Ch.8484. S+ Rank Farmer

‘Farm Management’ is, as the name suggests, a system that allows for efficient management of a farm.

There’s nothing particularly special about it—it just lets you see at a glance how your farm is running.

And it helps you operate your slaves or NPCs more efficiently.

Since it has similar functions to ‘Map’ or ‘Territory,’ you can think of it as a more organized way to view everything at once, but the core of this ‘Farm Management’ system is that you can grant abilities to NPCs.

Originally in Farming World, Farm Management was used to teach abilities to NPCs or upgrade their ability ranks using farming points.

After all, I can’t manage this entire farm by myself.

The essence of farm management games is that at first, they’re exhaustingly difficult and tedious to the point where you wonder, “Am I playing a game just to do this kind of grinding?” You follow a tight schedule for quite some time, but at some point, your perseverance bears fruit as you gradually automate tasks one by one—that’s where the fun comes from.

You save time by building sprinklers instead of watering crops daily.

You hire NPCs to handle seeds and cultivation.

You put slaves in the mines to reduce the days you’d spend mining for ore.

As you reduce manual labor and automate processes, you gain more free time, which allows you to unlock higher-level biomes, hunt stronger monsters, and develop your hunter abilities.

Going even further, you can upgrade your NPCs’ abilities to make money from crops as well.

So ‘Farm Management’ is quite an important system.

I hadn’t planned on using farming points for ‘Farm Management’ yet.

At a glance, farming points seem to be handed out generously—10 here, 20 there, 5 there—through sub-quests, but they disappear quickly once you buy a few skills to get stronger.

Above all, when I have extra points, I need to increase [Login&Logout] to accelerate farm growth, so there’s definitely no room to spare with farming points.

Still, I could use ‘Farm Management’ to pass on the life skill selection rights given as quest rewards.

I could learn them myself, but life skills related to farm management rather than combat abilities would just mean more work for me right now.

If I were still playing this as a game, I would never have made this choice.

I would have kept Kim Sujeong and the slaves working as NPCs while selecting S+ grade life skills for myself, investing time where my abilities were needed, living a busier life.

I would have thought that it’s all about my character and my growth is what matters.

That would be the right approach now that this is more reality than game.

But strangely, my judgment leaned toward giving this newly acquired S+ grade life skill to Kim Sujeong.

I didn’t even deliberate much about it.

The decision that this was right and efficient had already been made.

It was probably a matter of trust.

Family. Trustworthy actions. Passion.

Though I’m terrible at human relationships and can’t judge people well, I at least know the look in someone’s eyes when they have passion.

The look in Kim Sujeong’s eyes when she farms. When she cooks. The way she’s satisfied with the mundane routines of daily life.

At the end of that process, I know she finds happiness in the money she earns when returning to reality, but regardless of her motivation, her dedication is genuine, so she’s trustworthy. That’s why I’m giving her the S+ grade life skill that will add wings to her role.

“You’re a farmer from now on.”

“Huh?”

[Raising ‘Kim Sujeong’s’ Farming to S+ grade.]

“What?”

As if granting absolution, I placed my hand on Kim Sujeong’s head and used the S+ grade life skill selection right. Kim Sujeong was startled by the message that appeared before her eyes and jumped up.

“What is this?”

“What do you mean, what is it?”

“Wow. Farming S+ grade ability. It’s showing up in my status window? Did you do this, oppa? Amazing!”

“It’s about time we needed farming skills.”

Until now, we’ve just been doing simple, repetitive farming—watering and harvesting.

In Farming World, this isn’t really considered farming.

It’s more like tending a garden.

Not that there are any grand farming secrets or anything.

If you just water the crops on time, they grow on their own—real farmers would have a fit if they heard us calling this farming.

Still, as your skill rank increases, you can use fertilizers and make improvements, almost like alchemy, opening opportunities to harvest more diverse and valuable crops.

That’s another reason I gave this ability to Kim Sujeong instead of keeping it for myself.

It requires quite a bit of attention and takes time to create combinations.

