Chapter 18 : Dimension Trading Merchant

The previous owner, who died in a level 2 biome and was a pathetic nobody…

But to say that, the inheritance I received from her was quite a lot.

“I will use it well. I will uphold your legacy.”

Should I say it’s thanks to her?

Or am I just a bit disappointed that she didn’t live longer to leave more behind?

If those traces remain here in the first place, it means there might be more elsewhere,

So maybe I can hope for that?

“I don’t know. I’m sorry, master.”

Even when I asked Lulu, the answer I got was just what I expected.

Still, I decided not to give up hope.

Because having an orchard means there could be other key points from the farming world as well.

The previous owner, who painstakingly made this orchard, probably didn’t make it just for nothing.

If I could leave a review, I’d want to give it five stars.

“The previous owner’s warmth remains…

And I like that it was well left with things I can sell!”

“Uh..?”

The 100 starfruits will be a solid emergency fund whether sold on the farm or in real life,

And the 50 healing herb seeds were planted right away in the orchard that I finished cleaning.

Trees were scattered one or two here and there in the field, so it didn’t look very pretty,

But since I didn’t plan to use this place just as a field anyway, I thought of using it as a temporary farm and orchard.

I had prepared the entire field in front of the house to plant seeds if I could get some,

But since I found an orchard with perfect walls that can be used as a farm,

There’s no reason to risk planting healing herbs where monsters could come and wreck it.

Even if just one or two get eaten, that’s a lot of loss.

If caught properly, the whole field could be ruined.

So I’ll just plant the less valuable seeds in the field prepared in the front yard.

Among the seeds that healing herbs hold, they are the most valuable and useful at this stage,

And I have quite a few other seed types too.

More than anything, there were many small but valuable useless tools.

You might think this is a weird combination of words,

But they are literally useless tools.

Tools I would never buy for the farm if I was sane.

But they are somewhat useful, ambiguous tools.

A representative example is the ‘fruit basket’ in the orchard’s warehouse.

[Medium Fruit Basket]

• Grade: D
• A basket made of straw that can hold fruit. Looks like it can hold a decent amount.
• Reduces the weight of fruit by 30%.
• Made in size 150 x 3.

One of the essentials when making and harvesting an orchard is this basket.

For small orchards, you can just pick and put fruit in your inventory,

But if you’re not just farming, the 7-slot belt is not a place for miscellaneous items,

It’s space for weapons or tools essential for survival, and emergency food or drinks.

Once the orchard is of a certain size, constantly putting fruit in and taking it out of the inventory is a hassle,

So it’s much easier to put it in the basket and carry it around comfortably.

Just from 20 trees, I picked over 100 fruits.

If I put them in the belt, I’d have to use two slots, but with this basket, I can put them in one place, and putting the basket in the belt takes only one slot.

Also, the 150 x 3 size means the medium fruit basket can hold up to 150 stacks in one slot.

The only downside is that only fruit can go in, but anyway, it’s too expensive to buy on the farm, and if you have one, it’s very useful in many ways.

It’s cheaper to craft it yourself if you’re a farming world user, but for crafting, you need to get the recipe through quests or buy it, so there’s that too.

There were two medium fruit baskets in the warehouse: one for starfruits, and I took the other home with me.

[Day 5]

I watered the plants in the morning after planting, so I’ll water again tomorrow,

Then harvest on the morning of day 7 and leave on day 8.

The first goal of finding the village is still ongoing, and there are tons of things to do, but in the farming world, it’s important to tackle immediate goals one by one.

It would be nice to plan everything and do it all at once, but there’s just too much to do, so at some point, you might get tired or stall.

“Go get some water.”

“…Fairies don’t do this kind of work…”

“Then what do you do? Just sleep, eat, poop, and talk nonsense while wasting food?

You’re the manager developing this dimension, right?

The master is plowing the field, and you can’t even bring water to help?”

“Y-yes…”

Though not much help, it was at least convenient to have an extra hand even if it was small.

