Ch.4040. How to Farm

The cabin isn’t spacious.

It hasn’t been expanded yet, and with the large moving boxes taking up a portion of the roughly 330 square feet of space, one side feels completely filled.

“Wow. There’s so much stuff.”

Despite the house becoming more cramped, Lulu seemed rather pleased.

Her wings fluttered restlessly, clearly showing her eagerness to open those random boxes and get her hands on the snacks or ramen inside.

“Aww. You’re too cute, Lulu.”

Watching Lulu, Kim Sujeong stomped her feet excitedly.

With Lulu’s small stature and adorable way of speaking, others might indeed find her as cute as watching a kitten.

But I’m a cold-hearted person.

Lulu’s cuteness doesn’t help grow my farm one bit.

Besides, this ancient fairy who’s only good at eating needs to be pushed hard to earn her keep, so as the farm owner, I have to suppress my feelings about her cuteness and treat her strictly.

“Did you eat everything that was there?”

“…But I did all the work I promised, Master!”

Here it comes.

Lulu quickly came to me to defend herself.

She showed me the crops in a wooden box by the door, hoping for praise.

“You didn’t skip any, did you?”

“I watered and cultivated everything thoroughly without missing a single one!”

“Good. Well done.”

“Hehe.”

Well, being strict is one thing, but I don’t expect her to do more than what’s within her capabilities.

As Lulu mentioned, she was designed—if that’s the right word—to function as a manager if properly developed.

As a Farming World gamer, demanding features without investing anything would be unreasonable nonsense.

When a mission is given and completed successfully, a reward must follow—that’s how you ensure continued performance.

I gestured to Lulu with a solemn expression.

“Yes!!!”

She answered energetically and followed me.

“Pick three.”

The food I brought fills about two and a half PP boxes.

I dumped those boxes onto the floor, creating a pile of food items.

“Wooooow!”

Lulu flew around the mountain of food like an excited child.

“What are you doing?”

Kim Sujeong, unable to adapt to this strange scene, asked.

Fair enough.

It must be hard for a modern person to get used to seeing a tiny fairy, who looks like she should subsist on dewdrops, drooling over instant foods like ramen, snacks, ready-made rice, ham, canned tuna, and kimchi.

I’m still not used to it myself.

Regardless, Lulu fell into serious contemplation.

Just three items.

Of course, I wouldn’t let Lulu starve during mealtimes, but these three items would be entirely hers to eat whenever and wherever she wanted.

No wonder she’s having a hard time deciding.

“Maybe I should choose snacks… hmm… no… eating ramen on the roof at night would be nice too… but there are also new foods…”

Lulu first picked a cup of ramen.

Then she cautiously asked:

“Um… Master… can I choose the other two later?”

With all the newly added snacks and foods, she clearly wanted to make her selections carefully.

I told her that was fine.

“Thank you!!!”

“She’s so cute… Lulu… like watching my niece.”

Kim Sujeong grabbed a jelly and handed it to Lulu.

“This is a gift from Auntie.”

Lulu accepted it with a bright expression, then glanced at me nervously.

I didn’t say anything about it.

Controlling food is just my way of creating motivation for certain behaviors, not some strict regimen. Honestly, Lulu isn’t my child, and unless I’m deliberately controlling everything, I can’t really complain if she eats food that’s already out.

Unpacking finished quickly.

There wasn’t much to unpack, really.

We just put the old bed outside, laid out the vacuum-packed mattresses on the floor, and had to keep everything else except food in the PP boxes.

“It’s too cramped.”

“Want to sleep outside?”

“No.”

Having bought two large, soft mattresses, half the cabin is now covered with mattresses and the other half filled with PP boxes.

If we want to actually live here, we’d need to put away one mattress, which means sharing a single mattress with Kim Sujeong.

I’d rather kick her out than do that.

So we decided to keep things in PP boxes and take out only what we needed into smaller containers.

In Farming World, you either resolve inconveniences with farming points or endure them.

