Chapter 45
“The elves of Tatarnia don’t believe the words of those who don’t act.”
Tatarnia?
I tilted my head at the unfamiliar place-name. Was it some kind of elven country? After confidently introducing some godforsaken backwater I’d never heard of, the elf said to the man standing beside him,
“Rodrigo, bring me a scythe.”
“Yes, Master.”
At that, the man bowed his head. Judging by the way he called him Master, he seemed to be a slave. I hadn’t realized it because he was dressed like a farmer.
‘They even have secretary slaves in this world.’
What the fuck was he, the CEO of some shitty little company?
Still, the slave looked fairly presentable. He was sturdily built and had a healthy complexion. Since he was a serf who had to do manual labor, it seemed his master fed him well.
─Shing.
The serf named Rodrigo came back carrying a large scythe from one of the carts. It was an agricultural scythe with a sharply honed blade attached to a pole as long as a spear.
“Harvest the wheat with this scythe while I watch.”
Hotulusil took the scythe from him and spoke.
“The skilled will be entrusted with harvesting. Those who aren’t will be assigned to gathering the harvested wheat and threshing. That is all.”
After saying only that, the straw-hat elf fell silent, and our party exchanged glances.
The middle-aged adventurer, being the oldest, stepped forward first.
“Well then, hand it over. I’m from a farming family.”
He said this while undoing the belt around his waist. Wait, fuck, why was this crazy bastard suddenly trying to take off his pants?
Frang and I recoiled in horror at his sudden exhibitionist reveal, but the adventurer uncle had undone his sword belt, not his trouser belt.
Clack.
Swish─.
The middle-aged man tossed aside his scabbard, went over to Rodrigo, and took the scythe. Fuck, thank god. He wasn’t an exhibitionist pervert; he’d just removed the scabbard because it got in the way while working.
“Ptooey!”
But as luck would have it, the uneducated bastard spat into his hand and rubbed it around.
No, you fucking asshole! If you do that, the next person has to use a scythe covered in your spit! I was so startled that I started to protest, but the straw-hat fuck-elf watching him frowned before I could.
“Hey. Don’t get spit on the scythe. It’s dirty.”
“Huh? Good grief. My lord elf, you may not know this, but doing this makes farm tools stick nicely to your hand.”
“That’s none of my concern. If you can’t work without spitting, you’ll be assigned another task.”
“Tsk. Fine.”
The middle-aged man wiped the spit on his pants and grabbed the scythe again.
It was still dirty, but at least it was better than before. Thank god that elf had some sense of hygiene. My opinion of Hotulusil rose a little.
‘Right. Not every elf is an asshole.’
I did a little reflecting on my own prejudice.
Just because I’d once been badly burned by a Chinese person didn’t mean I could treat every Chinese person like a fucking chink. What would that make me if not a racist?
Until the result is observed, you can’t know whether someone is a da-ge or a chink. This was the famous Schrödinger’s Chink Theory.
I decided to introduce this theory to the otherworld.
The so-called Schrödinger’s Fuck-Elf.
Depending on my observation, Hotulusil might be a fuck-elf or a good-elf. Until I experienced him firsthand, I couldn’t know.
Had old man Gentric also evaluated that elf positively? I wasn’t asking for a saint, but I could only hope he was at least a decent elf.
“Hyaaah─!!”
Just then, the middle-aged man with the scythe let out a booming battle cry and swung his arm.
Whoosh!!
Rustle!!
The roughly swung scythe chopped the wheat in half. It barely cut off the grain heads, leaving a long stretch of stalk above the roots.
Fuck, could that be called harvesting? Wasn’t it basically decapitation? He’d practically turned the wheat into weeds.
“Failed.”
Hotulusil said this in a voice of utter disapproval.
“Carry off the harvested wheat. Don’t thresh it. Absolutely not.”
“Damn it. It’s because I didn’t spit on my hand.”
