Unorthodox Farming: Chapter 25 (Patreon)

Chapter 25

The Spirit of a Farmer

Winslow stared at me hungrily while eating a sausage bigger than any bratwurst I’d ever seen, breaking every unspoken male rule for eating something phallic-shaped at once. He hadn’t sliced it up neatly, taking it a piece at a time. No, he was eating it whole, holding the long length of meat in his hand so he could take massive bites from it. Grease and juices stained his chin as he chewed at me like an old Billy goat at cud.

Being invited to a breakfast meeting with Winslow was supposed to be a great honour, but if this was how he started all his meetings, I had to assume that great honour was some sort of inside joke. I wasn’t sure how to react. The extravagant dining hall was packed with small tables which only seated two, and every other table was occupied by members of his extended family. None of them reacted to his odd behaviour, though a few of the older ones had rolled their eyes.

Since I wasn’t sure what to do, I did my best not to meet his gaze, pretending I was fascinated by his family’s cutlery. It was a nice work. Very refined. Yes, that was the word I was looking for. Refined. The mansion and everything around me contained all the refinement Winslow lacked.

When he arrived at my presentation in his farmer overalls, I’d assumed he was making some sort of statement. However, he was still wearing them, and now that I was sitting across from him, I could tell they were as much a part of him as the bald patch on top of his head. He wasn’t making a statement. He was being himself, but I wasn’t sure what that meant.

I finally gave up pretending to be interested in my silverware. “What can I do for you, Landduke Winslow?”

Winslow had the decency to finish chewing before replying, but he didn’t put down his sausage. “You need a farmwife. And I am in the market to sell one. One of my great-great-granddaughters turns 25 in a year. She’s a talented girl, already holds a second class, has earned the farmer helpmeet promotion, and has access to all sorts of special promotions that could be useful to someone with a farm that specialises in quality. She’s expected to fetch more than 5,000 crowns a year in her marriage contract. What do you say?”

I had to think through his statements twice to understand what he meant. Ranic had explained the helpmeet promotion a long time ago. It existed in almost every class in some form or another, allowing two people to marry and share promotions. The promotion had all sorts of requirements you had to live by in order to maintain it, but those were all considered worth the cost.

Her promotions would become my promotions. If we doubled up on anything, the promotion would default to the highest leveled. It was considered a necessary part of business in many classes.

“I’m not ready to settle down,” I replied diplomatically.

He took another bite of the sausage, spreading more grease on his chin. “Who’s talking about settling down? You marry her for a decade, paying her annual fee, and when the decade child requirement comes into effect, the contract breaks, and you go back to your lives. It’s business.”

“This won’t gain you any special treatment. The terms for my method are non-negotiable.”

Winslow snorted and tossed the rest of his sausage onto his plate. He swiped his napkin from the table and began wiping his hands and mouth clean. “I’m 382 years old next month and the only farmer through their eighth threshold. Your method was the most interesting thing I’ve seen in decades, so I’m not trying to renegotiate.” He tossed his napkin on his plate. “You’ve got the smell of change on you. I’m old enough to know the scent. This won’t be the only marvel I see out of you before I’m gone. I’ll be watching you with every resource I have, and if you marry my great-great-granddaughter, more the better. It means I hear about it before my competition.”

“You sound a little ruthless.”

He lost any trace of humour, giving a very intense look.

“Life is ruthless. When I was your age, Lunar was starving. King toads had decimated the production classes almost to the point of no return. It got so bad that farmers made up only a quarter of the population, instead of half. The craftsmen couldn’t get resources because the production classes were all dead, so equipment became rarer. Warriors and adventurers went unequipped and hungry, leading to higher fatality rates and monster attacks on everyone else. Living through that nightmare taught me you need to be ruthless to keep life at bay, because if life had its way, we’d all be starving and running from monsters, thanking our luck that another weaker bastard was slower than us.”  

“That got dark fast.”

