Garn has been doing routine trips to procure new plants. Unfortunately due to the seeds small size and similar appearances, Garn has been mistakenly bringing back repeats. We have gotten two new plants of note though.

The first is grapes. Grapes mean that we can make wine and with wine we can make vinegar. Vinegar really opens up our options for cooking and potentially cleaning. With vinegar I can start pickling things. Pickled foods take awhile to go bad because the bacteria that would spoil the food find it difficult to survive in the acidic environment of the vinegar.

Thinking long term, I'm going to need connections for trade. I could rely on my body and come out as Bernadette Autumburn, but I feel like by the time I attempt to trade Bernadette would've been mostly forgotten by the populace. Just a small mysterious story to distract oneself in the cruel reality of life. Also most of Bernadette's connections were probably connected to the organization in some way, thus they'll likely be caught up in whatever governmental purge that will go down in the near future once Alford does his thing. No, what's probably going to be my best option is the academy. When I'm 18 I'll set out towards the academy and enroll. The Mi'ara family is basically the village heads and I've married in. If I open up interactions with the Esuian government, I'd be considered as an foreign leader. I'll bring with me a delegation of Mi'ara, Sky (just incase some fate related things occur), some village officials, a few escorts armed with rifles, and maybe Big G as well for some well placed intimidation when necessary. 

Bringing the topic back to food, Garn will likely not be big enough to carry everyone in the delegation on his back. All in all the delegation will be around 20 people, so we are gonna have to walk. We'll need food that wont spoil for the trip. Of course we can hunt and fish to supplement our supply but to satisfy 20 people we'll need a decent stock. Let's see, is there any other useful plants that could be used?

Looking through the pile I find nuts. Lots of nuts. Then it hits me, trail mix. We got peanuts, walnuts, some sunflower seeds, pistachios, and even almonds. Actually the almonds seem bigger than the ones from my old world. Does that mean they have more cyanide? Doing a simple poison check I find that, yes they very much do contain more cyanide. Enough to be lethal. Christ, well guess I'm keeping that with the nightshade. Moving on from the poisonous nut, all I'll need is raisins and I have the grapes to make them. It'll be a simple process to dry them out in the sun. It won't be a full meal but the trail mix will be a nice snack. We might even be able to sell it.

Growing another seed, it turns out to be a maple tree. Maple syrup is gonna be real nice. Although I'll need to make pancakes to really enjoy it, or waffles. Actually I think I would prefer waffles, they're a lot fluffier and more structured. We could also use the wood to smoke certain meats which will be interesting.

Speaking of meats, that'll probably be the best thing we could bring. Considering how cold it is towards the top of the mountain, we could probably dry age some meat. I'll dig out a room using magic in the moutain, then use magic to keep the air moving. I'll have to keep the room cold, but not too cold. The dry aging process is essentially allowing certain molds and yeasts to grow on the outside of the meat. If its too warm bacteria or the wrong mold will grow on the meat making it spoil. If its too cold the mold will die. Thankfully magic makes keeping a constant temperature easy. The meat needs to be entirely exposed to air so I'll make some wire racks to place cuts and some hooks on the ceiling to really maximize the space. Of course the bigger the room, the better. Not only does it allow more meat to be stored, it makes the risk of contamination lower. You'd think it would be easier to manage a smaller ecosystem, but in reality its harder. Even a slight variation could throw off a microecosystem while it takes a lot more effort to heavily affect a bigger one. 

While it will be a lot of work and may sound unsanitary, the process is worth going through because it adds a distinct flavor to the meat as well as tenderizes it. Also because the mold that you want growing on it is from the penicillim genus, it has natural antibodies making the meat have a lot longer shelf life.

 If We're lucky we might be able to cultivate a strain of penicillin to use in medicine. Of course antibiotics aren't a convenient as magic, but not everybody is a mage specialized in curing illnesses. Paving the way for this world to develope modern medicine is likely in my best interest. Due to diseases being cured with light magic, most think illnesses are caused by evil spirits that are exorcized by the magic they're using when really its just bacteria and viruses. If I can show the people of this world whats really going on, other people can also innovate. I'm not some genius who's constantly making new groundbreaking findings, I'm just someone copying the work of people who were far smarter than I. I'll eventually run out of things to carry over and if I'm the only one making new things, the world will stagnate and possibly regress when I die. With such thoughts in my head, I set off to work.

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Just as I was finishing up the dry aging room, Sky showed up. She had just returned from the hunt and had found some ominous signs while on it. Specifically owl pellets. REALLY BIG owl pellets. The rest of the village are already reading the writing on the wall. It seems an apex predator has came and marked it territory,

The Harpy Owl.