Chapter 128. A troubling issue.

Mihou

It's the start of the month and here we go again. To make it short....

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“Let us start this meeting, shall we?” I spoke before all of them nodded, “First and foremost, how about we ask the town chief on his opinion over how to divide the bread to the citizens. Naturally, we shouldn’t give all of it within six days otherwise we wouldn’t last long like that. I want to hear some sort of rationing that will not only benefit us but also benefit the people.”

“I do not have any opinion, young miss. This mind of mine is too old now to think too much,” he smiled wryly. I guess he is a bit too old to think now, not to mention, the stress of handling a decaying town must have gotten to him especially when every single day, you receive reports of a person or ten dying from hunger.

You could tell within a single glance that he tried his best in receiving at least a little bit of funding from the royal family, but it was naturally all for naught because why would the royal family care about a town that has no hope and benefit anymore?

“Then since the town chief cannot hand his opinion, I will start off with mine then. In my opinion, we should ration the bread per family. Of course, we are splitting the bread into halves to last us at least a little longer than expected,” I said while looking at the plenty of semi-giant baguettes on a table, “And since we lack the funding to give workers salary, we will instead utilize the bread to our advantage.”

“The men will receive half of a bread if he finishes a certain amount of work that is more suited to men while the women will receive another half of the bread for their work which involves planting, tailoring, and other kinds of works that will suit them. Children will receive the lesser end of work and will work to assist either the men or women, no rules… let them pick who they want to assist.”

“Naturally because children are weaker, we will have to give a little bit of exemption to them. The ones who cannot work with no remaining relatives will receive at least a piece of bread. What do you all think?” I looked at them and asked. My hands were trembling a bit from the nervousness, I was not well-versed in these types of things, but I still wanted to give it my best.

The silence that soon fell after only made me even more nervous as I looked at each one of them in the eye afraid that the opinion or suggestion I spoke of was bad for the situation. It couldn’t have been right…?

“Indeed as milady has mentioned, we are in a dire state in terms of funding which is why we cannot afford to be too kind and too greedy. If we need workers then we definitely need some sort of reward for them and what milady has suggested works well especially in this town where hunger is a critical issue—but let us face it, the people is currently weak right now having eaten little to nothing for weeks to months… will they be able to work in their state?” Raeliana spoke.

Right… that was an oversight on my part—does that mean my solution isn’t going to work in this situation…?

“Then what is your solution?” Faron questioned.

“I have no actual solution, but we could modify milady’s solution a bit to include the issue a bit. If milady can indeed utilize water spells then we can work out something, for example, we could tell the people about the solution milady has provided but we’ll also tell them that those who couldn’t work yet will be given a day or two free exemption but after that, they will have to follow the rest on their work.”

“Of course, we come to the risk where the ones who choose to forego the free exemption would lose out which is why we will offer a large proportion for the ones who are willing to work through the 2 days free exemption,” she answered.

“Won’t we run into the risk of people leaving before the two-day exemption?” Lia spoke out.

“Indeed, that is another issue but let’s face reality, can they actually survive without our help? All of you should know already that the next town is around a day from here—that is if you use a carriage but without a carriage, it will take nearly a week to reach there from foot and that excludes the possibility of encountering monsters during the way,” Raeliana showed a smirk.

You look a bit scary there, Raeliana… maybe wipe that smirk a bit so you won’t look like some sort of greedy or evil noble—anyhow, what she said is indeed correct. We tend to forget that monsters actually exist on the route towards the next town, the only reason why most people can travel there easily is because they can battle the monsters but what about the people here, they most likely won’t last long simply walking in the heat let alone against the monsters.

“Then is that our final decision?” Tanya asked as we all looked at each other and nodded.

“How about we move on to the next troubling issue then which is the security of the town, right now, the entire place from what I have observed is practically anarchy. There is little to no security here other than the few guards who are way too unmotivated to go forward, what do you think would be the best way to solve this in your perspectives, Lia and Faron?” I looked at the two of them and asked.

The two were powerful and experienced knights themselves which means they should know a few things or two about what could motivate a knight—though I do have a terrible feeling about this.

