Third Floor (2): Let's Bankrupt the Village

The solution hit me the moment I saw the quest. All I had to do was grow more crops.

I had never planned on clearing it with a single head of lettuce anyway.

The lettuce I was growing inside the Tower was less than half the size of anything I could raise back on Earth. No way that would cut it.

"The difference between giving them Ether from the start and not is insane, huh?"

Thinking back, the first lettuce leaf I'd had appraised at Carrot's buyback shop on the first floor had only been B-grade.

After I started feeding it Ether, it had slowly climbed all the way to A-grade.

A quest that was never going to be easy with lettuce born as a mere B-grade.

"Planting just one more head would probably solve it."

That original lettuce had been big enough to call a lettuce World Tree. Clearing just that one plant would have easily netted me three thousand leaves.

But was that the way the Tower wanted things done?

"Let's grow a new one."

They said the Tower had a personality. Sure, I was already doing well enough, but if I wanted bigger rewards, I needed to stop freeloading off the lettuce.

If I wanted another out-of-spec reward like the Ether Watering Can, I had to do something completely outside the Tower's expectations.

Something that would make the Tower itself reel in shock and set the entire gallery on fire.

So the conclusion was obvious.

"Let's bankrupt the village."

"Kkyu...?"

Tier gave me a dubious look that clearly said, How do you even arrive at a conclusion like that?

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

She just didn't get it. This kind of job was always about fleecing the village dry.

"And I'm not even going to sell them expensive."

It was simply that every crop I handled was A-grade or higher. That was the whole problem.

And the crop I was going to raise this time had the highest yield per unit area of anything I knew.

"We're growing corn."

Of course, thinking ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠about it one ear at a time, ten thousand of them? Not easy. I didn't even have any Mole Workers.

But when I grew them, that was a different story.

I searched the exchange for corn and found Sticky Corn seeds right away.

Seven hundred tokens was steep, but that just meant they had to taste amazing, right?

I opened the crop encyclopedia and looked them up.

"Not bad. We're going with this."

"Kkyu, kkyu!"

"Yeah, yeah. Something to look forward to."

Apparently it was one of Tier's favorite foods; she spun in delighted little circles in midair.

Corn was delicious. Even I was getting a little excited.

For the first time, I was growing something that could actually serve as a staple instead of just a snack.

I bought the Sticky Corn ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠seeds from the exchange.

"They're big, and packed with kernels. I like them already."

Sticky Corn was a full 1.5 times larger than ordinary corn, and the texture was completely different too.

Raw corn kernels that should have been hard were somehow chewy and soft.

Real sticky rice cake, huh. I wondered what the texture would turn into if I steamed or roasted them.

But right now was work time. I tucked the Sticky Corn back into my inventory.

"Time to pull weeds."

"Kkyu."

The weed-clearing job I'd given up on last time. Coming back after just one day, I found they had doubled again and grown even denser.

There was no room left to plant corn. If I wanted to grow anything, I had to rip the weeds out and plant in their place.

I'd quit before, but I had come back stronger!

"Serious weed-pulling mode!"

I gripped the hoe tight and swung it hard into the weed-choked earth.

KWAANG! A thunderous boom rolled out as the ground itself twisted.

"...?"

"Kkyuang?!"

Even I, the one who had done it, wondered for a second if it was an earthquake. The shock was that massive.

Tier, who had been pulling weeds with magic beside me, startled so hard she tumbled out of the air.

You were flying. How do you even fall...?

Anyway, the vibration only lasted a moment. The field had shaken, but only briefly.

I was far enough from the Marshmelons I was watching carefully that they were fine, but still...

"Just how strong have I gotten?"

This was the first time I had truly felt my full power since drinking the Ether Concentrate.

One swing of a hoe had cracked the earth and made it heave. I looked down at my hands. I had known I was way stronger than before, but...

"I never thought it would be this much..."

I reminded myself not to throw my strength around carelessly back on Earth, then grabbed a weed stalk.

With this much power, I should be able to just yank them out by hand and—

Snap.

"Ah."

I had squeezed too hard and simply sheared the stalk clean off. Fine. Do it the proper way.

In the end I tore through the whole patch, ripping weeds out of the soil left and right. I actually cleared more than Tier managed with her magic.

They came out so easily, and with my new strength, it almost felt like playing a game.

Every time I put real force into it, it felt like a skill was firing off.

A game where a farmer fights weeds... yeah, that was a dead game for sure.

"This should be enough."

I had gotten so into it that I cleared a full quarter of the field, but it was time to plant seeds. The whole plot was too big to finish in one go.

I pulled five plump corn kernels from my inventory.

