CH 78

Nutrition lies dormant in the mountains. Soil that has been around for many years — in short, compost. It’s a treasure that enriches fields.

「Yeah, it’s all thanks to the flowerkins-sama.」

The leaves littered at the mountains on the east were gathered by the flowerkins to improve their fields.

As a result, the harvest is progressing so efficiently that there’s no need for Riito to use plant magic.

In order to deliver to harvest early, Riito boosted the crops using “life growth” and the flowerkins took over the management and harvesting from there.

Riito is sitting at a desk made of handy grass, trying to summarize the current situation for his meeting with Mia.

「The current flowerkin’s colony population is 34. 」

This is the main labor force for farm work.

This number includes the elderly and children but everyone is great when it comes to dealing with plants. They will stop working in the middle of the night, go to bed, and wake up early.

「Navi’s in charge of accounting.」

Due to Navi’s nature as an artificial spirit which is programmed by a transmigrator like Riito, she is easily exhausted by physical work.

As an assistant, she’s in charge of accounting and a liaison between the flowerkins and Riito.

「The wholesaler of our agricultural crops is the merchant guild “Golden Road”.」

The person in charge of that is a short-haired catkin, Mia. She’s gourmand and energetic.

Sales are good so she should be a good merchant.

「And the one in charge of manipulating information about Togen Village is the information guild “Wings of Pen”.」

Mama, a long-haired catkin, is the informant in charge. Except for the fact that she’s a drunkard, she’s a cute and charming catkin.

So far, Togen Village had never had any outsider contact aside from them.

The express dragon carriage that they were using to travel between the Guild Autonomous Region of Gartland and Togen Village belongs to the transport guild “Rat Squadron”.

The driver is Mel, who brought Riito from the imperial capital to the guild autonomous region. She has seen Riito’s power and in exchange for keeping his secret, he promised her a regular large income.

In addition to the payment for hiring the express dragon carriage, she would be given with potatoes grown in Togen Village as a souvenir each time she came.

When he asked her, she said she was raising her little sister and little brother and with only the money she earned, they could never have enough food.

Since potatoes are a major staple food in that world, no one would suspect Mel of having them.

He’s thinking of inviting her family over for a fresh meat barbecue in the future.

「So far, no strange person has ever come to Togen Village…..things are going great.」

A life where no one bothers you with anything, a place where no one knows about Riito.

Currently, he doesn’t mind living the rest of his life like this.

By keeping the number of people involved as little as possible, the location of Togen Village and Riito’s existence are kept hidden.

「In that sense, Mama is also very clever.」

She sells information on the products of Togen Village and the fact that there are flowerkins in the unexplored region in an amusing retail manner.

She seems to be protecting the secret of Togen Village by blurring out the important details, blurring the small details, and intentionally faking the details.

「Thanks to that, the village is still peaceful today.」

Mama is also said to have received a headhunting offer from the gossip guild.

-0-

Houses for the flowerkins have been built on the flat area near the field.

They used to live in the mountains in the east but according to Frau, they are not originally mountain people.

They moved to the mountains to the east several generations ago to escape from the drought of the plains. Although they are now distant, there are also people who migrated beyond the deep forest that stretched far south of Togen Village.

When they moved to the plains, Riito made them houses out of handy grass. Not being very knowledgeable about buildings, he ended up making several tree houses for them that looked like Riito’s hut, though smaller. It looks like lined-up kintaro candies. Like houses for sale in a new residential area….thought Riito.

By the time a few weeks had passed, the flowerkins had grown their favorite plants on the roofs and walls making them quite unique so he thought it should be an acceptable result.

As he gazed at the mysterious sprout X, glistening in the sunlight by the window, Riito felt a sense of fulfillment.

「Yeah, it’s really peaceful—」

However, peace is fragile.

With a whooshing sound, Navi emerged.

「Report. Master, intruder desu.」

「Eh?」

「There is an intruder.」

Intruder.

He hasn’t heard such a dangerous-sounding word since the war.

-0-

A luxurious dragon carriage.

It bears the emblem of the Romancia Empire’s imperial family.

However, the person riding it is not the emperor.

「Riito-sama!」