The Heavy Smoker and the Reaper of the Wheat Fields (4)
I finished turning an entire rice paddy into a barren wasteland all by myself, and before I knew it, lunchtime had arrived.
Fwoosh. Franc and I spread out a mat beside the field and sat down. Having worked straight through the morning, I was starving. As I set down my adventurer’s bag and reached for some preserved rations, I noticed Franc smiling silently at me.
“Franc?”
“Hehe. Actually, I prepared something today.”
At my question, Franc beamed and pulled a cloth-wrapped basket from her bag. A basket? Wait, could this be…?
“Ta-da!! Sandwiches!”
Franc cutely exclaimed as she lifted the wooden basket’s lid. Inside were rows of delicious-looking sandwiches.
“You made these… yourself, Franc?”
“Yep! Farm work is tough, right? You need to eat something hearty for lunch!”
Her words hit me so hard I actually trembled with emotion. A lunchbox personally packed by your girlfriend—wasn’t that the ultimate dream for countless men? Having been single until just a few days ago, the idea of receiving a lovingly prepared meal from a girlfriend felt like something out of a fantasy. The impact was overwhelming.
But that immense wave of gratitude quickly turned into guilt. I could feel my own face darkening.
“You even brought a lunchbox, but I didn’t prepare anything. All I brought was some meat to share.”
What I’d packed was just some dried food and the meat I’d received from Dorka last time. I’d wrapped it carefully even when I took it into the sewers, so it didn’t smell. Still, compared to Franc who had prepared a full lunch, I might as well have brought nothing.
Franc shook her head as if it didn’t matter.
“Don’t worry about it. I’m fine.”
“Fine? No way. These are exactly the times you should pay attention.”
I’d said it half-jokingly, mimicking a mom, but Franc wasn’t actually my mother. Even blood-related mothers find it difficult to give unconditional love. So how could I take a lover’s affection for granted, as if it were my right? That kind of attitude would destroy the relationship sooner or later.
I spoke seriously.
“I couldn’t prepare anything today, so it can’t be helped. But next time, look forward to it. I’ll cook you a proper man’s meal.”
“Puhuhu. I’ll wait without expecting too much.”
At my words, Franc’s cheeks flushed with genuine joy before her expression turned serious again.
“Still, Nord, a man shouldn’t casually go into the kitchen, you know? I’m really grateful, but I don’t want people saying you have no backbone.”
“…Huh?”
Men shouldn’t enter the kitchen? I froze for a second, then came back to my senses. Gender discrimination in this other world was still very much alive. While there weren’t many assholes spouting medieval garbage like “a woman needs to be beaten once every three days,” I still occasionally felt the weight of ingrained cultural differences in these small details.
They say humans are creatures ruled by their environment. Since people here grew up in that kind of background, their common sense naturally differed from 21st-century standards. At least they didn’t treat girls like they didn’t exist the way some of our grandparents’ generation did.
Internally, I resolved to gradually transform our relationship into a truly equal partnership, starting with these little things. Still, forcing Franc to do something she disliked would be putting the cart before the horse. We should find a compromise through conversation. Even though I was a harem-obsessed male chauvinist from another world, I at least had the right to make the woman I loved comfortable.
“Alright. I’ll be careful. But I still want to feed my girlfriend something I made myself. What should I do about that?”
I slyly pulled Franc into my arms for some skinship. She shrank her neck but looked delighted even as she tilted her head.
“Girlfriend? What does that mean?”
“It means ‘beloved female friend.’ Or should I have called you ‘goddess’ instead?”
“Aww, Nord. What goddess am I? Where would you find a half-blood goddess?”
Franc, still nestled in my embrace, reached up and stroked my chin. I covered her hand with mine the way she often did, savoring the warm touch.
“There are tons of half-blood gods. And who cares about origin? If someone’s this kind and adorable, even a half-blood of a half-blood should be called a goddess.”
“Puhuhu. Nord, that tickles─.”
