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Vol 01 Chapter 14: Wheat

In front of me are ten children. Four of them are about four years old, and the remaining six are around eight. In short, they are abandoned children… But why have they appeared at this time?

What are their parents thinking? If they endured for another month or two, they wouldn’t need to abandon them, and if the situation is so serious that they can’t endure anymore, shouldn’t they have abandoned them when winter set in?

「There are two times when children are abandoned. The first is during the wheat harvest season. If the harvest is poor, the village head selects the children to be abandoned. The second time is after the New Year. This happens when they miscalculate how much food they are going to consume and have to abandon additional children. In the case of the second situation, the timing to abandon the children gets delayed to the latter part of winter because it only becomes apparent at that time that they won’t be able to make it through. Plus, there’s also the parents’ wish to at least let their children enjoy the New Year celebrations before sending them away.」

「I see. Thanks for the explanation.」

I asked the children for their names and assigned them one of the houses.

I will save as many lives as I can.

The support from Griffon will continue for two years more, so it should be okay. Plus, if next year is a good harvest, I can return them to their parents.

「Hey, Almus.」

「What is it?」

「Will we have enough wheat? If next year is a bad harvest, you should be prepared to receive up to fifty more children.」

According to Tetra, if this situation continues for two consecutive years, our reserves will definitely run out. Will the wheat we are currently growing suffice? That is what Tetra is concerned about.

「It’s okay. We’ve been using fertilizer to grow the wheat. We should be able to harvest much more than what a normal field would yield. Plus, we’ve expanded the fields. And we’re also growing barley.」

In this region, the two-field system is the norm. In short, once the wheat is harvested, the field is left to rest for a year. The efficiency of food production is very poor.

On the other hand, we practice the four-field crop rotation system. The production efficiency is completely different. We shouldn’t end up in the situation Tetra fears.

「But still, two consecutive years like this is unlikely, isn’t it?」

「I don’t know. But the group casting this curse possesses a considerable number of high-level magicians and has the financial means to prepare enough sacrifices. So they might try again. However…」

「However?」

「 King Rosais’s Country will be probably safe.」

King Rosais’s Country… I remember it being a mid-tier nation south of the Romalia Forest.

「Why are you so sure that King Rosais’s Country will be safe, unlike the other major nations?」

「Because Julia is there.」

Is Julia from King Rosais’s country? I haven’t heard anything about that.

Seeing my face, Tetra answered my doubts.

「She’s quite a famous person.」

「The other children didn’t seem to know her, though.」

「…She’s mainly known among the upper class. This New Year, she turned twelve, so she should have started working as a magician for her country.」

Julia is twelve years old…

「Should I change my supposed age from eleven to twelve?」

「…Do as you like.」

Good. From today on, I am twelve years old. Nobody knows my exact age either way, and eleven or twelve doesn’t make much of a difference.

Besides, I’m actually over twenty years old.

「The increase in our population is a good thing, it’s an increase in the number of people who can work. In the long term, the harvest will be better. What worries me more are the elderly. Making the elderly work is…」

Not very efficient. In the end, they will become net consumers.

「The elderly are rarely abandoned.」

「Why is that?」

「…Most families have up to eight children, but there’s only one mother and father.」

I see…

「Besides, most people die before reaching fifty. An elderly person who has lived a long life is like a symbol of health, so most people are opposed to discarding them.」

Is it because it’s considered a bad omen? Or is it because someone who has lived a long time has stronger connections than the children?

It seems that the people of this world have more reticence to abandon the elderly than the children.

「Aren’t you going to ask?」

「Ask what?」

「Why I knew about Julia.」

Ah, the earlier statement about her being “She’s mainly known among the upper class”.

「I’m curious, but I won’t ask. Tell me when you feel like it.」

「I see…」

Tetra looked relieved, yet a bit sad, as she bowed her head.

◇

「Amazing! I didn’t expect the wheat to yield so much. What kind of magic did you use?」

「I didn’t do anything special.」

In front of me are ears of wheat, shining golden. It seems we got a great harvest.

「How about your place?」

「Ejem! Thanks to me, it’s all good. It’s not a great harvest, but it looks like we won’t have to worry about starvation this year. Dad was happy about it.」

That’s good to hear.

「By the way, what’s that?」

「That’s barley.」

Julia asked with a curious tone.

