The Ofrin Farm (2)
Chrrrrrr!
The only sound breaking the silence was the loud rattling of bicycle pedals along a national highway, its asphalt cracked and broken in places.
Jeron descended the hill and headed northeast.
At the intersection of the agricultural industrial complex, stained glass lay shattered, and a traffic light hung half-tilted.
Right turn here.
The farm was roughly five hundred meters away.
He had passed by it once before and taken a brief look, but saving Mr. Kang had been the priority, forcing him to postpone his farming for another day.
If he could find wheat seeds researched and improved on Earth, it would be the ultimate jackpot.
His fief currently had very few specialty goods.
At best, they only traded traditional items like monster hides, bones, and herbs. Flowers had only recently been added to the list.
Since the goods he brought from Earth were limited in quantity, nothing beat food when it came to establishing a steady, sustainable production line.
Ofrin Wheat Farm
A plastic sign hung precariously, split down the middle.
It rattled with every gust of wind. A single typhoon would likely shatter it completely, leaving no trace behind.
It was a stroke of luck that he had found the farm before the sign fell.
Roses had once climbed the trellis at the entrance of the wheat farm, but they were now completely dried up, on the verge of crumbling into dust.
Jeron stepped onto the frozen ground.
Many people must have worked at this wheat farm once; the ground was densely packed with footprints and the tracks of passing cultivators.
In front of the farm entrance stood the office.
Like most farms, the office was a simple structure.
A shipping container of about twenty-six square meters was all it was, though it did have a wooden deck attached.
Unable to withstand the weight of time, the deck was split in half in several places. The terrace roof above it was broken, letting the wind howl straight through.
Creeeeak!
The creaking of the wooden floorboards sounded exceptionally loud with every step he took.
The container's windows were heavily welded with steel bars. They hadn't been there originally; the marks of modification were clear.
The door was unlocked.
Jeron stood beside the door, crossbow in hand.
The chances of mutants or survivors being inside were slim, but one could never be too sure.
Knock, knock.
"..."
He knocked, but no sound came from within.
In truth, survivors on Earth were rare. Only a tiny fraction of humanity lived on, each person fending for themselves.
In the early days, many survived in shelters, but most had long since become food for the mutants.
This wheat farm showed signs of being looted multiple times, meaning it might not be the ideal place to scavenge.
Still, you never knew.
Jeron had to extract value from a place that had already been picked clean countless times.
Screeech!
The hinges were heavily rusted from the passage of time.
Leading with his crossbow, Jeron slipped inside in a single, fluid motion.
The interior of the container was cleaner than expected.
To keep out the cold, the windows had been covered with plastic sheets secured by thumbtacks.
It was a living space that still bore the marks of neat organization.
A cot and a few survival tools caught his eye.
The only problem was the torn mummy lying right beneath the entrance.
The backpack beside it, decayed to the point of uselessness, was completely empty.
It wasn't hard to guess what had happened here.
This place had once been used as a survivor outpost.
A wheat farm would have provided a decent food supply through gleaning, and the nearby agricultural industrial complex made it a prime location for scavenging.
With apartment complexes and a university hospital in the vicinity, a wheat farm slightly removed from the small downtown area would have been considered an excellent shelter.
However, the survivors hadn't lasted long.
Mutants had breached the perimeter, and they had died without a chance to escape.
It was a common sight.
Having seen so much of this in both his past and present lives, it no longer stirred any emotion in him.
Jeron searched the container thoroughly.
He checked the office drawers, under the survivor's cot, and inside the furniture.
He searched every nook and cranny, but he couldn't find a single grain of wheat.
"Whew."
A sigh escaped his lips.
He had held onto a sliver of hope, but as expected, nothing remained.
Though he frowned, the scavenging had only just begun.
Jeron left the office and walked down the dirt path.
Dead weeds rustled underfoot. Left abandoned for so long, it was difficult to tell where the path even was.
About thirty meters ahead, several warehouses came into view.
He couldn't be sure, but they looked like cold storage facilities.
The warehouses had also succumbed to the weight of time.
They were typical rural warehouses built with panels and blue slab roofs, but the entrances had been completely torn off and lay crumpled like sheets of paper on the ground.
It was hard to believe this was the work of human hands; it looked as though mutants had ripped them apart during an assault.