We stayed like that for a while before finally starting our meal. We could have cuddled all day, but we needed to replenish our biological energy along with the love energy if we wanted to keep going.
I took a big bite of the sandwich Franc had made. From its appearance I’d already guessed, but it really was incredibly delicious. I swallowed and opened my mouth wide in shock.
“What the hell? What did you put in this to make it taste so good?”
“You’re exaggerating. I just put in chicken and vegetables. Beynya lent me the sauce ingredients. It turned out pretty tasty, right?”
“Pretty tasty…? This? Then what would you call something that’s ‘extremely’ delicious—royal palace cuisine?”
I was speechless at Franc’s high standards. In this world, sandwiches were an extremely common convenience food since they didn’t require fire to prepare. They occupied roughly the same position as… well, not instant ramen, but maybe soy sauce egg rice. I’d gotten sick of them during my three years here. Even so, I’d rarely eaten one this good. This was on the level of beef bulgogi fried rice topped with a poached egg.
“Hehe. I made it thinking it was for you, Nord, so I poured my love into it. Maybe that’s why it tastes better?”
“Ughhh…. My conscience is killing me….”
Franc’s shy smile made my heart ache. She was cute, apologetic, amazing—everything at once. Seriously, was there anything this girl couldn’t do? She cooked well, had excellent survival skills, was a professional-level seamstress, and her fighting ability was on par with mine. Sure, she was timid, but when you added a dwarf’s strength to her quick movements, even I couldn’t guarantee victory without using Beast Regression. And even if I won, I’d probably lose an arm or leg to her hammer first.
Maybe the luckiest thing that happened to me after coming to this world wasn’t awakening my Beast Regression, but becoming Franc’s lover.
“This won’t do. I have to succeed somehow and make sure our Franc lives in luxury. I’ll buy a house with a garden so you never have to lift a finger.”
As I stuffed the sandwich into my mouth and declared my resolve, Franc burst out laughing as if I’d tickled her.
“Kuk kuk. I’ll have to decline that. I enjoy touching and moving around more than just sitting and being served.”
“Really? Then never mind.”
“You’re so easy.”
Since Franc was so cute and sweet, it was fine if I stayed bland. Anyway, I just had to work harder. I needed to become a man Franc wouldn’t be ashamed of.
While I was thinking that, Franc looked at my clothes and said,
“By the way, Nord, you barely sweated at all?”
“Hm? Oh, the weather’s cool and the work wasn’t that hard.”
“Farm work wasn’t hard?”
Franc, holding the sandwich with both hands, looked slightly surprised. The way the little thing ate like that made her look like a hamster. Fuck, she’s so cute I might die. I wanted to pull her into my arms and rub my cheek all over her, but I held back because she might not like it. Kind-hearted Franc would probably just laugh it off, but I’d heard that paying attention to these small details was the secret to a long-lasting relationship.
“Then… were you a farmer back in your hometown, Nord?”
Franc, still munching on her sandwich, asked curiously.
“A farmer? Me?”
I blinked, mouth full of bread.
“Kkkk. Hahahahaha! No way!”
The unexpected question made me burst out laughing. Me, a farmer? If my grandfather heard that, he’d get angry and say some worthless bastard was tarnishing the good name of farmers. Though people back home did joke that after graduating from veterinary school I should move to the countryside and take care of animals.
“Hehe. No. I was a student back in my hometown. Why do you ask?”
“Hmm. It’s just… I didn’t want to pry, so I never asked about your past. But you’ve studied so much and you’re also good at farm work. It’s fascinating. I’ve been curious the whole time we were working.”
The way Franc spoke made it clear that if I didn’t want to answer, I didn’t have to. I took another bite of the sandwich and pondered how to respond.
My girlfriend had the stance that the past was the past, but to other people, I probably looked extremely suspicious. Even at Carmine University, there were quite a few people who found it strange that I only focused on language studies.
I chewed and swallowed the sandwich in my mouth before answering.
“My father’s family were farmers. It wasn’t a field this big, but I helped out sometimes.”
