and don't run around, okay? If someone catches you, you'll end up as meat on their table," Paige told Seven.
Seven stomped twice to show it understood.
Waiter Erin stood to the side, watching the interaction between Paige and Seven.
He didn't believe the horse could actually understand her words. He just thought it was a coincidence.
But the horse was really well-behaved. She told it not to move, and it stayed put.
After Paige walked in, she saw the shopkeeper calculating something with an abacus.
No one knew what he was calculating. Every time she saw him, he was doing that.
Even though the gold bar she gave last time was small, what was hers was hers. No one could cheat her.
"Shopkeeper, I'm here to settle the bill. We only stayed one night last time. After deducting the cost for the room and meals, how much is left?"
When the shopkeeper saw Paige, he quickly put down the abacus. "Alright, I already prepared the remaining money. Here it is."
He took out a cloth pouch from the drawer, opened it, and handed the money to Paige.
Even though prices had stabilized now, during the high-price days, Paige had spent quite a bit in their restaurant.
So the shopkeeper remembered her well.
Paige wasn't here to eat today. Besides, the chef at home cooked well, so there was no need to waste money eating out.
She took the money and brought the horse back home.
Seven was too skinny, so Paige planned to feed and take care of it for a while before making a saddle for it.
As soon as she got home, she saw empty patches of land. Paige felt a little heartache. Such good land, just wasted.
But it was the middle of winter. Even if she wanted to plant something, it wouldn't survive.
Paige looked at the concrete floor in her space and sighed. It was such a waste.
With that much space, if she could use it for farming, how much food could she harvest in a year?
Then she thought again. Maybe the crops didn't sprout before because of problems with the soil, water, or seeds.
Back then, every resource was extremely costly. She didn't have extra to run tests.
And her main job was fighting. Farming was for other professionals.
But things were different now. Soil, water, seeds. She had plenty. Time too.
She could spend some energy experimenting. What if it worked?
The more she thought about it, the more excited she became. Her portable farmland. She was going to bring it back to life.
"Housekeeper, this is my Seven. Clean it up and find someone who knows how to raise horses to take care of it.
Do we have a stable? If not, build one," Paige instructed.
"Miss, don't you want to put a rein on it?" the housekeeper asked, looking at the bare horse, unsure what to do.
"Just tie a rope for now and tell it where to go. It'll understand.
We'll talk about the reins later," Paige replied. She had more important things to do now.
"You listen to the housekeeper. He'll take you to bathe and eat. If you don't behave, you won't get food," Paige patted Seven and said.
She couldn't wait to get started with her space.
Since the horse was so dirty, Paige also took a shower after getting home. She had spent the whole morning with Seven.
Then she sat cross-legged on the bed and started organizing the things in her space.
People couldn't go in. She couldn't enter it herself, and neither could others or mutated beasts. But non-living things could.
Paige moved all the things from her past life into one place.
She wasn't sure if those traditional herbs would expire or not, but whatever, it couldn't be helped if they did.
There were also all kinds of prepared medicine powders.
These were what she used for pranks before, like laxatives, itching powder, Haha Pills, heartbreak powder, and so on.
There were also weapons, broken metals and scraps. Oh right, the gold needed to be stored separately in a few boxes.
In her past life, it was considered scrap metal. But in this life, it was like a treasure, hard currency.
It deserved its own boxes.
If one wasn't enough, then two or three would do.
All kinds of useful and useless things, Paige piled them in a corner.
There was lots of space, so she could be carefree and keep it all. Maybe one day she'd need them.
Paige planned to use this area as the center and slowly expand outward.
The food, weapons, money, and other miscellaneous stuff she got from the PN Soldiers were all placed in sorted sections.
Food and drinks were placed right in front. Clothes went on the left. On the right were two cars left from history.
At the back were random things she collected in this life.
All of it was useful, just not needed at the moment.
Paige planned to create a test field in each direction, front, back, left, and right, to see if crops grew differently depending on the location.
While cleaning things, Paige found several boxes of good stuff. Those were the crystal cores she had collected in her past life.
Unlike others who used crystal cores to level up, she upgraded through her own strength, so the crystal cores were left untouched.
Except for necessary spending and giving some to the men in her family for household use, the rest were thrown into her space and stored away.
Without realizing it, she had collected several boxes.
After finishing organizing, Paige took out a level-one crystal core and played with it in her hand.
It was dug out from a zombie's brain. It looked like a transparent glass marble, just a bit small.
The higher the level, the bigger the bead.
As for the crystal cores from mutated beasts, they were also transparent, just in a different shape, like a diamond.
Paige picked one up and tried to absorb it.
A warm current slowly flowed into her dantian, then it completely disappeared.
"Useless." Paige cursed. "Why are you so disappointing? That energy belongs to you. Why do you have to follow the crowd? Can't you decide for yourself?"
Paige scolded the dimmed bead in her hand.
The energy could be absorbed, but because her body was already full of energy, it went straight into her dantian and stayed there.
Looks like if she wanted to level up, she would have to keep fighting people.
But working hard all night only gave her a limited amount of energy.
For others, this way of upgrading might be considered fast.
But for Paige, who had been a top student in her past life, it still felt unsatisfying.
She urgently needed to level up. Only with power in her hands could she feel safe. Without enough strength, she always felt a sense of danger.