The day passed by as Harold consulted with Norman about various things, until the end of the evening when there was an unfamiliar knock at the door. Harold allowed them to enter, and it was, not only Norman, but also one of the primary economists of the Stokes house. Kishino knew basic surface level knowledge of economics, but he and Norman both agreed they needed an expert’s knowledge for the level of change he wanted to make.
He was a slender man donned in a sharp suit and beheld a youthful face that wore glasses. He had previously annoyed Harold and his parents, but they generally put up with him due to his expertise and obedience. His age was in the first-half of his thirties, and maybe due to the sharp look in his eyes, he gave off an impression of being cold and unfeeling. The man’s name was Jake, and he was one of the people who managed the finances of the Stokes family. You could even say he managed the state’s farms, among other things. Even the usually unamiable, taciturn Jake was considerably perplexed by the situation he was in.
“Sit.”
Immediately after coming to the room, the first thing that flew out of Kishino’s mouth was that. An outstanding first impression, if he had to say. Norman, who was diagonally behind Harold, handed over a draft containing a few pages to Jake, who had quietly sat down on the chair.
“Read that.”
“...Okay…”
What on earth is this about – Jake’s bewilderment kept growing. However, after he opened the draft and started reading its contents, the look in his eyes changed.
What was written down was a complete copy of the financial management report he himself had made. It was a detailed account of the financial situation of the Stokes house, and was filled with a headache inducing amount of numbers, but sadly, they were numbers which Jake had become used to seeing.
“Are there any large mistakes in the entry?”
“…No, there aren’t.”
After all, it was the report Jake himself had compiled; he had already properly checked whether there were any defects or not in the documents he had prepared.
Perhaps, was he called to enter at least one false charge into the contents of this? – That sort of thought crossed his mind.
“Right?”
But, contrary to his predictions, Harold sighed gravely. Contrary to any other normal meeting, Harold didn’t seem like he wanted to rebuke Jake for ‘making the Stokes family out to be the villains in the situation’. If he had to say, then Harold’s voice was as though he was fed up from the bottom of his heart.
The Stokes territory, with the exception of the towering mountain range to the northeast, was facing the plains, and the highway was laid out as though running beside the city, it was considerably blessed in the field of transportation. There were no seas in the surroundings, but there was a river formed by a stream from the mountain range, which passed nearby, and a forest stretched out from the northwest to the eastern side, so it was a land suitable for forestry too.
However even with primary and secondary industries both prospering, since the Stokes territory wasn’t very vast, his parents couldn’t make use of those benefits. Advanced despite being a small town – faced with such an issue, the Stokes family naturally used their powers of self governance to impose quite a heavy tax on the ‘lower species’, and the lower class couldn’t take it.
“I asked Norman to explain most of the numbers to me, and I got this general impression. From the past few years, the finances of the Stokes house have been in the red. The prime cause is the excessive budget towards military training, “peace keeping”, and pointless extravagance due to my parents wanting to put on airs and doing whatever they want. The reserves from up until the previous generation and the heavy taxation is somewhat compensating for it but even that won’t last long, and the burden on the populace only keeps increasing. Any objections to this opinion?”
“I have awareness that there is a possibility of it heading towards that direction.”
Jake’s emotional subtleties never easily surfaced, but inside, he was on the verge of panicking. He wasn’t able to grasp the intentions of the question at all. Harold himself, being the eldest son of the head, was criticising his parents, the current head. He didn’t know what kind of behavior was correct in this situation. Was it some sort of sting operation? Being at a loss, Jake glanced at Norman. But he was only standing behind Harold with a calm expression and it didn’t seem as though he would respond to Jake’s glance.
“Even though the situation isn’t urgent, as it is, someday, both the Stokes house and the populace won’t be able to maintain their livelihood. Well, for you bastards, I suppose it would be better if the Stokes house collapses.”
“Please don’t say things like that. If anybody heard it, they would misunderstand and think that you are rebelling.”
For the time being, Jake took the safe route. However, from Kishino’s point of view, it wasn’t necessarily a misunderstanding. Although not nearly as much as Harold, Kishino was personally fond of his parents despite his logic, and if the continued existence of the Stokes house was possible to achieve while getting rid of the pure blood bias, he wouldn’t mind becoming the next head. But even so, frankly speaking, it might be easier and better for everyone else if it got crushed like in the original work.
