Cultivars (3)

What is the single most infuriating thing to a farmer?

Living creatures that ruin their crops.

Droughts, floods, typhoons, and other natural calamities could at least be written off as acts of God, allowing everyone to weep together in shared resignation. But living pests were an entirely different story. You never knew when they would strike, yet theoretically, you could prepare against them—which was precisely why farmers treated them with sheer, unadulterated contempt.

To make matters worse, this was a fantasy world crawling with monsters. Pack-hunting creatures like goblins, orcs, and gnolls raided croplands with alarming regularity. Renowned for their vicious cunning, they naturally drew the blistering hatred of every tiller of the soil.

Locust swarms were undeniable natural catastrophes, but sparrows, at least, were thought to be manageable. Setting up scarecrows was the classic defense. While it was never a silver bullet, it generally kept them at bay.

Was complete eradication impossible? Not necessarily. If you carried out indiscriminate culls, you could wipe them out. In fact, a certain someone in history had actually tried it—the man who uttered the immortal line:

“That bird is a harmful bird.”

‘And the result was tens of millions of people starving to death.’

Ecosystems were terrifying things; disrupt them carelessly, and there was no telling what nightmare you would unleash. One could never be too cautious.

Even so…

Staring at the picked-clean, desolate stalks of wheat, a heavy gloom settled over my chest. Since this is the Forest of the Four Seasons, should I give culling a shot too? The thought kept nagging at me. They had looted the crop with surgical precision. All that remained were naked stalks.

Munch, crunch—

Correction: Largo was currently chewing down those stalks, too. Since the grain was already completely stripped and I had no special use for the stalks anyway, I just let him graze.

‘Turns out calling them harmful birds wasn’t entirely wrong after all.’

Having every last grain plundered right before my eyes left me feeling thoroughly hollow, but that was hardly the worst of it. The real issue was that I had no earthly idea where that staggering swarm of sparrows had even come from. Usually, all I ever heard was the faint chirping of a few songbirds in the canopy, yet an oceanic horde had materialized in mere seconds.

‘No wonder there weren't many bugs around.’

Aside from that one localized insect outbreak a while back, I had always thought the insect population in this area was suspiciously sparse. Seeing those birds now, the pieces finally clicked into place. If that flock vanished completely, an army of pests would overrun the entire area in no time. The truly horrifying realization was that despite having that many voracious birds around, insect plagues still managed to break out every summer.

“$%%%#?”

“What do we do? Hell if I know.”

An ecological revelation was one thing, but farming was another. I answered Ludwig’s bewildered question with utter irresponsibility. Even for me, this was uncharted territory. Scarecrows wouldn't do a damn thing here; the flock had swooped in and devoured our plot right in front of our faces without batting an eye. The whole raid was over so fast we didn’t even have time to mount a proper defense.

‘Seriously, what the hell do we do?’

A farmer with thirty years of experience under his belt would throw his hands up at this. If it were locusts, we could at least douse them in repellent since they counted as vermin. After all, the merchant guild had been steadily sending us pest control concoctions lately. But these were birds—creatures that dined on both grain and grubs.

‘And the fact that they swarmed the exact instant the wheat ripened is absurd.’

As expected of the Forest of the Four Seasons, nothing ever stayed within the bounds of common sense. Ludwig and I couldn't solve this on our own. It was time to crowd-source wisdom from the Gallery. But before posting, I needed to record footage. There was also an experiment I had to run.

“Old man, let’s try it like this.”

“#%#?”

My plan was straightforward: wait for the next patch of wheat to mature, and the moment it ripened, harvest it immediately. If the flock swooped in, I would brandish my big, glorious aura and sweep them out of the sky in one stroke.

Flap-flap-flap-flap!

“Gaaah!”

“Uwaaaagh!”

We failed catastrophically. I had anticipated the wheat growing and the birds diving in, but what followed completely shattered my expectations.

The instant I swung my sword sheathed in blazing aura, the flock scattered in perfect unison. It looked like a massive school of fish in the ocean parting instantaneously to dodge an apex predator. Watching a flock pull off that kind of fluid, three-dimensional maneuver on land—and in midair, no less—was enough to drive a man insane.