Winslow gave a single dry chuckle and shook his head. “My children tell me I’m a pessimist. But that ain’t true. Pessimism is only pessimism if you haven’t experienced something to justify your worldview. So, I’m an old man with a long memory, who is trying to keep fools from repeating history they don’t understand.” He nodded to his family spread throughout the dining hall. “Look at them. Every one of them has their own wealth. Every one of them has their own empire. But do you know what they also have? They also have the ability to run the most productive farm a human is capable of running. That’s what I’ve built this family on. If monsters decimated my home again, they can ensure that history never repeats itself. This is my legacy. And it is a legacy that I saw you make irrelevant in an afternoon.”

There was a fair amount of scepticism in my gaze. “Do you want me to apologise for that, because I’m not going to?”

Being able to raise high-level farmers quickly was a blessing, not a curse, and I refused to see the situation any differently.

“Bah, I don’t care that you’ve ended my legacy. I care that you haven’t taken yours seriously. Your contract was a joke. You offered too much and asked for too little. You make other men rich and expect they will be as kind. None of these people you helped got to where they are with kindness. They got to where they are-”

“Because they were ruthless,” I finished, finally understanding what he meant. “They aren’t going to do what I would have done with my method.”

He slammed his fist on the table. “No, they won’t. They are going to scheme. Make wealth and squander it. I’m aware of your project with the farmers in your kingdom. I’m aware of what you are trying to do.”

“What am I trying to do?”

I needed to see how good his spies were. I was getting more concerned by the minute. Winslow still hadn’t signed the contract or taken the oath, claiming he wanted this meeting first. I was beginning to get the feeling that he might be able to copy my method without me, and wanted to rub it in my face.

Winslow smiled. “You are trying to embody the spirit of the farmer.”

I burst out laughing. His declaration was too funny to take seriously.

Winslow scowled at me.

My laughter slowly petered out as his scowl grew. “If you knew me better, you would know that embodying the spirit of a farmer is about the last thing I am trying to do.”

Winslow dropped the scowl and raised an eyebrow. “The spirit of the farmer is the spirit of collective growth. It is an attitude of moving forward together, of not leaving others behind. It is a mindset of success through teamwork and a sharing of the harvest. The farmer in you sees those farmers down south with no levels or prospects, and has you looking to your pockets to see if you have some to spare. You feel the need to give everyone the same quality of life that you have built for yourself because you’ve created a situation where that is possible.”

It was like he’d tossed a bucket of cold water on me. It sounded too close to my own feelings for me to deny his claims. “Ah, give me a moment. I’m having trouble finding a reasonable way to disagree.”

Winslow gave another dry chuckle. “Our first class is our most influential, Incarnate Arnold. It is why I do not allow my family to inherit unless they are born farmers. It moulds their path, making them better people than they might otherwise have been. You have the farmer’s spirit in you. Do not try to fight it, but do not make another mistake like you did the other night. You should have stipulated that you wanted 10% of the farmer experience we earn, so you could give the other 5% away, like you have in your own kingdom. Instead, you decided to trust businessmen that they would do the right thing in good faith.”

“So will you do that?”

He snorted. “What do you think?”

My heart sank a little. “You’re too ruthless for it.”

He nodded. “You had a chance to force me not to be. But you chose the soft approach. Be wiser next time.”

“Why are you telling me this?”        

“Because it’s not our inferiors who force us to grow, but our competition, and I’m looking forward to competing with you. My family and I will take sign your contracts and give our oaths by the end of the day.”

I began to smile as relief washed through me. “In that case, I think you should know something. My banker believes we’ll only be able to sell 2% of the experience you generate through my method. The other 3% is already set aside to help those in need.”

Winslow threw his head back and laughed. “So, you are a little ruthless.”  

***

Ranic groaned and facepalmed as I recounted my meeting with Winslow, which concerned me, because he normally couldn’t go so long without snickering over my misunderstanding. This had to be a serious problem for him to overcome my incarnate title. I stopped laughing at the ridiculousness of Winslow’s offer, wondering what I’d done wrong.

“Have I made a mistake?”

Ranic sighed. “That depends. Did you turn him down?”

“Of course I did.”

Ranic groaned again. “Do you have any idea how hard it is to marry into that family? Every member has dozens of suitors vying for their hand. How much was she expected to fetch in fees?”     

