The weather was getting colder.
The heavy snow kept falling. Before long, ice and snow would block the mountain roads.
From Lina's experience, once the snow sealed off the mountains, the farm would be cut off from the outside world for two months.
Nothing would grow in the soil in the depths of winter, and the abandoned farm had no food reserves at all.
They had to stock up on supplies for the winter now.
Normally, Lina would have handled this, but on her first trip to town, drunken wounded soldiers had surrounded her and harassed her. Seeing an unfamiliar face, they had assumed she was a newly arrived streetwalker.
Lina wasn't even particularly attractive, yet she had still been harassed. That showed just how dangerous it was for women to visit the market town at a time like this.
The job of buying supplies fell to Goff.
While the mountain road was still open, Goff set off, pulling a handcart.
Goff had originally been a fair-skinned, mild-mannered little fat man. But lately, he had grown much darker and lost a great deal of weight.
His sick mother and his pregnant wife-both burdens rested on his shoulders.
So the handcart carried more than supplies. It carried responsibility.
The former middle-ranking employee of the Giantwood Group entered the town with his head lowered and his back bent, pulling the cart like a true farmer from the Southern Region.
He listened closely to the sounds around him.
Soldiers seeking entertainment in the market town passed him, chatting about the latest amusements.
Apparently, the Circus was coming to perform today to entertain the wounded soldiers here.
The performance would be in the afternoon.
Goff worked it out. He would finish shopping at just the right time.
He planned to watch from a distance