Chapter 16 : The Legacy of the Former Owner

[Day 4]

If you cultivate one, you get 2 or 3 harvests.

Even the grade of the harvest is high.

If you planted a D-grade recovery herb seed and got a D+ grade, it might mean the grade +1 effect was applied, but at least the condition is very good.

“The Rift Dimension is the primordial dimension where the energy of life is created. Naturally, all living things here have abundant life energy.”

Lulu said so.

Cultivating 3 recovery herbs yielded 5 fruits and 10 leaves.

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

I watered them and expanded the garden beside it.

Even if I don’t have seeds right now, I decided to cultivate the whole yard in front of the house so I can plant immediately when I get seeds.

“About this much…”

If the garden is too big, moving becomes inconvenient, so I made a square-shaped garden of suitable size with a path in the middle, in a grid pattern.

This is the basic layout for farming in the Farming World.

It’s easy to move around without going in circles, and since it’s planted in front of the house, if monsters attack, they can’t steal the crops.

Also, when installing sprinklers later, it covers the maximum area possible.

“Hooah.”

If I were to pick the biggest disadvantage of the secret farming map, it’s that time flows 1:1 with real life.

In the Farming World, you could adjust the time scale freely, saving time a bit, but here, there’s no such thing.

Anyway, farming is grind time, so increasing the time scale doesn’t really benefit me, so flowing in real time is fine, but when sleeping or wanting to skip time quickly, it was better to skip.

Waiting 7 full days just farming and watching the crops grow is not easy.

At least by developing the surroundings, time passes faster, and later I might need to create things at the base to pass time.

Then the logout cooldown would be shorter,
so I might just spend time in real life then.

The sunlight was quite warm despite being spring.

Wiping off the sweat roughly, I emptied a 500ml water bottle and left the house immediately.

“Lulu. Let’s go.”

“Eh! Yes! Master!”

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

The path I cleared yesterday was wide enough for three people to walk side by side,
even when using transport, so it took less than 10 minutes to reach the end of a path that would normally take half a day.

About 1 km.

The village is about 2 km away, so if I speed up today, I could arrive by night.

Though I left later than yesterday because of gardening.

If I sleep in the village, it should be okay somehow.

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

“Oh?”

“If you go about 1 km east, it appears.”

“How do you know?”

Lulu said she knows the major points in the level 0 biome.

So remembering memories with the previous owner isn’t hard.

Does she remember when approaching certain locations?

But Lulu answered simply.

“Eh. I flew over and checked.”

Oh, right. She’s a fairy.

I thought she just flew around by herself sitting on my shoulder, but she was doing this useful work.

“You’re surprisingly useful.”

Flying is very useful in the field of weeds over 2 meters tall.

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

These are all valuable resources too.

Basic resources are eventually needed for the final tech, so it’s good to stockpile them to avoid the hassle of farming in the low-level biome later.

“Hehe. I’m useful, right?”

This little guy is working hard, probably because she wants to eat ramen.

Not a bad effort for me.

“Guide me. We need to go to the orchard first.”

I don’t need to go to the village right now.

The reason I’m opening a path to the village now is to check if the seed merchant sells recovery herb seeds — that’s the top priority.

For that reason, the orchard has a much higher chance, and I don’t have to use a farm.

If there are any seeds or fruit on the fruit trees, that’s a jackpot.

No, just having the trees planted is good enough.

“Please.”

The passion lies more in the path leading to the orchard than the path leading to the village.

It couldn’t be helped.

“Do you have any trees?”

“The previous owner really loved fruit!

Since I’m a fairy, fruit is my staple food.

He cared for me a lot and said this orchard was for me…”

Lulu’s tone grew a bit gloomy.

It seems the affection with the previous owner still lingers, even after all this time.

Well, according to Lulu, since she eats fruit as her staple, the orchard was made by planting fruit trees for her.

“But are you really a fruit eater?

You only chow down on meat, snacks, and ramen.”

“…I like fruit the most!”

“And you said your previous owner died soon after.

Where did you get those fruit trees?”

“He did reach up to the level 2 biome…”

“Oh, really? That’s a shame.”

I wondered if this Lulu might know some key points about the level 1 biome but was keeping quiet.

Maybe if the system’s seal or something like that was lifted, she might reveal more info.

Or perhaps, memories return when reaching a certain distance, so I didn’t press further.

“How was it back then? The orchard?”

“It was huge. Big. He put a lot of effort into protecting it from monster invasions.”

“Can I have some hope then?”

Honestly, I wasn’t expecting much.

Fruit trees aren’t easy to find in those low-level biomes.

Rare seeds sometimes drop from cutting weeds or trees, and occasionally, fruit tree seeds appear with a low probability.

Since each biome has different kinds of fruit trees, the tasty and expensive fruit trees usually only appear in higher-level biomes.

Sometimes, the village seed merchant brings one or two fruit tree seeds from somewhere, but their prices are insanely expensive, almost like a rip-off.

So unless you’re in the late game where the farm is overflowing, it’s really tough to create an orchard.

That means an orchard made by a previous owner who died in a level 2 biome is likely to grow fruit that you’d expect to see in reality.

The orchard I want is one that grows fruits only found in the farming world.

Still, even if there’s just a well-maintained orchard site, you can eat the fruit, make food, or sell it, so the farm can thrive.

Later, if I get fruit tree seeds, I won’t have to work hard to make a new orchard site — I can just use this one.

So it’s not bad.

Today, I gave up on going to the village and cleared the path to the orchard.

Right away, a wall that clearly marked the orchard entrance stood taller than the weeds.

“Wow, what’s this?”

The wall looked about 3 meters high from afar, intertwined with colorful flowering vines, not just useless weeds.

The long wall stretched wider than expected.

“How seriously did they invest in this orchard?”

Lulu’s words weren’t false — the wall wasn’t made of simple stones but bricks mixed with materials that should have been grade D materials found in the level 2 biome.

Even cement requires a lot of grinding in the level 2 biome, and those bricks were neatly shaped and cut, indicating a lot of investment in construction.

Judging by the size, this wasn’t a one or two-day project.

If the exterior walls are this grand, the interior must be even more so.

“Were you and the previous owner lovers?”

“No! The previous owner was a woman!”

“Well, women can love each other too.”

The fairy beside me just kept chattering about such things.

Maybe I was judging all this by my own farming world logic, but for a previous owner who died in the level 2 biome and had SSS-level abilities invested in magic, this orchard was close to a waste of resources.

She chose magic and endured well, but all these wastes probably piled up and blocked her path, leading to her death.

Still, dying just because she made this orchard seemed a bit of a stretch.

The previous owner, if they became the owner of the Rift dimension under similar conditions as me, wouldn’t have been that clueless.

Whatever the case, I was grateful.

Pushing open the orchard’s entrance wall, over 3 meters tall, the door that had been closed for a long time creaked open.

“Wow…”

About 200 meters of land stretched ahead, lined with trees planted three rows on each side, welcoming me.