I did as Fina-san suggested and showed them how I normally farmed.
First, I softened the ground with earth magic, then I had the scavenger slimes build ridges on the soil while mixing in the fertilizer.
After that I had the slimes scatter the seeds, while I watered the ground with water magic, and then facilitated the growth with wood magic.
“And done!” [Ryouma]
Just like that a field of dandelion flowers was completed in the blink of an eye!
I chose dandelion flowers since the seeds could be turned into cooking oil, while the roots could be used for dandelion coffee, and the stem could be fed to the sticky slime and the latex slimes.
“…” [Everyone Else]
“Huh?” [Ryouma]
Everyone was quiet again.
“Umm…” [Ryouma]
“I don’t know what to say.” [Fina]
“Magic sure is amazing.” [Maria]
Fina-san and the other two girls from the farming village were like ‘I don’t really get it, but it’s amazing!’ Or at least their reaction felt like that.
Lilian-san has seen me farm before at the residence of the duke’s family, so she wasn’t surprised, but she was wryly smiling.
As for the only guy in the group, Yurdum-san…
“Ha ha, what is this? Huh? Illusion magic?” [Yurdum]
He seems quite shocked.
“Yurdum-san? Are you okay? Is there anything strange about my farming?” [Ryouma]
“Strange? You’ve got to be kidding me! You made the flowers bloom in one go from a seed! Of course it’s strange! What’s more you flowered an entire field!” [Yurdum]
“P-Please calm down!” [Ryouma]
It was hard to understand what he was saying because he was so excited, so I first calmed him down.
“Yeah, umm… Sorry. It was just too shocking. You must have a lot of mana, huh, Boss?” [Yurdum]
“There’s that too, but the fertilizer of the scavenger slimes plays a huge part.” [Ryouma]
“In that case, that fertilizer and those slimes must be amazing. I’ve dabbled a bit myself with normal fertilizers like compost and mulch, and magic medicine to speed up the growth of plants, but a person’s worth of mana couldn’t possibly make an entire field bloom like this. Some medicine might be able to pull it off, but the strong ones also have worse side effects. Compared to that, this field looks really normal. You could even say it’s overflowing with life. A normal mage’s amount of mana shouldn’t be enough to make something like this happen.” [Yurdum]
When I heard that, I turned to Fina-san and the others for confirmation.
“We don’t use magic medicine at the village.” [Fina]
“Those medicine are too expensive, so we can’t use them~” [Maria]
“After all, you’d need a lot of them if you’re going to use them for an entire field.” [Jane]
But they just said that they didn’t know anything about it.
“Yurdum-san, you really know a lot.” [Ryouma]
“My family has been serving as imperial court gardeners for generations, so I studied the subject a lot when I was young.” [Yurdum]
No wonder he knows so much. But ‘Imperial Court Gardener’? Based on the words alone that sounds like a gardener who works at the castle, and if he’s from a family like that, then…
“Yurdum-san, you’re a noble? I never knew.” [Ryouma]
“Yeah… I come from a baron’s household, but I ran away from home. I don’t have the right to use my last name anyway, and even if tell people I’m a noble, they just end up shying away from me. Sometimes I end up being unable to join a tournament and girls get scared too. So it’s already become a habit not to talk about it.” [Yurdum]
There are certainly people who shrink back as soon as they find out you’re a noble.
That probably made it really hard to find people to test his skills against.
As for me, I don’t really mind, and I’m not the sort to try and expose a person’s history either.
“My dad was the one with the court rank, and he was a noble of the robe without any territory, so we weren’t really that much different from commoners.” [Yurdum]
Yurdum-san wryly smiled.
“So just treat me as usual.” [Yurdum]
And then he turned to Fina-san and the others and said that.
He sure switches gears quick. He’s so quick Fina-san and the others were still shocked.
“Are you sure?” [Fina]
“It’s totally fine! My dad just happens to work at the castle, really. He’s no different from your usual gardener, and I ran away from home anyway, so I don’t have any privileges or authority. If anything, the boss is the dangerous one with all the authority. After all, he’s connected to the duke and he even gets to work together with his people.” [Yurdum]
“Now that you mention it!” [Fina, Jane, Maria]
“That’s how you come to terms with his history? Really?” [Ryouma]
When realization dawned upon them, the three girls became shocked, and then they found themselves agreeing with Yurdum-san.
Even Lilian-san was quietly nodding.
W-What in the world? I mean it’s true that the duke helps me out a lot all the time, but…
“Of course, not in a bad sense.” [Yurdum]
Anyway, I pulled myself together and brought the topic back to farming.
“I noticed that when you were farming, you never touched the crops again while they were growing.” [Fina]
“Normally, you have to remove the weeds and prune bad sprouts~” [Maria]
“I see… I knew about pruning, but I didn’t know which sprout to prune. I mean in the first place, I don’t know what counts as a bad sprout. Since even the poorer ones I could just forcefully grow by pouring mana.” [Ryouma]
“It’s true that wood magic can make a plant grow, but it requires a lot of mana and the rapid growth also puts a lot of burden on the plant. That’s why it’s usually done gradually and in stages across several days. That way the amount of mana consumed per plant and per day can be reduced along with the burden on the plants. Those with poor growth or those that’ve fallen ill can grow on their own or resist the disease, so it’s better if you don’t force them to bloom and instead skilfully assist them.” [Yurdum]
They told me the problems in my self-taught farming magic.
“Let’s try growing a crop for real next! I brought a potato that’s already started to germinate from Shelma-san! If we plant this potato like this, it will turn into a seed potato too, so I’m sure it should be easy to grow!” [Jane]
“You too, Jane? I brought a soybean that can be grow with magic.” [Fina]
“I brought some barley too~” [Maria]
Because of that I used the seeds the girls brought with them.
“Stop!” [Jane]
“This is when you should prune~” [Maria]
“As for how to distinguish between which to prune and which to leave—” [Fina]
“Ah, let’s replant the ones that grew poorly here. That should serve as practice for wood magic.” [Yurdum]
I practiced how to farm with everyone’s help.
“When growing barley, this is the part where we step on them!” [Fina]
“We need to give enough time for this soybean to grow.” [Jane]
They taught me how to grow crops I haven’t grown yet too.
While the crops grew quickly, I studied about the important parts and the various process I needed to do to take care of them properly.
As I came to learn one thing after another, I found out just how forceful my method of farming was. But that just meant I had more to study, and because of that it was a really fruitful day!
