Oh, You’re Not Supposed to Farm Like That
“Whoa, I was terrified I’d get caught. Look at how my heart is racing.”
Having finished his private meeting with Aiden, Jamie poured out his grievances to Kalisa, who was returning from an errand.
“Hearts are supposed to race.”
“No, that’s not what I meant!”
“Do you think he didn’t notice at all?”
“Heh. He’s never really had much self-awareness in that regard.”
“I suppose so.”
Kalisa shrugged.
She found it quite frustrating that he couldn’t see how the hearts of the territory’s residents—their trust, their respect—were directed entirely toward him. Yet, she couldn’t help but chuckle, knowing that this very trait sometimes proved useful.
“But, Kalisa.”
“Yes?”
“Will this be enough?”
“No.”
“……”
“Do you think it would be?”
There were no subjects in their sentences, but the conversation flowed seamlessly.
“If a few more acres of farmland, a bit more active hunting, and a few dozen more merchants were enough to earn a noble title, there wouldn’t be a single person in this world who wasn’t a noble.”
The sight of the residents rolling up their sleeves to make Aiden a noble was the kind of touching scene you’d only find in a fairy tale, but Kalisa clicked her tongue. ‘Emotion is emotion, and reality is reality.’
“Still, we don’t have a choice. It’s the only thing we can do right now.”
“That’s true…”
At her cynical tone, Jamie slumped, failing to live up to his imposing physique.
“For now, we have to prepare to bulk up by doing whatever we can. The First Prince will surely assign our Administrative Officer a mission soon to entrust him with the North.”
It was a form of padding his resume.
Building the minimum justification required to bestow a title.
“So, we need to start thinking about making money. Whatever the mission is, isn’t money always the problem?”
“Our taxes! What’s the total estimated tax revenue for this year?”
“I have to re-estimate.”
“Huh?”
“The residents are moving.”
“Ah…!”
Only then did Jamie let out a sound of realization.
The small, individual help from the residents wouldn’t directly contribute much to the Administrative Officer’s career advancement.
But in the end, it is the change from below that alters everything.
The residents’ movements would return as taxes. The steadily accumulated taxes would then be poured back into the North in the form of various projects. Those projects would change the land, move the people again, and that change would become even greater tax revenue to fill the coffers.
It was a perfect virtuous cycle.
“Why are you standing here instead of coming in?”
“Administrative Officer.”
“Ha, haha! We were just… talking about something for a moment.”
Aiden had come out to find them himself when his adjutants didn’t appear at the expected time. Faced with his superior, Jamie stiffened like a criminal and attempted a clumsy, unconvincing performance.
“……?”
Aiden watched the awkward scene for a moment before nodding to himself.
‘Oh. Are they dating?’
He had thought they were always bickering, but it turned out that was all just lovers’ quarrels? If Kalisa had heard that, she would have grabbed him by the collar regardless of his rank, but she just lifted the corners of her mouth and tapped Jamie on the shoulder.
Good luck.
“?”
Jamie’s head filled with question marks at the inexplicable encouragement.
“But did you come out yourself to find us? If you had ordered a worker to find us, we would have returned immediately.”
Kalisa had actually used the word “us.”
Aiden, who was oblivious not only to his own status but also to the romantic entanglements of others, felt a surge of empathy at Kalisa’s casual remark and let his own lips curl upward.
‘So that’s why Jamie was so obsessed with other people’s love lives.’
This is fun.
“Yes?”
It seemed he had accidentally voiced his internal thoughts.
“Ah, no. It’s nothing. More importantly, I’d like to go out now.”
“Shall I prepare a carriage?”
“I think that will be necessary.”
Aiden still couldn’t ride a horse.
Having been an ordinary citizen in South Korea, his only experience with horses was a 15-minute course during a trip to Jeju Island and taking a photo after circling a small yard at the Korean Folk Village.
Of course, in both cases, he hadn’t ridden alone; the handlers had held the reins.
‘I really need to learn how to ride.’
It was embarrassing to keep asking his adjutants for help every time he needed to go somewhere, so Aiden made a resolution once again.
He would definitely learn to ride a horse soon.
It felt like that would give him a bit more freedom of movement.
“Where are you planning to go?”
“The reclamation site.”
“The… reclamation site?”
“The area the residents have registered for reclamation is quite large. I think I need to check how much the arable land can actually expand this year.”
“Ah, I will accompany you. We need to recalculate the taxes, and if the registered area for reclamation differs from the actual situation, the estimates will need to be adjusted.”
“I, I’ll go too!”
As soon as Kalisa offered to serve him, Jamie quickly jumped in as well.
He wanted to see it with his own eyes, thinking that if the arable land increased, they might be able to stockpile more grain.
As the head of the Livelihood Support Department, it was natural for Jamie to be obsessed with monitoring food and essential supplies every day, but Aiden, firmly convinced that his two adjutants were in a relationship—somewhere between “more than friends” and “less than lovers”—misinterpreted this and just chuckled to himself.
***
Clatter, clunk-.
The roads around the Lord’s Castle had been somewhat improved, so the ride had been decent, but as soon as they reached the outskirts, his body was shaken in every direction again.
Jamie and Kalisa had already run off, claiming they would ride horses.
