Chapter 1: The Agriculture of the Daleim Lands

1

It was now the eleventh of the indigo month, the day after I had manned a kitchen alongside Varkas.

We were in a wagon heading south. Normally, we would be doing business at our stalls off to the side of the road in the post town, surrounded by densely packed buildings, but instead we were following the highway south, heading for the vast fields of the Daleim lands.

"Are we almost there? I'm so excited!" Rimee Ruu energetically exclaimed from inside the wagon.

"Soon," I replied with a smile, feeling soothed by her earnest and innocent nature.

The plan for today was to visit Dora, the man who we always bought vegetables from, to see his home and the fields he tended. Considering how well his youngest daughter Tara got along with Rimee Ruu, it was no surprise that the young Ruu girl was so enthusiastic.

Naturally, everyone else's eyes were sparkling with anticipation too. After all, it was a chance to observe how they grew the vegetables we used. Of course those studious girls would get excited about it. Heck, I had been truly looking forward to this field trip too.

We had a group of six for the trip, which included me, Reina, Rimee, and Sheera Ruu, Toor Deen, and Yun Sudra. Gilulu was pulling our wagon, and alongside us was another totos being ridden by our guards, Dan and Deem Rutim, who had protected us yesterday as well. Since they were taking time off their giba hunting due to their injuries, they had volunteered to act as bodyguards again today.

"Ah, take that road to the right," Reina Ruu instructed.

"Got it," I said back as I tugged on the reins. The second Ruu daughter had visited the Daleim lands once before as part of the search when I was abducted by Lefreya.

The Daleim lands were part of the overall Genos territory. The house of Genos ruled the castle town, the house of Saturas governed the post town, the house of Turan handled the lands to the north, and the house of Daleim was in charge of the lands to the south. Add to that the forest of Mount Morga and the settlement at its edge, and you had the region known as Genos. Normally we only ever had business with the post town, so even heading to the Daleim lands was a fresh, fun experience for us.

However, we had an even bigger trip waiting for us ten days from now. The plan for our overnight visit to the neighboring town of Dabagg, which was half a day away and had vast karon ranches, was finally coming together. In a way, this field trip to the Daleim lands was like a dry run of sorts.

After we continued a bit farther west down the path and made it past the southern tip of the post town, our field of view suddenly opened wide.

"Whoa, so much space! It's totally different from the forest's edge and the post town!" Rimee Ruu shouted energetically.

She wasn't wrong. It really was a lot of wide-open space. Since they had removed any excess trees, we had a shockingly clear view of the whole region. I could spy a short grove of trees far off in the distance, kilometers away, but there was nothing except vast fields before that. All along the well-trodden, twisting path between fields, there were wooden houses scattered about. It was such a peaceful, idyllic sight that I almost felt like sighing.

"I've never seen such a vast land before! It feels completely different here than in the forest's edge, the post town, or the castle town," Dan Rutim said from over on the Rutim totos Mim Cha, sounding like he was greatly enjoying himself. "Well then, let's hurry on over! We can just keep on following this path for now, right, Asuta?"

"Yeah, that should be right."

We proceeded down the path that ran through the middle of the fields at a nice, relaxed pace. Since there didn't seem to be any people out and about working nearby, we didn't have anyone gawking at the arrival of hunters from the forest's edge.

It sure is tranquil... I love it when things are so peaceful.

Genos was far removed from the enemy nation of Mahyudra, so there was no risk of war finding its way here. Thanks to the guards patrolling day and night, the town was well protected from bandits and the like too. All the folks on the Daleim lands had to fear was the occasional giba appearing from the forest.

"Hey, Asuta, over here!" an excited voice called out from our left after we had proceeded down the path for a bit. It was Tara, who lived here in the Daleim lands. She was wearing an orange dress and was running over from one of the branching paths.

"Yaaay, Tara! Long time no see!"

"Yeah! It's been a while, Rimee Ruu! You really did come here to the Daleim lands!"

As Rimee Ruu leaned out from the wagon, the two young girls grinned at one another. Though Rimee Ruu came to the post town once every three days, they usually greeted one another with a "Long time no see." Maybe they were just so close that those two days in between felt long to them. After enjoying that charming sight for a while, I held out a hand toward Tara.

"Thanks for coming to meet us. Could you guide us to your house, Tara?"

"Yeah!"

Once Tara had climbed up into the wagon, she pointed us south down a narrow side path.

No matter how far we went, it was still all just fields around us. However, now I could see people here and there hard at work on their harvesting, and a fair number of them stopped and stared dumbfounded at us. We people of the forest's edge normally only ever showed up in the post town, but here we were, driving a totos wagon through the Daleim lands. I was sure it made for a strange, normally unthinkable sight.

Naturally, we had gotten permission from the house of Daleim before today's trip. Polarth actually wanted to accompany us and seemed quite disappointed that he was too busy entertaining the envoys from Banarm to do so.

"Ah, there it is! That's my house!" Tara exclaimed as she stood beside the driver's seat along with Rimee Ruu.

The home we were heading toward that she pointed to was far larger than I had expected. Well, part of that was surely adjoining storage for the harvested vegetables, though. It definitely looked much too big for a single family. It looked like there was a structure with one floor built right up against another with two floors. The single-story building made of logs was the larger one.

"Hey there, Asuta! And all the rest of you from the forest's edge! Welcome!" a voice called out from beside us before we reached the building. Looking that way, I found Dora approaching from the fields with a large basket on his back. "You sure are early. I haven't even prepared tea."

"Ah, sorry for interrupting you while you're busy. Please, don't mind us. You can take care of whatever you need to first."

"Aw, it's just a bit of an early break. And I can't just ignore my special guests."

Dora had swapped work shifts in the post town with his son just so he could be here for our visit. As he wiped the sweat from his brow with a dirt-coated hand, he shot me a grin.

"For now, you can go ahead and leave the wagon in front of the house. Then I'll show you all around my prized fields."

"Right. Thanks."

After that, we left him there and moved the wagon over to where he had directed us.

The building appeared to be empty, so everyone must have been out taking care of their various jobs. Tending vegetables, harvesting them, and then selling them... It must have kept the folks in the Daleim just as busy as everyone at the forest's edge.

After parking the wagon along the wall so it wouldn't get in the way, we tied Gilulu and Mim Cha to a nearby tree, then returned down the path on foot, where we found Dora waiting for us with his basket set down next to his feet.

"This is the tarapa field. They came out pretty well, don't you think?"

Sure enough, that basket was filled to the brim with some pretty nice-looking tarapa. Though the color and taste of tarapa was just like tomatoes, they were closer to pumpkins in terms of size. Though they were a bit dirty right now, they looked seriously tasty.

"Hmm, the ones sold in the castle town are smaller, right?"

"Yeah, though we only grow a few of those ourselves. But you can go ahead and see with your own eyes."

Leaving his basket packed with tarapa at the side of the path, Dora guided us down into the fields. They sat lower than the path by about forty to fifty centimeters, where the ground was composed of a really soft-looking brown dirt. Between the rows of huge green leaves that came up to around my knees there was just enough open space left for people to pass through.

Dora turned over one of those leaves to reveal a tarapa growing underneath. The plants seemed to grow one fruit per stalk, and it was a thick stalk at that, to support all the weight.

"These are the ones for selling in the post town. The ones for the castle town are farther in."

We all moved forward, taking care not to trample any of the tarapa. Once we had traveled across roughly a fourth of the large field, Dora stopped and once again lifted up a nearby leaf.

What was revealed underneath was a tarapa around the size of a human fist, of the sort I had seen in the pantry in the...