Chapter 148 - World in turmoil (2)

‘Barley is good too, but the count’s land is way too big.’

The land was too vast, but most of it was unpopulated and the land was barren.

‘There’s not enough people to occupy it all.’

The mortality rate of newborn babies was close to 40% in this world. Out of every ten newborns, only three or four would reach their twenties.

‘But I have my mom.’

Joonbum grinned. His mother was an expert on farming. She and the Ainos women, who had been trained by such a master, were already skilled farmers. It would not take long for them to make the land ready for growing crops.

‘That will do. I can have other people do the rest from then on. They will do what it takes if they want to live.’

The world was full of people willing to do anything to not starve.

“Hehe…”

“Sir.”

Jackson frowned as he watched Joonbum cackling creepily.

“What are you scheming this time?”

“What do you mean? I should call my mother to help.”

“The countess?”

Jackson seemed to be confused as Joonbum said, “Yeah. She’s a good farmer.”

“HUH?”

Jackson wasn’t sure if he had heard correctly. He had never heard of a noble being a farmer.

‘I can understand her cooking as she’s doing it to feed her loved ones, but farming?!’

“She can create vast farmlands instantly. Prepare your fastest horse. I should also ready those Ainos women who were trained by my mother.”

Joonbum stood up and left. Jackson shook his head and quickly followed. It was not long after that a few barren pieces of land were chosen to be farmlands and heavy machinery was deployed to prepare them.

“Hmm.”

Joonbum hummed as he watched the vast barren lands being tilled by the machines moving about. His mother came at once when she heard Joonbum’s request. She arrived with three knights, thirty servants, and three hundred soldiers. It was due to the power of the count. Behind her were long lines of refugees that followed.

‘That looks like over three thousand people.’

As soon as she arrived, she pulled up her sleeves and went out on a bulldozer to level the land. The servants and knights tried to stop her, but they could not. The soldiers and refugees watched in awe as the wife of the count worked on the land by herself. The refugees, who had followed her as she promised food and land to live on, were shocked. Some lost hope as they saw that they had been brought to barren land. But seeing the countess herself working on the farmland was awe-inspiring. As she began working, the Ainos women also hopped on the steel carriages and began leveling the ground together. As they moved about, the land was soon tilled like a farmer had worked on it for a few days.

“Is that a miracle?”

“How can it be?”

A farmer who spent his entire life farming gaped in awe. He could not believe what was happening.

“But it’s only land! We have no crops to plant! No seeds! Winter’s already coming! It’s too late!”

“It’s too late to start now. We’ll be left to die.”

“This is all just a show.”

“NO WAY! Our goddess will not abandon us!”

“You crazy idiot. She’s not a goddess. She’s just like the rest of them nobles. Hah!”

Some people rejoiced while others scoffed. There were people who were unconvinced and spoke ill of what they were doing, but they too had a sliver of hope in their heart.

“Don’t you dare slander the countess! I’ll rip your mouth apart if you continue to rant when she is helping us, you ungrateful bastard!” an old man shouted.

“Crazy old man!”

“Ugh! Run!”

The old man began violently swinging his staff toward the young men who were grumbling and complaining to each other. The crowd began to lighten up at the funny sight. The old man stopped as he looked out towards the fields and pointed.

“Look! Look at it with your own eyes! The countess herself is farming in her carriage! It might not give us food at the moment, but she’s working hard to do just that! Who do you think she’s doing that for? Why she is doing that? You idiots need to think! If that land is ripe, you… and our kids will live! HOW DARE YOU?! No noble has ever worked with their own hands to feed us commoners! If you have time to rant, go out to the fields yourself and WORK!”

The people watched as the old man shouted and everyone seemed to be lost for words. Jackson, who was watching the old man from a distance, grew teary.

“Hectos.”

“Huh? Yeah?”

“Can you bring that old man over later?”

“Why?”

“We need more people.”

“Hmph. He sure talks a lot, but are you sure? He doesn’t seem like an ordinary man,” Hectos asked, but Jackson nodded.

“Yeah, who doesn’t have a story these days?”

“Sure. We do need more people. The only advisors are us, except those two who are useless.”

Hectos spoke bitterly. He began to grow violent as he was forced to quit drinking, but sparring daily with Joonbum quelled his violent nature. He was now returning to his glory days as a knight.

Jackson grinned, “It’s lucky that we are with him. He’s going to be big.”

“How big?” Hectos asked bitterly.

“This made me realize something. I think Sir Joonbum will go as high as a duke. Or maybe a… king.”

Hectos looked at him if he was joking, but Jackson only smiled.

“Aren’t you exaggerating a little bit?”

Hectos seemed to be unconvinced, but Jackson shook his head. He turned to the refugees who had started working on the farm themselves after the old man’s speech.

“No, I’m being modest. Only one noble, out of all nobles of the world, is reaching out to the refugees. Do you think this is something a normal person can do? People will turn to Sir Joonbum when they find out what has happened. We should follow him to the end. We will have to ready ourselves as we will soon need to compete with the geniuses of the world.”

The work sped up as more refugees joined in. After a while, the Ainos who went to the mountain returned with foul-smelling dirt.

“Ugh, what is this?”

“It’s bird dung.”

“UGH!”

Jackson pinched his nose and Hectos backed away in shock. But Joonbum carefully checked each cart full of bird feces and grinned.

“Any problems?” he asked the tired-looking Doral.

“No. The road was okay. There were some parts where trees had fallen, but we managed to move them away. But boy, there were so many monsters.”

Doral shook his head. It was easy to imagine how the roads were terribly infested with monsters.

‘He smells of gunpowder.’

It seemed like they even had to use guns. Doral smiled bitterly as he commented, “It would’ve been bad if we didn’t have guns with us.”

Joonbum was relieved to hear that.

“So, is this thing… really the feces? Of birds?”

Jackson closed in, still pinching his nose. Joonbum nodded.

Corn was like a magical crop. The warm temperature of this land was enough to have it flourish throughout the winter, but there was one problem.

‘You need fertilizers to grow corn.’

Large amounts of fertilizer was necessary to grow corn.

Joonbum looked at the vast land that kept expanding. In a few months, the land would turn green because of the corn.

‘Corn can be eaten by humans and be fed to herbivores. We should get some to keep as livestock.’

Joonbum began to think of herbivores that could eat the plants.