Harvest Season (3)
Everyone has those kinds of daydreams at least once in their life. What if this project becomes a massive success, catches the chairman’s eye, and I rise through the ranks to become the center of the entire group? What if some distant relative I’ve never even met, the owner of an entire building, passes away and leaves everything to me? What if I’m the sole winner of a lottery ticket I bought while drunk, and two billion won suddenly drops into my lap—should I quit my job or pretend nothing happened and keep working? …Well, those kinds of fantasies. Of course, they always end the same way: “Nothing happened.”
“Still, this one feels pretty likely, doesn’t it…?”
Patrick swallowed without realizing it. He had been flipping through a book filled with gossip about which noble house’s son or daughter had an affair with another house’s child, turning them into bitter enemies. The print was tiny, the pages were endless, and the characters were so tangled together that he kept having to flip back and forth just to understand what was going on. In a world without Netflix or YouTube, this book had been his only source of entertainment—and now the thought that it might actually change his life made his hands tremble slightly.
Patrick began turning the pages one by one, holding his breath.
. . .
Cock-a-doodle-doo! Cock-a-doodle-doo!
Like a broken clock that’s right twice a day, the rooster that only crowed when Patrick most wanted to sleep was crowing at the actual break of dawn for once.
“I’m screwed.”
Patrick sighed heavily as he looked toward the window. This was why the book was dangerous. Just opening it could make hours vanish in an instant.
“It was good, though.”
It had been entertaining again. Especially the part explaining how the current emperor had been recognized as the legitimate heir—that had been the highlight of the night.
“…But what did I even accomplish?”
His original plan had failed miserably. The surname “Lutzen” didn’t appear anywhere in the book. He had scoured the family trees and place names he’d already read, searching for even the smallest clue, but the result remained the same.
“Teacher! Teacher!”
While he lay on the bed staring blankly in disappointment, the children came running up.
“You’re here. Has the village chief returned yet?”
“Not yet. But it should be fine, right? My dad said his speech was already getting better by the time they boarded the ship.”
“Really?”
At least that was a relief. Thinking about it, nearly every major and minor affair in the village went through the chief. If something happened to a man like that, everyone would suffer. From what he’d heard, once someone became addicted, even if they looked fine on the outside, their insides were damaged, and they needed months of recovery.
“Should I make some side dishes for him?”
“Side dishes?”
“Yeah. The garden’s about ready for harvest anyway.”
“We can’t help you today, Teacher.”
“You’re really going to be that stingy? I’ll make you something delicious later. Just lend me a hand.”
“Ben’s family’s grape farm comes first!”
“That’s right! We couldn’t finish harvesting properly yesterday because of all the chaos.”
“Oh, right.”
Now that they mentioned it, he hadn’t even checked how the grape harvest had gone yesterday.
“My dad said you probably shouldn’t come today. He said your face looked way too pale yesterday. At this rate, he said, the village might end up with two patients instead of one.”
“…Wouldn’t it have been better not to pass on that last part?”
The children burst into laughter at Patrick’s words. They were clearly teasing him on purpose. To think he was being mocked by ten-year-olds. How tragic.
“Tell him I’m sorry. I’ll be busy with the garden harvest today, so I won’t be able to make it.”
Patrick made one last attempt to preserve his dignity. The children disappeared down the hill as quickly as they had arrived. The isolated house outside the village fell silent once more.
“I should get started before it gets any hotter.”
Now that he thought about it, this field really was a problem. When he’d first started harvesting, he’d planted a little bit of everything out of greed, and now it was all coming back to haunt him.
‘I should’ve listened to what people told me.’
He sighed again as the thought crossed his mind for the umpteenth time. The villagers had all advised him, “If you’re planning to sell even a little at the market later, you should focus on just a few main crops.” But a city person who’d just gotten their hands on a large plot of land for the first time wasn’t about to make rational decisions. They wanted to plant this, they wanted to plant that—like a collector gathering specimens, he had filled the field with every crop imaginable. It was only natural for a beginner to make mistakes, but for Patrick, it was proving to be quite painful. If it had been a hobby farm that only needed tending once a week, planting every kind of seedling might have resulted in a manageable harvest. But the land he’d been given was vast, and the yield was far beyond what he could handle.
“…What am I even supposed to do with all this?”
Cucumbers now thicker than his forearms. Pumpkins rolling around everywhere. Tomatoes that kept producing no matter how many he ate. Eggplants seemed to grow faster than bamboo shoots after rain, and as for the bell peppers—well, what was there to say? Were they growing so fast because they were hollow inside? The leafy greens had stems so thick they looked like proper trees, and the fruits nearby were starting to ripen, filling the air with a sweet scent whenever he got close.
It was an excessively abundant garden for something cultivated by a beginner like Patrick. And he hadn’t even given it any proper fertilizer.