Inside, tractors, cultivators, and a one-ton truck sat abandoned like rusted skeletons.
Judging by the dents and marks gouged into the farm machinery, a battle had taken place here as well.
Bullet holes were scattered everywhere.
Spent shell casings littered the floor, and about a dozen mummies with severed limbs lay abandoned.
It was clearly the site of a massacre.
There was nothing resembling food.
There might have been food in the past, but after countless rounds of scavenging by survivors, not a single grain of wheat was left.
This place had likely been cleaned out during the early days of the cataclysm.
First, the processed flour would have been taken, followed by the whole wheat. Finally, even the unprocessed seeds would have been carried away.
"Tsk."
Jeron clicked his tongue and searched every corner of the warehouse.
There was always a chance that a handful of seeds lay forgotten somewhere.
But as time passed, the likelihood of finding any dwindled to near zero.
Even the corpses in this warehouse had been thoroughly looted.
Given that their pockets had been turned inside out, this place must have been a holy land for scavengers.
Jeron searched the remaining two warehouses.
But again, he found nothing.
By this point, Jeron had half-given up.
The farm had clearly been used as a survivor outpost, and at one time, it seemed to have functioned as a large-scale shelter.
Could there really be any intact seeds left in a place like this?
Once he let go of his expectations, his mind felt lighter.
It wasn't as if wheat seeds only existed at this farm. While finding wheat—the staple food of the Karen Continent—would be ideal, rice seeds wouldn't be bad either.
Could he not just make rice flour instead of wheat flour and sell that?
This was Korea, after all; finding rice seeds might actually be faster than finding wheat seeds.
Creak, rattle!
Fortunately, the wooden tool shed was relatively intact.
While survival essentials like ropes, saws, and shears had been swept clean, primitive farming tools like shovels, hoes, and pickaxes were neatly stored.
"Well, this is something."
Jeron decided to look on the bright side.
Just taking these tools back and distributing them would boost his fief's agricultural productivity.
He would have to retrieve them after he finished exploring the rest of the area.
Jeron left the tool shed and headed toward the staff breakroom.
To the left of the breakroom, the skeletal frames of greenhouses stood bare.
A few tattered remnants of plastic vinyl fluttered in the wind, looking as if a typhoon had just swept through.
Inside the staff breakroom.
It was a single-story building of about sixty-six square meters.
It wasn't built sturdily like a proper house, but was a simple structure made of panels and slabs.
The roof had partially collapsed, and the entrance door had been ripped off, lying ten meters away.
The windows were completely shattered.
Such flimsy security could never have stopped a mutant invasion.
Here, too, were the signs of a massacre.
A dozen corpses lay scattered in pieces. Judging by their clothing, they weren't employees, but survivors who had met their end here.
This place had also been picked clean.
There wasn't even a single packet of instant coffee left.
Jeron began to wonder if he had just been lucky until now.
Occasionally, he had stumbled upon untouched areas.
The villa he had stayed in briefly in front of the middle school was an extremely lucky case.
Now he realized that finding such a clean house on Earth was practically impossible.
Jeron navigated through the field of corpses.
He couldn't just search the obvious places.
Like an investigator examining a crime scene, he scanned the interior thoroughly, hoping for a hidden item.
In the living room, about six or seven corpses were tangled together.
Since only bones remained, it was clear that mutants had hunted these humans and thrown a feast.
A shattered TV lay face down on the floor, a broken water purifier sat uselessly, and a grandfather clock was smashed in half.
It was an absolute mess.
What about the kitchen?
Every single drawer was pulled open.
The cupboards were the same; nothing remained intact.
At best, there were only sponges and dish soap.
He couldn't help but click his tongue at the sight.
If he gave up here, his only option would be to dig through the vast fields outside to search for wild ears of wheat, which would be an incredibly tedious task.
"Frustrating, truly frustrating."
Jeron stood still for a moment, thinking.
If I were a survivor, where would I hide my food?
Then, a thought struck him.
The most intact part of this building was the bathroom.
Jeron brought over a chair, poked his head into the ceiling maintenance hatch, and shone his flashlight inside.
"...!"
Just within arm's reach, he spotted a mesh onion bag.
Inside were wheat seeds.