Omen (3)
(Photo: Wonmo sitting down, looking round and fluffy)
Anyone got some advice to share?
My mission to learn the art of farming for Ludwig was officially underway. Once I posted on the Gallery, a generous stream of commenters chimed in with practical know-how. Among them, one particular registered user proved immensely helpful, providing detailed instructions that made following his advice an easy choice.
I had no idea you were supposed to prepare the ground two to three weeks beforehand.
I always knew farming wasn't a walk in the park. People often daydreamed about retiring to the countryside to take up farming, but in most cases, that was little more than a hobby garden. It was a world away from tilling the soil as a sole livelihood. To make matters worse, this wilderness lacked modern agricultural machinery, meaning every single step had to be replaced with raw muscle. A heavy sigh crept up my throat. I felt stuck before we had even begun.
That made sense. This was the Forest of the Four Seasons, a mystical domain teeming with rare medicinal herbs and supernatural flora. Growing ordinary crops would probably require nothing more than basic tilling.
I glanced up from the screen toward Ludwig.
"Here, boy. Come here, come on."
"Kyuu?"
"#$%!@. Here, little guy, come on."
"..."
Perhaps he had been yearning to cuddle the round, fluffy owlbear cub. Ludwig gestured warmly, calling Wonmo over. A full day had passed since his arrival, yet Wonmo still hadn't dared to approach the grizzled knight. It wasn't hostility or fear; Wonmo simply felt no urge to stray toward Ludwig when I was sitting right beside him. Ludwig, overwhelmed by shock and confusion during his first day, had possessed neither the time nor the composure to mind the animals. Now that his nerves had settled, he was pouring his energy into befriending the shelter's mascot.
"Kyuuu~"
Reading the sincere warmth in Ludwig's eyes, Wonmo waddled forward on his stubby legs. He burrowed straight into the paladin's chest, nuzzling his chubby cheeks against the knight's tunic. The stern, battle-hardened stoicism melted entirely from Ludwig's weathered face, replaced by a radiant, dopey fatherly grin.
"Kyuu. Kyu."
"Ahahaha..."
Watching them, I couldn't help but chuckle. It reminded me vividly of my father. Dad had always barked, "If you ever bring a mangy mutt into this house, I'm throwing it out on the street!" Yet the moment a puppy actually crossed our threshold, he ended up doting on that dog far more than on his own flesh and blood. He would throw a tantrum if anyone else tried to take it out for a walk.
"Go play on your computer," he would grumble, slipping the leash on.
All of that lived only in memory now. My parents had passed away long ago, and the beloved dog we had raised eventually reached the end of its lifespan. Pushing the nostalgic ache aside, I called out to Ludwig to ask what crop he wished to cultivate. Ludwig fell into thought for a moment, then picked up a stick and sketched on the dirt floor.
"...Bread? Flour? Wheat?"
His drawing was unequivocally a loaf of bread. Bread was made from flour, and flour was ground from wheat. I sketched a rough ear of wheat beside his drawing and pointed at it. Ludwig nodded vigorously. Turning back to the interface, I relayed the crop to my agricultural consultant.
Grow Big and Strong laid out the procedure step by step. I had naively assumed that farming merely involved scraping the ground with a plow or pitchfork, but reality was vastly more complicated. One had to raise elevated mounds for the seeds and dig deep drainage furrows to keep excess water from rotting the roots. The sheer volume of labor exceeded my expectations, so I hastily jotted down every instruction in my survival notebook. Since we weren't breaking ground until tomorrow, committing it to paper was the safest course.
His request was entirely reasonable. This mystical forest could mature a shrieking mandrake root to adulthood; its soil went beyond merely fertile. I swiftly bought a cheap wooden bucket from the auction house, stepped outside the cave entrance, and scooped up rich black dirt until the bucket was brimming. Exchanging the soil for the seeds was effortless.
Even in the middle of our trade, the farmer offered thoughtful guidance. He truly was a kind soul. Untying the small parcel, I examined our new acquisition. The wheat seeds filled a fist-sized cloth pouch, numbering far more than expected. Since our immediate plan was experimental rather than industrial, this quantity was more than sufficient.
"Mister. The wheat seeds are..."
"Kyuuu~"
"Hahaha."
He was completely engrossed in playing with Wonmo. I decided to let him be. Ludwig had arrived just yesterday; his mind was bound to be tangled in turmoil, and petting an adorable beast was as therapeutic as medicine got. Besides, tomorrow would bring a mountainous pile of grueling labor. He deserved whatever peace he could snatch today.
A full month has already slipped past.
Over thirty days had vanished since I first opened my eyes in the Forest of the Four Seasons. The first fortnight had crawled by with agonizing sluggishness, but once the rhythm of survival solidified into habit, the days evaporated in a blur. Tomorrow, however, time promised to crawl once more. Ludwig's arrival shifted every dynamic in our shelter.
I'll also have to personally guide him around the areas I've explored.
Someone might ask why I couldn't simply hand him my hand-drawn map, but my rough sketches were crude approximations rather than accurate navigational charts. In this labyrinthine forest, spatial orientation could only be acquired through raw physical memory. Bizarrely enough, the sun rose from a different direction every single day.
I never knew having the sunrise shift locations could be such a royal pain in the ass.
Had the sun consistently crested over a fixed point on the horizon, judging cardinal directions would have been trivial. Today, however, dawn broke over the right side of the cavern; yesterday, it had peeked out from the left. Much like the shifting, surreal badlands across the river, the landscape around our sanctuary was constantly crawling and rotating in real time.