「Don’t you need to let the field rest?」

「No, it’s okay. There’s a little secret to it.」

As I answered, Julia intently observed the barley. However, it seems she wasn’t too interested in it, as she quickly shifted her gaze back to the wheat.

「Then, shall we start the ritual now?」

「Yes, please go ahead.」

Julia stepped forward. In front of her is a stand with wine, deer meat, grapes, and olives on it. The wine, olives, and grapes are things I obtained in exchange for pottery.

「Here I go.」

Saying so, Julia began to dance gracefully.

She is truly beautiful.

My heart fluttered. I wanted to watch her forever. But the dance ended soon.

「How was it?」

「Yeah, it was beautiful.」

When I sincerely complimented her, Julia smiled a little shyly.

「Then, I’ll be going.」

「Alright. I’ll walk you to the lake.」

I escorted Julia to the lake.

「By the way, I’ll give you some bread as a gift when it’s made. It’s a token of gratitude.」

「Hehe, I’m looking forward to it.」

◇

Obviously, wheat cannot be eaten as it is. It needs to be threshed. The wheat must be detached from the ear and separated from the chaff. Doing all of this by hand is quite a laborious task. So, I borrowed the wisdom of our predecessors.

「This makes it so much easier!!」

Soyon said excitedly while threshing the wheat with a senbakoki1.

I’m pleased that something I made myself is being received so well, even if it’s just a copy of someone else’s idea.

By the way, traditionally, the teeth of the senbakoki are made of bamboo or metal, but since bamboo doesn’t grow here, and I don’t have blacksmithing skills, it’s made of wood. Therefore, it’s very fragile. Please handle it with care.

「Umm… The structure is simple. But to think it could improve efficiency this much… what an amazing idea,」

Tetra muttered to herself as she examined the senbakoki.

「If this spreads, won’t it be amazing?」

Ron said excitedly.

Well, it would certainly improve work efficiency. But it also takes away the threshing work traditionally done by widows, so it’s not entirely positive.

If we’re going to spread this, we need to think about the work for the widows as well…

It’s not something I should worry about too much, I guess. After all, I’m just the leader of a group of children. When the time comes, this group will disband.

◇

Now, the next step is to remove the husks.

Before the introduction of machinery on Earth, every region used stone mills for threshing. There are two types of mills: one involves rubbing a round stone against a stone slab, and the other uses two disc-shaped stone plates, with one rotating over the other. At least in this region, it seems the former type of mill is used.

While this method can be used for threshing, it involves sitting for long hours and doing the same task repeatedly, which can lead to back pain. I don’t want to suffer from back pain at this age.

So, I made a disc-style stone mill.

It was incredibly hard to make. I had to rub stones against each other to make them round and flat. I can’t count how many times I almost gave up, tempted by the inner demon telling me to just stick with the traditional method. But I believed that once this was completed, the work would become much easier.

Thanks to the supposed blessing I have, grinding the stones wasn’t as hard as it could have been, which is a small consolation.

By the way, because I sat and worked on it continuously, I ended up with back pain. 

How stupid is that?

「But this is so much easier!!」

「Le-let me try too!!」

Roswald and Gram are excited.

…If they are happy with it, then it’s worth it. I didn’t break my back for nothing.

「From now on, everyone should work together to make these things. Why did you make it alone?」

「I wanted to surprise everyone.」

When I said that, I received a look of exasperation from Tetra.

「The senbakoki was surprising enough.」

「Hehe, I have one more useful tool!」

「That weird thing?」

「How rude to call it weird. It’s a winnowing pan.」

I touched the winnowing pan placed in the corner. It’s the result of uncountable hours of work.

Naturally, I am not a farming tool maniac or anything, so all I knew about it was its appearance according to what I’ve seen in history textbooks. But I did know it uses the power of the wind to separate the wheat from the chaff. If you understand the principle, you can make something similar through trial and error.

It’s not perfect, but I can improve it little by little.

After all, I have the skills that earned me good grades in art class during elementary school. It’s only natural for me to be able to do this much.

「Listen up. First, you put the wheat mixed with chaff here, right? Then you turn this.」

Eager to show off to everyone, I start to demonstrate how to use the winnowing pan.

Crack.

… 

…

It seems it still needs more improvements.

In the end, we all worked together to separate the wheat.

1TN: The senbakoki (千歯扱き) is an ancient Japanese threshing implement used to harvest rice. It has several teeth or combs used to comb through rice stalks separating the rice grains from the stem.