Farming Is a Hundred-Year Endeavor
My mother's side of the family were farmers.
Two big apple orchards, a plot for growing perilla leaves and kidney beans, one long field of napa cabbage. If my memory served me right, that's how it had been.
Every time I visited as a child, I never once saw my grandfather resting — holidays included. If I wanted to find him, all I had to do was walk out to any one of the fields. He was always there, in one of them.
"Grandpa!"
"Well hey, there y'are."
"Grandpa, why're you out in the field every single day?"
"Farming's a hundred-year endeavor, boy. The critters livin' in that soil ain't got hands nor feet, so somebody's gotta look after 'em, don't they?"
I still miss the way he'd always answer my questions with that kindly voice and an easy smile. And I remember the enormous compost heap that same grandfather once showed me.
"Is that dirt, Grandpa?"
"No sir, that there's compost — food for the fields."
"Com-post? Why d'you feed it?"
"That's right, com-post. You get hungry, you eat your supper, don'tcha? Well, when the ground goes hungry, nothin' grows — so we feed it."
I didn't understand back then — how important compost was, or how much backbreaking labor went into making it.
"Father, the chemical fertilizers these days are excellent. Why put yourself through all this misery?"
"Not worth the bother. Folk and grass alike spring up from the earth and go back into it — you mean to tell me pourin' chemicals over all that makes one lick o' sense?"
Even when people urged him to use something better, he stubbornly kept on making compost by hand, year after year, and spreading it over his fields himself. That was the kind of man he was.
He loved those fields so much that in the end he collapsed in one of them — and when the time came, it was in the fields that we buried him.
And now, here I was, experiencing a small piece of that same hardship firsthand.
Discarded vegetable peels, rotted straw, armfuls of weeds yanked from the fields… along with assorted other refuse, a modest little mountain of garbage had piled up right in front of Nerga and me.
"Is this enough to work with?"
"Yes, for now. We'll run a small-scale trial first, extrapolate what we can from the results, and then scale up from there."
Neither of us wore a pleasant expression as we spoke — not because anything had gone wrong, but because of the reek rising off the raw compost materials. Compost is a natural fertilizer made by fermenting a whole assortment of ingredients… though "fermenting" is a generous word for it. In practice, you're simply letting the stuff rot.
"Let's step outside for a bit!"
"Yes, my lord."
We hurried out of the disused shed we'd borrowed for compost-making. So this is what people mean when they say the air tastes sweet.
I gulped down the outside air, cramming it into my lungs. I'd understood the concept well enough in my head, but actually starting was proving to be quite an uphill battle.
"Um, my lord? You really don't have to do this yourself. If it fails, I'll find some way — any way — to repay you at least the principal, so…"
"Never mind that. I'm helping because I want to. Besides, that proposal of yours was scrawled like a chicken had walked through ink. You think you'll keep proper records when we make this stuff? Somebody around here needs to know how to write."
"…Thank you. Truly — thank you."
Why bother helping when I could just hand it off and offer support from a distance? Honestly, I wasn't sure myself. I just wanted to.
From that day on, Nerga and I threw ourselves into compost-making in earnest. The goal was to rot the materials down thoroughly until they stopped reeking… that was the idea, anyway.
"Ugh…! This is… huargh…!!"
"Well, there's no mystery here — this one's a total wash! Good grief…!"
The first attempt ended in utter failure, producing nothing but an unspeakable stench that made my nose want to fall off and my stomach stage a revolt.
"My lord, I don't think… this one can be saved."
"Agreed. It's barely decomposed on the outside, and the inside is absolutely crawling with maggots."
"Next time, let's prepare something to cover the pile so the insects can't get in."
The second attempt rotted slightly on the surface, but flies and other pests got inside and threw a feast — another failure. The third, the fourth, the fifth… the compost-making continued its unbroken streak of defeat, and somewhere along the way, both Nerga and I began to wear down.
"This one too, then…."
"It's finished. Same smell as the fifth attempt."
