Chapter 92

Not Enough Workers

「Saibin, what’s the duty Count Meigis entrusted to you?」

「Manage the plantation and grow lots of belladonnas.」

「For how long?」

「A year at first. But depending on the situation, it could be longer.」

Oh, so he does understand what he’s getting into.

「That’s right. Your duty is to grow belladonnas for a year. You wouldn’t last that long if you collapsed right off the bat.」

「But I have to remove the sun beans or they’ll destroy the belladonnas…」Saibin said as he moved towards where some sun beans were sprouting.

The sun beans and belladonnas were grown separately, but the former just keeps on popping out. It really is a vigorous plant…

Now if only Saibin was just as vigorous as the sun beans, then I can leave him be. Unfortunately, he was only human. If he keeps this up, he’ll collapse tomorrow.

「Go have some rest. I’ll remove the sun beans. You’re supposed to work for at least a year. If you die before then, you’d have failed your duty.」I said, pulling out the sun bean sprout that Saibin tried to remove.

He froze for a moment upon hearing the words “failed your duty”. He then turned towards me and bowed.

「…Thank you…」he said as he headed towards the cabin. Before he entered, he turned around and bowed deeply once more.「…I have a favor to ask.」

「What is it?」

「…Make sure you pull out the roots as well…」

And here I thought it was something serious. What a workaholic. But he’s right.

◇

A few hours later.

Having finished pulling out weeds, I made my way to the belladonna storehouse and found the plants were left unattended.

The plan was to process them as soon as they were harvested. Belladonnas wilt fast so they either have to be dried or processed right away. Otherwise, the output will decrease.

It seems the pharmacists were having a hard time keeping up. I approached them while they were working. They wore stern expressions as they pulverized the belladonnas.

「Will it take time?」I asked.

One pharmacist raised his head and looked at me.

「To be honest, it’s impossible to process all that belladonna with just the three of us…」he said, looking dejected.

His hands didn’t stop moving, though. There were three pharmacists in this farm right now, but it seems it wasn’t enough. There weren’t a lot of them in the first place, and there’s only so many we could recruit within the Count’s territory. Unlike farmers and adventurers, we can’t choose pharmacists we can trust randomly.

If provisions or adventurers weren’t enough, we could simply use money to get them from some other place. The trustworthy adventurers can help with the farm, while the others will go out to hunt monsters.

But that’s not the case for pharmacists because they worked as doctors as well in this world. That’s why we’re short on staff.

「Is there some work that even ordinary people can do?」

「There is. In fact, pharmacists are not needed for more than half the work.」

More than half… If we can solve this problem, we might just be able to maintain a normal production output.

「What kind of work is it?」

「Grinding the belladonnas in this mortar. There’s a bit of a trick to it, but with time, even the ordinary citizen can do a decent job.」he said, showing me the mortar.

Hmm, grinding lots of belladonnas does sound like hard work…

「How many people do you need?」

「Let’s see… If we can gather ten experienced people, the three of us can focus on other tasks. That way, we can use all these belladonnas for production.」