Chapter 17 : Starfruit

The fruits were not blooming in all sorts of colors.

Maybe that was only natural.

If the neglected dimension, the memories of the previous owner, and the orchard in the fairy’s memories spanning over a thousand years were all connected to the present as they were, that would be strange.

But rather, it was good.

The interior was not organized, and over the long flow of time, the ground was cluttered with the remains of fallen fruits, and most of the trees were rotting, many barely able to stand, and only some trees bore fruit thanks to the excellence of their species.

“They really put their heart and soul into this.”

If I just plant fruit tree seeds here, everything from the layout of the trees onwards was perfectly made.

First of all, the tall walls.

This alone is the end of it.

The most dangerous thing when growing fruit trees is monsters.

Even farming right in front of the house suffers damage day and night from monsters targeting the crops, so an orchard almost 1 km away?

I should think of it as planting fruit trees not for myself but for the monsters.

No matter how hard I work growing the fruit trees, if the monsters eat the fruit first, either I eat it before they do, or I lose it.

That’s easier to accept.

This is not something that can be solved simply by clearing out nearby sewers and exterminating rats.

The wider the biome, the wider the map, the more different monsters live there, and managing all the land inside this dimension without clearing everything and building walls around it is not easy.

But this solved it.

I haven’t learned construction skills and have no plans to learn them yet, but it was so perfect that I don’t have to worry about it at all.

“I could just use this for farming.”

That’s how good it is.

With walls this sturdy, at least monsters from a level 0 biome won’t target the fruit beyond the wall unless they charge in anger or instinct as a group.

I looked at Lulu again with new respect.

“You’re hiding some special ability, aren’t you? Why…”

“I’m an ancient fairy too!”

“Hmm… I guess that explains it.”

Cutting only the weeds blocking the view and providing navigation, I felt like giving her some snacks, but an orchard built for fairies like this? I wasn’t sure.

Maybe because I hadn’t grown attached yet.

Or maybe the previous owner just made it because he wanted to, and the words were just to make Lulu happy.

Anyway, it was an orchard.

Checking only the living fruit trees, there were still about 20.

Moreover, inside the orchard was a storage warehouse for the fruits twice the size of my hut.

Of course, there were no fruits inside.

Instead, there were some seeds.

“Thank you. Thank you.”

The previous owner is dead, but his spirit remains in the seeds.

About a dozen fruit tree seeds and fifty healing herb seeds.

Besides that, there were dozens of other useful seeds sorted and stored in a corner of the warehouse.

“How much is this worth?”

Just selling the healing herbs alone would make me rich.

Even if I wanted to buy this many seeds for my farm, it’s impossible with my current farm.

I gathered the seeds first and took out my axe.

First, I cut down all the rotten fruit trees.

They’re all trees, so resources too.

“If you have nothing to do, clean up the floor a bit. The previous owner didn’t make this dirty on purpose, did he?”

“Yes, ma’am…”

Lulu also seemed to be reminiscing about the previous owner as she flew around energetically cleaning the floor.

Though it didn’t seem to make much difference after cleaning, I thought I should sweep once more thoroughly, but it wasn’t urgent.

As I cut the trees, dusk slowly approached.

If I wanted to return, I had to leave now.

But I decided to stay here for one day instead.

Anyway, if I close the door, monsters can’t attack unless they fly in from the sky.

The warehouse was even bigger than the hut.

Occasionally, the previous owner must have slept here too, as a small bed was placed in a corner.

It was a pity there was no bathroom, but since I’m not the neat-freak type who brings everything while farming, it was fine.

Work continued late into the night.

It felt like doing simple labor for four days straight, so mentally I was a bit tired, but definitely the experience of 10 years didn’t go away.

There’s also that saying, isn’t there?

No matter how much you clean or decorate your own house, it’s never hard.

If this were a new farming world with a new map, I might have taken a break by now.

But this is my main map.

Is there any need to work this hard?

