IMYL 15

Chapter: 15

“Wow! Potatoes! Potatoes! We can eat our fill today!”

The knights smiled broadly as they tossed the dirt-covered potatoes into their baskets.

“Also, now…”

And I knew the one magical phrase that could instantly boost their morale to the highest level.

“We’ll slaughter a chicken every other day and eat it.”

The chicks that had arrived at our marquis’ estate a month and a half ago had grown into young chickens.

Since it would take at least five months for them to start laying eggs, it was reasonable to slaughter them as soon as they were big enough to eat.

We had brought so many chicks that the number of chickens had grown too large.

And on top of that, more chicks kept hatching from the fertilized eggs. We also had to manage the stock of feed like bran and rice husks.

“Waaaaaaa!”

Of course, we would eat chickens much faster than they could multiply, but it was fine since we only had to survive like this for another month and a half.

“So, in two days…”

I declared solemnly.

“To commemorate the first chicken slaughter, we shall hold a banquet.”

It was a dinner to invite Baron Foreman.

“We will use all of our food ingredients.”

Besides chicken, eggs, potatoes, and lettuce, we had many other foods we were eating. We planned to mobilize everything.

“Waaaaaaaaaaaa!”

Everyone cheered except Wendy.

Because Wendy was busy with not only the potatoes but also other labor.

“Um, miss…”

A knight who was keeping watch far away ran over.

“The old man you mentioned has crossed the territory border!”

Of course.

It had to be Baron Foreman.

He must want to see if he can really get food. He’s considerate enough to even have some shame.

I had already told the knights what Foreman looked like and instructed them not to capture him if he appeared, but instead to let him do whatever he wanted and report to me quietly.

The former informant was revealing everything to me.

“Alright.”

I said indifferently.

“Don’t bother stopping him. Let him look around as much as he wants.”

Baron Foreman crossed the territory boundary easily. In reality, the knights couldn’t guard every boundary.

Is it really okay to invite him to the banquet? In this period when people’s goodwill has completely collapsed…

He swallowed a sigh while thinking about the atmosphere in Baron Harwin’s territory.

People had become tense because food was scarce.

These days, nobody in Baron Harwin’s territory was eating three meals a day.

Foreman assumed that Seers would be no different. He even expected that the situation might be worse.

He wandered around the houses for a while. Then he noticed a child walking along the riverside carrying a basket.

“Hm? What’s that…?”

The child had gathered a bunch of mushrooms from a log by the river.

Come to think of it, there were rotting logs lined up along the riverside.

“Hey kid, what is that?”

Foreman asked the child.

The child answered casually.

“Mushrooms. About a month and a half ago, the lady told the knights to do this. She said to grow them like this.”

After picking the mushrooms, the child cut grass along the riverbank and put it in the basket.

“What’s that?”

“Water parsley. As the lady said, we cut the stems and planted them, and now they’ve grown this much.”

The child took out a fish trap beside the water parsley patch. Many small fish had been caught.

“Fish lay eggs on the parsley stems. So the number of fish increased. We catch this much every day.”

Foreman’s mouth opened in surprise.

Of course having a river is a huge advantage, but can food really be produced this efficiently?

The child’s expression, calmness, and ease were things Foreman had never seen in Baron Harwin’s territory.

“So do you only eat fish, mushrooms, and water parsley?”

“No, there’s other stuff too. The lady taught us more than ten things.”

The child answered cheerfully and stared at Foreman. Then the child shrugged and said:

“Grandpa, are you from Baron Harwin’s territory?”

The child took a handful of mushrooms from the basket and offered them to Foreman.

“Take them and eat. It’s fine to give this to you for free.”

Foreman stared at the oyster mushrooms the child offered.

After the child’s explanation, he saw it clearly.

This riverside was completely different from the one he had visited earlier. It was neatly organized and designed to continuously produce food.

He remembered Brisa Seers, who had proudly handed him the invitation.

The perfectly polite girl, dressed impeccably, as if she had dropped down right from the center of the capital.

Did a twelve-year-old girl really do all this?

The child looked at him with pity and said:

“Next time, bring something proper and trade it for eggs.”

Apparently, everyone in the territory knew this, except Baron Harwin himself.

“People in Baron Harwin’s territory love Seers’ eggs. They say the yolks are full and tasty.”

So a few days later, Foreman disguised himself again and visited Seers territory.

He waited with a pounding heart, and the marquis’ residence gate opened.

A maid who didn’t look hungry at all greeted him arrogantly.

If I pretend to be a clueless old man, it would look natural for me to eat without knowing manners.

He thought while wearing a vest full of fuzz.

He eats well.

I watched Baron Foreman eat potatoes, lotus roots, and water parsley.

Normally, leaving a bit of food is considered proper manners in the West, but Foreman ended up scraping the bowl clean.

“Do you still eat lotus roots?”

“It’s usually in season in fall, but you can eat it now too. It has less starch, but it’s tender.”

Lotus roots were a good carbohydrate source for increasing population. You could cut and replant the root.

This kind of reproduction is called vegetative propagation, and we had done a lot of it a month ago.

“Then, what about salt…”

He hesitated and asked, but the maid snapped at him.

“Does our lady look like she would kindly answer a commoner’s question? Do you think she’s some kind of teacher? Stop bothering her during meals and ask properly!”

Foreman flinched.

Well, salt…

In Baron Harwin’s territory, the villagers used to bring water and pay it themselves.

The most common thing they received in exchange was salt.

Once I heard that Baron Harwin had plenty of salt, I stopped worrying about it.

Trade couldn’t be stopped simply because a higher authority forbade it.

Especially if the people were neighbors until recently.

Foreman quickly ate the mushrooms, lettuce, and radish sprout salad.

Then the main dish arrived.

“Grilled chicken leg with fish dish. Eat it with perilla sauce.”

Perilla was also something coming from Baron Harwin’s territory. The Beron region they had taken from us was a perilla field.

Perilla wasn’t a common crop in the Empire. Beron was special.

Because the fields were small and the central region had developed distribution, my father’s desperate insight was that it was better to grow unique crops in small quantities.

So people from Baron Harwin’s territory brought perilla second only to salt.

Perilla residue was also fed to the chickens. That made them lay more eggs.

I watched Foreman lick the fork with regret and asked:

“Would you like more fried fish?”

“Yes! But… what about the sprouts and lettuce…”

“In the villages, they usually grow fall radishes and use the seeds to grow them again. Do you want more potatoes?”

“Yes!”

So of course he couldn’t stop saying “more!”

When I served egg pudding with plums for dessert, Foreman looked like he might cry.

“Plums? These are really fresh…”

“They grow by the river.”

There were fruits that grew by the riverside in early summer.

Fruits didn’t yield much, but we cherished them and didn’t cut them down. We had to save sugar, so we only added them a little to meals.

As I watched Foreman scrape the bottom of the dessert bowl, I said one more thing.

“…Would you like more?”

Foreman answered:

“Miss, would you marry my grandson? That’s the best thing I can offer you as repayment.”