And what happened next? The birds descended upon Ludwig and me like a living tsunami. Thankfully, they didn't peck out our eyes; instead, their collective mass simply steamrolled us. Actually, saying they dragged us down would be far more accurate. In the end, forget harvesting—I failed to swat even a single bird.

“……”

“……”

Ludwig and I looked like an absolute disaster. Feathers clung to every inch of our clothes and hair, accompanied by an assortment of scratches. I just prayed we hadn't caught some exotic avian disease.

“Kyuu?”

“……Yeah. Thanks, buddy.”

When your spirit was bruised and battered, nothing comforted you quite like Wonmo. I stroked his head and sighed deeply, gazing back at the stripped, barren field. Just when I thought things were finally going smoothly, reality slapped me across the face. True to the Forest of the Four Seasons, even cultivating a tiny garden patch was hard-mode survival.

“Oh?”

That made a surprising amount of sense. At the end of the day, that terrifying swarm was still composed of sparrows. If they caught wind of an apex predator lurking nearby, chances were high they’d steer clear.

‘The problem is where the hell am I supposed to get that blood……’

The only creature here remotely qualifying as an apex beast was Wonmo. But Wonmo was still an infant cub. Unless he grew two or three times his current size, he was a baby who needed protection, not a terrifying terror of the woods.

Rustle, hiss—

Speak of the devil. As I was scrolling through the thread, my gaze caught a thick serpent slithering up the trunk of a nearby tree. True to a creature dwelling in the Forest of the Four Seasons, its bulk was staggering, easily stretching roughly three meters in length.

Ssssshh—

The serpent crept noiselessly along a bough toward a lone sparrow perched on an outer branch. The bird realized the danger a beat too late and spread its wings to flee, but the snake was far faster.

“Chwaaaah!”

Snap!

Just as the bird took flight, the snake’s triangular head lunged like a rifle bullet. Desperate flaps and frantic screeches did nothing; the sparrow vanished down the reptile's gullet in a single, fluid swallow.

‘……Wait, why aren't the rest flying away?’

Something was deeply wrong. Their natural predator had just made a kill right in front of them, yet the surrounding sparrows didn't flee. On the contrary, every single bird in the canopy swiveled its beady eyes toward the snake, fixing it with an unnervingly sharp gaze. The tension in the air turned razor-thin.

“……#%#.”

“……Yeah. I feel it too.”

Ludwig seemed to sense the ominous shift as well. Did I understand his language? Not a single syllable. But his tone clearly conveyed: Something smells rotten.

Unaware of the shift, the serpent tasted the air with its bifurcated tongue and eyed its next target. With a body that large, a single sparrow was barely an appetizer.

Flap-flap-flap-flap!

Before the snake could strike, the birds made the first move. As if synchronized by a hive mind, hundreds of wings beat in unison, taking to the air. Their target, as expected, was the serpent. Yet no matter how numerous small birds were, how could they hope to overpower a predator with such an overwhelming difference in mass?

“Ssssshaaah!”

“Chirp! Cheep!”

“Chirp-chirp!”

The snake snapped its jaws wide and lunged, gulping down several birds that flew straight into its maw. But the flock didn't falter. They swarmed over the serpent like angry hornets, blanketing its massive scaled body from head to tail, just as they had done to Ludwig and me. For a moment, I wondered if they were attempting to peck it to death.

Rrrrriiiip!

A grotesque sound of violent tearing tore through the air. In an instant, the birds blanketing the snake repelled outward simultaneously, like magnets of the same polarity violently thrust apart. The moment I witnessed that motion, I instantly realized what had just occurred.

Tear! Rip! Snap! Crack!

The three-meter serpent had been literally, physically ripped to shreds. Chunks of bloody meat and ruptured scales plummeted to the forest floor with wet, heavy thuds. True to reptilian tenacity, the severed pieces still twitched and coiled in the dirt, making the spectacle all the more gruesome.