Thanks to Lulu, who struggled with a watering can as big as her body, flying and filling it with water from the hut’s bathroom, I didn’t have to run back and forth planting other seeds in the field.

“Pack some Big Rats meat too.”

Though there are still 3 days left, I was packing early to leave as soon as the cooldown was over.

Since the cooldown is 7 days, if I forget something, I won’t be able to bring it back for a whole week, so I had to pack everything I needed properly.

Though I haven’t harvested yet, just finding the orchard made me quite rich.

100 starfruits. 50 healing herbs.

If I cultivate, I should get over 100 fruits and leaves.

I can shove the healing herb leaves into the carry-on luggage I brought.

The smell of dirt and grass from the healing herb leaves will stick to the luggage, but I don’t care.

The fruits go into the fruit basket, solving the belt slot problem.

“This is the dimension trading merchant.”

“Master, do you have no intention of growing?”

Lulu pouted and challenged me.

There was also worry in her tone.

I didn’t find it hard to understand.

The previous owner died, and Lulu’s role is to help me develop this dimension and pioneer it to the end,

So she might be uneasy seeing me try to take resources from the crack dimension to Earth and sell them.

“Ah!”

Regardless, I’m confident, so I don’t really care.

I suddenly got curious about something related to that.

“The village, you know. Even if this dimension doesn’t have an owner, do other NPCs keep living? How do you earn farming points?”

In the farming world, NPCs are naturally system agents made by the game company, so if you sell them the resources they need, they pay you farming points set by the game company.

But here, assuming this is ‘reality,’ there’s no way NPCs exist.

Is someone like Lulu acting on behalf of the god who is the owner of this dimension, making trades?

“If you open the village, you have to restore it. While restoring, you fill the village with residents…

Once restoration is complete, merchants who travel between dimensions visit the village, and you can earn farming points by trading with those merchants.”

It’s a bit complicated.

Maybe because I haven’t found the village yet.

I have to check for sure, but it seems like a quest to restore the village, similar to the ‘achievement’ quests in the farming world where you fix a broken village hall by paying various resources and farming points.

Then, where do the NPCs come from during restoration?

From another dimension? Or another god?

“If you restore the village, you’ll naturally find out.”

“Alright.”

If I follow Lulu’s words, I’ll know.

I didn’t expect to get any answers at all, but it seems Lulu knows a fair amount about this.

“A dimensional trade merchant, huh…”

I just made up the name myself, but it turns out something like that really exists.

I got curious.

“Can I go to other dimensions too?”

If there are beings who trade between dimensions, maybe I, who can learn abilities with farming points, can do it too?

“Um… I don’t really know. I haven’t thought about it at all…”

“Forget it.”

It’s not too late to check when my level goes up and I have spare points.

At least on Earth, I’m the only dimensional trade merchant.

After tidying up the yard near the garden, I spent some time and went to bed early today.

And then [Day 6].

I woke up at 6 AM after 8 hours of sleep for the first time in a while, feeling refreshed, and opened the cabin door.

“Ah. Damn.”

The neatly arranged garden in a checkerboard pattern was completely messed up.

Not just one or two places, but almost everywhere.

Even the crops planted with recovery herbs, which were supposed to be harvested today, were completely dug up with no trace,

and the seeds I planted yesterday were mostly ruined without even checking.

“Damn…”

I knew this would happen, but I didn’t expect them to mess it up this badly and then leave.

Even though I didn’t plant anything as valuable as recovery herbs in the front yard, all of it could have been harvested and sold for farming points and money.

The reason I didn’t waste time and effort putting fences or alarm bells around was because only some of the rats come to eat.

I even lit a campfire before going to sleep.

There was nothing left to eat, so they could just eat what had grown moderately and leave, but this is just vandalism.

“I’m screwed.”

I planned to find the village today and go back home tomorrow, but this won’t do.

“Lulu. Show me the sewer.”

These bastards… no, these rats. I think I need to kill them all today to feel better.