Chapter 33

A severe crop failure has been ongoing.

For years, famine has caused people to die and the land to become desolate.

Humans are foolish creatures.

Even though they have been waging wars repeatedly, in recent years, they have started fighting over food.

Amidst this, I encountered a certain food.

It is called Hatsuka.

It is known for growing anywhere, even in barren fields.

However, its taste is so bad that it is barely edible.

Not even omnivorous livestock that eat anything will touch it, so it is known as a poor farmer's trash vegetable.

But, the Hatsuka I ate this time was different.

The taste is bad.

It is bad, but not so bad that it cannot be eaten, and it should be fine for filling one's stomach.

Salted Hatsuka was served on the table even during the winter when crops do not grow.

It is larger than usual, so it has a crunchy texture and is satisfying to eat.

There are other differences between this Hatsuka and other Hatsuka.

It grows faster than other varieties.

Ordinary Hatsuka takes about 20 days to become edible.

But this one grows sufficiently in about half that time.

This is why it has quietly spread in a few regions.

With this, more farmers might be able to overcome the crop failure.

I am a traveling merchant.

When there is war, goods move, and profits are made.

If I want to, I can make a profit.

But, with the world in such a state, it is indeed troubling.

With this Hatsuka, at least the number of people dying of starvation will decrease.

Thus, I decided to investigate this Hatsuka a bit.

A remote village near the northern forest.

That seems to be the origin of this Hatsuka.

Perhaps a new variety of Hatsuka was discovered in the forest.

I decided to visit the village to investigate.

I was surprised when I arrived.

Recently, wherever I go, the villages are filled with a gloomy and oppressive atmosphere.

But, in this village, I did not feel such a thing.

Even though the people are poor, they are not on the brink of starvation.

It seems that the entire village is growing the Hatsuka, and they are living without hunger.

In such a place, I met a young boy.

A very young boy who has not even been baptized yet.

He wanted to sell a large number of sandals.

The sandals were made from the stems of the Hatsuka.

I was surprised by this.

The stems seemed to be sturdier than usual, making the sandals quite durable.

Normally, sandals are not something I would want to buy.

They are cheap and take up space, so they do not yield much profit.

But, this village is near the forest, and I am not planning to continue trading further ahead; I am just on my way back to the city.

The space in my cargo will be freed up by the items I sell in this village.

To fill that space, it would be fine to buy these sandals.

So, I bought the sandals from the boy.

This boy was a mysterious child.

He was very intelligent.

It seemed to be his first time seeing money.

Despite that, he immediately calculated the total amount for the sandals.

Usually, farmers are not good at calculations.

But, his intelligence was also evident in the barrage of questions he asked me.

He kept asking if I had anything that could be sold.

I ended up answering his questions as if I were sharing all the product information I had gathered from various places.

I bought a large amount of Hatsuka along with the sandals and then traveled to various villages.

I encouraged the farmers in each village to cultivate this Hatsuka.

However, every village already grows Hatsuka.

Even if I told them it was a new variety, they would not think it was worth the effort to grow it just to sell it to me.

I started selling the Hatsuka along with the sandals.

Thanks to this, there were some buyers, though not many.

A few people were interested and decided to try growing it.

I traveled around like this, but the boy from that village kept coming to my mind.

His quick thinking was not something I would expect from a farmer.

Feeling this way, I decided to visit the boy again.

After that, I regularly visited the village in the north.

The boy always brought sandals.

And each time, he would bombard me with questions for a long time.

But, it was not an unpleasant experience.

Before long, I began to look forward to this time.

The relationship with the boy continued even after the new year.

Each time I visited the village, I saw the boy growing taller.

One day, he started trying to sell me things other than sandals.

Magic mushrooms.

The magic mushrooms found in the forest are valuable and fetch high prices.

Until now, trading in this village had not been very profitable, but this would change that.

But, could such a small child really enter the forest?

It is far too dangerous.

It would be too sad if the boy I had come to know disappeared while still so young.

I advised him to wait until he was older before entering the forest.

But, he insisted it was fine.

The boy had a look of absolute confidence in his eyes.

However, it is dangerous.

I have seen such eyes many times before.

There have been many young people with fanatical confidence.

They say they will be fine, but many talented young people have died that way.

I want to prevent that from happening to him.

Thinking this, I considered what else I could buy from the boy.

I found it quickly.

Bricks.

There is a brick building behind the boy's house used as a shed.

At first, I thought the shed was the boy's house because it was so sturdy.

I noticed the bricks.

These bricks were made with astonishing precision.

They were all the same size, as if they were identical.

Moreover, every surface was perfectly smooth and flawless.

They were so well-made that they could be used as building materials just by stacking them.

Such bricks were piled up like garbage near the shed.

Why had he made so many bricks?

I heard that other villagers sometimes take them and use them.

If that's the case, I could buy them from him.

After all, there are places that would buy bricks for construction now.

Thinking this, I approached the boy about buying the bricks.

But, he gave me a surprising response.

He showed me a certain dish and asked if I would buy that instead of the bricks.

Of course...

Seeing the dish, I realized who the boy really was.

It was a dish I had never seen before, and there were even glass cups.

A farmer would not have such things.

The boy's exceptional intelligence was also unusual for a farmer.

The boy is probably of noble birth.

Those dishes are likely family heirlooms.

Given that he lives in tattered clothes like other farmers in the village, his family might have fallen from grace.

Still, is he showing such valuable items to others?

Thieves might hear about it and come.

I wanted to tell the boy not to show these heirloom dishes to just anyone.

But, I remembered how he ignored my advice about not entering the forest.

He might not listen to me.

So, I tried to persuade him from a different angle.

I told him that I did not have the connections to sell such dishes.

Hearing this, the boy nodded and did not mention the dishes again.

Well, I did buy one set at a discount, driven by greed.

Our interactions continued like this.

Before I knew it, the boy had grown old enough to be baptized.

After the baptism, children in any household usually cause trouble with magic, but there was no sign of that with him.

I was surprised by the boy, now called Ars, again.

It was because the egg he bought for a servant beast hatched into a mount-type beast.

What is amazing about Ars is his constant drive to improve.

Even though he sells things like bricks and magic mushrooms, he is always looking for new items to sell.

I had asked him about this before.

He wants weapons to go to war.

That was the reason Ars gave me.

Of course.

Ars must want to restore his fallen noble family through military achievements.

His parents might not be his biological parents.

Perhaps they are raising a noble child who escaped with family heirlooms for some reason.

This was confirmed when I saw Ars effortlessly ride a servant beast called a Valkyrie.

This boy will definitely become something great.

I had a feeling.

I needed to build a stronger relationship with him.

So, I proposed a deal.

An exclusive deal to sell the servant beasts Ars raises.

Given that I had been buying sandals that did not yield much profit, Ars seemed to trust me to some extent.

The terms of the contract were almost equal.

I must maintain this relationship.

I need to gain even more trust before he grows up and returns to the nobility.

Thus, my life began to revolve around this boy from the frontier.

Thank you for reading.

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