It is now a new day after the visit of Glenwood soldiers, and fresh morning dew fell from the bright sky on the green leaves of Winterseed farmland.
The villagers have returned to their normal lives, working and farming as best as they can in order to reach the expected portion before Glenwood soldiers arrive again to claim them.
In the southern part of Winterseed, there was a vast land cultivated by the villagers for farming wheat and vegetables. On a special part of the land, there was a plantation filled with tall fruit trees.
More than one hundred farmers could be seen walking on their pieces of land with tired expressions on their faces, even though they enjoyed what they did.
Women and children carried big and small baskets, respectively, to collect the ripe wheat and vegetables. A group of children could be seen in the fruit section, running around and collecting ripe fruits that had fallen.
The scene was peaceful and serene, showing the unity among the villagers as they worked together for something to eat.
Rowan and Brandon could be seen standing in the middle, observing everything with keen eyes, taking every detail into consideration as they set out to make plans to better the production in these farmlands.
An elderly farmer could be seen standing beside them, explaining the situation of the farm in the past months.
"My lord, the small river we have has been seized by Glenwood soldiers, and they have asked us not to come close to it or else they will take our lives. But without an adequate supply of water, we would not be able to grow wheat, and wheat is one of our major nutrients," the farmer complained, his worries could be heard through his old, shaky voice.
"Fortunately, the dew that falls every morning is enough to guarantee an adequate production of leafy vegetables, garden eggs, and tomatoes. Thanks to the reign of your father, we were able to plant some trees in his time, and with his guidance and protection, those trees have grown, and their fruit has become one of our major supplies in the past few years.
Since the trees have already matured, they no longer require much water, but that can't be said for wheat and the other grains," he continued, going deeper into his complaint.
In his previous life, Rowan only employed NPC farmers old farmer standing beside him, to take care of his farmlands and produce food for his territory. He has never studied anything about this section. Also, he never had any further education in the area of agriculture save for basic knowledge, thus he was mostly naive about this topic.
However, even with his limited knowledge of this topic, he understood that the agriculture of his village is badly affected and needs to be worked on quickly.
"Also, two weeks ago, we noticed a shortage of fruits and garden eggs in the morning when we returned to our farmlands to work. We do not know what or who harvested them in the night while we lay in our various homes. If that should repeat itself, we will starve for a really long time again," the old farmer added.
"My lord, our soldiers did a little investigation of this matter two weeks ago, and we suspect that it is the handiwork of Ratax," Brandon quickly said to Rowan before he could even reply to the farmer.
Ratax are active pest monsters that mostly operate at night, and they tend to destroy farmlands, most times stealing the matured fruits for themselves. They are really troublesome monsters.
"I have faced a few of them in my past life, and they are a big pain in the ass," Rowan scoffed.
"About the river, do not worry about them. In a week or so, we will gain back our control over it," he said to the farmer, assuring him. "But have you tried adding other types of food to your farms? I notice we have no legumes growing on our farmlands. Why is that?" he asked.
Legumes are a major supply of protein, and the plants have a high fertility rate and a very short life cycle of approximately three months. The common ones like peas and beans take less than three months to mature through the seed phase to maturity. If they could plant something , they would have more food to eat in less than three months. It was really not a bad suggestion.
There are other crops that Rowan would want them to grow, but the land they cultivate is very small and might not contain them.
"We have no seeds in our possession, my lord. We used to grow lots of beans back in the days and save up seeds to plant another season, but after you fell ill and Glenwood came, we had no choice but to devour the seeds, leaving us with nothing to grow more," Brandon explained.
Rowan couldn't help but sigh. Even his supply of seeds was not something he could be happy about. For a developing village, seeds are very important resources in the agricultural sector.
"Fuck my pathetic luck for letting me get a downgraded village as my territory. How long would it even take for me to evolve this territory if everything is in shambles?"
Rowan discussed with the farmer more. He gave them some simple modern methods to make their farming work simpler and more efficient. The seed issue was settled quickly. Rowan decided that he would get those seeds when he was done conquering Glenwood. With the resources he obtains from them, he would construct new fences.
Also, with the resources, he would finally be able to test his SS-rank merge skills for the first time and see how they work.
If it works as he thought it would, there would be a lot of inventions he would love to put in place in his village.
"Now, I have to get to my soldiers and teach them the sword master skill I stole from those bastards."
After completing his supervision of the farmers, Rowan set out on his next sub-mission.
As he prepared to leave, he heard a sudden beep sound in his head.