Part 25: HILTMOALTG

Rising up, back in the field
Till the earth, chop the branches
Made the money, all the gifts done and dealed
Just a man and his will to befriend

So many times it boils too fast
You cook it, finding just failure
Don't lose your hope to make dishes of the best
You must cook just to not offend

It's the fry of the farmer
It's the cream of the crop
Rising up to the tastes of the master
And the well known charmer
Stalks his prey with fish-chop
And he's gifting us all with the fry of the farmer



And with that...

Update 25: HILTMOALTG



Bush resumes his journey to master chefdom!

It's the weekend today, and it happens to be raining.

Music: Rune Factory 1- Summer


It also means it's time for another guest track! With this, we hearken back to Bush's past.



Well, time for another massive harvest day. Maybe Grant will help out this time?



It's been a long time since I accidentally over cut this strip of grass. I finally got around to sticking some more seeds down to make it look not as bad.



Not like it stops the rest of the field from looking like a mess, but hey every little bit counts.



I clean up some branches and collect the corn personally. Anette didn't come by today, I guess she's got the day off.



We also get some harvests off our monsters today. That's 2 eggs, 2 milk, and 2 wool to go with the rest.

I've not really been doing much with any of these, but rest assured I'll have use for them soon enough.



By the time Bush has finished all his farming chores, it's 10:30 AM. I hit up the Clock Tower first, but nobody has anything new to say, despite even the kids being there for once.

Off to the St. Poli Church then. Maybe we'll finally learn about who it's named after.




BUSH: Stella, who used to live in the house that Mist is in?


STELLA: That's a strange question.


Yeah, what brought that on, Bush?




STELLA: I used to live there. It's been rebuilt numerous times so it was smaller than it is now.


STELLA: Come to think of it, your house was here even before I came to this village.


STELLA: There used to be a boy that I became good friends with who lived there.


Huh. Well that sure is a thonker right there. Thanks, you've made this day significantly more interesting now!



Lara's over here doing her holiday table cleaning. It is very squeaky.




LARA: Please be sure not to overwork yourself.


Hey, Bush has gotten very good about that. It's not like very many benefits to passing out in this game, otherwise I'd be doing it all the time.

Well, maybe not, it does lower her LP.




SELPHY: Wow, I'm tired...


BUSH: What happened?


SELPHY: I was just learning how to clean up from Eunice... but it's so tiring...


BUSH: Is cleaning always this tiring?




BUSH: ...Wait... you had to learn how to clean things up?


Hey, manual labor uses up a lot of RP until you skill it up a bit. Of all people, you should know this, Bush.



SELPHY: Lute asked me to sell him a book the other day.


SELPHY: Do you really think my books will sell? I just don't get how merchants think.


BUSH: I think it will. Your books are very popular.


SELPHY: Really? It feels nice when people tell me that. You're a nice guy.


But, Bush... you haven't even read the book.


Speaking of, when do we get to read it? I'm really regretting reading those last couple of books all at once.



We manage to catch Melody upstairs in the bathhouse, so we can finally get her input on the various furniture spread about it.




BUSH: There are decorative plants.... Are these used for creating some new herb?


MELODY: I sometimes put those in the bath. It helps your circulation.




BUSH: The room is adorned with flowers.


MELODY: They're cute right? I picked them myself.




MELODY: The weather doesn't look very good...


MELODY: Lara learns so fast. I think she'll catch up to me soon. I'm going to try even harder now!


Some things are a lot easier to do when you've got a bit of friendly competition. It's peculiar how much of a driving force it can be.




BUSH: What a beautiful flower...


MELODY: The flowers are different everyday, because I've put them on rotations.


I'm not sure how often people are up here to notice this rotation, but neat.




BUSH: There are a lot of books about magic. Melody must study a lot...


MELODY: I have all these books, but I can't remember anything from them.


relatable




BUSH: Something smells very soothing. There must be herbs inside the stuffed animals.


