I Raised the Northern Grand Duke as a Farmer Behind My Father’s Back Chapter 15

Chapter 15

“Please…… hng, I’m begging you……”

“Okay. I get it for now, so stop.”

“Really?”

Haniel’s head shot up, her eyes sparkling.

Well, she might live here for a few days, decide it’s too hard, and ask to leave on her own.

She had also said she would go to the Temple herself when she turned sixteen……

Wouldn’t that be fine?

Given enough time, that unstable power of hers might settle down too.

But why is her body so hot?

Just as Basil noticed that the tiny hands clutching him felt strangely warm—

Knock, knock.

A knock sounded at the door.

“Your Grace, it’s Luden.”

Luden entered with damp boots.

He had just finished making a circuit around the village at Basil’s orders.

“The dragon vein beneath Bethel Village has come back to life. Because of that, the remaining contamination around Bethel and the surrounding area is being purified…… and most importantly, the snow on the ground is melting.”

He looked utterly entranced.

“At this rate…… the climate will change. It’ll become like the other territories.”

The room fell silent for a moment.

Only Haniel blinked calmly.

As expected, one pillar is only enough to warm the nearest place, Bethel Village.

That was a little disappointing……

But the adults seemed shocked even by that.

Luden in particular looked completely dazed.

Like someone who had seen a ghost, he began rambling.

“……We might actually be able to cultivate the empty land…… just like everywhere else…… We-we might be able to produce something too……”

“You mean we can really farm?”

Camilla’s expression wasn’t much different from Luden’s.

“You heard that, right? You heard that?”

Haniel decided this was her chance and bounced excitedly as she tried to sell herself.

“If you let me stay here, I’ll work really hard to collect divine power and go yap! and purify the other pillars too! Okay?”

Basil’s red gaze swept over Haniel from head to toe.

Seeing his frown, Haniel clung to him desperately.

“I’ll work hard. Really, really hard! So please don’t kick me out. Okay? I came here because I want to eat well and live well…… I’ll start hoeing first thing tomorrow! I even know how to farm! So……!”

“Calm down.”

Unable to take any more, Basil pressed one finger against Haniel’s lips.

“I already said okay.”

“Mmph……”

That hot little breath.

He had been right.

“Camilla, she’s boiling. Completely boiling.”

“Looks like her fever is rising. Little one, easy now.”

Camilla picked Haniel up and placed her on the bed.

“Settle down. You can’t plant anything immediately in soil that has only just begun to thaw. First, the excess water has to be drained, and the soil acidity needs to be adjusted.”

Blink, blink.

Ah.

Maybe that was a little too complicated for a child?

“So…… what I mean is that we need quite a lot of farming tools and fertilizer before we can even prepare to farm. If we have to procure them from outside, it’ll take at least a few weeks—”

“Huh? Sir Luden should have all that at his house.”

“……?”

“……?”

“Right, Sir Luden?”

Sloooowly, every gaze turned toward him.

“You bought all the farming tools already!!”

Haniel smiled sweetly at Luden.

Luden calmly pushed up his glasses.

But he couldn’t stop his fingers from trembling violently.

Luden awkwardly confessed the truth.

“Actually…… I was planning to use the money I skimmed off to lease farmland in a nearby county.”

“……”

“I happened to hear that they had recently expanded their territory and were leasing land cheaply even to outsiders…… and honestly…… I thought it was an opportunity.”

Luden trembled as he dropped to his knees before Basil.

“I’m sorry, Your Grace! I’ll gladly accept punishment for deceiving you!”

“Why did you do something like that?”

“……The North is hopeless. I thought…… hunting monsters alone wouldn’t be enough to keep us alive in the long term. So even if it hurt our pride, I thought it would be better to secure a stable foothold outside……”

“……”

“If we worked hard there, bought purification medicine, and hired priests from the Temple, then maybe there would be some way to revive the North……!”

His muttering faded into the distance.

But the land Sir Luden was going to lease was probably a scam listing.

Haniel didn’t remember the exact location, but……

I heard Sir Luden’s first business venture was a total failure.

Haniel thought this while half-dozing.

The voices drifting faintly from the hallway eventually disappeared.

That’s why, in my previous life, Sir Luden left the North completely because of the guilt……

That incident had pushed him into becoming obsessed with money.

He ended up rich in the end, but had he actually been happy?

Thinking back to the Luden of her previous life, who had always worn a dark and cold expression……

maybe money hadn’t really been his happiness after all.

Anyway, this time Luden didn’t have to leave the North.

Because he can farm here with Hani instead!

Thank goodness he had only prepared the farming tools and hadn’t actually signed the lease yet!

Hehe……

Haniel smiled as she curled her fingers around the blanket.

Then she fell completely asleep.