Time to call it a night.
I crafted a thick, comfortable sleeping mat for Ludwig. Thanks to a thorough scrubbing during his bath earlier, the foul stench of decay had vanished. The sole lingering issue was his attire. I had lent him one of my spare shirts, but...
That deer emblem is screaming in agony.
Perhaps owing to his lifetime of military conditioning, Ludwig's broad, muscular frame was far too large for my clothes. The stag printed across the athletic jersey was stretched so tautly horizontal that it looked like it was begging for its life. Seeing his seams straining on the verge of explosive rupture, I had pinged Princess Chaeng-gu to request an oversized kit.
It appeared the Chae-yu fan club was about to gain another unwitting recruit. Once the generous package arrived, I handed the pristine jersey over to Ludwig. He accepted the garment with a solemn, stern nod, looking quite pleased, until—
"Kyuu?"
"Wait, hey, man! That's for humans to wear! Don't put it on Wonmo!"
"#%%^$!"
The paladin was already attempting to squeeze the massive athletic shirt over Wonmo's plump head. The cub already had his own customized wardrobe; watching this stoic crusader turn into an overzealous pet parent on day one made me rub my temples in exasperation. Amidst the lively ruckus, our loudest night yet slipped by, and the morning sun peered over the wilderness.
The moment dawn arrived, my first duty was preparing breakfast.
...Why do I feel like I've become the shelter's live-in chef?
Pushing aside the strange existential dread, I focused on our checklist. Today's primary task was heading downstream along the river to gather clean sand. It would also serve as the perfect opportunity to familiarize Ludwig with the surrounding terrain.
He really treats that giraffe like a warhorse.
Before setting off for the lower riverbank, Ludwig hopped effortlessly onto Largo's towering back. It was a bizarre, surreal sight, but Largo obeyed his reins with docile grace.
"Let's head out."
"Mmh."
A brand new day had begun.
The true dawn of human civilization was sparked by agriculture.
Originally wandering the wilds as nomadic hunter-gatherers, humanity discovered that tilling the earth enabled permanent collective settlements. Yet agriculture unintentionally birthed a monumental side effect: social stratification.
Cultivation yielded surplus produce, and surplus produce gave rise to trade and barter. In a world where one had to consume food to survive, crop yields were equivalent to life itself—and therefore, equivalent to raw power. Land, the very cradle of that production, swiftly transformed into the ultimate symbol of authority. Inevitably, the divide emerged between those who broke their backs tilling the soil and those who governed the farmers. Hierarchies formed naturally.
For this reason, certain historians argued that agriculture was simultaneously humanity's greatest triumph and its most catastrophic blunder.
Farmers formed the foundational bedrock of any thriving state. No matter how mighty an empire stood, the moment famine struck, the nation boarded a fast train toward total collapse. An empire shattered by external invasion could always be rebuilt, but an empire rotting from internal starvation was doomed to perish.
A wise sovereign, therefore, never oppressed his peasantry; instead, he showered them with privileges and protective decrees. A quintessential example of this wisdom was Emperor Robert of the Messiah Empire. During his reign, Robert slashed agricultural levies and granted sweeping tax immunities, stoking the pride and productivity of his rural subjects. Though countless high nobles had voiced bitter protests, the relentless string of bumper harvests that followed silenced every dissenting tongue.
In that regard, the farmers of the Messiah Empire ought to have been tending their fields with joyous smiles every single day...
"Ah, fuck me. This is so damn exhausting, seriously."
"I swear to God, I hate farming with every fiber of my being."
"What's the bloody point of having an ox? You still have to bend your spine in half all day long!"
...Or not.
No matter how many imperial benefits were showered upon them, agriculture remained backbreaking primary industry. It demanded a staggering volume of physical exertion; human muscle inevitably groaned under the strain. An ox could pull a heavy plow, but placing the seeds into the furrow still required human hands. Even so, the harvests yielded undeniable wealth, so the laborers grumbled through their teeth while continuing to plant.
"Hey, Roy."
"Yes, Uncle?"
"What the blazes have you been scattering over there since morning? Is that fertilizer?" a weathered middle-aged farmer asked, his brow furrowed as he watched the young man.
The earnest, sturdy youth, Roy, rubbed the back of his neck with an awkward grin.
"Well... something like that. It shouldn't do any harm, right?"
"Eh, as long as it isn't poison, do whatever you want. Just be careful with it."
"Yes, sir. Underst—"
Before the word could clear Roy's lips—
KABOOM! FSSSSHHH!
With an explosive, thundering rustle, emerald stalks detonated out of the soil where Roy had scattered the black dirt. The phenomenon wasn't isolated to a single patch. Everywhere the mysterious earth had settled, colossal shoots tore violently through the loam, surging skyward like volcanic eruptions.
"Wh-what in the blazes is that?!"
"Gods above, what's happening?!"
The surrounding peasants shrieked in terror, scrambling backward as the stalks finally stabilized. Towering stalks loomed like ancient trees, easily eclipsing the height of a grown man several times over. Roy stood frozen, his jaw slack as he craned his neck upward.
Outwardly, the colossal green monoliths looked like wheat. Yes... strictly outwardly speaking.
"Hey! Roy! What in the seven hells did you just dump on our field?!"
Faced with the elder's thunderous roar, Roy offered a bewildered, trembling reply.
"J-just... some dirt."
To be precise, it was a single bucket of soil from the Forest of the Four Seasons.