The middle-aged man grumbled but didn’t protest. Even he must have realized this was a little too much. He had no sense of hygiene, but he did have a conscience.
“I’ll go next.”
The young adventurer who had said nothing promptly stepped up as the next contestant. That bastard had a damn good sense of timing. Since he’d be compared with the man being evaluated before him, it would be easy for him to look good.
The young adventurer took the scythe and began cutting. He seemed to be from a farming family too, because his form was fairly polished.
Saaaak─ Saaaak─.
The wheat fell cleanly. Hotulusil watched the young man swing the scythe for a while, then spoke.
“That’s enough. You’ll do the harvesting. Now, next….”
The straw-hat elf retrieved the scythe from the young man and started to turn toward me, but paused. His gaze had landed on Frang.
‘What’s this? Does he dislike dwarves because he’s an elf?’
Even though elf and dwarf shared the same ‘peu’ syllable, they were practically sworn enemies. It was kind of like Korea-Japan relations. The friendly ones got along fine, but the serious cases treated the other side almost like the enemy of their parents.
“…Dwarf. Can you even swing a scythe?”
Hotulusil asked. I worried the bastard was trying to discriminate against the dwarf, but his look was one of pure curiosity.
Frang looked up at the scythe, which was nearly twice her height, then asked with dead eyes,
“Swing this…? Me…?”
Ah, right.
Frang was nearly as strong as I was, but she was under 160 centimeters tall. That scythe was too big for her. It must have felt practically like a flat-pack clothes rack.
Hotulusil answered Frang’s reaction as if he understood.
“My apologies. I’ll bring out a smaller scythe.”
“No, I’ll just carry the carts. I’ve done that kind of work before. Nord, that’s okay, right?”
She glanced at me as she asked. I nodded. Throwing a fit about wanting to stay with my lover even after coming here to work would have been taking things too far.
“If you’re fine with it, I don’t mind. Do that.”
Hotulusil answered indifferently, apparently not caring either way. What a fucking dry, strictly-business bastard, saying only what needed to be said.
Still, bosses who only spoke about business were actually a pretty good type.
The kind who didn’t bother you personally, let you get your work done, and otherwise left you alone. For some office workers tormented by abusive bosses, he’d be exactly the type they longed for.
Thinking of it that way, Hotulusil began to look like a surprisingly decent guy.
Maybe Yerna had lowered my expectations for elven character by a lot.
If I saw an elf kick a kitten that was getting rained on, I felt like I might just think, ‘Wow, you’re a friend who’s really good at kicking!’ and let it slide.
“All right, your turn.”
Hotulusil held the scythe out to me. I took it and gripped it tightly.
─Thud.
Squeeze….
The feel of lukewarm, solid wood.
A familiar sensation.
“Heh heh.”
A low chuckle escaped me.
I had, in fact, experienced farm work on Earth. My family on my father’s side owned a farm, and since my military unit was stationed in the rear, we often went out to help local civilians.
Like any rear-area unit, our regiment was extremely lax. That was even more true because the company commander had given up on getting promoted.
As a result, whenever flooding hit, they’d dangle leave passes to recruit soldiers willing to go help the farms.
When I went out to help civilians, I occasionally got to assist with harvesting. Back then, Corporal Kang Buk-ho, who was still a scrawny little anchovy, had no choice but to make up for his lack of strength with technique.
The face of the farmer I’d met while working back then had already vanished from my memory, but── these hands still remembered the sensation from those days.
Shwaaaak─.
Beast Regression manifested without an incantation and spread over my body. I’d received confirmation that there would be no side effects. I ought to use it whenever I had a spare moment; wouldn’t that help my mana pool grow too?
With that buff active, I lightly swung the scythe.
─Swaaak!
With a keen bite and a broad arc, the wheat was cleanly severed. Even the sound effect was different from the others’.
Naturally. I, Kang Buk-ho, was a man who had even mowed grass with a scythe in the army whenever the terrain was flat.
This paltry harvest work was laughably easy.