After making sure the ending of the original work plays out, if he even survived, he believed it was his irrefutable duty to do everything in his power to use his knowledge to help advance the world as safely and responsibly as possible. Being nobility would make such a thing much easier. If he could return back to his original world while leaving his memories behind with Harold, he might do that too if he confirmed he wasn’t some kind of copy of Kishino or if time traveled way faster over on Earth, and his parents were dead, but he hadn’t even found a single clue about how that’d be possible and so, he put it aside for now.
“Hn. At any rate, the populace, and particularly, if the agricultural district’s proceeds aren’t increased, the number of farms closing down and emigrants leaving will heavily increase, as they have been for years. It is very clear that in the near future, we will absolutely collapse.”
Jake couldn’t respond. This was because it was true that the agriculture in the Stokes territory had already started declining. Due to imposing a heavy tax rate, since management became strained, people who quit and people who left from the Stokes territory increased. This trend was remarkable with small farmhouses in particular, especially with the various natural disasters that happened lately.
If this flow didn’t stop, revenue from the agricultural district would drop considerably. When that happened, it wasn’t known whether the current head would resolve to loosen the tax rates due to the disadvantage. Jake didn’t believe that that man would take such measures. Conversely, he would probably increase the rates even more and pluck money from wherever it could be plucked.
Has Harold-sama comprehended that…?
This wasn’t the kind of problem which a boy of 10 years old should be asked to rack his brains for. Normally, it would be difficult to comprehend even an explanation of the contents of the financial management report. But, for the boy in front of him, it seemed as though he had the kind of mind that could intuitively analyze the potential repercussions of such information, even if the numbers themselves were naturally beyond him. Jake immediately realized that.
“That is why I called you. I’ll leave the inspection of the agricultural district to you.”
“What do you mean?”
“Zen”
“Yep!”
Responding to Harold’s call, Norman opened the window connected to the balcony, picked up a basket in which a basket of pink vines were resting, and with a thud, placed it in front of Jake. Again, being unable to catch up to the situation, his eyes glazed over.
“Um, This is…?”
“Now, now, without saying anything yet, relish in the combined efforts of my and Harold-sama’s hard work and pick a leaf!”
“You are the one who’s talking too much. Do you want to become fertilizer?”
“Sorry!”
“Harold-sama…..?
If he frankly expressed his thoughts, it would be What the hell? He didn’t know why Harold was cultivating weeds in his room, and he also didn’t know why Harold was lecturing him on its growth pattern.
“This is the pink devil weed. The seeds sprout three leaves in three days under good circumstances, but mine is much different.”
“That’s because they’re the seeds I collected!”
“Why the hell are you proud of digging through some grass?”
Seeing Zen show no sign of respect to Harold, Jake’s innards froze over thinking about the servant woman, but without even rebuking him, Harold just held his temples as though he was amazed by Zen.
“Anyways, this thing here is something I raised with my own method. I haven’t tested it’s edibility or toxicity yet, so I’ll be first to do so, obviously.”
“Harold-sama!?”
Before anyone could stop him, Harold plucked the largest leaf, which had grown about three inches, swished it into a water glass to wash it off, and popped it into his mouth. Everyone panicked as his eyes grew wide, but he raised his hand before quickly chewing and swallowing.
“It’s sweeter and fuller than normal. I’ve been somewhat ill lately, so if there are any bad effects, they’ll show up more obviously in my weakened immune system.”
It seemed even Norman and Zen hadn’t predicted such reckless behavior, and they were staring down nervously at the boy who seemed to have absolute confidence that he was safe. Was that kind of attitude attributed to foolish recklessness, or lack of care for himself, he wondered.
“Oi, bastard. Snap out of it. To implement this farming method, naturally, there will need to be a lot more testing, especially if it helps weeds like this grow quicker. When I finish the minimum amount of experiments, we’ll continue to test it on small patches of land, or even artificial greenhouses to be safer.
Obviously there will be some costs, and depending on the situation, exclusive equipment might be necessary. Since you have thorough knowledge of Stokes’ finances and as an inspection official, you know the situation well, and I judged that you would be suitable.”
Certainly, calculating the necessary expenses if the required materials and their rough quantity were estimated, and depending on the equipment, deciding whether installing them would be acceptable or not, or making proposals to satisfy some conditions, all these could be done if it were Jake. Harold’s point was logical.
The problem was whether spreading the new farming method was profitable or not. Compared to the normal ones, Harold claimed it was remarkably easy to eat the pink devil. It could be guessed that if similar crops went out on the market, the demand would be enormous. But, if the manufacturing cost was equal to or more than the market price, then there would be no meaning in it. There might also be farmhouses which might not be able to endure the initial costs long enough for the deficit to change over to net profit. It was a huge problem for implementation, especially if subsidies were not implemented.
