I Raised the Northern Grand Duke as a Farmer Behind My Father’s Back Chapter 7

Chapter 7

And I suffered a glorious defeat.

“Farming?”

I could still vividly remember the way Basil had lightly scoffed at my words.

“A little guy like you is too frail for something like that. You’ll get yourself killed.”

“Waaah!”

“Camilla, deal with her.”

Despite calling me frail, the Grand Duke peeled me off himself with an arm packed solid with muscle.

Then he walked out of the room without a trace of hesitation.

Why?!

Had I rushed things too much?

Maybe……

A random little kid he had never seen before had suddenly started babbling about farming.

I couldn’t really blame him for dismissing it as nonsense from a child who knew nothing about the world.

But I was in a hurry too!

Because he keeps trying to kick me out!

And I had Mister Paul waiting outside too!

Besides, I couldn’t just sit around doing nothing anymore.

Because……

I glanced sideways.

As though it had been waiting for me to look, white letters popped into view.

It came!

An errand.

And not just any errand—

a huge one!

[An errand from the God of Earth has arrived!]

[Checking errand details……]

Pop!

[Challenge! Hoeing! (0/5)]

[“The first step toward self-sufficiency. Farming is the foundation of all things.”]

You’re wondering what was so amazing about hoeing?

Heh.

You’ll change your mind when you see this!

[Errand Reward: 200 Pure, Pollution-Free Divine Power Stickers]

Gasp!

Even seeing it again was enough to stop my breathing.

Not two.

Not twenty.

Two hundred!

Two hundred stickerrrrrrs?!

How could I possibly let this opportunity go?!

At the same time, though, something felt strange.

Is hoeing really that difficult? I only have to do it five times.

I thought about it carefully before reaching a conclusion.

A reward this huge could only mean one thing—

hoeing here, in the North, must be extremely difficult.

Just in case, I sat on the floor and tried pretending to hoe with a fork.

Poke, poke.

Of course, nothing happened.

All I got was a little applause from Butler Camilla beside me.

Maybe this means……

I narrowed my eyes at the white letters.

[“Farming is the foundation of all things.”]

If I farm here, I can earn tons of divine power?

My heart began pounding.

I wanted to rush outside immediately and try hoeing again.

But before that……

I puffed my cheeks and chewed.

“That’s it. Eat up.”

The moment I opened my mouth, a huge spoonful came straight in.

At some point, I had become an official member of Butler Camilla’s Stew Disposal Squad.

To be fair, I had been starving since yesterday.

I gulped down the stew, then immediately gave her a deep little bow from the waist.

“Butler! Thank you so much for letting me use warm water, sharing your stew with me, and taking care of me and everything……!”

“There, there. Ah—”

“So, um, could I maybe borrow a hoe—aaah.”

Before I could finish, another spoonful went straight into my mouth.

Chew, chew.

I was a perfectly capable child who could eat stew all by herself, but for some reason, the butler refused to hand over the spoon.

“Hmm. I feel like it’s been about three thousand years since I last saw a creature this adorable……”

Well.

She looked happy.

Maybe I could keep my cool, capable side hidden for a little while.

As I obediently ate, I looked around the room.

It was a clean, neatly organized bedroom.

Judging by the structure, this seemed to be a fairly decent two-story manor.

But still—

it definitely wasn’t the kind of residence I had imagined the war-hero Grand Duke of the North living in.

“But…… Butler, why is His Grace living here? I thought he’d obviously be staying at the Grand Duke’s castle.”

“Hmm.”

“And there don’t seem to be…… many people around either.”

“The Grand Duke’s castle hasn’t finished being repaired yet. Most of the servants were dismissed recently.”

“Huh?”

“We’ve reached the point where we need to cut labor costs. Only the knights remain.”

I blinked.

Things were apparently worse than I had thought.

I remember hearing that he at least received some money as a victory reward.

Where had it all gone?

Had he spent it all running the territory over the last two years?

But Butler Camilla apparently had no intention of explaining further.

Instead, she merely patted my cheek a few times.

“More importantly, does the soup suit your taste?”

“Yes! The potatoes are all fluffy, and the potatoes are super soft, and, um…… the potatoes are really savory too!”

“Hehe. Sorry about that. Potatoes are the only thing left in the storeroom. If you’d come around next week, you could’ve had meat pie.”

