Chapter 86

I Tried Creating a Farm

After receiving belladonna seeds from Count Meigis, I made my way to the town’s marketplace. I needed to buy something. I walked through the market while looking for a particular store. Soon enough I found one. A bean shop.

I’m looking for seeds of a plant called Sun bean. With it, growing belladonnas will be possible.

「Hey there, lad! How about some Gran beans? They taste good stewed! Only 300 gilans for a bag!」the shop owner said.

I couldn’t find the beans I wanted on his storefront. I guess I should just ask.

「Do you have Sun beans?」

「…Sun beans?」he asked with a puzzled expression.

…

「You mean the Sun beans?」he asked once more.

「Are there other kinds of Sun beans?」

「No, only one. You should go to a store that sells feeds, then. We only sell beans for human consumption here.」

I see. So Sun beans were used as feeds, huh? Now that he mentioned it, I don’t think I heard of them used in cooking.

「Thanks for the info. I’ll have a bag of Gran beans.」

「Thank you!」

I bought a bag as gratitude for the information and left the store. I made my way to the feeds shop next.

「Do you have Sun beans?」

「Yeah. How many kilos do you want?」the shop owner said, pointing at the bundles of plants piled up on a spot.

But I wasn’t looking for feeds. What I wanted were seeds.

「Ah, I actually only want to buy seeds. Are those the only ones you’ve got?」

「Seeds? Oh, you want to grow Sun beans?」

「Yeah, something like that.」

「Here you go. 300 gilans a bag.」he said, handing a bag of seeds to me.

Although they were the same price as the Gran beans, the bag was quite big.

「Sun beans sure are cheap.」

「They grow fast, after all. I don’t recommend eating it, though.」

「Why not?」

「They taste bitter. I tried experimenting to see if it could be edible but to no avail. I feel sorry for the horses that have to eat them.」

Oh, so they taste bitter. It’s not like I bought them for consumption anyway so there’s no problem at all.

「Thanks.」

「Come again!」he said as I left the marketplace.

「All right. Time to go.」

I entered deep into a forest with a bag of Sun beans in hand to look for a place to grow belladonnas. Apparently they were extremely valuable medicinal plants in this world. If I planted them at an easy-to-spot place, the plantation will get ransacked in no time. I’d like to avoid that.

「Magic Search.」

The deeper I went, the more monsters there were, and consequently the chances of the plantation being found will be lesser. Though that wasn’t the only reason I chose a place with plenty of monsters.

「This spot should be good.」

I found a level area and decided to grow the belladonnas there. I’m not going to create an actual field with partitions and all. I won’t even plough the land at all. Harvest won’t be a lot this way, but it’s enough to prove that growing them is possible. Besides, I’ll be asking Count Meigis’s help for formal production.

「Let’s do this.」I muttered under my breath.

I started scattering the Sun bean seeds randomly. They were a crucial component in growing belladonnas.

「Water Spray.」

After dispersing the seeds, I used a water-type spell to flood the field. There was so much water that roots of normal plants would rot, but Sun beans were tough. In fact they had strong roots that sucked up every last bit of fertilizer in the soil causing other nearby plants to actually die.

Due to their nature, they were extremely useful in keeping soils in good condition.

On to the next step…

「Magic Taunt, Magic Taunt, Magic Taunt.」

I cast taunting magic to monsters nearby. Not five minutes had passed when raging monsters arrived, growling.

「Wolves, huh? They should be enough as fertilizers.」

All of them were Wolves. It looks like there were a lot of them in this forest.

「Ice Pillar.」

One by one, I fired ice-type spells at them. Wolves aren’t really strong. It’s annoying that I can’t use powerful fire-type spells because I might end up burning the seeds I dispersed. I had no choice but to be patient.

After a few minutes, I killed every last one of the Wolves. They were cut into pieces and scattered throughout the field.

By tomorrow, the Sun beans would’ve absorbed the monsters’ blood and flesh as fertilizers and grown nicely. They actually turn anything into fertilizers.

「All right. All done.」

Before leaving, I marked the nearby trees so I don’t get lost the next time I come here. I’ll continue tomorrow.