We trudged out of the shed, sighing at a nauseating odor that belonged in an unmaintained latrine. That made eight failures.
As I slumped down on the ground outside, my gaze caught the figures of villagers in the distance who had been watching us, now quietly dispersing.
"My lord. If… if you'll leave the cleanup here to me, please go inside and rest."
"Hm? You sure that's all right?"
"Yes — we've run out of compost materials anyway, so I'll need to gather more regardless."
Leaving behind Nerga's awkward, apologetic smile, I hurried toward my office. Before entering, I discreetly cast a wind spell to strip as much of the stench from my clothes as I could.
"You've arrived, my lord."
"Were you in the middle of working?"
"You can see that I was, so why bother asking? Because the lord of Raven's Head Valley refuses to do his job day after day, I'm the one being worked to death. This is the third time in my life I've cursed the fact that I can read and write."
"And when were the first two?"
"The day before yesterday and yesterday. No doubt I'll feel it again tomorrow, and the day after."
"Ah. So it's a daily lament, is it."
Confronted with an exceptionally toxic Laura for the first time in a while, I took my seat with a faint flush of guilt. I felt bad for dumping my workload on her while I played with compost, so I said nothing.
"My lord."
"Hm?"
"Have you heard the talk going around the estate lately?"
"Talk? What kind of talk?"
The moment I heard there were rumors about me, my interest was piqued despite myself. Laura let out a sigh before answering.
"That 'the lord goes out to the shed with a merchant every day and comes back drunk off his head.'"
"I hate alcohol, though. Wait — what's 'drunk off your head' even mean? Does drinking it lower your intelligence?"
"That is not the point, my lord. The problem is that word is spreading that you're idling away your days. And you remember Louis, don't you? The man whose proposal you rejected."
"Ah, that fellow? Of course I remember."
"He's apparently moved over to Wood Pigeon's Perch, succeeded in turning a profit on fruit sales, secured a large-scale investment on the strength of that record, and now plans to open up an entirely new trade route to the south."
"Wow. Quite the capable fellow."
Everything was proceeding exactly as the event dictated. He'd shown off his small success, secured the follow-up investment — and soon would come the point where it all came crashing down. It wouldn't be long now.
"Meanwhile, this Nerga fellow keeps buying up strange piles of garbage, burning through his principal, and now he's quietly gnawing away at the very funds we need to run this territory. Does none of that trouble you, my lord?"
"It's a hundred-year endeavor, Laura."
"I beg your pardon?"
"A hundred-year endeavor. It may look foolish now, but we're aiming at something much farther down the road."
It was my answer to the veiled urging she'd just delivered — perhaps it's time to stop — her stifled frustration leaking out from the very first syllable.
"I won't presume to dictate what you look at or where you set your sights, my lord. But as things stand, we will face bankruptcy again one day. Of that much, I beg you to be mindful."
"Don't worry. Everything's going to work out."
I'd been so buried in compost-making that I hadn't even noticed the rumors spreading around me. To be fair, who'd look kindly on a lord who gave no explanations and just kept hauling in garbage?
Even so, I had no intention of quitting. This wasn't about the event anymore. Having come this far, I had to see it through. There was no other path.
And it was from this point that something which had quietly taken root in my heart began, in earnest, to sprout.
I kept trying. I kept striving. Before I knew it, my trial and error had passed the ten-mark.
"What in tarnation does his lordship do out in that shed all day with his garbage? An' that queer stink keeps waftin' out."
"How should I know? He's the lord — let him do as he pleases. Mind your own business."
"Barely out o' boyhood an' already runnin' around with them merchant gamblers. Ain't gonna end well, mark my words."
So it went when the gossip about me began to spread through the village.
"Ah — you're that lord, aren't you? The 'Garbage Mountain Lord'?"
"Garbage Mountain?"
"They say you're a madman who scrapes up refuse not just from your own estate but from every land around. There's quite a rumor going about that you turned down an offer from a merchant guild, too. Is it true?"
So it went when I learned my local reputation from a merchant passing through after visiting a neighboring estate.
