The Dimensional Trade Merchant

The previous master—a worthless fucking scrub who'd croaked in a level-2 biome. I would have left it at that, except the inheritance I'd received from her was nothing to sneeze at.

"I'll put it to good use. I'll carry on what you left behind."

Was I supposed to be grateful? Or was it a shame she hadn't lived longer and left even more behind before she went? If traces like these had survived here, there might be more of them somewhere else. Was I allowed to get my hopes up?

"I don't really know. I'm sorry, Master."

Asking Ruru only brought back the answer I'd already expected. Even so, I decided not to throw the hope away.

If the Former Master's Orchard was here, the other major points from the Farming World might be here too. A previous master who'd gone to such pains building an orchard wouldn't have failed to make the rest, would she? If I could leave a review, I felt like giving her five stars.

"The previous master's warmth is still hanging around... and I love that she left behind things I can actually sell!"

"Eh...?"

A hundred Star Fruits would make a solid emergency fund whether I sold them for Farm or back in reality, and the fifty Recovery Herb seeds went into the ground the moment I finished cleaning—I cleared a suitable patch in the Former Master's Orchard and planted them on the spot.

A tree or two stuck up between the plots, so it wasn't exactly pretty, but I hadn't meant to use the place as a proper field anyway. A rough temporary farm-slash-orchard would do. I'd already tilled a whole plot in the yard in front of the house, planning to plant there once I got seeds, but now that I'd found an orchard I could farm inside walls this perfect, there was no reason to stick Recovery Herbs somewhere monsters might wander in and trash. Even one or two dug up and eaten would cost me. Get truly unlucky, and the whole field could be ruined.

The plot I'd turned in the front yard could simply take the seeds that were a little less valuable. Of everything I was carrying, Recovery Herb was the most valuable, and it was useful at this stage, so it belonged here. I had plenty of other kinds of seeds besides.

And more than anything, there were a lot of tools that were useless, trivial, and somehow still valuable. A bizarre combination of words, I'll grant you, but they really were useless tools, plain and simple—things I would never, in my right mind, spend Farm to buy. And yet the ambiguous sort that proved handy enough if you happened to have them.

The prime example was the fruit basket sitting in the storehouse of the Former Master's Orchard.

When you built an orchard and went to harvest it, this basket was one of the things you absolutely needed. In a small orchard you could just pick the fruit and dump it into your inventory, but if farming wasn't all you were doing, a seven-slot belt wasn't room for miscellaneous junk. It was space for the weapons and tools my survival depended on, and ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠for emergency food and drink.

Once an orchard reached a certain size, shuttling things in and out of the inventory one by one became a job in itself, so it was easier on the mind to load a basket and haul it. As it was, the fruit I'd picked from just twenty trees already came to a little over a hundred. Putting that on the belt would burn two slots no matter what, but with this basket I could stack it all in one place, slot the basket onto the belt, and be done in a single space.

On top of that, a size of 150 × 3 meant this medium fruit basket could hold up to 150 stacks in one slot. If only fruit going in counted as a drawback, then it was a drawback—but either way, spending Farm to buy one was a waste, and having one made it useful in all sorts of ways. For a Farming World user, crafting came cheaper than buying it outright. The catch was the same either way: to craft it, you still had to earn the recipe through a quest, or buy the recipe itself.

There were two medium fruit baskets in the storehouse. I loaded the Star Fruits into one and carried the other back to the house.

I'd gotten up, planted, and watered, so tomorrow I'd water once more, harvest on the morning of the seventh day, and head out on the eighth.

Finding the village—my first goal—was still underway, and the work was piled up like a mountain. But that was how the Farming World went. What mattered was clearing the goals right in front of you, one at a time. It would be nice to stretch out one grand plan and finish everything in a single stroke, but there was simply too much to do. Push like that, and at some point you'd burn out, or the progress would stall.

"Go fetch some water."

"...Fairies aren't supposed to do this kind of work..."

"Then what are you for? Sleeping, eating, shitting, burning through the food, and running your mouth? Aren't you the manager who's supposed to help me develop this dimension? Your master's out here tilling the field, and you won't even lend a hand—you can't even fetch water?"

"Okaaay..."

