Governing the World, Benefiting the People

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According to the industrial classification proposed by the British economist Colin Clark, the industries grouped under the primary sector are agriculture, forestry, fishing, and animal husbandry.

And of those four, the oldest by far is not, as one might expect, agriculture—but forestry.

Primitive humans, armed with their peculiar gift of endurance, wandered the entire world without fixed dwellings. Compared to forestry, which had shouldered the burden of human survival from the very beginning, agriculture—born only with the rise of settled civilization—was still a child, and a very young one at that.

The ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠problem was that this ancient industry’s production efficiency was pitifully low next to the others. And improving that efficiency by traditional means was no easy task either.

Forestry, whose first character is the “forest” radical, is exactly what the word suggests: an industry that extracts resources from the woods. Its typical products include timber, mushrooms, wild greens, berries, and medicinal herbs.

One glance is enough to see that forestry is utterly unsuited to mass food production. Timber and medicinal herbs, which are not edible to begin with, need no further comment. Even the rest, which can be eaten, will send you straight to the grave if you confuse them with poisonous plants or consume them without knowing the proper preparation.

Agriculture itself began when people started mass-cultivating the safe greens discovered only after countless challengers had died trying. In other words… if farming is animal husbandry, then foraging is hunting.

As civilization advanced and communities grew larger, the limits became glaringly clear. Just as there is no need to hunt fierce wild boars when fat, well-fed domestic pigs are available, forestry was pushed aside by agriculture and its contribution to food production shrank dramatically.

And there was precious little one could do for this declining industry. The only ideas that came to mind were mushroom cultivation and beekeeping. The former was hopeless without specialized knowledge; the latter already existed in this era.

Logging, which had little to do with food, was the same. I could hardly invent chainsaws or logging excavators here, and even modest tool production would require iron so expensive it might as well be gold—meaning the mines themselves would have to be overhauled first.

But from that point on I ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠knew next to nothing. Better to ask me how to make compost from human waste.

In the end, after going round and round, the only thing worth touching is mushrooms…

And the truth was, I didn’t really know how to cultivate mushrooms either. Roughly mix spores with sawdust, plant them in a log, and stick the whole thing somewhere dark and damp—that seemed about right. But the moment you put those mushrooms in your mouth, the odds of crossing the Yellow Springs were far too high.

You at least had to be able to tell poisonous from edible before you could even talk about farming them. I couldn’t exactly feed unknown mushrooms to people, and testing them on rats or rabbits left results I couldn’t trust.

If the worst that might happen was a little injury or a few days of illness, I would have simply shut my eyes and swallowed them myself. Unfortunately, eating wild mushrooms was a shortcut to the afterlife. One wrong bite and I would be off to see the Goddess’s face with no guarantee of return. Only a madman would perform self-experimentation like that…

Wait a second. Couldn’t I just purify them with Divine Power?

It was an all-purpose flame with friend-or-foe identification—capable of disinfection, wound sealing, and curing disease. Neutralizing a little mushroom poisoning ought to be trivial.

“Rebecca-unnie. Can Divine Power cure poisoning as well? If we’re going to reclaim the swamps of the Low Countries, we’ll need a way to deal with poisonous plants and insects.”

I dredged up a plausible excuse and checked the range of Divine Power’s application. Spilling my true intentions here would be the act of a complete fool.

I was about to stuff every variety of poisonous mushroom into my stomach and then ask whether she could detoxify me. There was no chance she would simply say yes. Even if it were possible, she would flatly claim it was impossible, then watch me like a hawk and block every approach to mushrooms thereafter.

I couldn’t leave Rebecca behind entirely, so the limit would come someday—but until then, better to hide what I could.

“It is possible. The required skill and the amount of Divine Power consumed vary depending on the type of poison, but so long as I am present, no one will die of poisoning.”

That smug expression of hers would never have appeared if she knew the truth.

“Then I’ll leave it entirely to you, Rebecca-unnie!”

I gave a suitably cheerful reply, diverted her attention, and on a spare scrap of paper wrote out a secret order in elegant script.

