#408 Even More Spring

Spring is here. The time to become active again.

Spring, when the snow melts, the earth reveals itself, and farmwork starts.

The earth spirits emerge from the ground after their winter hibernation.

“Long time no see!”

“Long time no see-saw!”

“We are in your care this year!”

“Happy New Year!”

Cheerful children herald the arrival of spring.

The festivals are over, so now’s the time to get down to plowing the dirt once again!

“Let’s do our best as always, everyone.”

Since it’s a time of transition, I gather everyone on the farm and hold a ceremony to mark the occasion.

Seeing all of them like this reminds me that we’ve grown into quite a large family.

There must be three to four hundred people now.

Anyway, we all hyped each other by chanting hip hip-hurrah out loud, then got to work.

First, Gobukichi’s team cut at the speed of a lawn mower the weeds that had stubbornly grown even under the snow.

After the orcs tilled the soil, I touched the ground and wished for sprouts to grow.

“May you grow healthily.”

Now, we don’t have to start from sowing seeds.

This is all thanks to my ability, the Hand of Supremacy.

The power to draw out the maximum potential of whatever I touch.

For example, it makes the soil perform beyond its limits and sprout seeds that were never sown.

As such, my ability allows me to grow crops that don’t exist in this fantasy world.

Crops from my world, which have become delectable through years of selective breeding.

Their taste is considered exquisite here and is one of the reasons the farm expo and Orkubo’s Castle were so successful.

We served farm-made food at those events.

Butttt, they were mostly beans and flour.

After that, I sprinkled the mermaids’ hyper fertilizer and prayed for their steady growth.

We should be seeing sprouts tomorrow.

The fertilizer made from the fish monsters makes the crops grow ridiculously fast.

They grow faster and taste better.

That’s why we are proud to say that our farm’s crops are the best in the world.

Alas, it is not without its flaws.

Our crops don’t have fertile seeds.

They won’t grow even if you plant them.

When you try to dig them up, you won’t find any trace of the seed. It’s as if they decomposed quickly. 

Perhaps these pseudo-crops produced by the Hand of Supremacy thrive and are treated in a way that does not impact the ecosystem.

As a result, the crops we produce are only good for one harvest.

Hence, we started planting using my ability.

Not wanting to stay that way forever, a new experiment is underway—importing seeds unique to this world from outside and planting them.

Letasreit and Horkosfon, who have ambitions to dominate the world with beans, are the pioneers of this. They’re not satisfied with the Hand of Supremacy’s produce, which lasts only one generation. 

They believe they can cover the world with beans only if they reproduce and flourish. 

That’s why we ordered some indigenous beans and grew them alongside our legumes.

By the way, since the beans are also seeds, they are likely to be nullified by my ability.

They don’t seem to taste any differently than regular beans, though.

It’s weird.

But Letasreit, the one growing indigenous beans, is facing problems, too.

“They don’t taste much...!” she says.

Apparently, it seems that the crops of this world aren’t as tasty as our selectively bred crops.

“I need the taste of the beans that we grow for me to attract the masses! I guess there are two sides to everything...”

“Let’s keep trying, Letasreit.”

I want to support this optimistic duo, you see.

So I gave them a hint, saying that if they cross good beans together, they can make even better beans.

The earnest girls followed my idea and began to crossbreed beans.

This all happened last year.

We have hyper fish fertilizer, so the results of the crossbreeding were immediately apparent.

When spring came...

“Hey, Saint! Lookie!!!”

She came to show me the results of their research.

“I found out some interesting things! For some reason, when you cross a variety that produces round beans with wrinkled beans, the odds of producing round beans are higher! It’s not 50-50!”

“It’s a wonder, isn’t it, Letasreit?”

...They have become the very first discoverers of Mendel’s law in this world.

I leave them to discover the laws of dominant-recessive on their own.

Other than this, another youthful scene would be...

The students, I guess?

They’re studying on our farm to become future leaders of their respective nations.

...Love is always in the air with them once spring is here.

This pink hue becomes even more saturated around this time.

I mean, it’s spring, after all.

“Hey, Ritheseus, do you love me?”

“I-I do?”

“Ask me if you love me too.”

“D-Do you love me, Eryngear?”

“Don’t get cocky, punk! There’s no way that’d happen!”

“It’s not fair of you to go all tsun-tsun on me like this...”

“Oh, I was joking! I love you!!!”

The flowers of love are blooming profusely.

Well, all creatures are born to fall in love in the first place, and this is their time to do just that.

So I don’t mind in that aspect, but this intensity is too much for me.

“I hope disasters fall upon these lovebirds!!!”

At last, some began to lose their sanity due to the extreme passion.

It’s Puffer, the Witch of the Bitter Cold.

She is one of the Six Witches and is skilled in making the world’s finest potions.

“They’re younger than me, yet they managed to experience happiness before I did! Unforgivable! Songokufon! Blow them and this sappy atmosphere all together!!!”

“Gotcha, sis.”

I hurriedly seized Songokufon, the angel who had come to visit, before she could fire her mana cannons.

“Ah!!! Stop, stop, stop! What are you doing, Puffer?! And you, too, Songokufon! You shouldn’t be obeying everything she says, especially when she’s like this!”

“But... But... They get to be lovey-dovey with each other when I’m not even married yet! The frustration makes me want to blast them off!”

But aren’t you engaged?

And that, too, to Arowana, the prince of the Mermaid Kingdom. 

You’re his future wife, which means you’ll be the mermaid queen.

“Why are you jealous of others when you have a great life planned ahead of you?”

“There is a difference between an engagement and a marriage! And in our case, we’re long-distance and only see each other once in a while, which makes it even more frustrating to the point of wanting to sabotage other people’s happiness!!!”

You say “once in a while,” but wasn’t he here just yesterday? 

And he said he’d come again tomorrow.

“Ahhh! I’ve had it! I want to get married I want to get married I want to get marriedddd! I want to see him every day, every minute, every seconddddddd!!!”

“Calm down, sis. We can drink to drown yer sorrows if you want.”

Supported by Songokufon, Puffer went to Bacchus’ brewery.

Bet she’ll be binge drinking in broad daylight today.

“This isn’t looking good...”

“Ah, Platy.”

Before I knew it, Platy was standing next to me with Junior in her arms.

“I just laughed and watched her situation for a while, but I’m getting tired of it. I can’t ever tease her now when she looks that pitiful.”

Not quite sure if that’s supposed to be a compassionate or a savage comment.

“I thought my brother could marry her because he had won the competition twice in a row, but even so, Mother wouldn’t allow it.”

“I think she gave more of a vague answer than a direct disapproval...”

“I was going to let it go on as long as I could get a laugh out of it, but things got boring sooner than I thought. It’s time I step in and do something for her.”

Well, I, too, would like to support their relationship.

Thus, I decided on my goal for this year: get Prince Arowana and Puffer married.