"Carrots everywhere."

Corn was supposed to drain soil fertility hard, so I scattered even more carrots than usual.

I mixed them thoroughly into the blessed earth with the hoe, planted the seeds, and poured water from the can in a generous flood.

"Kkyu...?"

"It's fine. You can give these plenty of water."

These weren't special crops, so overwatering wouldn't hurt them.

And since I needed to sell ten thousand of them, I planted four more Sticky Corn seeds for good measure.

"Guess I need to buy more soil now..."

I only had enough left for one more use. Well, I had used a lot.

I still needed to run more watering-can experiments too.

I was checking my remaining tokens and the lettuce I planned to list on the exchange when something suddenly shot up beside me.

"Here we go again."

Well, this time I had planted them specifically hoping they would grow huge.

"Kkyu..."

Yeah, five stalks rocketing skyward at once was pretty spectacular.

"Uh...?"

But the growth rate was getting out of hand. How tall were these things going?

The corn that had been shooting up kept climbing until the tops disappeared from sight.

The stalks grew thicker than baobab trees, and the height... looking up from below, I simply couldn't see the end.

They were sucking up water so fast I just kept pouring, but still.

Why was every single thing I grew completely abnormal?

A little later, once the corn trees seemed to have stopped growing, I started walking backward to get a better look.

From underneath they were so enormous the tops were invisible...

I kept backing up, yet somehow it felt like I was still standing in the same spot. My sense of depth had gone completely weird.

"Why do these things grow so damn big...?"

"Kkyu!"

Corn is supposed to be tall? Oh. Right.

Even the small varieties of corn grew taller than a person. And everything I had raised so far had been relatively short crops.

"How am I supposed to harvest this?"

"...Kkyu."

Here was the problem. Was there even a way to harvest these?

Even if the spirits came to help, I could already picture them going, Excuse me? This thing?

Tier was saying this kind of brute-force job was beyond her too. The lettuce tree at least could be cut and moved. This was something else entirely.

The stalks were far thicker, there were no side branches to grab, and the ears themselves looked like they would be as big as carrots.

Did that mean I had to haul a zero-gravity device up there? Carry the device, saw through the stalk, harvest only the corn, then come back down. That would work, in theory.

A zero-gravity device cost 150,000 tokens. And with what I currently had, I was a little short.

Well, more than a little. Over 100,000 short, actually.

"Time to sell the lettuce."

I had planned to sell it anyway, but now I genuinely needed the tokens.

Sell the lettuce, use the money to harvest the corn, strip the kernels, and sell them individually.

And so began the all-or-nothing lettuce sale.

I hit the money-printer button.

The lettuce sold out in an instant. As expected of lettuce—our reliable cash cow.

I had no idea who was buying that fast, but they were gone before I could blink.

"Balance just broke 300,000!"

"Kkyu!"

I searched for a zero-gravity device and found an item with a slightly different name.

"...The name was always a little long."

I decided to ignore the fact that the seller had discovered the cubed symbol, and bought it immediately.

The second Rubik's cube I had ever seen. I poured water from the Ether Watering Can over it and quickly hit the activation button.

Hwaaaak! A wave pulsed out from the cube and my body went light.

"Kkyuang!"

Tier celebrated that this was her second time too, happily enjoying the weightlessness.

"Time for some absolute beginner flight practice."

This time I had to fly up myself and stuff everything into my inventory, so I took off into the sky ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠with Tier as my support.

I lightly kicked off the ground.

KWAANG!!

"Wh-what the hell?!"

I shot into the air from a spray of dirt that looked like a bomb had gone off.

For a second the sheer speed and the uncontrollable floating sensation gave me goosebumps, but then I saw Tier doing barrel rolls beside me and forced myself to calm down.

When I finally reached the ears of the Sticky Corn that had rocketed so high...

"This is supposed to be corn...?"

A massive ear wrapped in tough green husks hung there.

The size was enough to make me think of a skyscraper built out of corn—easily taller than a twenty-story building.

"Ah—ah! I need to stop!"

I had been staring in a daze and nearly flew right over the top of it. Luckily Tier caught me with magic before I sailed past.

"...And I'm supposed to cut this?"

The stalk I had targeted. It was clearly thinner than the ear itself, but even so, it looked thick enough to slap a baobab tree across the face three times.

"Well... time to saw."

I bought a ten-token large saw and started sawing for all I was worth.

Tough, hard, and thick. Even with my new strength, if it was this bad, I was going to need another dose of Ether tonight...

"Done!!"

I kept sawing until Tier started yawning.

A giant corn icon finally appeared in my inventory.