“It seems like you can think.”
Towards Jake, who remained silent even when asked for cooperation, rather than feeling hurt, Harold was in admiration of him. For Kishino, rather than people who would agree for everything due to pressure from their superiors, he needed people who would think about things with their own head like this. Kishino only knew about the parts that were depicted in the game, and general pitfalls for sustainability. People like Jake and Norman, who were likely to notice problems other than the ones he knew, would be extremely dependable hereafter.
“If it could improve the present condition, I would help as much as possible. But…”
“You can’t readily agree since you just heard the talk, and we barely have any research, right? If it were father, he would have shouted at you to not talk back or in the worst case, thrown you into the dungeon.”
Listening to those words, Jake’s body stiffened and thought – As expected, after all, he is the one who burned that family. But for some reason, Norman and Zen smiled wryly. Were they not afraid of what that boy did to the poor servant just last night, or was Jake missing something crucial?
“…Well, what you feel is a natural reaction. If it was readily consented for without even asking for detailed explanations, there would be another Zen, and my anxiety would only drastically increase.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means that you should stop doing as you please and running blindly toward the direction you’re pointed at, and possibly use your head a bit more.”
“You’re awful…”
Ignoring the easily depressed Zen, Harold continues the conversation.
From here, the real talk began.
“Well then, as you wished, let me inform you. This will become the key.”
While showing the bottle of Vigor Potion, he began explaining to Jake.
Kidhino’s plan was like this. The farming method of giving Vigor Potion to the crops, temporarily named as VP farming method. At present, of the five kinds of weeds tested upon, it was confirmed that all of them had fast growth and additionally, for the pink devil, their sweetness had increased.
This wouldn’t be tested in all the fields abruptly, but to start with a small portion, by having some of the farmhouses do a joint trial run. The biggest reason was to disperse the financial risks if it failed. Additionally, this also had implications of rescuing those farmhouses that had a small operation scope where even a single mistake would be fatal, those who had a painful monetary situation, and those who couldn’t spare farmland for the VP farming method.
Even if the VP farming method went well, the growth of disparity between farm houses which have some financial leeway. and the ones that don’t, must be held back as much as possible. Also, after bunching up a few of the farmhouses, it would be ideal if the Life Potions about to be discarded, like most of the ones stored in the Stokes mansion, would be enough to deal with the situation. If this was done, even the initial costs of the experiments shouldn’t be too much, except for the need to buy some new ones just to test the differences.
That day, Kishino had cultivated the various weeds many times, and the undoubtedly greatest feature was that the growth rate of crops grown using the VP farming method was considerably fast. It was at the level of calling it bizarre. He wondered, since the Ivy’s growth rate was several hours compared to a few days, would this create a surplus of food, or would the abnormal nutrition requirements of strong people keep it in check? And how did it grow even though he technically used much less water than it should’ve needed? There was also over harvesting of the materials used to create VP potions to consider.
In the game, if one planted the seeds and stayed overnight in an inn, they could harvest the minimum of the plants the next day, but Kishino expected, and greatly hoped that there wouldn’t be such a monstrous growth rate over here. Anyway, with this already amazing speed, Kishino estimated that even small fields could create large profits.
“Harvesting is possible in just half a day!?”
Due to the shocking fact, even the usually calm Jake involuntarily raised his voice. It was absolutely ground-breaking, it was a discovery that would change the world so much that it could be called revolutionary.
“But, due to that speed, extreme care should be taken to research all possible effects, including those on humans and pests, before it is spread to the public. Even then, we must absolutely be cautious about overdoing it.
“Of course we must research, but why must we keep it limited?”
“If cheap and high-quality goods appeared in large quantities, the market might crash. As a result, there are chances of farmhouses outside the Stokes territory getting crushed.”
Harold continued explaining the following. Even though the VP farming method was a little costlier than the traditional ones, possibly even including the amount of water saved, due to the growth being so fast, a large quantity could obviously be produced in a short amount of time. If the production went on the right track with prices equal to the common ones, while another team of people gradually spread the information around the globe, when production in large quantities became possible, traditional farming might survive the transition.
Plus, if the fact that the one who invented the LP farming method and spread it out was Harold, was exposed through tracking various market prices, there were possibilities of getting resented for destroying various jobs. But if his parents, who were attached to money came to know about it, they would absolutely monopolize the VP farming method. To avoid that, Kishino thought that going small scale and detailed, and researching while limiting the quantity of harvested crops would be a good way to start.
And then, after it had gradually progressed, when there was some financial leeway, it would be possible to test the VP farming method on other types of crops. Though, maybe such a thing should be researched before making it public, since there are always some idiots who won’t wait for science before making a profit.