The day of mortal combat with wild mushrooms was not far off.

A past still so recent that it rose before his eyes the moment he closed them.

When the young man had fled the burning manor with only his little sister Arisa, he had abandoned a great many things.

Material things—the title and lands he was to inherit, a snug bedroom, abundant meals. Spiritual things—his pride as a knight, the respect of those around him, the peaceful daily life with his family.

From the grand to the trivial he had discarded and pared away, swearing he would protect at least the one blood relative left to him—and then resigned himself to the certainty that even that would be lost in the end.

Having never yet faced true hardship, the fall of his house had been an ordeal far too heavy for him to bear.

Had he burned with a desire for revenge against the villagers, the story would have been entirely different. But the kind-hearted country youth Arturo could not bring himself to hate them. The faces of the people who had called him their little lord and treated him with warmth were still vivid in his mind.

Unable either to resent or to forgive those who had simply struggled to survive, the memory of that day remained only as a painful wound—too raw to bury, too deep to examine.

So he chose flight from the battlefield and, under the pretext of protecting his remaining family, shut himself away in a remote cabin.

To demand more of a young man who had suffered the massacre of his entire family might have been somewhat cruel. Yet the one who labeled that excuse a mere pretext was none other than Arturo himself.

By the classical ideals of chivalry he ought to have stood and fought to the death on the spot, or charged into the blazing manor and rescued every last member of his family. By the religious ethics left by the Flame of Compassion, he ought, as one who stood above others, to have fulfilled his duty so that such tragedy never occurred, and to have been ready to forgive even the murderers of his kin.

A coward who had not even drawn his sword for fear of harming the villagers, who now only fretted over the wound—such a fool was a failure both as a knight and as a human being.

And yet—why?

Why had fortune been granted to a coward without the resolve to die, a petty man unworthy of living?

The day the Saintess of Compassion herself set foot in that shabby cabin, Arturo’s life was overturned once more in dramatic fashion.

First, Arisa’s illness ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠vanished as if washed away. The Saintess, pitying the girl’s condition, had personally worked a miracle. The lost eyesight could not be restored—the wounds were too old—but the child who had spent most of every day languishing in sickness had regained her health, and that alone was cause enough for endless gratitude.

Moreover, the Saintess had not only promised their safety but had even offered to teach them to read and write. To repay even a fraction of such oceanic grace would require a lifetime of service, and still fall short.

Second, the empty purse grew plump again—thanks to the wages he received as the Saintess’s guard knight. Accepting money on top of such immense favor felt almost sinful, yet she had insisted, asking whether he meant to make her a wicked employer, and pressed the coins into his hand. With them he could replace his ruined sword and buy the sweets Arisa loved. Truly, he was thankful.

“Sir Arturo! The Saintess has issued a command! Please guide us onto the true path of faith!”

And third: he had obtained the undeserved honor of being the Saintess’s personal guard knight.

It was a little disappointing that, for all the title of guard knight, he mostly ran errands rather than actually guarding anyone—but whose fault was it that his skill was lacking? Still, the position of the Order’s First Sword had also given him command over the aspiring holy knights who flocked from every direction. The worry of being scorned as the scion of a fallen house had all but vanished.

“Mm. Thank you for bringing it.”

Even the aspiring holy knights standing before him now were seniors he would never have dared meet eye-to-eye without the title of the Order’s First Sword.

Arturo Paleheart was not so foolish as to throw away fortune that had rolled to his feet. For the happiness of his precious younger sister and for his own honor, the young man was prepared to overcome any ordeal, no matter how harsh.

So he rather wished the ordeal had been a little harsher.

Sir Arturo Paleheart, First Sword of the Order and personal guard of the Saintess, received the command she had issued, then heaved a sigh so deep it seemed the ground itself might sink.

He stood there for a long while, wrestling with something, until at last, with a look of pure resignation, he spoke.

“Fine. If she says dig, we dig…”

The first mission given to the aspiring holy knights, armored in faith, was nothing less than a mushroom hunt.