‘Is it because spirits used to live here that the soil is so fertile?’
If that were the case, it would make sense that his garden, being close to the bamboo forest where the spirits had made their home, was producing such results.
“But what does that matter? There’s no such thing as a freezer in this world!”
In the twenty-first century, preservation technology could keep vegetables and fruits from spoiling for months during transport. There was no way a beginner mage who could barely manage sprinkling water and lighting fires could pull off something like that.
“Let’s just harvest first…”
He decided to worry about what to do with everything later and focus on gathering as much as possible for now. He moved with unusual speed, thanks to the conversations he’d overheard while helping at the grape farm yesterday.
— I made quite a bit of vinegar pickles this time. Would you like some?
— Already? You moved fast!
— Last year the vinegar was so expensive that we had to settle for just salting everything. At least we had that much. I think eating nothing but salted vegetables every day last winter made my mouth go bitter.
— We didn’t have a choice. Everyone was struggling last year. Anyway, we should start getting ready for winter at our place too.
— Call me when you’re making salted fish. I want to learn from your touch.
— Hohoho, sure, why not? I’d be happy to have an extra pair of hands!
The village women had been preparing for winter since summer.
‘Winter preparations, huh.’
Patrick had also been busy in the spring, blanching and drying various herbs. But the dried spring vegetables he’d made were already running low. Even though the garden was right in front of him, eating nothing but fresh vegetables every day got boring quickly, and the savory flavor of the dried herbs was one of the few unique tastes to be found on this island where new flavors were rare. The fact that even the villagers had shown interest in his dried herbs and traded various daily necessities for them meant there weren’t many bundles left now.
‘Am I really going to end up eating nothing but potatoes at this rate?’
The realization that he should have made side dishes instead of turning the fruit and mushrooms into medicine or alcohol finally struck him. Of course, he did have some pickled and salted vegetables stored away.
……Though the taste was the worst.
Wait, weren’t pickled things just supposed to be buried? Patrick still couldn’t understand why they tasted so bitter. He prided himself on being a decent cook, but apparently making preserved foods was an entirely different matter. He tilted his head in confusion.
“Get out of here, you. Can’t you see I’m busy?”
Baa—
The goat kept sidling up to him as he entered the field wearing his straw hat. The creature was usually standoffish, so why was it acting like a puppy today? He checked the pen to see if it was out of food, but that wasn’t it either. He pushed the thought aside for now and started picking the fruits that looked like they shouldn’t get any bigger.
***
“Who said farming was some kind of leisurely hobby?”
Three days later.
Patrick lay in bed groaning as he hurled curses at a certain YouTuber who had been the biggest contributor to making him dream of becoming a farmer. Still, after three straight days of work, the urgent tasks seemed to be finished. Of course, when autumn came, there would be more crops waiting for his attention, but that was a problem for later.
“But seriously, what am I supposed to do with all this?”
He turned his head slightly and glanced through the half-open bedroom door. The sight he wanted to ignore was right there—sacks and crates overflowing with every kind of harvest imaginable. He had vaguely thought, “Wouldn’t it be great if the crops turned out well?” but now that it was reality, he felt completely overwhelmed. Once again, preservation technology in this world was the worst. He had tried making pickles in the spring, but no matter how he thought about it, he had no confidence in making them taste good. More importantly—
‘There’s nowhere to even store them!’
The storage shed was already half-filled with medicinal herbs, timber, and seeds, so just moving the harvest inside wouldn’t be enough. That was why all the produce had spilled out of the shed and into the house itself.
“Teacher! Teacher! …What’s all this?”
Ben, who had come running in with the news that “The village chief will be back tomorrow!”, stopped short at the sight of the house.
“You came at the right time. Take some of this with you.”
“Huh?”
“Want some cucumbers? How about carrots? Eggplants? I’ve got plenty of turnips too.”
Ben stared at him warily.
“Are they free?”
“Would I charge you? Wait, do you even have money?”
Ben grinned confidently. He patted the small pouch tied at his waist a few times.
“…What’s that?”
“I have money.”
“What?”
“I got an allowance for helping with the grape harvest. All my friends got some too!”
Wait, what was he talking about?
“What about me?”
“Huh?”
“I helped with the harvest too, didn’t I?”
“Nah, you didn’t stay till the end. You left to harvest your own garden. We picked grapes for three whole days.”
He had known that money was starting to circulate in the village. The quality of the children’s clothes had improved slightly, and their complexions were clearly better than when they first arrived. But things had gotten good enough that people were giving their kids allowances? It wasn’t a lot of money, but the fact that cash was flowing at all…
“Should I try selling the carrots…?”
Even if he couldn’t sell to merchants, maybe he could sell to the villagers? After all, no one else on the island had planted as many different crops as he had. The DNA of a former carrot market addict who once boasted a 61.4-degree “manner temperature” began to light up with excitement.