Chapter 56

As the sun began to set and the earth was dyed in twilight, Zirconia and Oatis were staring at the ground where a few fist-sized stones were piled up.

Beneath this, the bodies of bandits were buried.

"Is this it?"

"...Yes."

Ignoring Oatis's rather unpleasant expression, Zirconia placed the shovel she had brought from the carriage beside her, picked up the stones on the ground, and moved them aside.

Then, she grabbed the shovel again, raised it, and began to dig the ground steadily.

Since Zirconia was digging herself, Oatis couldn't just stand there doing nothing, so he reluctantly started digging the ground with his shovel as well.

After digging for a while, the tip of Oatis's shovel hit something.

"...It seems we've hit a body."

"That's right. Let's pull it out."

Zirconia put down the shovel, put on the gloves she had at her waist, and bent down to clear the dirt.

As some of the dirt covering the body was removed, a human foot appeared.

Zirconia grabbed the foot with both hands and dragged the body out of the grave with all her strength.

Immediately, a terrible smell of decay filled the air.

"...The head is missing. How many bodies are buried in this hole?"

"Altogether, there are 10 bodies."

Oatis answered with a groan, covering his nose and mouth to avoid the overwhelming stench of decay.

He was barely managing to suppress the rising nausea.

In contrast, Zirconia, without changing her expression, was clearing the dirt from the severed neck.

"..."

Zirconia stopped for a few seconds to examine the cut, then stood up and went back into the grave.

She cleared the dirt with her hands and dragged out the body that had appeared, repeating this process with Oatis until 10 bodies were lined up in front of the grave.

"...If you can't bear it, you can go back first. I'll take care of the rest."

"No... I'm fine. Are you okay, Lady Zirconia?"

In response to Oatis's question, Zirconia looked puzzled, then gave a slight smile.

"I'm not really okay. I feel like I'm about to vomit. But since I haven't eaten anything since morning, I might be better off than you."

"Is that so?"

Oatis inwardly cursed, wishing she had told him to skip meals as well.

However, even if he had skipped meals, he doubted he could perform the grim task of examining the bodies as calmly as Zirconia.

After continuing to examine the wounds on the lined-up bodies, Zirconia's eyes stopped on one of them.

"This is..."

While touching the arm of the body, Zirconia murmured.

The right arm of the body was strangely deformed, as if crushed by an immense force, in an unnatural way.

This was the body of the bandit whose wrist had been crushed by Barretta.

Zirconia stared at the crushed wrist for a while, then let out a small breath and stood up.

"That's enough. Let's rebury the bodies."

Zirconia said this to Oatis, who was trying to suppress his nausea, and began to put the bodies back into the grave.

After reburying the bodies, Zirconia changed into clean clothes in her tent at the entrance of the village, which had been prepared for her.

Without resting, she entered Gricia Village, but the abnormal scene that greeted her made her doubt her eyes.

"What... is this..."

In the fields of Gricia Village, yams with leaves and vines of unprecedented size were growing, and leafy vegetables had grown to several times their normal size.

The vegetables were so large that it was hard to believe they were real, as if they had been magically enlarged.

The vegetables in the fields were much larger than what Isaac had reported a few days ago when he returned from Gricia Village.

Zirconia couldn't help but squat down in front of a yam and touch the leaves with her hands.

The leaves were huge and thick, completely different from the yam leaves she knew.

The vines from which the leaves grew were as thick as an adult's thumb and were abnormally long, giving a powerful impression.

Zirconia stared at the crops in the field in a daze for a while, then suddenly noticed an unusual sound coming from deeper in the village and turned her gaze in that direction.

She had forgotten about the sound because of the oversized vegetables, but it had stopped when they arrived at the village.

Zirconia let go of the yam leaf, stood up, and started walking in the direction of the sound.

When Zirconia arrived at the entrance of the village's mixed forest, many villagers were gathered there.

The villagers were working in pairs, with one person holding the mouth of a cloth bag open and the other using a shovel to fill the bag with compost.

Then, Ichirou, riding on an agricultural transport vehicle, appeared from deep in the forest, making a loud noise.

"Oh, Lady Zirconia is here too."

Ichirou said this while operating the dump function of the agricultural transport vehicle to lower the compost to the ground.

The sight was so shocking that Zirconia couldn't even respond to Ichirou, and she stared at the agricultural transport vehicle, which was making intermittent engine sounds, with a dazed expression.

"Lady Zirconia, this is called an agricultural transport vehicle. It's a tool from the land of the gods that can carry heavy loads at once. Surprisingly, this tool can move freely with the driver's operation, without being pulled by Rata or anything."

"Is that so... That's amazing..."

Isaac, who was among the villagers filling the cloth bags with compost, noticed Zirconia and explained the tool to her.

While trying to respond to Isaac, Zirconia's eyes were fixed on the agricultural transport vehicle.

"Mr. Kazura, this... agricultural... what was it again?"

"Agricultural transport vehicle."

"How fast can this agricultural transport vehicle move?"

"Speed? ...Well, it's about 10 kilometers per hour at most... roughly the speed of a light jog. It's not particularly fast."