BUSH: ...


BUSH: Zzz...


Music: Goodnight






MELODY: Good morning, Bush! ♪


BUSH: Huh?! I fell asleep.


I just love how they go as far to fade out the screen and play the sleep jingle for this.

Melody's also surprisingly chill about Bush passing out on her bed for like, half a minute. What I wouldn't give to have herbs that make me fall asleep this easily.

Anyways, onto the most important person of the day:



Lute, mate, whatcha got for me today?!




LUTE: Don't you think Summer is a dangerous season?


BUSH: Why is that?


LUTE: Because I'm traveling in this heat...




LUTE: In this heat, the monsters will come inside my canteen.


BUSH: ...


BUSH: Hahaha... really?


LUTE: Yeah. Monsters don't like the heat either.


I was thinking mostly along the lines of heatstroke, but yeah, the monsters are a problem too.




LUTE: The other day, I was sketching on the small island in the lake and I found this little sprout.


LUTE: I was touched to see how even that tiny island is filled with life.


LUTE: Bush, weren't you good at caring for plants? Would you please care for it once in a while? Like watering it and stuff.


Yeah sure, anything for you dude.

(it's also because i've been waiting for this to happen)



Unfortunately, Lute isn't offering the Oven today. I really need that thing to start making more favorite gifts for the girls.

Ah, well, we've got 36,000g in pocket right now, I just go ahead and buy the steamer. I never use the steamer for anything in these games, but there it is.



I also nab the Maestro Forge while we're here, at a grand price of 28,000g. This expands our forging ability to work with the full number of materials now, so no piece of equipment is out of reach for Bush.



Danny's store is closed today. Huh.



I find Rosetta up in her room, sitting on her bed.




BUSH: This couch looks like it'd be comfy to sleep on.


ROSETTA: You better not fall asleep there. I did once and I got so sick!


It's those microorganisms, girl. If you sleep anywhere that's not an officially sanctioned sleeping device, you usually get a cold.

There's nothing else in the room to inspect, so I guess we're doing more of the bed thing.




BUSH: Wait, no... I'd probably get smacked...


ROSETTA: Why you...


ROSETTA: I'm speechless.


Apparently we don't get smacked. Huh.




MIST: You're always outside, so I'm sure you will get very tanned, Bush.


Unfortunately, Bush will remain a pasty anime boy his entire life. Not even a farmer's tan for our farming prodigy.




TSUBUTE: Bush! Look at this!


BUSH: Are these... clothes?


TSUBUTE: This is called a "Jinbaori". In my country, this is considered formal wear for war.


TSUBUTE: Milady made this with her very own hands and presented to me! I am the luckiest man in all of the three kingdoms!


UZUKI: Tsubute, you are always overreacting.


The jinbaori is specifically the sleeveless overcoat that samurai wear. It's that little blue and black thing he's got on.

Also, it's just nice to see Tsubute not being an overprotective grouch, just tiny samurai cricket dad.



I gave Eunice the last flower I had left, and all I got was the generic line





However, I do manage to catch Kross inside his house for the first time. Time to get his input on the stuff sitting around in here.




BUSH: It's a blueprint of furniture and tools. I had no idea Kross could make stuff like this. He's so talented...


KROSS: Heh... As they say, "Necessity is the mother of invention." No one in this town does carpentry, so I had to learn, that's all.


Understandable! Even moreso when nobody notices you exist...






KROSS: Heh...


KROSS: If you open that, you won't be able to go back to the way things were. Still want to open it...?


That's a very serious statement for your... wardrobe. Eh, I'm not gonna pry.



Kross only responds to the bed inspect with "that's fine."

He's such a chill dude.




BUSH: The books are mostly about architecture with some others about war chronicles.


KROSS: Bush, you shouldn't pry into people's secrets like that.


KROSS: Heh...