"Good day to you, my lord."
"Ah, Louis. We do keep running into each other."
"I was on my way south to open a new sea trade route when I discovered Raven's Head Valley lay nearby, so I thought I'd stop by. Judging by how 'prosperous' everything looks, I take it your 'new venture' is going well?"
"Naturally. You keep at it too."
So it went when Louis came to flaunt his success, wrapping his mockery in pleasantries.
Through it all, I kept pouring myself into compost. Stubbornness? Sheer spite? Whatever you'd call it, it had taken full command of my body.
No telling when it would bear fruit — but having come this far, I'd batter this door down until the day I dropped dead. With that fire in my gut, the compost-making went on.
And then, after yet another in a long string of failures — I'd lost count — as we were shoveling the rotted compost out of the shed, Nerga hurled his wooden spade to the ground.
"Whoa! What's gotten into you?"
"Enough… enough, my lord. This simply cannot be done. After all this, if it still fails — then it was never meant to succeed."
"And what if the very next batch works?"
"That is not the point! I know perfectly well what people are saying about you because you've been helping me! Whether it fails or ruins me, it's my failure and my ruin — so you can stop now, I'm begging you. Please!"
Unable to bear the fact that I was being vilified on his account, Nerga shut his eyes tight, stared at the ground, and shouted.
"I was a fool. From the very start, it was arrogance for a man to presume he could breathe life into the soil. It is heaven that decides the year's harvest, and man's place is simply to follow — that is the teaching of the Church, and…."
"Spare me that drivel, friend. You think I've put myself through all this just to hear that kind of talk?"
As Nerga began to buckle under talk of heaven and the Church, I grabbed him by the collar and shoved him roughly back.
"What about the Church, what about heaven? If you were going to give up like this, you should never have tried in the first place!"
"B-but…."
"No buts! Can't you see this?"
I pulled the bundle of papers, crumpled and stuffed into my belt. It was a record of sorts — every method of compost-making we'd attempted so far, and our best guesses as to why each one had failed.
"This is ours. Yours and mine — the two of us, wrangling this mess dozens of times over to dig up hard-won data. Did the heavens dip a single quill to write this? Did the Church send us so much as one sheet of paper?"
Before I knew it, I was shouting, seething with fury. And then, unbidden, my grandfather's words drifted back to me.
"Farming's a gift handed down from heaven, you say? Don't talk rot. Did the heavens ever pull a single weed for you?"
"That was… I apologize, my lord. I spoke out of turn. Nobody knows better than I how much you have suffered for this, and here I am saying…."
"No, I lost my temper too. Let's rest a bit and try again. This time it might actually work."
That's what I said, but I was thoroughly exhausted myself. A few clicks of a mouse had been all it took in the game — who knew it would be this grueling to actually do it?
Compost takes anywhere from three to six months to mature, depending on the type. And we'd repeated the process over and over… which meant that a surprising amount of time had slipped past. My teens were quietly drawing to a close.
Nerga stepped away to wash up, and I sat down alone on a chair outside the shed. Exhaustion dragged drowsiness down on me in a rush, and my eyelids won the battle before I could fight back.
What's the problem, what is it? If only I had some ability to just search up composting methods… that would've… been so… nice….
As I began to understand, at long last, why isekai stories always give their protagonists access to modern technology, I slipped straight into sleep.
"Huh?"
When I opened my eyes, it was deep in the dead of night. What — nobody woke me? Startled, I scrambled to my feet, and that's when I saw it: someone was standing beside the pile of failed compost stacked next to the shed.
"Nerga? That you?"
It was the assumption that it must be Nerga that drew me closer. The figure was peering this way and that at the compost heap.
A stooped back, hair gone snow-white — an old man. I was racking my brain, wondering if my estate even had a resident who looked like that, when—
"Huh?"
The old man turned toward me first, and the instant I saw his face, I froze solid.
"Gra… Grandpa!"
My grandfather — the man who had loved farming more than anything in this world — was gazing back at me, wearing a smile no different from the one he'd worn in life.