It’s boring, so I’ll take it easy.

But my house.

My dwelling.

My dimension.

Thinking of each as money, it wasn’t hard at all.

Taking care of my shop and digging up money buried in my front yard—who would find that process difficult?

After tidying up, only the fruit-bearing trees were sparsely left.

Though a bit sparse for an orchard and not exactly pretty, it was at least neatly arranged.

I swept rotten leaves, twigs, and fruit debris outside the orchard with a rake stored in the warehouse.

One of the good things about farming worlds is that you can dump trash without restrictions.

Of course, if I throw trash within the radius I have to live in,

I’ll have to clean it up eventually, but if I just leave natural trash outside roughly, it will be washed away by rain later, or monsters might eat the rotten fruits.

Eventually, it even becomes fertilizer.

“Really spent a lot of money.”

The only fruit tree that survived was just one type.

It was a fruit called Starfruit that glows blue, and only grows in the dungeon.

The seeds for the fruit tree that grows in the tropical biome are random, so I might have gotten it in the level 2 biome or bought it, but generally, buying it requires paying a huge amount of farm currency.

Getting seeds for this tree in the tropical biome is really difficult, and even searching the entire tropical biome, it’s not easy to find this tree itself.

It’s sweet and tasty even when eaten raw, with health recovery effects and regeneration, so in the late game, it’s one of the trees you absolutely cover the orchard with.

You can also mature it to make jam or wine, and just the taste alone can fetch expensive farm currency.

I have almost 20 of these trees.

At this point, I wondered what the other trees might have been before they rotted away.

“You must really have cared for it.”

“Hehe…”

Or maybe I just really wanted to decorate the orchard using Lulu as an excuse.

Whether it was a coincidence or I fell for the starfruit, covering the orchard with starfruit trees and then dying was quite a big luck for me.

Healing herbs and starfruit.

Even in reality, starfruit is not a widely known fruit.

Among fruit lovers, it’s traded at tens of thousands of won, even more expensive than healing herbs with good effects and efficiency.

This is because it’s a rare tree that only grows in the tropical biome, so cutting it down and planting it in tropical regions on Earth doesn’t guarantee fruit, and the fruit itself is not easy to get, making it harder to find than healing herbs.

Still, it’s a fruit that disappears once eaten, so the price doesn’t skyrocket.

Buying a single fruit for tens of thousands of won is beyond my common sense, but I picked all the starfruits that ripened diligently.

“If I go out now, it’ll be a big haul.”

The remaining time was perfect to plant and cultivate healing herb seeds before heading out.

“Here. You eat one too.”

“Thank you!”

Rewards for achievements must be clear.

If Lulu hadn’t told me about the orchard,

I might have been struggling all day today, only just arriving in town and getting scammed by NPCs while farming.

I don’t even know how the town is built.

I even doubt if NPCs exist at all.

Farming worlds are games, so that’s understandable, but this is a dimensional rift or a rift dimension, and I wondered if there’d be NPCs in a dimension without an owner.

So choosing the orchard was a success.

It’s natural to reward Lulu, who did all the work.

Starfruit must be a delicacy for Lulu, whose staple is fruit.

Because I hadn’t harvested for a long time, each tree had about 5 starfruits on average, and almost 100 blue, shining fruits piled up in the basket.

I was about to toss one to her, but suddenly curious, I took out a few snacks Lulu liked from my backpack and offered them.

“You choose. What do you want to eat?”

Starfruit versus the spicy snacks Lulu likes.

Spicy Swing Chips made from potatoes and spicy tteokbokki-shaped snacks versus sweet and crispy starfruit was honestly not a contest worth comparing.

Buying snacks that cost 2-3 thousand won at most and comparing them on the same level as a fruit only found in dungeons is a huge insult.

But Lulu glanced around and slyly chose the snacks.

“Can’t I have both, Master?”

From what I see, it’s definitely a lie that fruit is her staple food.