KROSS: You can't base your actions on curiosity alone. You'll never have enough time to find out everything.


damn i really need to take that advice

too bad it's probably never gonna stick




BUSH: There's a blueprint of various buildings.


BUSH: I wonder what this building is. It almost looks like a castle...


Kross responds with the same advice he gave when we looked at the books. It's good advice, I don't mind.




ERIK: Young man! Crops in the field will wither at the end of a season! You must be careful!


erik please

i know how farming works already, tell me something else

is this revenge for not covering your tutorial dialogue



Bianca's sitting at this table today. Yesterday she was at the identical table set on the other side of the manor.

I guess this is her Holiday table or something.




BIANCA: I'm bored. Do you know of anything fun to do?


I dunno, that's why I'm talking to you.



I reckon I oughta go see that little sprout at Lake Poli that Lute done told me about.



I opt to have Bush water it.

Don't worry about the fact that it's already raining.




It grew! Who could've guessed?




BUSH: ...Can I climb it?


Sure can, my friend!

You might remember from some earlier update where I noted how Whale Island flies above the lake on Holidays.



With this grown, we can now officially visit Whale Island every day of the week.

I never got this in my original playthrough, and I don't really know what triggers it exactly. I believe it's a mix of FP with Lute and Iris, plus seeing the "I found a strange seed" from Mist.



Also, since it drops us off beside Iris's tower, it puts it near a lot of the places we'd want to visit anyways.



Of note is also that the Return warp brings us outside and a bit to the right of the tower, and luckily not at the usual entrance.

Back home we go! I've gotta burn five hours before Iris even wakes up.




MIST: I don't have much to do when it rains so I came to visit. Was I being a bother?


I thought you spent rainy days plugging holes in a leaky ceiling.



Here's our fancy new Maestro forge. It looks very... industrial.



I believe the Bubble Staff is really what we'll be wanting next, despite sporting a massive skill requirement of 60 to use properly, and 45 forging just to make. It's also the only other water staff in the game because new spells are hard, I guess.

(water's pretty bad after Lava Ruins anyways)

Still, those Magic Crystals elude me, as well as most of the gem types.

I'll have to see what I can do about it.



Oh, and here's the steamer I bought.

I'll probably never use it, but it's there!



Outside I find that most of my tomatoes are gone! Who could have done this!?



Oh, it's just Grant doing his work. Good job buddy!

He seems to just kinda move forward and harvest 1x2s in puffs of green smoke and not much fanfare.

Still, he saved me easily hours in the day, so I'm not gonna complain.



Everything he harvests just warps to the shipping bin which is mostly convenient. If you've got anything you don't want shipped you have to either pick it yourself, or get back before 5:00 PM so Rosetta doesn't take it to be sold.

I naturally take all the tomatoes to convert into juice, for both more money and more cooking skill.

The recipe I still desire lies outside of my grasp. Had I the right cookbook, I could have made it all the way back at 60 cooking, but Selphy's not selling it and I am nothing if not stubborn. I will just to grind up to 80 then, as you can't attempt a recipe you don't know unless you match the skill level.

That means one thing...



*HARDCORE JUICING TIME*



Because the HP and RP won't hold out forever, this also includes

*HIGHLY RISKY FISHING*



Raw seafood expertly prepared on the brink of exhaustion powers Bush's efforts to defy the normalization of cookbooks.



Actually, Bush just eats that and use what it gives me to catch more fish. It's 3:00 PM, and he can just go get a bath.



Of course, not before putting a hole in the floor with our hammer. Gotta grind every last little bit of skill.



Grilled Char Lv:6 was synthesized with expertise!


That is Char as in the fish. They're basically a sub-branch of salmon.

Catching higher level fish does result in drastically better RP restoration from the cooked food though.



This is only worth 127 RP though because char are bad.

Who cares about +10 magic, I can easily get better with other recipes.

For the majority of this playthrough, Chub have been my mainstay. They don't sell for much, but they've got real good RP restoration. I can even catch them in the Summer as the fish in this game aren't as strictly locked to seasons as the earlier entries.