Swaa-aaaah─.
Just then, the wind blew and the wheat field swayed.
──No, that wasn’t it. It wasn’t the wind; the wheat grains had witnessed my scythe work, sensed their impending deaths, and trembled in terror. If you disagree, you’re right.
“Are you afraid?”
I asked the wheat.
“I’m afraid too. Of my own strength.”
The agricultural scythe was shaped like an instrument for reaping lives. I pulled it toward me and muttered.
“From now on, I── am your Grim Reaper.”
In the West, the image of a Grim Reaper carrying a scythe was born from personifying death as it harvested lives. Therefore, since I was harvesting the lives of wheat, I could be called the Grim Reaper of the Wheat Field.
“─Bankai (卍解).”
In accordance with the rules, I unleashed the Grim Reaper’s ultimate technique.
“Senbon Nonggyeom Eom Bok-dong.”
─Swaaak! Swaaak! Swaaak!
Cut.
Cut.
Cut, and cut again, and cut countless times.
Every time my scythe danced, countless stalks of wheat lost their lives. I brought my tremendous strength and technique fully to bear, launching relentless alternating slashes to the left and right.
That’s right── right now, I was a human tractor!!
Nord the Flour Butcher—that was what I was called!!
Swaa-aaaak!!
─Chak.
I made one grand final swing, cutting down the wheat in the area, then brought my flourish to a stop.
Thus, not a single stalk remained standing in front of me. In less than five seconds, I’d achieved a result far more spectacular than the two before me.
From this moment on, this place was the Battle of Changban of the harvesting industry.
“Excellent.”
Clap clap clap!
Hotulusil applauded after witnessing my Bankai. The applause was dry, but his face looked genuinely satisfied.
“You’ll be assigned harvesting as well. But can you maintain that magic?”
“Even without it, I’ll do at least as well as the others.”
The mana-enhancement effect was passive. There was no way Nord, the otherworldly musclebound macho man with a mana buff, couldn’t do what the skinny little anchovy Kang Buk-ho had managed. It went without saying.
“You’re certainly confident. Still, your posture looks reliable. …Would you consider taking a job at our farm? I promise to treat you like family.”
“Nah, I’m good.”
If you need a family, get married or have a kid, asshole.
“What a shame. Come find me if you ever change your mind.”
When I flatly refused, the straw-hat fuck-elf clicked his tongue. Then he spoke brusquely to our group.
“Then get to work. I hope you’ll work hard.”
***
After Hotulusil left, we got down to harvesting in earnest.
Other people handled carrying away the harvested wheat and rice. I could simply relax and send the wheat to the gallows at a reasonable pace.
Swaaak! Swaaak!
Before my Death Farming-scythe, the lives of the wheat field died like falling leaves. I swung the scythe with the feeling of pulling weeds in Animal Crossing.
Simple labor isn’t particularly grueling for someone with the physical ability to do it easily.
To me, buffed by Beast Regression, mere wheat was no different from a bundle of string. Harvesting it left only the sensation of lightly snapping spiderwebs with my fingertips.
The scythe itself must have been a fairly good tool. Curious, I stopped and checked the name of its maker.
─Made by 「Clara」.
No fucking way, it was Clara.
The maker of the scythe was the married blacksmith who had sold me my leather armor pants. The young married woman who had been shocked by the size of my dick, confessed to me all on her own, and then rejected me.
So she liked iron that fucking much that she made farm tools too?
It wasn’t surprising, since blacksmiths’ main source of income was making and repairing farm tools.
Apparently, adventurers buying expensive weapons or armor was like getting a payout from a rotating savings club; normally, blacksmiths made a living repairing rusty, broken farm tools.
I hadn’t seen many forges selling farm tools in Einhir, where Carmine University was located, since it was a trade city.
Seeing an acquaintance’s name in such an unexpected place left me feeling strangely wistful. Then I refocused and devoted myself to harvesting.
Swaaak! Swaaak!