Aiden resolved once more to take riding lessons as soon as possible.
‘But who should I get riding lessons from?’
Where would he rent a horse? How much would lessons cost? Ah, before that, how much money have I saved?
Aiden was lost in thoughts that were less “small” and more “pitiful.”
He didn’t care about costs for the carriage since his adjutants would bring it out immediately whenever he requested it for work, but he wasn’t sure if it was appropriate to request it for personal reasons like learning to ride.
Of course, he wasn’t a fool, just a bit oblivious; if he asked, a senior knight would come running immediately to provide one-on-one lessons as a talent donation, let alone worry about the cost. But for Aiden, whose self-identity was “civil servant,” making such an “obvious request” felt a bit awkward.
Without even needing to go as high as a member of the National Assembly, even a lowly city council member—whose name most people wouldn’t even know—would often treat working civil servants like servants, ordering them to “do this” or “do that.”
One of his peers had been dragged to a city council member’s alumni gathering on a weekend to fry dozens of green onion pancakes, and one of his seniors had spent half a year picking up a council member’s son from his academy.
Having lived through such a work life, Aiden couldn’t bring himself to call over a knight in the middle of training and ask, “Could you give me some riding lessons?” so he just let out a long sigh.
Clatter, clunk, clatter, clunk-.
His worries spiraled endlessly, but the carriage kept moving, and finally, they arrived at the reclamation site, quite a distance from the village.
“Whoa, whoa-.”
“We have arrived, Administrative Officer.”
The two adjutants skillfully stopped their horses and announced their arrival through the carriage window.
“Ugh.”
This carriage made his whole body feel like it was falling apart after just a short ride. As soon as he stepped out, he tried to loosen his joints, but his eyes were already fixed on the reclamation site.
“Looks like they’re in the middle of work.”
Just as Jamie said, over a dozen farmers were shirtless, plowing the land in the reclamation area.
An occasional ox could be seen, but the main force was human labor.
Despite the chilly weather, the farmers were drenched in sweat as if they had been soaked in water. Aiden stood there, staring at the farmers for a long time, forgetting to even stretch.
“Is this right?”
“Pardon? Oh… I don’t know much about farming either, but wouldn’t it be? Is there something that’s bothering you…?”
“No, it’s just that the selection of the reclamation site seems a bit wrong.”
At his superior’s words, which broke the silence, Jamie tilted his head.
“The location on the map is correct. The survey results say the soil quality is decent, too. It’s not very far from the village, so I don’t think the site selection itself is wrong…”
“No, it’s just that it’s so rocky. And that area behind it looks like a swamp. And next to that, it’s full of bushes.”
No matter how he looked at it, to Aiden’s eyes, this wasn’t land that would become farmland; it was just ordinary, abandoned, useless dirt.
“Administrative Officer.”
“Yes?”
“The beginning of all farmland is no different from this. This is actually on the better side. At least it’s not a sandpit.”
Kalisa stepped in. Her voice sounded as if she understood why Aiden was saying such things.
“Paddies and fields aren’t created on land that is already neatly partitioned into squares and leveled from the start.”
At Kalisa’s explanation, Aiden bit down hard on the soft flesh inside his mouth.
It was because he was ashamed.
He realized only then how immature his behavior had been, giggling to himself that the residents must have gotten a taste for money.
Reclamation is a desperate task.
Picking out stones, pulling out trees, and plowing the earth.
Without excavators or tractors, they have to borrow the strength of a single ox, with people swinging hoes, plows, and shovels themselves.
Whether it takes thousands, tens of thousands, or more swings, no one knows.
Furthermore, with the technology of this era, it’s difficult to even know for sure if crops will grow properly on the land reclaimed in such a way.
It is simply the act of sweating incessantly, body radiating heat against the cold wind, relying on the faint hope that there will be a better tomorrow.
Aiden somehow found the sight quite noble.
His dry, arid eyes began to moisten slightly.
“Ah, you’re not supposed to do it like that.”
A bright, cheerful voice rang out, shattering the touching scene.
“Goodness, that guy, if he keeps doing that, he’s going to throw his back out!”
“Uhehehe! Look at him swinging that plow! It’s hilarious!”
“Ugh, why bother touching that spot? Nothing’s going to grow there but weaklings. Don’t they even know how to read the land?”
There was more than one of them, too.
‘What is this?’
A startled Aiden scanned the surroundings, his tears instantly drying up.
His adjutants were the same.
They moved their heads busily, trying to find the source of the voices they couldn’t identify.
“……Dwarves?”
“Ugh, it’s insulting to compare us to those metal-dwarves!”
“We’re a different breed from those guys who spend all day clattering around and breaking everything!”
Hop.
A figure popped out from the bushes.
Neither quite a boy nor an adult, it was a face whose age was impossible to gauge.
The large, round eyes were full of mischief, but the relatively thick, large hands and feet gave a sturdy impression.
To Aiden, they looked exactly like dwarves.
Though perhaps they looked a bit more innocent than the dwarves he had seen before.
“Who… are you?”
“Eh? You don’t know us even after seeing us?”
“Why? How?”
“They don’t know us? Are they idiots?”
One remark was met with dozens in return.