Meanwhile, Basil sat in the reception room after Luden left and stared into empty space.

His head was every bit as noisy as the ongoing aftershocks outside.

“This is seriously driving me insane. If that was the plan, why didn’t you report it to me from the beginning?”

Luden’s final words echoed in his ears.

“……Would you have allowed it, Your Grace?”

“……”

“Why did you spend money we didn’t have on portal passes just to send us all the way to the distant South? For information gathering? Because there was a merchant guild we already traded with there? No……”

“……”

“Didn’t you actually hope we wouldn’t come back?”

Basil clenched his fist.

“You’d already given up without realizing it! That’s why you dismissed even the servants who said they were fine working without pay…… You were planning to send us away too!”

“……”

“Too bad, Captain! I’m sticking right here until I see you—no, until I see His Grace the Grand Duke eat well and live well!”

Was that how it looked?

Like he had given up?

……When did they notice?

Truthfully, at some point, he had stopped thinking about the future.

He didn’t particularly feel any desire to live.

He stopped expecting anything.

Because, really—

this place was the Empire’s graveyard.

A land belonging to outcasts pushed all the way to the edge of a tilted world.

Even if you tried not to, despair and resentment inevitably piled up little by little.

He had been born the illegitimate child of some nameless noble family and dumped into the gutter.

With nothing but the will to survive, he had clawed his way toward a sword.

He drifted through mercenary alleys until, at twelve years old, he killed his first monster on a battlefield.

From then on, for the next fifteen years, he never stopped fighting.

He continuously brought victory and glory to the Empire.

The reason he risked his life was simple.

He wanted to prove himself.

If he achieved enough.

If he accomplished even more.

He thought it would somehow compensate for a life that had begun in a sewer.

He thought a dazzling, brilliant future would be waiting for him.

But the Empire he had given everything to—

abandoned him.

And abandoned his comrades.

Leaving him with nothing but one rusted crown.

Ah.

That helplessness.

It had felt as though the last tiny candle of hope inside him had simply gone out.

Luden was right.

Maybe Basil had reached his limit a long time ago.

Because in a life without hope, the easiest thing to learn was helplessness.

But……

He carefully grasped the doorknob.

At some point, he had ended up standing in front of the bedroom where Haniel was sleeping.

Creeeak.

When he opened the door, he heard the soft sound of the child breathing in her sleep.

Basil carefully placed a hand against Haniel’s forehead.

Hot.

Seeing her whimper in discomfort made something inside him tighten.

He carefully laid a damp cloth over her forehead and thought,

If she doesn’t want to go…… then maybe not sending her is the right thing to do.

Imperial law could go to hell.

……How did I end up here?

A tiny spark that had flown in by chance had relit his candle.

For the first time in a long while, something that had been invisible began to look like hope.

“They give you a house! And land!”

“I came here because I want to eat well and live well!”

Basil sat at an angle, propped his chin on one hand, and stared at Haniel.

Young and ridiculously fragile.

He didn’t like children.

They were noisy.

Annoying.

Children who smiled brightly?

He liked those even less.

Because kids like that forced you to keep wondering when and where they might be hiding to cry.

But……

“Seriously. What a pain.”

He surrendered.

“You should just surrender already. Weren’t you taken in by her ages ago? I knew it from the moment you gave her that village tour.”

Camilla’s words echoed in his mind.

“You don’t have to keep pushing her away just because you’re afraid she’ll die in the North. At the very least, she won’t freeze to death anymore.”

If this tiny storm insisted on settling in his wasteland—

then wasn’t it only right to make the place at least somewhat livable for her?

Basil’s fist clenched firmly.

“Mmm…… yum……”

Haniel suddenly rolled onto her side in her sleep.

When he lifted the blanket slightly, her short limbs were crossed wildly as though she were about to start running even while asleep.

“What is this…… Does she want to run around even in her dreams?”

Skinny little thing.

……Still……

Maybe she was kind of cute.

Basil couldn’t stop a faint smile from appearing.

Divine power or whatever.

First things first—

he needed to fatten this brat up.

When she wakes up, I’ll feed her stew……

She had been sick like this, so outdoor trips were probably banned for a while.

Judging by what I’ve seen, running off wherever she wants seems to be her hobby.

But within his territory—

that wasn’t going to happen anymore.

More importantly, if Bethel Village had really warmed up, there would be plenty of repairs and preparations to handle.

If this bean-sized thing wandered around and fell somewhere……

Ah, seriously. What a pain.

Even as he grumbled, Basil carefully went over his plans.

And so the long night finally passed.

Then, the next day—

Basil, who had briefly fallen asleep on the sofa, opened his eyes and blinked blankly at the sketchbook placed directly in front of him.

To Be Continued…