Now that I have bestowed this wicked useful knowledge unto you, it's time to resume

BLENDING



A couple minutes later, and over 80 glasses of tomato juice go into the shipping bin.

I have no idea who Rosetta sells all this to.

It's at this point I also remember that I have 36 ears of corn I need to do something with.



Corn Flakes Lv:2 was synthesized with expertise!


Corn and milk in the frypan lets Bush somehow make this. It's decent HP restoration, pretty good RP restoration, and defends against being sealed, but I want to save my milk for other stuff.

So I just start throwing the corn in the pan without the milk to get popcorn.



Popcorn Lv: 2 was synthesized with expertise!

Popcorn's not nearly as good as a food as the flakes, but 100 RP out of 500 isn't terrible.

It's only worth 30g more than the raw ear though.



They do happen to be jumbo buckets bigger than Bush's head though, so it's pretty funny when he just dives his head in while chewing.

I don't know where the bucket actually came from though. Did Bush somehow farmer magick it out of the corn shucks?



And with many more kernels popped, we reach a fateful moment

Cooking Skill 80



Once again, Rice and Milk go into a pot...



It's a very small success range, but Bush can't afford to mess this up...!



Oatmeal Lv: 1 was synthesized.

I never thought Oatmeal would feel like such an achievement.

Also, yes, all this work has been for oatmeal. The title of this update is an acronym for "How I Learned To Make Oatmeal And Love The Grind", not just me rubbing my hand against the keyboard.

I should totally do that for an update name though.


(why does it take 80 cooking to mush some rice in a pot)



Statistically, it's a bit better healing and a bit worse on RP than cornflakes. The Max HP+40 is maybe worth something, but in general that's not really why I've bothered with this food.

This happens to be Tabatha's favorite gift, so that makes two girls we can seriously accelerate the LP gain for.

If Lute was selling an oven I'd be rolling various cakes and pies right now, those being predominantly the favorite gifts of most girls, but here we are.



All that popcorn, juice, pickles, day old fish, and random cave strawberries amount to 31,881g as income for the day.

We just made back everything we spent today, basically.

Guess what we're gonna go do with it?



If you guessed "spend it all at our boy's shop" then you guessed right!

the reward is rice oatmeal

enjoy



We buy the Chef's Kitchen and the Fridge for 18,000g. The former improves our cutting board, and the latter gives me space to stick all those perishable things Bush carries around endlessly.

It'll open up a lot of space in his inventory, that's for sure.



I wasn't able to locate Tabatha, so her gifts will have to wait until tomorrow.

It is time to drop by Iris though.



Disappointingly, she doesn't say anything new.



Our new fridge is pretty neat.



It serves as a great plae to show off Bush's weed collection. We're up to 143!



It is now at this point I need to make a revision to the last update. I did in fact buy the Gourmet Cooking book. I thought I just left without it.

Of great note is the recipe for Tea Leaves. This takes 1 blue grass, 2 purple grass, 1 red grass, 1 yellow grass, and 1 orange grass and turns them into an item worth their total buying price.

It only heals 5 hp too. That's all it does when eaten.



It is, however, a skill 88 recipe with an incredibly cheap material cost, so it'll easily carry us to full mastery of cooking.

At 95 cooking, we can finally take these leaves and make them into the fabled Relax Tea, Melody's favorite gift and a strong food item in it's own right.



Flounder (44cm) Lv:4 was caught.


Alas, such wanton cookery will have to wait until another day, likely tomorrow.

Seeing as how I spent nearly 90 screenshots on one day, I might just have to call this one another short one.



For now, Bush takes a much needed rest after the brutal trials of learning how to make oatmeal.

Tomorrow, we start on Summer 8th, a Monday.

It being the 8th means I also have to begrudgingly start caring about Runeys again so...

_{yaaaaaaaaay...}