Expanding the house with farming points isn’t an option yet, and I’ve used all my points on increasing my login/logout level, so there’s no choice anyway.

The only remaining method is to expand the house through achievement quests, so we just have to bear with it for now.

“Done!!”

After finishing what could either be called organizing or making the house messier, we went outside.

“What should I do?”

The enthusiastic Kim Sujeong looked around combatively, holding a wooden watering can.

“Wow… it’s really spacious. Are you growing all that? Corn? It’s so tall.”

“Those are all weeds.”

“If we just harvest those… huh? Weeds?”

“Things you’ll have to clear.”

“…Really?”

The wooden sword I used was now inherited by Kim Sujeong.

Having lived only as a mage, she seemed awkward holding a sword, swinging it around clumsily.

“Cut them little by little when you have time. You won’t be able to cut them easily anyway.”

At least the basic tools are D-grade, so harvesting D-grade resources isn’t impossible, but she won’t be able to chop them down in chunks like I can.

I told her to clear miscellaneous resources when she has time, without putting too much pressure on her, and explained what she needed to do.

“You’ll manage the farming.”

I had already worked hard to create the garden beds, so there was no need to till the soil.

“Here are the seeds, see?”

“Are there seeds for recovery herbs too?”

“There are, but not right now. I used them all.”

Being someone with a high chance of rare rewards, I might not have gotten many recovery herb seeds, but there were still plenty of other types of seeds in the box.

Not enough for mass production, but probably enough for 2-3 cycles in this garden.

Since all the seeds are different, with varying growing and harvesting times, it might be annoying, but that’s how farming starts.

To systematically plant just one type of seed, we’d need more farmland, and since we haven’t restored the village yet, we have to make do with the seeds we find while gathering resources.

“It’s not difficult, right?”

You just need to plant the seeds at appropriate distances.

Water them once a day or as needed according to the seed information, and there’s not much else to do.

Depending on farming skills, you can add fertilizer and make adjustments to improve quality, but I’m not expecting or asking for that level of care right now.

“It’s easy?”

“Right?”

Of course it’s easy.

Farming isn’t difficult when it comes to planting and growing.

The system provides enough convenience that you don’t need to worry much beyond watering daily.

You don’t even need to worry about temperature, and there are specific seeds for each season as a form of adjustment.

Except for occasional extreme natural disasters, farming rarely fails.

Above all, the cycles are short.

In Farming World, seasons change every 30 days, so they have to be set shorter, but I’m not sure how it will work here.

And most importantly, Kim Sujeong isn’t a confirmed manager yet.

I’ll have her try it out, and if she says she can do it, she’ll continue. If not, I’ll send her back home and do my own thing.

“Is this all I need to do? What’s next?”

“Do whatever you want. Cut weeds, gather wood, mine stones. You can also explore the area, but don’t go too far as it might be dangerous.”

“Dangerous? Are there monsters?”

“Well, I’ve cleared some, but it’s not just Big Rats out there.”

I can’t answer her question about what to do with spare time.

I brought various things because I had nothing to do myself, and although we’re family, we’ve spent much of our lives almost like strangers.

Still, as a C-grade mage with a decent level, she shouldn’t be in much danger just walking around near the house.

“Ah! Master!”

Just as I was distributing roles to Kim Sujeong and preparing to head out for the delayed quest—discovering the village and receiving the restoration quest—Lulu urgently called out to me.

“Master, goblins came by while you were away. I think they came because the Big Rats are gone…”

“Goblins? Ah, right. After Big Rats come goblins.”

“They came around 2-3 times every couple of days, just looking around the area.”

“Good.”

The need for farming points is endless.

Right now, I might be coasting along with one SSS+ grade ability, but as the biome level increases, there will definitely be limits to what a single high-grade ability can accomplish.

That’s when levels and points become necessary.

Rather than relying solely on one high-grade ability, building a solid foundation by using points earned through leveling up to improve other abilities and skills creates synergy.

For that, endless quests and repetitive grinding are necessary.

I was pleased that the goblins had come looking for trouble on their own.