I Raised the Northern Grand Duke as a Farmer Behind My Father’s Back Chapter 18

Chapter 18

“No. I just have to prove I’m useful to this territory!”

I started walking again, my steps much lighter now.

Okay! Conclusion!

I’ll purify all the pillars—

and work hard to help the territory too!

I’ll keep becoming their benefactor, again and again!!

And I’ll use my divine power responsibly.

From now on, I’ll save 50% of whatever divine power I earn for Dad, and invest the other 50% into the pillars!

Of course, I had no intention of using my life force on another pillar.

If I messed up and suddenly died, I wouldn’t be able to save Dad.

And it would be even worse if I accelerated the onset of core-deficiency disease.

That’s the illness where your bodily functions gradually fail as your life force drains away.

Before I knew it, my walking had turned into a full-on run.

Now that I’d finished worrying, I felt excited again.

Everything I needed to do from here flashed rapidly through my mind.

His Grace had clearly noticed my approach long ago.

He was already staring at me with a very displeased expression.

Sir Luden, worried I might fall, threw aside his shovel and hurried over.

Beautiful muscles laboring beneath the radiant sun!

I smiled more brightly than ever and threw both arms wide.

“Everyooooone! Good morniiiiiing!”

Bounce, bounce!

Development of Bethel Village’s farmland—

currently underway at full speed!

That afternoon.

“Camilla.”

Basil raised his head.

“Should I write my will?”

“You should.”

“Good. The name of the culprit who killed me is that vicious little hippo……”

“Wouldn’t that be a dying message?”

Camilla coldly replied while scooping fertilizer and scattering it with a shhhk.

“Ah…… right……”

Still holding a huge shovel, Basil looked up at the sky.

Clear.

Bright and sunny.

What a beautiful day.

And yet……

Why do I feel like I’m about to die?

Ugh.

I swear this is harder than the Mad Dragon subjugation……

But he couldn’t rest.

“Your Graaaace! Your arms are moving slower than before! Please maintain the pace—two shovelfuls per second!”

That clear little voice lashed his back like a whip.

Ugh.

“At this rate, we won’t finish this whole section today! Think how disappointed tomorrow’s Grand Duke will be!”

Uuuuugh!

“Hmmm? Sir Luden? Why…… are you resting? Sir Shion! Sir Diana! Sir Carlos? Should we rotate……? Is it time for Hani to enter the field?”

“I-I’m working! Stay right there!”

Luden shouted in horror.

The other supply-team knights reacted the same way.

Truthfully……

they were supposed to be confined as punishment for deceiving Basil.

Confinement? Not a chance.

Here, being worked to death by that baby hippo was punishment enough.

For the past several days—

they had drained water until their mouths went dry,

turned over the soil with shovels,

spread lime to adjust the acidity,

and dug drainage ditches to divide the land into plots.

It was the basic reclamation work required to turn land that had slept for ages into farmland.

And there was still a mountain of other work.

1. Thresh the barley heads to secure seed grain

2. Repair abandoned village houses

3. Repair the roads

4. And so on, and so on……

Even a hundred bodies wouldn’t have been enough.

In fact, a few days earlier, Basil’s mind had gone blank when he saw cart after cart of barley sheaves arriving.

“How…… do you farm barley again?”

Of course, Luden—who had once dreamed of becoming a professional farmer—had studied the basics.

But he too had spent his entire life as a knight.

Faced with actual farming all at once, he was just as flustered.

The only calm one was Haniel.

“Hmm, you bought barley sheaves instead of barley seed. That actually works out better! We can use the leftover straw for lots of things. Sooo, what we need to do now is……”

With a shy expression, she held out a flail.

“Do you like threshing?”

“……”

Plump grains clung to the ends of the straw bundles.

To separate them—

they beat the barley sheaves mercilessly.

Haniel bounced around them like an excited puppy, diligently gathering the grains that flew everywhere.

The grain they collected then had to be spread out in the courtyard of the Grand Duke’s manor and dried for around three days.

Apparently, it was to remove some of the moisture.

“It’s dry now. Can we plant it like this?”

“Huh? No! It needs to be stored somewhere dry! For at least a month! That puts it in the perfect condition to sprout!”

“How the hell do you know that?”

“U-um…… next to the slum where I used to live…… there was a, a barley-farming expert……”

“Huh.”

