Ch.146Unavoidable Desire

The impact of having as many as 73 people join the village, albeit as interns, was by no means small.

Of course, this wasn’t a ripple in the village’s public opinion, which was strangely individualistic and indifferent to surroundings. Rather, it was more like a wave of changes that came purely from the process of expanding personnel.

To prevent the formation of factions from specific village origins, I began constructing new buildings scattered throughout the village, and started farming on my empty agricultural land to experiment with the four-field crop rotation system that I vaguely knew about.

Right now, all I know about the four-field rotation is that you alternate between wheat, barley, clover, and turnips. I don’t know if this wheat is spring wheat or winter wheat, whether the barley is winter or spring, or even what order they should be planted in.

Therefore, to verify this, I inevitably had to conduct research with a head-first approach, somehow forming the optimal four-field rotation routine adapted to this world…

And the massive workforce needed for this process was solved by exploiting the free labor of the 73 people who had just joined.

Of course, calling it “free labor” is just a figure of speech. In reality, it’s an employment relationship where I properly provide compensation and regular meals.

…Since they’re interns, the amount of compensation isn’t particularly impressive, and the meals (food) I provide are similar to the soups or stews we used to gorge on before.

A soup made by roughly mixing various grains with an abundance of meat and rock salt, boiling it thoroughly, and then adding vegetables like turnips, cabbage, and beans.

That very soup we ate until we were sick of it as the village’s staple food before the mill and communal oven were built.

And by using these subordinates, the area I focused on managing was trying to increase production through various agricultural experiments on my farmland.

You might wonder how efficient my agricultural research would be, given that I’m not exactly an expert who knows everything about farming, and I was a typical city person in my previous life…

But the agricultural technology level of this world is, no joke, more miserable than what even an amateur like me has picked up.

The thing that best illustrates this situation is that “ox-plowing” or “horse-plowing” is considered cutting-edge farming technology.

Anyone with an interest in the field would know that oxen or draft horses were used as labor in pre-modern agriculture before the Industrial Revolution, but in this era, believe it or not, even this method is unknown in remote areas.

Even in those remote areas where oxen and draft horses clearly exist, instead of having oxen pull plows, people commonly pull them themselves.

If even the use of animal labor in farming is so poorly disseminated, the three-field system that I thought was the representative farming method of this era isn’t properly spread to farms either.

In a situation where even the concepts of ox-plowing or horse-plowing aren’t properly disseminated, the concepts of fallow land or soil fertility are treated like visionary technology, and soil restoration through leguminous plants like clover or beans is an even more precious technique.

Moreover, in this world, even the “seeding method” hasn’t properly taken root yet. This seeding method is simply the technique of burying crop seeds deep in the soil.

That is, in this world, when planting seeds or other plant propagules, they don’t dig into the soil but just indiscriminately scatter them on top of the ground.

Of course, most of the seeds well-placed on the soil surface are eaten by birds and animals and disappear, and the probability of them taking root is low, making the harvest relative to the seeds sown so miserable that “disastrous” would be an understatement.

Even the spacing of these scattered seeds or propagules is irregular, making it impossible to obtain uniform harvests from the same farmland.

Even this simple principle—burying seeds in the ground at uniform intervals, which drastically increases agricultural efficiency—hasn’t been properly disseminated.

And the reason these principles haven’t been widely disseminated can be summarized in one word: it’s “difficult.”

Sure, scattering seeds on the ground might be easier than planting each seed in the soil, but is this really a valid excuse?

For the sake of a little convenience, they couldn’t—no, wouldn’t—do this simple thing, and as a result, agricultural production in this world was plummeting every year.

This was the moment when an uncomfortable truth that I couldn’t deny approached me: perhaps this is why the agriculture in this world has such terrible efficiency, harvesting only 3 grains for every 1 grain planted.

But, doesn’t every bottom have its own bottom?

The moment I heard that our territory was better off than others where wooden plows couldn’t properly till the fields, I finally understood why there were frequent mentions of food shortages despite having such vast farmlands.

Considering what I’d heard in my previous life about metal plows that could dig deeper into the soil improving agricultural efficiency, our territory, with its smooth supply of metals, must have been like a heavenly realm despite its current state.

Of course, if there’s anything slightly better… at least our pioneer village’s farmers still have the desire to improve yields, and the land is fertile enough that people can survive despite such poor farming methods.

The reason their agricultural technology has stagnated is due to both the farmers’ conservatism and the fact that the land was originally fertile—the need for improvement arises from scarcity, but the overly fertile soil paradoxically prevented the formation of such will.

Well… still, our village is definitely improving now.

With a high proportion of novice farmers who haven’t been in agriculture for long, they’re enthusiastic about improvements, and Gretel in particular is actively researching various fertilizers with some farmers at my request.

Especially recently, she’s been whipping up natural pesticides using some herbal ingredients to catch pests, and my expectations for her have been gradually rising day by day…

“Ah, hello…”

“Nice to see you, Miss Gretel. Have you been well?”

“…Yes, I’ve been doing well.”

That’s why I visited Gretel’s workshop after a long time and calmly engaged in a simple work-related conversation with her.

Originally, the witch’s workshop where Gretel stayed was a place converted from a not-so-large brewery, a building that emphasized research and pinpoint development by request rather than a facility for special production.

But since Gretel began producing magical pesticides in earnest, the situation changed. Although it was in the form of a concentrate that needed to be diluted with water, the demand for production began to surge.

Therefore, with my full support, Gretel’s workshop has been continuously expanding.

The workshop has been growing in overall size by attaching rooms or spaces to the outer walls, and various facilities have been introduced to increase supply in line with growing demand.

Many processes have been automated with the introduction of self-moving utensils, a specialty of the witch school, and there’s also ongoing activity to recruit children with appropriate talent as assistants and apprentices.

Especially those moving utensils, although limited to within the workshop, are almost like modern automated equipment, and thanks to them, as long as there are enough materials, products can be produced in any quantity…

-Pouring sound…

“Ah. Thank you, Gretel.”

“You’re welcome, Lord Alzar.”

So, taking a break from our busy schedules and enjoying the leisure that had recently begun to emerge, we took time to enjoy a cup of tea sitting in the workshop.

According to Gretel’s will, the flying earthenware teapot flies around, pouring the contents—a beverage closer to a tea substitute than real tea—into teacups.

A simple tea-potion made by steeping magical forest fruits, various plants, herbs, and the like.

This bright red liquid soothes the tired body and mind while helping with mental stability the moment it goes down the throat—a precious drink that suppresses the inner demon and brings peace to my heart.

“Do you like it…?”

“Of course. As always, it’s perfect.”

“…I’m glad.”

Although according to Gretel, the drink is so rare and the steeping process involves witchcraft, so unless I visit her workshop on the pretext of work like this, I wouldn’t have the opportunity to drink it…

-Creaking, click!

“Yahoo, I’m here!”

“Oh, sister…!!”

Moreover, whenever I sit here, the elusive Hannah somehow senses it and comes to find me.

“What’s this, what are you two doing? Having a secret meeting? Should I not have come?”

“Sister…!”

That conversation that could so easily be misinterpreted. Unless I was some kind of “Eh, nandatte” type idiot, there was absolutely no reason I couldn’t read this subtle atmosphere…

I just inwardly smiled bitterly, feeling my own indecisive side.

Deep down… I was lamenting my situation, thinking that until my bloodline issue was resolved, I couldn’t even feel the primal happiness of being a living being because of fear.