I Transmigrated Into A Fantasy World To Farm And Build Houses!-Chapter 216: Returning the Magic Cores

In another turn of events, the Horned Goat tribe had lost their territory.

Originally, they planned to take refuge here to pass the winter, then let the strongest, Asat, lead the tribe to find a new land.

But now, they were left with a mere fifty or so people. Such a small tribe on the Illusion Dream Continent was almost a fragile existence, liable to be wiped out at any moment.

Thinking about the future, every Horned Goat person felt heavy-hearted. The longer they stayed in the Hadu tribe, the more distinct this feeling of insecurity became.

Eric had the intention of keeping the Horned Goat people permanently. Next year, when farming started, having fifty more people meant having that much more labor force, enabling them to reclaim quite a bit more land.

The Horned Goat people were naturally hardworking; keeping them would be beneficial no matter how you looked at it.

Moreover, from a humanitarian perspective, Eric could even keep a human; could he watch beastmen die without saving them?

A small tribe with only over fifty Horned Goat people might face extinction in a few years; even if the Snow Wolf people wanted to, they couldn’t always take care of everything.

Dwarves and Snow Wolf people had already merged, so Thomas and Joseph weren’t surprised by another tribe joining.

Actually, since Eric planned farming, these two elders had already thought about expanding the tribe. The appearance of the Horned Goat people further solidified that idea; they just didn’t expect Eric to propose it first.

The next step was to persuade the Horned Goat people to stay. Eric felt there was no need to rush; just let them have more time to integrate.

The longer they lived together, the greater the possibility of the Horned Goat people deciding to stay.

After a busy period, the tribe became idle again. Having nothing to do, Eric finally remembered the bag of high-level magic cores he had thrown to the back of his mind sometime ago.

He hurried into the warehouse to retrieve the whole bag of magic cores Max gave him, slapping his forehead in regret. How could he completely forget about this?

Initially, he planned to return them to Aunt Luci after refining salt, but then he got busy up to his ears, and this matter was completely forgotten.

"This energy fluctuation..." Evan closed his eyes to sense the magic power in the air, then looked at the bag and said: "These magic cores aren’t low level, such dense magic power."

Eric also imitated him, closing his eyes to sense the surrounding energy.

Sure enough, using spiritual power to sense, he saw countless magic elements of various colors dancing happily around him.

"Oh, these are magic cores Max brought; I’m planning to return them to him."

"He gave these magic cores to you?" Evan’s gaze was a bit strange, looking at Eric until he felt unnatural.

"Yeah, he saw I liked using elementary magic cores as decorations so he brought me these. But they are too precious; I’m planning to return them." Eric scratched his head, a bit shy.

Complex emotions flashed in Evan’s beautiful eyes: "These magic cores are extremely precious to beastmen, and they are all high-level, surely carefully selected. You..."

He intended to say more, but finally stopped, only looking deeply at Eric with complex eyes once before returning to the bedroom to start meditating, leaving Eric standing there bewildered.

Carrying the bag of magic cores to Aunt Luci’s house, recalling Evan’s words, Eric felt a bit vague, indescribable emotions rising in his heart.

He looked down at the cloth bag in his hand, momentarily unsure whether to enter or not.

"Is that Eric?" Aunt Luci inside had heard footsteps long ago, but waiting forever without seeing anyone enter, she found it strange and stepped out to check.

Discovering Eric standing at the door, she happily pulled him into the house.

Pulled by Aunt Luci, Eric entered the house and sat on a chair. Aunt Luci bustled about looking for snacks for him.

Since the communal cafeteria started using tables and chairs, Snow Wolf people’s houses also gradually had tables and chairs; finally, there was no more scene of finding a sedge mat to sit on or sitting straight on the ground like before.

"No need, Aunt Luci, I just had lunch." Eric said with a smile.

Aunt Luci didn’t listen, leaning over to rummage in a wooden chest, finding some various dried fruits and stuffing them into Eric’s hands.

"Eat these for fun; every child likes them. Unlike a few years ago, there wouldn’t be any left by now; they would have been used as food long ago." Aunt Luci looked at Eric benevolently, smiling as she stuffed them into his hands.

Beastmen’s way of sun-drying fruits was as rustic as their way of making dried meat. In the ripe fruit season, uneaten fruits would be threaded with string and hung dangling in the sun to dry naturally.

Dried fruits made this way not spoiling was already very lucky; the taste naturally couldn’t be excellent. But for the Snow Wolf people before, in winter, this was already a rare sweet treat. Adults couldn’t bear to eat them, basically saving them for the children.

Before Eric were wild fruits dried whole. Such hard dried fruits, ordinary people probably couldn’t even bite into them; only Snow Wolf people’s teeth were good enough to chew these shriveled wild fruits.

Not refusing Aunt Luci’s kindness anymore, Eric took a bite of the dried fruit.

The sour-sweet taste combined with chewiness; although the method was simple, the ingredients were good, so the finished product wasn’t bad.

Of course, it couldn’t compare to elaborately processed jams or salted dried fruits, marinated and dried carefully, but it had a very unique rustic flavor.

"Right, Aunt Luci, I came to return this." Eric held up the cloth bag in his hand.

"Magic cores?" Luci received the cloth bag Eric handed over blankly.

The more she looked, the more familiar it seemed, especially with such a large quantity of high-level magic cores; in the whole tribe, they could probably be counted on fingers, so why did they appear in Eric’s hands...

"Did that brat Max give them to you?" Aunt Luci suddenly understood.

Eric nodded: "When my house was built, Max brought them over. Then I got too busy and forgot. Such precious things, I can’t accept them."

"I thought it was something big. What’s the matter? Isn’t it a matter of sooner or later? He gave them to you early, so if you want to trade for something, you can trade earlier."

Luci breathed a sigh of relief.

Just now seeing Eric’s expression, she thought something important had happened. Turns out her son had given the magic cores to Eric early on. That stinky brat, no wonder when Thomas planned to go to the Ox-Head tribe to trade for more food and asked to borrow some magic cores, he wouldn’t lend even one.

Seeing her expression, Eric knew he was misunderstood again, so he planned to take this opportunity to clarify the relationship between him and Max.

Initially, when he first transmigrated here, he was afraid so he dared not speak clearly. At that time, he was new and inexperienced, afraid of being discovered by the Snow Wolf people acting abnormally and then expelled from the tribe.

His combat power wasn’t even equal to the original host; in his own territory, he couldn’t even beat a wild boar, let alone being chased out and encountering other magic beasts.

Moreover, being expelled from the tribe was the "treatment" of the original host; Eric feared after his identity was exposed, he wouldn’t even have that "treatment."

But now he was familiar with the tribesmen; he couldn’t let everyone misunderstand forever.

Besides, in the original story, Max and Michael were a couple. What was he doing squeezing between them?

In the original story, Max had told Aunt Luci directly that if he had to pair with a male beastman, he would rather find Michael.

Although now Eric had transmigrated and Max’s attitude had changed a lot, he still always felt the other treated him well simply out of respect for the original host’s mother and Aunt Luci being good friends, so he treated him like a younger brother...

Therefore, although Eric indeed had feelings for Max, because of these considerations, he still restrained himself in time. He knew the original host’s ending very clearly. He couldn’t follow that same path to ruin.

Aunt Luci treated him so well, partly because of the friendship with the original host’s mother. Eric didn’t want his matters to cause conflict between her and Max.