“……”

“……”

Ludwig and I stood frozen in place, utterly struck dumb. Who on earth could utter a single word after watching a giant predator turned into diced ground meat in a split second? If I had actually killed one of those birds earlier during my sword swing, that snake could easily have been me.

“Kyuu~!”

Wonmo, seizing the golden opportunity, dashed forward toward the fresh chunks of snake meat. Sensing that the head was dangerous, the clever little guy prudently began feasting from the tail section. A few dead sparrows lay scattered among the gory mess, but thankfully, Wonmo didn't spare them a single glance.

“Chirp.”

“Cheep, chirp.”

As if nothing out of the ordinary had occurred, the flock serenely returned to their perches along the tree branches. Watching the surreal scene unfold, I quietly bent down and scattered another handful of wheat seeds into the tilled soil.

Flap-flap-flap-flap!

“Cheep! Chirp! Cheep!”

The instant the green stalks sprouted and swelled with golden grain, the flock swooped down as if it were their birthright. I didn't lift a finger to stop them. On the contrary, whenever they finished stripping a patch bare, I tossed down another handful of seeds.

Flap-flap-flap!

Whether they possessed some bizarre avian conscience or simply decided their bellies were full, the birds began departing in small groups once they had eaten their fill. As time passed, the dense cloud of feathered thieves thinned out considerably. Ludwig caught onto my strategy immediately and began assisting, sowing and tilling in rhythm.

‘Eat up, little guys. Fill your bellies and just don’t tear me limb from limb.’

During my month of surviving in the Forest of the Four Seasons, I had learned a vital lesson: unless the other party initiated hostilities, always maintain a friendly, accommodating posture. That way, at least my life wouldn't be forfeit over something trivial.

“#$%#?”

“I know, right? Me too.”

I still couldn't understand his words, but the nuance was unmistakable. He was asking if this absurd, groveling appeasement was really how I had survived out here all this ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠time.

‘Please let these sparrows be migratory birds.’

Whether fantasy sparrows migrated or not was beyond my knowledge. I could only pray inwardly. Before the raw, unbridled might of mother nature, all human struggle was ultimately meaningless.

Only after the flock had gorged themselves into a stupor was I finally able to harvest a decent bundle of wheat. Thanks to the extraordinary fertility of the soil and the vigor of the seeds, the yield itself was surprisingly bountiful.

Chomp, chomp, munch.

I tossed the leftover wheat stalks to Largo, who devoured them with gusto. Watching him chew, it felt less like tending to a majestic mythical giraffe and more like raising an oversized dairy cow.

“What should we plant next?”

“#%%^^.”

Ludwig picked up a stick and sketched in the dirt. He wanted to plant sweet potatoes. Since birds routinely stripped grain crops like rice and wheat bare, he figured switching to tuberous root crops hidden safely underground was the wiser course of action. Sharing his sentiment, I immediately contacted Grow Big and Strong.

As expected of an agricultural enthusiast, he possessed an extensive variety of seeds. While sweet potatoes were usually cultivated from slips, out here in this cheat-level soil, they would surely figure out how to grow on their own. Best of all, since the edible tubers matured deep underground, there was zero risk of airborne birds plundering them.

Fwoooosh!

“Ooh!”

“Oh.”

Scarcely moments after scattering the seeds, lush emerald vines shot vigorously toward the sky. All that remained was to dig up the fat, purple sweet potatoes slumbering beneath the loam…

Slurp!

“?”

“?”

Without warning, the thriving vines suddenly sank downward into the dirt. It wasn't just a single stem; across the entire patch, the lush green foliage vanished into the soil one after another, like noodles sucked into a voracious mouth. For a brief second, I wondered if this was just an eccentric phase of supernatural plant growth.

“……”

“……”

Forget harvesting sweet potatoes; all that greeted us were hollow, empty tunnels. Staring down into the freshly excavated dirt, the grim reality dawned on me. Moles had looted the entire subterranean harvest.

I had heard cautionary tales about them, but I never imagined I’d fall victim to a tunnel heist firsthand.

‘There are way too many damn thieves in this world.’

It looked like our garden required a complete subterranean renovation.