"A light jog...?"

"Yes. So, it's not really suitable for use on the battlefield."

At Ichirou's words, Zirconia's eyes moved from the agricultural transport vehicle to Ichirou, looking surprised.

When their eyes met, Ichirou waved his hands in front of his chest, looking a bit flustered.

"N-no, I didn't mean it that way..."

"Oh, I see. I apologize."

Ichirou, seeing Zirconia's flustered expression, inwardly thought, "Gotcha," but only offered a formal apology.

Previously, when Ichirou first met Zirconia at the Nelson residence, she had immediately sought military advice.

From the subsequent conversation, Ichirou had sensed that Zirconia's interests were focused on military matters.

He thought it was natural for her to think along those lines when she saw the agricultural transport vehicle.

"Lady Kazura, how much more compost do you plan to bring?"

Isaac, perhaps trying to help the flustered Zirconia, asked Ichirou from the side.

"Well... about 80% is still left..."

Ichirou, who had been basking in a sense of accomplishment, was brought back to reality by Isaac's question and looked like a dead fish.

The false enthusiasm he had shown earlier seemed to have been used up.

The ordeal was about to begin.

"80%? It doesn't seem like we'll finish today..."

"Yeah... Let's take a break when it gets dark..."

Ichirou muttered, "There's other cargo besides compost," and then disappeared into the depths of the forest, making a loud noise again.

A few hours later.

The work was interrupted at sunset, and everyone returned to their camps or homes in the village.

Ichirou also returned to the Barin residence with Barretta and, as usual, sat around the hearth with the Barin family of three.

Dinner had already been prepared by Barin.

"Mr. Kazura, thank you for your hard work. Please eat plenty."

"Thank you... Wow, mixed rice with fish. This looks delicious."

Ichirou took the bowl of mixed rice from Barretta and smiled happily.

Across from Ichirou, Barin seemed relieved that Barretta was back to her usual self and showed a relieved expression.

The dinner menu included mixed rice with fish, vegetable soup, boiled yams, boiled eggs, and pineapple canned as dessert.

The vegetables in the soup were a mix of those grown in the village and frozen vegetables Ichirou had brought from Japan.

The menu items made entirely from village produce were the boiled eggs, made from the eggs of the root-cutting bird, and the boiled yams.

The fish in the mixed rice seemed to have been caught by Barin during the day.

"By the way, the vegetables in the village have grown a lot while I was away. They've grown to a scary size."

When Ichirou mentioned the giant crops in the village's fields, which had been bothering him since he returned to the village two days ago, Barretta and Barin nodded simultaneously.

"The growth rate has finally slowed down, but they are still growing."

"Really? They're still growing?"

"Probably... The yams, for example, are now about the size of a baby's head. For the boiled yams, I only used half of one yam to make enough for three people."

"Ugh, they look like monsters... I mean, can they grow that much in such a short time...?"

When he dug up the yams over 20 days ago, they were about the size of a large chicken egg from the supermarket.

Now, they were the size of a baby's head.

The growth was so rapid that it seemed as if you could see them growing if you stared at them for a while.

It was a wonder that the skin of the yams didn't crack from the growth rate.

According to what Barretta had told him before, one yam plant could produce at least five tubers.

Even if the number of tubers hadn't increased, the soil in the village's yam fields must be packed with giant yams.

Ichirou scooped up some of the boiled yams with a spoon and stopped just before putting it in his mouth.

He then stared intently at the yam on the spoon.

"Is something wrong?"

"Yes, I have a question..."

Leaning her head to one side, Barretta listened as Ichirou spoke with a serious expression.

"...If I eat this and feel full, does that mean it has the same properties as the food I brought from Japan?"

"Same properties..."

At Ichirou's words, Barretta's eyes widened as she realized the implications.

If the vegetables grown with the fertilizer Ichirou brought from Japan had the same effects as the food he brought from Japan, what would happen?

"Does that mean they have properties that make you less tired and stronger?"

"Yes. If they have such properties, we need to be very careful about how we use the crops from the village... This is bad. What about the revival of the granary I promised? We can't just spread the compost..."

If the village's crops had the same effects as the food from Japan, it would be problematic to pay taxes to Isteria with the village's produce.

People who ate the food would benefit from dramatic physical recovery and then be physically enhanced.

However, from the experience of giving the villagers Japanese food, Ichirou knew that physical enhancement didn't happen immediately after consumption.

The villagers only started complaining about being less tired and able to carry heavier loads more than two weeks after he started giving them the food.

Additionally, when he and Barretta, Rozuru, and others walked to Isteria, Rozuru's daughter Mira showed signs of fatigue after walking for a while.

From this, it was clear that physical enhancement began only after consuming the food for a certain period of time.

There might be individual differences, but it was safe to assume that physical enhancement didn't happen immediately after eating.

"...Mr. Kazura, are you hungry now?"

"I'm starving."

"Then, why don't you eat a few yams and boiled eggs and see how you feel? If you feel full, it means the food has changed properties."

Ichirou nodded at Barretta's suggestion and put the yam on the spoon into his mouth.