I do have some recipes in my head, but honestly, I’m not that interested in farming, so I just focused on improving a few valuable crops to sell and that was it. I didn’t want to experiment with various things, so I didn’t want to get too involved.

As we unlock higher biomes, I’ll get some improved varieties I know about and teach her, but for now, it’s best to let Kim Sujeong handle it herself.

“Oh? Wait, oppa. Something weird happened to my status window.”

Kim Sujeong, who had been excitedly reading about her new ability, suddenly made a fuss.

As soon as she finished speaking, a system message appeared before my eyes.

[‘Kim Sujeong’ has been registered as a member of ‘Rift Farm’.]

[‘Kim Sujeong’ has been granted a Farming Window.]

[‘Kim Sujeong’ has been granted a Growth System.]

She’s spent quite a bit of time living in the Rift Dimension, coming and going, and only now is she being recognized as a member.

Do I need to give her an ability or use farming stat points to register someone as a member?

Whatever the case, it was good news.

Being granted a Farming Window means she can now gain experience through ‘Farming,’ level up, and improve her rank on her own.

This is what hunters have been doing all along.

But there must be something different from hunters’ status windows.

For example…

“Farm? What’s ‘Farm,’ oppa?”

“It’s the currency here. If you’ve got Farm now, it means you can sell things in town.”

When roles are divided, the workload is halved.

“Wow. Amazing. There are so many skills I can learn. Wow. These would be really useful for farming. But I don’t have enough farming stat points.”

“You get them when you level up. Or by completing quests.”

As I explained, the advantages of having a Farming Window became clearer.

“Ah! Quests! Oh, sub-quest abilities? I have two of them. Is there a main quest too? Wow, what’s the reward?”

The growth system, which exists for hunters too but offers bigger, more numerous, and diverse rewards here, has been the driving force behind my growth.

Right now it’s S+ grade, but…

With hard work, it can go up to SS-, SS, SS+ grade.

I’m not sure if Kim Sujeong can achieve SSS grade, but as we manage the farm together, we might see each other grow.

“Oppa, can you give me farming stat points too?”

“…”

Of course, such a happy, heartwarming, fairy-tale process and outcome probably won’t be easy.

Reality is those bright, eager eyes coveting my farming points.

“Should I just take it all back?”

“Can’t you just buy me one thing? This would really be useful.”

“Earn it yourself.”

“…My birthday is coming up…”

“…”

“Not going to work, huh? Alright. Thanks anyway, oppa.”

After looking dejected when her pleas didn’t work, she immediately brightened up and ran happily toward the field—the very image of a fox spirit.

If I had points to spare, I’d invest in her farming, but since I can’t, giving her the S+ life skill was the best I could do.

“Master, I think this master will organize this dimension well. Hehe.”

Lulu, watching from the side, commented.

I nodded.

“After playing Farming World for 10 years, I should be able to handle this much.”

Can I keep doing well at this difficulty level?

Honestly, I don’t know.

But at least in this dimension, I felt I could continue as I had been.

“Ah!”

A thought suddenly occurred to me, and I asked Lulu:

“The main quest reward—I’m not the only one who received it, right? What did your previous master choose for their second SSS+ grade ability?”

It’s not about feeling inferior or making comparisons anymore—that’s long past.

Comparing me to the previous master who died in what, the level 2 biome, is nonsensical, especially since I’ve proven myself by conquering the Black Monkeys’ territory.

I’m just genuinely curious.

Even with Holy Magic SSS+ grade, despite being a late-game oriented ability, magic at SSS+ grade should have been enough to skip the Corrupted Ogre and restore the village through some other method.

“Well…”

Lulu hesitated before carefully answering.

“…He chose… Alchemy.”

“Hmm. Alchemy is a good choice for S+ grade life skill. Good for earning Farm too. So what about the SSS+ grade?”

I thought I must have misheard.

“My previous master never got an S+ grade… He chose Alchemy for SSS+ grade…”

I became curious.

What kind of person was the previous master of this dimension, Lulu’s former master?

From what little I’ve heard, he sounds like a romantic one-trick mage.