“Anyway, hurry and pick a storage room!”

“In that case…… the second floor of the Grand Duke’s residence would be best. It’s less humid there.”

The moment Camilla said that—

Basil lost his bedroom.

Are there Grand Dukes who lose their beds to barley?

Well……

probably somewhere.

Anyway, that afternoon, Luden was supposed to bring one more wagon of barley from an external warehouse.

They had to thresh and dry all of that too.

Basil trembled in horror.

“I never planned to work this hard.”

Fourteen hours of labor a day.

Was this really reasonable?

But if he rested, that brat immediately tried to pick up a hoe nearly the size of her own body and work too.

So he couldn’t stop.

Dudududududu!

Despite all his whining, his well-trained muscles betrayed him as always.

His body moved at a ridiculous speed.

Still—

for all his complaints, part of him was deeply moved.

By the fact that there was finally something they could do.

Maybe because of the dragon veins, the land was recovering quickly.

Standing water evaporated fast or sank into the ground.

For soil that had frozen and thawed, the foundation remained surprisingly firm.

He had worried the mountain might suffer landslides, but thankfully that hadn’t happened either.

If they had thawed the land by some other method, there was no way it would have gone this smoothly.

……It really is all thanks to that little thing.

“……”

Basil glanced toward Haniel, who sat neatly on the raised edge of the field.

Over the past few days—

Basil had learned several things about the child.

First.

No family.

“Come to think of it, your family?”

“I don’t have any……”

“None? Then the ‘Dad’ in your sketchbook……”

Basil stopped speaking.

He died……

What a tragedy.

It was a common story.

A father and daughter in the slums……

a baby left alone……

Papa Hippo…… rest in peace……

At least he’d managed to produce one hell of a daughter before he died.

Second.

Her method of using divine power was strange.

“Um. I can…… store divine power in objects like this and use it.”

Haniel held a ridiculously adorable thumbs-up sticker in both hands.

Even the way she used divine power somehow suited her perfectly.

Whatever it is, it’s clearly very different from how ordinary priests use divine power.

Only then did Basil begin to understand why she had clung to him so desperately, refusing to go to the Temple.

Those old men obsessed with divine power might turn her into a research subject and drag her into some kind of laboratory.

And she had said she needed to collect divine power.

How exactly she collected it remained unclear.

Then again……

maybe she simply didn’t want to tell him.

Either way, if he wanted to protect her ability from outsiders, it was probably best not to expose it.

Which meant keeping her close, where he could personally watch over her.

Third.

She didn’t act like a six-year-old.

Yeah. That’s the problem.

He had already thought it unusual that a child from the slums could more or less read.

But……

maybe there had simply been a literate adult nearby.

There were occasionally eccentric people who went into the slums to teach children how to read.

So he could accept that much.

But—

“You saw the grain stuck to Luden’s trousers and concluded he’d bought barley sheaves? That’s what first made you suspicious of him?”

“Yes!”

“……”

“Of course, he could’ve gotten it from visiting the stable…… but it was barley grain! The straw used for horses and insulation in the North is oat straw!”

“……”

Did normal six-year-olds……

know things like that?

And can they really tell at a glance?

Then there was her oddly extensive farming knowledge.

“I-I saw and heard a lot of things in the slums……”

What exactly is a six-year-old?

Basil kept digging with his shovel while falling into a fundamental philosophical crisis.

Apparently, labor turned people into philosophers.

No, seriously. What even counts as normal for a six-year-old?

What was I doing when I was six……

Hmm.

By then, he was probably in some back alley stabbing rats in the belly with a stone knife.

Because he was hungry.

“……”

……Fine.

Maybe being a little unusually intelligent wasn’t that strange either.

Six-year-olds lived all kinds of lives depending on their circumstances.

Besides, I’ve heard children who awaken divine power are often unusually intelligent.

Still……

there was one thing he couldn’t understand.

A smart brat.

A brat who used divine power.

He could accept all that.

But what he really couldn’t get past was……

“Wow! It’s almost time to eat bread!”

Haniel, who had been sitting on the edge of the field, dusted herself off and stood up.

Basil watched her with an expressionless face.

His gaze was sharp and cold.

Did she know?

At first glance, she looks like nothing more than an endlessly innocent commoner child.

But there was something strangely aristocratic ingrained in the way she spoke and carried herself.