Ch.1616. The Former Owner’s Legacy

[Day 4]

When you plant one, you get two or three harvests.

Even the grade of the harvest is higher.

I planted D-grade recovery herb seeds and got D+ grade, which means they received a +1 grade effect, but regardless, their condition is excellent.

“The Rift Dimension is the primordial dimension where life energy is created. Naturally, all life that grows here is abundant with life energy.”

That’s what Lulu says.

After cultivating three recovery herbs, I obtained 5 fruits and 10 leaves.

I quickly planted the recovery herbs I collected yesterday in that spot.

I watered them and expanded the garden plot next to it.

Even though I don’t have seeds right now, I decided to prepare the entire front yard so I could plant immediately when I get more seeds.

“About this much should do…”

Since too much garden space would make movement difficult, I create square garden plots in a checkerboard pattern with paths in between.

This is the basic layout for farming in Farming World.

It’s easy to move around without having to take detours, and since it’s planted in front of the house, I can protect it if monsters attack and prevent them from stealing the crops. Also, it’s designed to cover as many garden plots as possible when installing sprinklers later.

“Phew.”

If I had to name the biggest drawback of the Secret Farming Map, it’s that time flows at a 1:1 ratio with reality.

In Farming World, you could adjust the time ratio as you wished to save time, but there’s no such thing here.

Well, it makes sense for grinding time to flow at a 1:1 ratio since increasing the time ratio wouldn’t benefit me anyway, but it would have been nice to skip sleeping time or when I need to pass time quickly.

It’s not easy to spend 7 days just farming and waiting for harvests to grow.

At least I’m exploring the surroundings to pass time faster, but later I might need to create things to occupy time at the base.

By then, the logout cooldown should be reduced, so I could spend that time in reality.

The sunlight is quite warm despite it being spring.

After wiping away my sweat and emptying a 500ml water bottle, I immediately left the house.

“Lulu. Let’s go.”

“Ah! Coming! Master!”

Lulu, who had been rolling around inside the house, followed me enthusiastically today.

The path I cleared yesterday was wide enough for about three people, considering potential vehicles, so it felt spacious and took less than 10 minutes to reach the end of what had taken nearly half a day to clear.

About 1km.

Since the village is about 2km away, if I pick up the pace today, I might reach it by nightfall.

Even though I started later than yesterday because of tending the garden.

If I plan to sleep in the village, it should work out somehow.

“Master. I think there’s an orchard nearby that the previous master cultivated.”

“Huh?”

“If we go about 1km east from here, we’ll find it.”

“How do you know?”

Lulu clearly said she knows the main locations in the Level 0 biome.

So it’s not difficult for her to remember memories with the previous owner.

Does she recall memories when approaching certain locations?

But Lulu answered surprisingly simply.

“Oh. I flew over and saw it.”

“…”

Right, she’s a fairy.

I thought she was just sitting on my shoulder or moving around on her own, but she was doing such helpful things.

“You’re actually quite useful, aren’t you?”

Flying is an extremely useful ability in fields with weeds growing over 2 meters tall.

I don’t have to cut through these awful weeds one by one.

Each of these weeds is a valuable resource.

Even basic resources are used all the way to the final tech, so I need to stockpile them to avoid the hassle of farming resources in lower-level biomes later.

“Hehe. I’m useful, right?”

“…”

This little one is working hard because she wants ramen.

Not a bad effort from my perspective.

“Lead the way. We should go to the orchard first.”

We don’t need to go to the village right away.

The main reason for clearing a path to the village now is to check if the seed merchant sells recovery herb seeds, which is my top priority.

For that purpose, the orchard has a much higher possibility than the village, and I wouldn’t need to use farm points.

If there are any stored seeds or fruits growing on the trees, that would be perfect.

No, even just having planted trees would be good enough.

“Please.”

I put more enthusiasm into the path toward the orchard than the one to the village.

I can’t help it.

“Are there any trees there?”

“The previous master loved fruits! Since I’m a fairy, fruits are my staple food. She cared for me a lot and said she made the orchard for me…”

Lulu’s tone became a bit gloomy.

It seems her attachment to the previous owner remains even after all this time.

Well, according to Lulu, the previous owner created an orchard with fruit trees specifically for Lulu since fruits are her staple food.

“Are fruits really your staple food? I’ve only seen you eat meat, snacks, and ramen.”

“…I love fruits the most!”

“And didn’t your previous owner die quickly? Where did she get so many fruit trees?”

“She did make it to the Level 2 biome…”

“Oh really? That’s too bad.”

It occurred to me that Lulu might know some key points about the Level 1 biome but is keeping quiet about them.

Well, I could unlock that information by helping her grow through the system’s seal.

Or perhaps, like now, memories return when she reaches certain distances, so I didn’t press further.

“What was the orchard like back then?”

“It was huge. Big. She put a lot of effort into protecting it from monsters.”

“Can I get my hopes up a little?”

Actually, I didn’t have high expectations.

Fruit trees are not easy to obtain in lower-level biomes.

Similarly, fruit tree seeds can drop as rare rewards when cutting weeds or trees, but the probability is low, and different biomes drop different types of fruit trees. The tastier and more expensive fruit trees can only be found in higher-level biomes.

Occasionally, village seed merchants somehow get hold of one or two fruit tree seeds, but the prices are so outrageous that creating an orchard is really difficult unless you’re in the late game with abundant farm points.

So an orchard created by a previous owner who died in the Level 2 biome would most likely have fruits similar to those in the real world.

The orchard I want would have fruits that only appear in Farming World.

Still, even if there’s just a well-maintained orchard site, I could use it to eat the fruits that grow, make food, or sell them for farm points. Later, when I get fruit tree seeds, I wouldn’t need to create an orchard site from scratch.

So I gave up on going to the village today and cleared a path to the orchard instead. From a distance, I could see a wall that was clearly the entrance to an orchard, standing taller than the weeds around it.

“Wow. What is this?”

The 3-meter-high wall visible from afar wasn’t covered with useless weeds but with colorful flowering vines beautifully intertwined. The wall extended far to the sides, covering a larger area than I expected.

“How seriously did they invest in this orchard?”

Lulu wasn’t lying—the materials used for the wall weren’t simple stones but bricks mixed with what should have been D-grade materials from the Level 2 biome.

Even the cement would require tremendous grinding in the Level 2 biome, and cutting those bricks into neat shapes would require significant investment in construction.

Moreover, judging by the size, this wasn’t something that could be done in a day or two.

If just the outer wall is like this, the interior must be even more impressive.

“Were you and the previous owner lovers or something?”

“No! The previous master was a woman!”

“Well, women can love each other too.”

This level of effort for a fairy who does nothing but chatter beside you.

Of course, I might be calculating this based solely on my Farming World common sense, but by my standards, this level of orchard investment for someone who died in the Level 2 biome despite having SSS+ magical abilities seems like wasteful spending.

For someone who chose magic, she held out well, but perhaps these accumulated wasteful investments eventually led to her hitting a wall and dying.

Though it’s also a stretch to say she died just because of building this orchard.

If the previous owner became the master of the Rift Dimension under similar conditions as me, she wouldn’t have been stupid enough not to understand that.

Whatever the case, it was fortunate for me.

As I pushed open the entrance to the orchard with its 3-meter-high walls, the long-closed door creaked open.

“Wow…”

I was greeted by what looked like 200 meters of stretched land with trees planted in three rows on each side.