I shot upright again.

“D-does that mean! Does that mean you’re subtly saying I’m allowed to come back next week?!”

“No. I meant it literally. Regret and disappointment over something that will never happen. Something like that?”

“I knew it……”

Psssshh.

My body deflated as I sank back down.

“Butler. Can’t I just keep living here? They said you’d give me a house! And land! That’s the whole reason I came!”

I pulled the northern relocation flyer out of my pocket.

Butler Camilla vigorously rubbed my head.

“Well…… personally, I’d like to tell you yes.”

“……!”

“But despite appearances, he is my one and only superior. I don’t particularly intend to disobey His Grace’s orders.”

“Hing.”

Seeing my disappointed face, the butler poked my cheek.

“Even your puffed-up cheeks are adorable when you’re this scruffy. Still, don’t feel too wronged. I have no idea where you found that flyer after we destroyed them all…… but you’re not the only one we’re refusing.”

“Huh?”

“For the past few months, everyone who comes here has been politely sent back.”

“Why?!”

“Because there’s nothing here to live on.”

A perfectly clear answer.

“Monsters appear, and the land is cold and barren. We do have mines, rivers, and forests, but…… the contamination is so severe that even approaching them is difficult. Wouldn’t increasing the number of residents under these conditions be reckless?”

“Is the contamination really that bad?”

At my question, the butler looked beyond the window.

My eyes followed hers.

Far in the distance stood the towering snow-covered mountains of the North.

And beside them……

Gasp. Scary.

A massive dark-red peak.

I swallowed.

“Bigger than you expected, isn’t it? They say that’s the Mad Dragon’s corpse.”

“Yeees……”

That was right.

It wasn’t actually a mountain peak.

It was the corpse of the Mad Dragon, dead halfway up the mountain.

The body was simply so enormous that it looked as though an entirely new summit had risen there.

It had been a five-hundred-year-old dragon.

At this rate, maybe it would take another five hundred years for the corpse to completely decay……

No.

Perhaps even longer.

How did Grand Duke Basil even defeat a monster like that? Just how strong is he?

Crackle…… hissss—

Black smoke writhed upward from the peak.

The heat and poisonous energy spilling from the corpse were tremendous.

That was why the Mad Dragon remained a problem for humanity even after death.

But……

……W-wow!

The black smoke couldn’t spread very far.

It quickly faded away.

All thanks to the white sealing pillars installed throughout the surrounding area.

Dad made those pillars!

I searched through my memories.

Back when no one could withstand the evil energy leaking from the dead Mad Dragon—

it was Holy Knight Dantelion who had used his overwhelming divine power to erect six pillars and create a barrier.

He had appeared alone……

and finished it all in a single night.

Just like that.

Thanks to him, the North had at least become barely habitable.

It was exactly the sort of legendary achievement worthy of being recorded in history books for generations.

He was such an incredible holy knight.

And yet Dad’s divine power had become……

because of me……

“……Child. Little one?”

“Y-yes?”

“You stopped chewing. Ah, does that mountain scare you that much?”

“Ah!”

I immediately started moving my cheeks again.

“Nooo!”

“Where was I? Ah, yes. The contamination.”

Butler Camilla continued.

“We’ve managed to contain the poisonous energy coming from that corpse, but there was nothing we could do about the contamination that had already spread. Other than this village and a few travel routes, almost none of the region has been purified.”

“I see……”

“If we had a Temple in the North, maybe things would be different, but there still isn’t one here. ……Those damn imperial bastards. They promised they’d build us a Temple and lied through their teeth……”

Butler Camilla’s voice gradually became more ominous……

So basically, there’s no one who can regularly purify the different parts of the territory.

Holy knights and priests were always in short supply, so they were constantly sent wherever they were considered more urgently needed.

And I knew that the adults deciding what counted as “urgent” always made those decisions based on circumstances tangled up in their own interests.

The situation in the North might be even worse than I thought.

Chew, chew.

That’s probably why His Grace is living down here in the village too.

This won’t do.

I need to do something quickly!

Maybe if I prove myself useful, he’ll praise me and let me stay here!

I quietly stared straight ahead, then deliberately blinked my eyes wide once.

As though it had been waiting for that exact moment—

white letters appeared in front of me.