Ch.118118. Estate (2)

Despite a few very ‘minor’ issues, our group managed to escape the New Continent and return to our beloved homeland.

“What would you like to do for the time being?”

“The Prophet will stay at Tarasque. Ah, Tarasque is a mobile ‘Nature’s Hut.'”

“Yes, that’s fine. If possible… stay on this side.”

Mother created a space for Tarasque in a corner of the Aleinos Forest so Sophia could stay there for a while, and I… naturally ended up staying in the house filled with my childhood memories.

Of course, this wasn’t the case for everyone.

Corin and Robo, who could reduce their size, along with the small-statured Kezak, would be staying in my room for the time being, but the rest of our animal friends chose different paths.

[I’ll be… visiting my homeland for a bit.]

“Yes, go ahead.”

Astra disappeared somewhere into the forest to meet her family and clan. The Squeak-squeaks had somehow spread out and scattered to various places. Hydra, preferring the wetland environment, chose to remain at Tarasque.

Additionally, Gretel and Nightmare were lounging around near our house, spending their time in relaxed idleness.

Generally speaking, everyone was enjoying a gentle daily life characterized by leisure, and I was no exception.

“Hmm… ahhhhh… *smack*.”

After sleeping lazily all day, once I woke up, I would immediately pull out books I had collected during our travels and read them. When I finished reading and got hungry, I would go down to the kitchen to prepare a meal.

Particularly, the various ingredients obtained from our New Continent expedition were all truly dazzling, so for me, researching recipes like this was nothing short of a pleasure during my rest period.

A prime example was tomatoes.

In truth, fruits similar to tomatoes existed in the Old Continent as well, but when you actually eat these magical plant fruits, they strongly feel like something other than tomatoes.

If I had to describe it, it’s as if they lack the distinctive umami flavor characteristic of tomatoes.

In contrast, the tomatoes I brought back from the New Continent, though bright yellow in color, not only have a strong tomato umami flavor but also possess the potential to become the tomatoes I know if I invest a little time in magical breeding.

Anyway, after devouring an Insalata Caprese (a salad with thinly sliced tomatoes, mozzarella cheese, and basil, drizzled with olive oil) made with the tomatoes I had finally obtained, I tried making various dishes using the different ingredients I had acquired.

‘…This is good too.’

When I experimentally roasted corn and potatoes as garnish for a steak I was preparing for Mother, they were highly praised, and the sweet potato cake I made from old memories received considerable acclaim from Sophia.

But above all, the greatest gains were two crops brought from the New Continent.

First, chili peppers. Though they’re disgustingly spicy like the Central and South American peppers we know, with their distinctive flavor still underdeveloped, when evaluated upon tasting, they were surprisingly not bad.

[Hmm? Master, are you making snacks?]

“Co-Corin! Don’t eat th—”

[—Keh! Keh!! M-Master! What on earth was that?!!]

Of course, chili peppers, which were originally closer to medicinal herbs than spices, had no distinctive flavor and were just something spicy and bitter, but I didn’t mind.

No, rather, I welcomed this taste.

[W-Why would you cook with something like this?]

“…Because it’s delicious?”

[Master, you’re strange……]

In reality, the mapo tofu I made by mixing chili powder with several spices might have been too much for Corin, who has no tolerance for spicy food, but for me, it was nothing short of a nostalgic taste that evoked old memories.

And the next harvest was, of course, cacao. This ingredient, which becomes the raw material for chocolate, brought a tremendous innovation to the desserts I create.

Since I could endlessly mass-produce milk, sugar, and cacao using magic without worrying about ingredients, after dozens of trials and errors, I was able to recreate the taste of chocolate I had eaten in my previous life.

And this perfected chocolate was truly a versatile ingredient in the dessert field.

Chocolate is an excellent dessert on its own, so it’s good to simply harden it into bars, and it becomes an outstanding dessert even when adding ingredients like nuts and setting it into shapes.

Additionally, chocolate is great as an ingredient for confectionery and baking… that is, cookies and bread, and the methods of using it in such baking are endless.

You can just add chocolate as in chocolate chip cookies, or make donuts by coating them with melted chocolate using a double boiler.

If needed, you can also add it directly during the manufacturing process, as with brownies, and beyond what I can immediately think of, the applications are undoubtedly limitless.

And as I spent time developing recipes like this, something suddenly occurred to me…

‘Wait a minute, come to think of it… don’t I own a manor near here?’

It was none other than my manor located near the Aleinos Forest.

※ ※ ※

What came to my mind quite by chance as I was going about my usual daily life was my manor located near the Aleinos Forest.

A few months ago, as a reward for resolving the Fen Wolf pack attack in Baron Dren’s territory, I received this manor, which boasted an area larger than I had expected.

The manor, which included the ruins of the village where I lived before walking the path of a druid, encompassed not only the village but also all the farmland that was cultivated there.

Of course, apart from its size, the value of this manor is quite diminished.

To summarize briefly, a manor is a single governing entity—a form of land ownership that includes vast farmland, villages, the manager’s mansion, a mill, and various other facilities, making it possible to function as an economic entity.

And the core of such a manor is, above all, the serfs who are attached to the manor and directly farm and live there.

One might ask if there are many people due to the very low infant mortality rate thanks to the temple priests, but in reality, humans in this world are both common and precious resources.

To put it bluntly, serfs are those who are bound to the land and farm in a state of servitude.

Since tenant farming is several times better than farming in this position, which is more than a slave but less than a free person, naturally, there are hardly any madmen who voluntarily become serfs.

Therefore, the absence of serfs in that manor means… there are no legally exploitable low-wage workers.

Since manors with attached serfs still constitute the absolute majority in the Frankish Kingdom, a manor without serfs is considered a serious disqualification.

And the defects in the manor I acquired don’t stop there; the most representative example of such ‘defects’ is that the manor has been essentially abandoned for a long time.

In this world where natural forces are particularly powerful due to various mysteries and magical phenomena, farmland that is not managed and left abandoned becomes land that needs to be reclaimed again within days at best.

Even fallow land (farmland temporarily rested to preserve soil fertility) needs to be managed periodically to maintain it as farmland.

Otherwise, all sorts of plants grow on the soft, stone-free farmland, quickly returning it to its pre-reclamation state.

But now, hasn’t my manor been abandoned for at least several years?

At this point, it would be foolish to expect the manor to be in decent condition. It wouldn’t be surprising if I visited and found a dense forest had grown there.

Additionally, the fact that this manor is in quite a remote location is not a positive signal regarding its value.

It was a village and manor that was close to an already isolated village in Baron Dren’s territory, which is famous for its low population flow.

With not only travelers but even peddlers avoiding the area, it was a place where it would be strange if the village existed at all if not for the ancient imperial road passing through.

Of course, these defects are not defects for me at all.

Rather, they come as benefits, if anything.

The reason I acquired that manor in the first place was because I needed land I could use as I pleased, not for farming or governance, so the fact that it was deserted, with no people and rarely visited, was actually a very good situation for me.

Therefore, having recalled this, I began to indulge in happy fantasies.

From imagining how to use that vast land, which was abandoned but larger than expected, to how to solve security issues.

The fact that I finally had my own vast land made me extremely happy…

…Unfortunately, this joy was shattered to pieces when I actually visited my manor.