“5,000 crowns a year.”

Ranic went white and muttered under his breath. “She must be a prodigy.”

“I’m not forcing some poor woman into a loveless marriage to make my farm better, Ranic.”

Ranic groaned again. “I suppose I have no one to blame but myself. It’s my job to inform you of these things.”

“Inform me about what?”

Ranic leaned back, resting his arm over the back of the couch, in the sitting room of his hotel suite. “Winslow’s family all have arranged marriages. It’s how they’ve amassed so much wealth so young. No one will be forcing her. They use their marriage to finance their first farm. With 50,000 crowns behind her, she will be able to loan enough money to purchase a farm triple the size of the one you currently have. In a hundred years, she’ll be worth several million crowns. You’ll be a stepping stone for her.”

I rolled my eyes. “I don’t care. I’m not getting married, Ranic. I’m not going to go through a decade of celibacy for my farm. You can’t make me.”

Ranic chuckled. “Arnold, you have more trouble keeping women out of your bedroom than you do getting them in. Unless she’s in love, I highly doubt celibacy is something you are going to have to worry about.”

“It’s still not happening.”

***

A week later, Fitz accepted a file from one of his assistants as we left the oath binder’s office, where we had witnessed the heads of the Wildland Consortium take their oaths. They had argued over some of the wording, hoping to get a better deal, but caved the moment the last of Winslow’s family finished taking their oaths. They wanted a better deal, but not at the expense of being behind their competition.

It was early evening, and streetlamps were burning on every corner. The city was quiet and peaceful. People had gone home for the day. Only a few wagons were on the streets as businesses stocked up for the next day’s trade.

The past week had been a whirlwind of change.

In the coming months, my trap method would be rolled out across Radian. Within a year, every kingdom would be using it. The money the franchise would generate was staggering.

And I didn’t have to do a thing.

No meetings with nobles, craftsmen, or farmers, convincing them that my method was safe. No sourcing materials for traps. No finding transport. No thousands of moving parts I had to oversee. No endless worries about not moving fast enough.

I could slow down.

I could stand still.

I could finally live my life.   

“Ah, here it is,” Fitz said, as my bodyguards moved into position. “All parties have agreed to relocate one trapsmith from their kingdom to Blackwood for each one we train until Adoya’s house of scholars reaches level 10. They want us to train roughly six hundred trapsmiths, so you should expect an equal number of citizens joining Blackwood.”

I snapped out of my musing. “That’s well beyond Adoya’s ability to educate with so few trapsmith scholars.”

“We can refuse, but I doubt they will be as cooperative in the future.”

“See if you can convince foreign trapsmith scholars to move here in the short term, then.”

“I’ve already sent offers. I’m just waiting to hear back.”

“Good. How are we doing on oaths?”

“We’ve only got a few dozen holdouts, but none of them represents parties that will be capable of competing with us unless they find substantial backing, which is unlikely now that the Wildland Consortium has also signed on. Even if they do, it is unlikely they will be operational quickly enough to compete in a meaningful way.”

“So, we’ve achieved all our goals?”

Fitz smiled. “It would appear so, sir.”

“Am I done?”

Fitz nodded. “As of this moment, you are no longer needed for overseeing your franchise or anything else related to your trap method.”

I stopped walking and offered Fitz my hand. “Congratulations on your promotion.”

Fitz took my hand, chocking up a little as he shook. “It means a lot to me that you would let me oversee the administration of your business here.”

“You are more than qualified for the job.”

“I know which is why it means so much to me that you have given me a position that lets me be close to my wife, rather than one that will allow you to fully utilise my talents.”

“There is more to life than work, Fitz. But who knows, perhaps your wife will come around to living in Blackwood when we finish rebuilding.”

Fitz gave a shaky smile that lacked any hint of confidence. “Perhaps we can broach the subject when Blackwood gains a teleportation circle.”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

Fitz frowned. “From anyone else, I would consider turning a village into a city a boastful joke, but you’re being serious, aren’t you?”

I smiled back. “If there is one thing your wife and I have in common, it’s that village life isn’t for us.”