I continued harvesting at a suitably measured pace.
The way of the world was that doing more work didn’t earn you more pay. People who worked well were simply given more work as a gift. I took it easy, letting my mind wander.
And there was only one thing I thought about at times like this.
‘Ah─ I want to touch Frang’s boobs─.’
As I swung the scythe, I pictured my cute Frang’s outrageously huge breasts.
Frang’s boobs, huge boobs…. The softest boobs in the world…. The finest boobs in Britannia….
Frang’s huge breasts were the best. I could keep touching Frang’s breasts all day. Their soft feel brushing lightly against me was like an angel’s silk robe.
When we linked arms, when Frang nestled into my embrace, when Frang came up beside me, those enormous breasts touched me without reserve. Every time, I was too busy calming my dickaconda and suppressing my drooping philtrum.
Fuck stem cells. The greatest cells are breasts. Even Skynet’s minions, who indiscriminately despise anything made of flesh and blood, would touch a pair of huge breasts once and defect to the Human Liberation Army.
Thus, huge breasts were always right.
They say a wife’s beauty lasts three years and her wisdom lasts thirty. But that’s wrong. The longest-lasting love is breasts. Breasts are eternal.
It was an impossible hypothetical, but even if Frang did something wrong and ended up fighting with me, the moment Frang imposed a breast ban, I’d lose that fight. It was a kind of trade retaliation.
They say Guan Yu played Go and endured it while Hua Tuo cut open his shoulder with a knife, but if Frang put her breasts on my face, I probably wouldn’t notice even if someone spread my ribs and swapped out my heart.
This was the true law of the world.
Other than idiots who believe in a flat Earth, no one would dispute that 1+1 equals 2. Just as 1+1 equaled 2, the two breasts every person had were a principle of the three-thousand worlds identical to the truths of the universe.
And if you had two identical ones, you should choose the larger one.
500-milliliter Coke buy one, get one free and 1.5-liter Coke buy one, get one free for the same price? Then choosing the 1.5-liter bottles was obviously the scientific choice.
Choosing the 500-milliliter stubby cans instead at the same price? That was a pedophile’s idea. Even summary execution would be justified.
You say canned Coke is colder and stays carbonated longer? You benighted liberal-arts idiots. Take your excuses to the National Institute of Korean Language.
─Straighten up.
After swinging the scythe for a long time, I straightened my back.
It wasn’t because I was particularly tired; thinking about Frang had made me newly appreciate the importance of my back. My body was no longer solely mine.
Since that night under the full moon, my body had also belonged to Frang.
Fuck, now that I thought about it, that was amazing. Until then, the only thing that had ever owned my body besides me was the motherfucking Republic of Korea Army.
Anyway, we’d made considerable progress with the harvest. Looking back at the wheat field I’d passed through, I’d finished harvesting an area almost half the size of a sports field. Had thinking of Frang’s breasts made me work incredibly fast?
Shwak─ Shwak─ Shwak─!
Another surprising thing: Although it seemed like quite a while had passed, Beast Regression showed no sign of wearing off.
Had my mana pool grown that much? Since I hadn’t been able to measure the time precisely, I had no sense of how much it had increased.
I longed for a pocket watch every time this happened. I’d have to go with Frang next time and get a watch made.
Fuck, but buying one just for myself felt a little excessive. Shouldn’t I get one for Frang too? How much would two damn watches cost? I didn’t know whether my savings could cover it.
I’d saved a total of five silver by today. It was a damn small amount, but give me a break. I hadn’t received a separate salary as a slave, and before getting my master’s degree, I’d earned only one silver a month.
Saving five silver—a huge sum—in three and a half years meant I deserved praise, if anything.
‘Should I ask her out on a date next time?’
I’d find out how much watches cost and ask Frang when there was time for a date. Come to think of it, I still didn’t know Frang’s birthday or hobbies very well.
I’d ask about them one by one when I had time. With that thought, I resumed harvesting.