Chapter 18: Divine Miracle

[Overlord System: Penguin Farm V0.1 Test Version]

[Farm: 0/1]

[Seeds: None]

[Livestock: locked (pen required)]

[Game currency: 0]

[Hint: Welcome to Penguin Farm. A newcomer gift pack has been delivered to your storage; please collect it from the main page.]

Although Angora did not quite understand what ‘Penguin’ meant, he had poked around last night and generally understood the subpage function of Penguin Farm.

Roughly speaking, it was an agricultural section within the Overlord System.

Moreover, the bottom of the page was a ‘shop’ option which listed an assortment of seeds. Still, there were only a few which had its picture displayed—the icons on the others were pitch-black, and it appeared that those could only be unlocked at a later time.

There was also a sale window which Angora failed to sell anything with (or he would have sold off even the walls Vela’s house). Considering that the sale window was placed in the farmstead page, only harvested crops or livestock could be sold off.

[Please lock on to farmstead with 1-unit area as the first farmstead for Penguin Farm.]

Others aside, what Angora had to do first was choose his farmstead.

The system had tipped him that ‘building floors cannot be used as farmstead’ when he tried to use the function in his room, which was why Angora was having a stroll around the town, looking for a place suitable as his first farmstead.

However, after running into Vela, he thought that it was easier to borrow her family’s farm instead of developing some new unusual land to work with. In any case, he should try to obtain Vela’s grandfather’s favor as mayor if he would establish himself in the town.

Hence, following instructions from the system and with his consciousness connected, Angora locked the barren farmland belonging to Vela’s family as his first farmstead.

As the words ‘lock complete’ soon appeared, Angora found the only a square section out of the not-quite-large farmland was flashing, indicating that the 1-unit area (equals to 1-square meter) was only that large.

Unfortunately, just like the system page, only Angora himself could see it.

Then, Angora collected the gift-pack from his system storage. There were two items inside: Spirit Oat Seed x1 and the Watering Bucket of the Devout.

The spirit oat seed was actually from a common plant—it was the Watering Bucket of the Devout which left Angora surprised.

It was a Watering Bucket but one which was crafted very sophisticatedly. Its glaze appeared to be of the highest quality and had a unique elegance to it, and he thought that it would not rust even as he looked at its metallic silver paint and its rose. Its body was also embedded with simple aesthetical carvings that one would be reluctant to part with, and its handle, though also metallic was closer to yellow copper. Even if it was carved with arts of vines from an unknown plant, it did not impede the grip but instead felt very comfortable to hold.

After all, children of the otherworld have not heard of ergonomics.

“Eh? Where did you get that bucket?” Vale had seen Angora’s hand reaching over his own back, and was surprised when he took out that exquisite Watering Bucket out of nowhere.

“Us nobles would learn magic with the mages before inheriting our own fief… but that’s not the point.”

Angora certainly thought that taking the Watering Bucket out of nowhere was a blunder as well. It was lucky that the witness was just Vela, and a village girl like her could be easily swindled.

And she was indeed conned—her face had the admiring look of ‘so-all-the-noble-lords-in-the-city-could-do-magic-tricks!’

He prayed that her bubble would not burst too quickly…

Then, as the girl watched, Angora buried the spirit oat seed into the soil.

“Are you trying to plant it now? It won’t work—it’s too late, and winter is coming in half a month. It would at most sprout before your plant froze to death!” Vella frowned as she tried to discourage him. “Winter here is also especially cold: the animals would hibernate and all the trees would go bald as their leaves fall off. You wouldn’t even get black bread by then… you should hurry away from this place.

“If this thing really won’t do, I might really leave.” Angora shrugged. “But now isn’t the time to despair.”

After he had buried the seed, a countdown timer that read 3:59:59 appeared over the locked farmstead in Angora.

‘So, it takes just four hours…’

Angora was slightly relieved. The only problem now was the matter of yield quantity.

“By the way, since you are aware of the trouble winter brings, why not move away from this place?” Angora asked Vela as they went to fetch water for his can. “It is quite far, but wouldn’t you be free from situations like this once you leave for the city?”

“Grandpa said that he is mayor. If even he was afraid and fled, this town which he inherited from his own ancestors would be finished.” Vela smiled bitterly in return. “Even if he does not have long to live, he wished to stay with this town he grew up in until the end…”

“What about the nearby churches? Wouldn’t they help?” Angora asked once the idea struck him, and because various churches were in charge of emergency relief as well.

“There are no churches across ten miles,” the young girl replied, her expression becoming even more bitter. “If anything, even the gods had probably left us to fend four ourselves in this wretched place.”

Angora quietly filled his bucket with water.

He knew very well that if he did nothing, this place which was town in name but no more than a small village would never endure past winter. What townsfolk remaining would be stricken with hunger and cold, and could die from either of those things.

For some reason, he then felt that bucket in his hand had become heavier as if there was something else apart from water in it.

[Watering Bucket of The Devout (Legendary): Offer your sincere prayer to the God of Games when you use this bucket. The strength of your faith would reduce the time needed for your crop to mature. The maximum time reduction rate of this effect is 50%]

“No, that’s not true. Even if the blessings from the other gods are now absent, there is still one who watches over this place!”

Angora, who had been keeping his non-committal nobility attitude finally became serious.

“That’s going a little too far even if it’s for solace…” The young girl smiled begrudgingly.

“I’m not too good with words but, I do understand that simple conversation wouldn’t work with all of you. So please, take a look!”

Holding the Watering Bucket and a devout heart he never had, Angora slowly poured the water over the seed which he just buried. “This is what I wanted to show all of you, a divine miracle from my lord!”

In the very next moment, a tender sprout poked out of the soil covered in dark ash.

Just like a precious jade.