“Ah─. So that’s why you’re so familiar with farm work.”
“Well, yeah. I only did it a few times when I was young.”
In truth, my family never made their young grandson hold a sickle. My real skills came from military service. But telling the full truth felt awkward. The meaning of “I was in the military” in this world was very different from 21st-century Korea. Maybe saying I was from the guard unit would get the point across?
I opened my mouth, then closed it again. I didn’t know much about Kitai culture—there weren’t even related books at Carmine University—so saying something ignorant might expose my lie later. Better to just play it off as the versatile farmer Norde. Hiding a lie with another lie would be ridiculous.
“You really are multi-talented, Nord.”
“Hearing it from you, Franc, somehow feels like I’m being teased.”
“Hey, it’s a compliment.”
“Khh khh. Then it’s fine.”
We continued chatting like that until we finished eating. After we cleaned up, the bell signaling it was time to return to work still hadn’t rung. Since we still had time to rest, I figured I should cuddle with Franc. Just as I was about to reveal my lecherous intentions and cling to her—
Kwooohaaaak—!
A sound like gas leaking echoed from far away, followed by an enormous plume of smoke. For a second I thought there was a fire and panicked, but the smoke gathered with a will of its own and rose into the sky.
“W-what is that?! What’s going on?!”
Franc grabbed my arm in surprise. I held her close while staring at the cloud. My senses, sharpened by mana awakening, detected the massive amount of mana contained within it.
“That’s… the Summon Cloud spell.”
It was a spell I knew. Summon Cloud. A low-tier magic that summoned and manipulated clouds made of water vapor. Still, summoning and controlling that much cloud at once couldn’t be easy. Who the hell was doing it?
With a mix of worry and surprise, I looked toward the source of the cloud. An elf wearing a straw hat was holding up a staff he’d been carrying on his back and chanting a spell.
“Hotulusil?”
Recognizing the mage, all the tension drained out of me. Even from this distance, I could easily imagine his apathetic face.
Puuuuh—. Smoke rose from the pipe clenched in Hotulusil’s mouth. The straw-hat elf finished his chant while still biting down on the pipe.
Shaaaaa—.
Rain began to fall from the cloud. It wasn’t ordinary rain—it was magic that restored the land’s vitality. He was casting recovery magic on the soil depleted from growing wheat, like spreading fertilizer. The mages’ guild even sold potions made by condensing this spell. Diluting it hundreds of times created the high-grade fertilizer favored by wealthy farmers and lords. It seemed Hotulusil was replacing that with his own magic.
So that straw-hat bastard wasn’t a farming junkie—he was a smoker. Damn smoky elf.
“Ah, so Hotulusil was doing that? Thank goodness…. I was so startled.”
Franc also realized who the mage was and spoke with relief. I stroked her back to calm her racing heart and let out a sigh.
“At least say something before you use it.”
That fucking teleporting elf really knows how to scare people.
Shaaaaaaaa—.Hotulusil’s magic poured rain over the harvested wheat field for quite some time. American farmers apparently spray water on their fields with helicopters, but this guy was playing on a whole different scale befitting a landowner. Still, he hadn’t sent the clouds all the way into the troposphere. It looked like he was just raining special water from a fairly high altitude. Manipulating climate from the ground all the way to the troposphere would be impossible. If he could do that, he wouldn’t be a farmer—he’d be a strategic weapon. If he gathered raindrops and dropped a one-ton water droplet from the stratosphere, that would basically be orbital bombardment. Even a dragon would die if it got hit by that.
“Seriously, I can never figure that guy out.”
Why was an elf with a Kitai-style name from some rural backwater country casting farming magic on foreign land? A guy who could probably reach Gold Class as an adventurer was wearing a straw hat and vest, which made the sight even more striking. He could probably wipe out an entire horde of dangerous beasts with a single spell. There was no rule that said someone with great power had to do physical labor, but it was still fascinating. And yet even a mage this powerful couldn’t finish the harvest alone and had to hire help. It really drove home how weak humans were in the face of nature.