At present, it was known that with a ratio of 1:1 of water to Life Potion for moon shrooms and lodolins, and also, a ratio of 2:1 with water as seven for pink ivy, it would be easy to grow them, and in the case of the ivy, they would also taste good. Sustainability was very questionable, however.
When ivy was watered only with Vigor Potions, it was at a level where, if it was planted at noon, then it could be harvested in two hours, and it even grew at a visible rate. This was discarded however, since, when Kishino ate it, it tasted worse than even normal ivy.
In other words, depending on the ratio of Life Potion given to the crops, there would be differences in the growth speed as well as the taste. If matters like that were tested on common crops, then the revenue from the agricultural district would also become stable and competitive at a high level. This time’s work could also be said to be laying the groundwork to obtain that source of capital.
“Normally, it would start out by assembling a team of experts, and be ready for the partial public release in about three years, but my parents…”
To do that, he would need to talk to his father. But the image of their parents’ eyes that were blinded by money made Kishino and Harold immediately give up on that. He didn’t want to cause discord among farmhouses and he also didn’t want unnecessary resentment from other nobles. Even if it wasn’t possible to hide it until the end, he wanted to thoroughly research all possible environmental or otherwise hazardous effects, then reconstruct the financial conditions to the extent of improving the financial situation of farmhouses until they were able to procure the required amount of Vigor Potions by themselves.
No matter how much of a headache it was, he’d have to carefully sidestep from his parent’s prying eyes until he took control of the domains’ underground and gained more freedom, which was one of the crossed out priorities for now. It was also the fastest possible change or discovery they could think of, and it heavily complimented one of the worst of the Stokes territory’s economic problems.
Coming back to reality, Harold realized Jake, who was listening to the explanation, was staring open-mouthed. Even Norman had a similar expression, and Zen was half-asleep, unable to keep up with the conversation. Giving up on Zen, Harold wondered what was going on with the expressions of the remaining two.
“Do you bastards have a hobby of exposing such idiotic looking faces?”
“F, forgive me. It was just that I was astonished by the contents of the talks…”
“Though I had heard about it to some extent before, I am in admiration that you have given it so much thought.”
Well, we are amazing after all, but still, admiring the idea of an amateur or two who racked their brains for an hour to simply think ahead, inversely this makes me uneasy…
Kishino’s memories had no expert knowledge in economics or management, but even so, he was a very bright child, Harold could objectively tell. Harold was similarly great, but he couldn’t claim the knowledge of Kishino as his own and be proud of it; rather, he should be praised for understanding those memories and using them to help come up with various plans. For now though, this was only the material for presenting only the general framework, and from here on, it would be setting limits and polishing out the finer details, but no matter how smart the pair were, they were still both amateurs. Seeing the experts in awe at the reasoning of two kids, Harold was now wondering whether the two reliable people were fine or not.
“I’ll say this first; I don’t need a yes-man. If you find any odd points, without exceptions, give proposals. Alright?”
Or else, all the thinking work would take up Harold’s time, which would be annoying. Those feelings went through to Norman and Jake in a different manner.
‘Discovering a ground-breaking cultivation method which could overturn history at that age and yet, having the foresight to come out with a realistic political plan. Besides, not being proud and instead being strict on oneself, with an insatiable desire to improve.’
‘Not even looking at the easily obtainable money or honor, and having the strong feelings and determination to earnestly try to save the people. Where were those feelings when he killed that mother and daughter…?’
–Harold is a person born with the caliber to stand above people.
Intuition close to conviction. Even with that small body, he was strongly emitting the kind of charisma that made one want to follow him.
“Well then, the final confirmation. Jake, will you act as my second mind?”
To that question, even with his doubts about the servant, the intent to shake his head didn’t even remain.
“I will use all the power that I possess for the sake of Harold-sama.”
“Idiot. You’re working for the populace, not me. They are the weak, who wouldn’t even survive if someone higher up doesn’t even do something like this.”
Arrogant until the end but always working for the weak. That way of living was prouder than anyone else’s. And, if Jake looked closely at his words, he was able to discern that Harold might be adopting a new branch ideology of the pure blood belief. If this was true, Jake wasn’t sure what to think of that, but no matter what, Jake already knew in his heart that he would work with blood, sweat, and tears under someone like Harold’s lead.
Looking forward for the next chapters
Thank you!
Existirá ÉricaxHarold?
Oho? I wonder? I guess we’ll see
Thank you for reading it! I would be much less motivated without all this support!
thanks for the chapter