#488 Challenging the Homemade Yggdrasil

After confirming things were okay at Bacchus’ izakaya, I returned to the farm.

That’s when Platy came to me with a request.

“Dear, could you grow Yggdrasil, please?”

“Huh?”

That’s...quite the tall order.

Yggdrasil?

“...As in, here on the farm?”

“Yes!”

Rather than a request, this is more of a reckless demand.

I don’t think Yggdrasil is an easy tree to grow...

I mean, the image I have in mind is that it has already been standing since the beginning of time.

“Did you get that idea from aojiru?”

“Yeah! Yggdrasil Leaves are now an indispensable ingredient in my aojiru blend!”

That doesn’t sound very convincing.

Yggdrasil Leaves are one of the best herbal remedies and can even revive the dead in some cases, but to use them as aojiru ingredients? Really?

Cause like, instead of saying, “Blegh. One more!” it’s more likely people will go, “Are you sure I can have another glass?!”

Yggdrasil Leaves-infused aojiru— an over-the-top luxurious health drink.

Platy’s aojiru blend is selling like hotcakes in the capital.

It cures all kinds of illnesses, after all.

I guess that’s to be expected. We are talking about Yggdrasil Leaves here.

“But you see, at the moment, we get our leaves from Pandemonium, right? That’s why the drink is expensive.”

By the way, we’re saving the profits we make for Junior.

It’s all to raise our child properly.

“But you know, while selling aojiru via Pandemonium, I thought...”

“Yeah?”

“I thought if things are fine the way they are. Many people are getting healthy by drinking our aojiru. But the cost of purchasing Yggdrasil Leaves has increased, so the price has become so high only a few people can afford to buy it...”

Oh? You’re showing me the current price of Yggdrasil Leaves?

...

This is hella expensive.

With this much money, I could splurge at Bacchus’ oden shop without a care in the world.

I’ve been going to the capital more often, so I’ve also come to understand the market situation there.

“Eighty percent of this price is added to the cost of aojiru...!”

“Wow.”

“If we could grow Yggdrasil on our farm and harvest its leaves, we could cut the price of our aojiru in half or less! Isn’t that nice, Dear?! Grow Yggdrasil! Let’s make aojiru more accessible to the masses! For world health!”

Platy has awakened to a mysterious sense of duty.

I want to respond to her kind feelings, but before that, there’s one problem.

“You make it sound so easy to grow the tree...”

Is it even possible?

Isn’t Yggdrasil considered very precious, like no other?

“Does Yggdrasil grow casually like leg hair or something?”

“Knowing you, Dear, I just know you can!”

My wife’s trust in me is unbelievable. Absurd, almost.

“You have done many things that were thought to be impossible! So don’t worry! I know you can do it!”

Platy says so, but there hasn’t been a single impossible thing that I’ve attempted with the intention of making it possible.

That’s why I’m scared that I will fail if I start a project with a biased mindset from the beginning.

Still, I can’t ignore Platy looking at me with such hopeful eyes...  

“Okay, let’s give it a try.”

“Yay!”

...In the end, I gave in.

* * *

Then again, sprouting Yggdrasil, nurturing it, and growing it to the point where its leaves can be harvested, is also farmwork.

I have often made new dishes, but it’s been a long while since I tried something new in farming, so I’m quite excited about this.

“So, how shall we cultivate Yggdrasil?”

If we are going to sprout and grow it, we first need something like a seed or Yggdrasil sapling. 

That is, if there is such a thing. Where could we get that, I wonder?

“You have your power, don’t you? Can’t you just grow one out of nothing? Like baaam!” says Platy indifferently.

She must be referring to the Hand of Supremacy.  

This ability, a literal divine gift, draws out more than 10% of the potential of anything I touch.

With its over-the-top effects, I can become a master swordsman if I hold a sword or a master chef if I hold a knife. 

Not only that, but if I touch the soil, I could unleash its maximum potential and make seeds sprout that had not even been sown, making it possible to cultivate crops.

I can say that it is thanks to this ability that I can continue living on a farm in another world.

I guess Platy expects to make Yggdrasil sprout with the Hand of Supremacy.

I didn’t have any other idea in mind, so I decided to give it a try.

Aaaand it was impossible.

I couldn’t feel the life in the soil that I usually felt when touching the ground.

In short, not even my ability could make Yggdrasil sprout out of nowhere...!

“As expected, Yggdrasil is leaaaagues apart from normal crops...”

“Looks like we’ll have to come up with another way, huh.”

That’s what I’m talking about, Platy.

If something doesn’t work out the way you want it to the first time, you immediately take the next step.

I’ll think of something too.

First, our earlier experiment proves that growing Yggdrasil entirely from scratch would be impossible. 

I wish I have at least some clue to start with, make it sprout, and... Nah, I doubt it’ll work that easily. 

“I have something that might be a clue,” says Platy. “The leaves!”

Would you look at that, she already has leaves from the original Yggdrasil ready.

She bought them from Pandemonium to be used as an ingredient for aojiru.

“If we cultivate the leaves, maybe Yggdrasil will start sprouting...No. That’s just impossible.”

If it were a seed, trunk, or even a twig, it could be grafted onto another tree and make it grow.

Figuratively speaking, leaves are like human hair; once they grow, they just fall off.

“Come on. It’s impossible to cultivate something from a leaf.”

“You’ll never know. Remember Zoth Syra, Dear?” 

“Hm?” 

Zoth Syra is a member of the Six Witches and a particularly vicious witch.

She majors in creating homunculi, artificial life forms considered taboo by the laws of nature, using potions.

There’s no way I’d forget such a person, but why mention her name now?

“I was able to steal some of her skills through our collab research. I feel bad relying on you all the time, so I decided to see how far I can go with my own hands.”

“What do you mean?”

“I have successfully extracted Yggdrasil’s genes by applying Zoth Syra’s research with the leaf as the base! From there, we can create a homunculus Yggdrasil!”  

“Homunculus Yggdrasil?!”

That sounds unethical and problematic in so many ways!

Is this okay? Aren’t we crossing the line?!

“We already have homunculus horses with us, so it’s a little late for that, isn’t it? The problem is what to combine the extracted genes with. Naturally, the genes alone will not be enough to make it grow huge, so we need a host—a synthetic partner.”

So, our next step is to find that partner.

We decided that another tree would be the best candidate for the synthesis, so we went to the dungeon orchard and searched for a good match.

With the help of the tree spirits, the selection process went smoothly, and we found the tree that would be the easiest to synthesize with Yggdrasil—the Sakura tree.