She wasn't much help in the grand scheme, but that small body still meant one more pair of hands, and that was convenient in its own way. Thanks to Ruru straining airborne with both hands around a wooden watering can as big as she was, filling it from the bathroom inside the cottage and flying it back, I could plant the other seeds in the tilled field without running back and forth.

"Pack some big rat meat, too."

Three days were still left, but I meant to leave the moment the cooldown filled, so I was packing ahead of time. With a seven-day cooldown, forget even one thing and you couldn't bring it for seven days. I had to be certain about what I was taking.

I hadn't harvested yet, but finding the orchard alone had already lined my pockets nicely. A hundred Star Fruits. Fifty Recovery Herbs. Grow them out, and I'd probably come away with well over a hundred berries and leaves. The Recovery Herb leaves would fit if I crammed them into the carry-on suitcase I'd brought with me. The smell of soil and grass on the leaves would soak into the case, but that wasn't my damn problem. The berries, dropped into the fruit basket, would be settled in a single belt slot.

"Now this is a ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠dimensional trade ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠merchant."

"Master, do you have no intention of growing stronger?"

Ruru stuck her lip out and picked a fight. There was worry in it, too. It wasn't that I failed to understand. The previous master was dead, and Ruru's role was to help me develop this dimension properly and pioneer it all the way to the end. I couldn't even bring resources in from Earth, and here I was hauling the rift dimension's resources out to sell them. Of course that might look unsettling.

"Ah!"

Whether she fretted or not, I was confident, so I didn't particularly care. Something related had suddenly made me curious, though.

"The village. Even with no master in this dimension, do the other NPCs keep on living? How do you earn Farm?"

In the Farming World, NPCs were obviously system proxies built by the game company. Sell them the resources they needed, and they paid out the Farm the company had set. But if this place was reality, there was no way something like an NPC could exist. Did a being like Ruru handle the trades on behalf of the god said to be this dimension's master?

"Once you open the village, you have to restore it. You restore it while filling it with the residents... and when the restoration is complete, a merchant who travels the dimensions trading comes to visit the village. You can earn Farm by trading with that merchant."

"Aha."

A bit complicated. Probably because I still hadn't found the village. I'd have to go and see to be sure, but it seemed a great deal like the achievement quest in the Farming World—the one where you repaired a ruined village hall, paying out resources and Farm piece by piece until the repairs were done. A quest in that same shape, telling me to restore the village.

Then where did the NPCs come from while you were restoring it? Another dimension? Or the god again?

"Once you restore the village, you'll come to know naturally."

"Right."

I'd find out if I did as Ruru said. I'd thought I wouldn't get any answer at all, but looking at it this way, she did seem to know a fair amount.

"A dimensional trade merchant..."

I'd just made the name up myself, and there really was such a thing. A thought occurred to me.

"Can I go to other dimensions, too?"

If a being existed that wandered the dimensions trading, then maybe I could as well. I was someone who could learn abilities with Farming Points, wasn't I?

"Eh... I don't really know that either. I never even thought about it..."

"Forget it."

I could look into it later, once my level rose and I had points to spare. It wouldn't be too late. On Earth, at least, I was the only dimensional trade merchant.

I spent a while tidying the yard near the vegetable patch, then turned in early.

For the first time in a while I'd gotten a full eight hours. Up at six in the morning, I opened the cottage door feeling refreshed.

"Ah. Fuck."

The vegetable patch I'd tended so neatly into a checkerboard had been torn up at random. Not one or two spots—nearly the whole thing. Worse, the crops I'd planted alongside the Recovery Herbs, the ones I'd been set to harvest today, had been dug up without a trace left behind, and I didn't even need to check to see that more than half the seeds I'd planted yesterday were ruined.

"Those—"

I'd known this could happen, but I hadn't expected them to tear the place up this badly before they left. I might not have planted anything in the front yard as valuable as Recovery Herb, but harvest it all and sell it and it was still Farm. Still money. The reason I hadn't bothered spending the time and effort to fence the area and hang something like an alarm bell was that even when the rats came to dig and eat, it was only ever a portion. I'd even lit a campfire before bed. There wasn't much food around, so they could have eaten whatever had grown enough and gone. This was nothing but pure vandalism.

"They're dead."

I'd planned to look for the village today and head home tomorrow. That wasn't happening.

"Ruru. Guide me to the sewers."

These bastards... no. These rats. I wasn't going to feel right until I'd wiped every last one of them out today.