“Well… Princess, there is one issue on our side,” Faron and Lia both smiled wryly as Faron continued, “You see—our motivation for taking up our own swords was to give back and protect the Princess which is why we actually don’t really know much about what can motivate them.”

Indeed, it seems like my terrible feeling was not some kind of fluke. I should have known from the start that the two of them were only motivated to be my knights from the start, haaa. Ayumi Windsor must be some kind of angel to motivate two people this much.

“Actually, my lady… wouldn’t your rationing solution involve the guards as well?” Tanya suddenly spoke out, “After all, it is part of the jobs of both men and women to become guards and protect the town. We can’t afford to make some jobs special over some others because that would create some form of discrimination.”

“Indeed, that was another oversight on me. Then it should be fine if we skip on that issue then?” I looked at them and asked before all of them nodded simultaneously. I feel like they are nodding only because I say so… though it could just be me, “Lastly, I have another issue I want to tackle this time which is regarding the kinds of products the town will sell from this point forward.”

“I need someone who has experience with farming in general because I want to introduce a new concept called ‘crop rotation’ which should allow us to produce even more yield in a sense. Also, I would like to shift the focus of the town from a trading hub to the major supplier of Aramium which will grant us the most profits but that would require us to have at least a few seeds of the plant itself,” I said before looking at the town chief as I asked, “We should have remnant seeds right?”

“Indeed, we do have a few seeds of Aramium leftover though, I don’t know whether they can be used to produce a perfect Aramium plant. Not to mention, planting Aramium is inefficient especially with the way we planted it which took us half a year to grow even one…” he smiled wryly.

“You don’t have to worry about how to grow Aramium, I have some way of speeding up the process. All I want to know is whether we have the seeds for the flower which is already answered; how about other plants, do we have any seeds for them?” I asked.

“We should have a few seeds but most of them should be past its best point, are you planning on planting them young miss?” he asked as I nodded.

“I want to split our farmland into four parts, one part which will be entirely dedicated to Aramium; another part will be dedicated to fruits, another will be focused on leaf vegetables, and the last one is dedicated to root vegetables. Naturally, we will be using crop rotation for this with the exception for Aramium which will be using a unique method of planting.”

“For the other three, we want to interchange the plants being planted on the beds each year. For example, the ones dedicated to fruits such as tomatoes on year one will be on the bed for root vegetables like carrots on year two then on year three, it will be on the bed which was used by beans on year one,” I said before looking at Tanya as she took out a paper and pen.

After receiving the paper and pen, I soon drew a tiny chart that showed what I knew about basic crop rotation which is basically something like this chart.

Land (bed) #1

Land (bed) #2

Land (bed) #3

Year 1

Tomato

Beans

Carrots

Year 2

Carrots

Tomato

Beans

Year 3

Beans

Carrots

Tomato

It was an example I had seen in my past life back in school, though I didn’t think much about it since I never thought I would be using that knowledge in the future especially you consider I wanted to become a programmer at that time… I have to say though, my negligence has caused me to know way too little about crop rotation. I could only give them the basic concept which I hope should be enough for them to understand.

“That sounds like a lot of work young miss, what kind of benefits would it bring to the land?” the town chief inquired.

“Well, first and foremost, this method of farming will increase the nutrients in the soil while also preventing toxic substances that are thrown by some plants. This also saves us the need to apply fertilizers and reduce our costs drastically,” I answered.

“Hmm—this is my first time seeing this method, how long have you come up with this milady?” Raeliana looked at me with awe. I felt sweat flow through my back as I let out an awkward chuckle, of course, I didn’t come up with this but how could I say that in this world?!

“Well, it’s something I just thought up when I came here…” I laughed awkwardly before all of them nodded while saying something like ‘as expected of milady’ or ‘the princess is the greatest indeed’ which made me blush a bit, “Anyhow, can you relay that to the people who know farming the most?”

“That should be no problem as long as it comes from the young miss’s mouth, they should be able to implement it immediately once the land is ready to be planted but there is another critical issue I have to say, young miss…” the town chief spoke.

“And what is that issue?” I looked at him in the eye.

“That is—all our tools for farming have been broken for nearly half a year now and the tax collectors from the top will come at any point of time…” he smiled wryly.

Mihou

It's the start of the month and here we go again. To make it short....

40+ advanced chapters on Patreon!