Your Name Was Farmer

A little while later a man came in behind the treasurer, his head bowed and his shoulders hunched right up. He had come only because she had summoned him, and here he was trembling like a criminal, which made her sorrier still.

“I am sorry to have kept you waiting so long.”

Dong-hui said it as kindly as she knew how, to loosen the farmer’s nerves.

“N-no, not at all, my lady. J-just to be called in like this is a g-g-great honor.”

The man’s voice quavered like a goat’s, and he stammered on top of it. Whether that was simply his voice or whether the nerves had done it there was no telling, but it was remarkably effective at stirring up pity.

“Come over here and sit down.”

“N-no, not at all. H-h-how could I ever presume…”

“Your legs must ache. Do not make me say it twice — come over here and sit.”

Unable to tell whether the lord meant it in earnest or was only sounding him out for form’s sake, the farmer wore a face on the edge of tears. By Scrooge’s account he had only just turned thirty, but he had been through such hardship that he looked well past forty.

“Her ladyship has given you a command, has she not? Sit yourself down, now.”

When Scrooge repeated it in a stern voice, the farmer hesitated, then sat down in the chair opposite. Perched with no more than the very edge of his backside on the seat, he looked as though one badly timed sneeze from Dong-hui would send him bolting.

“Sit comfortably. I have a great many things to ask you. It may take a fair while.”

“Yes, my lady.”

Dong-hui watched him with a mellow sort of look as he fidgeted, unable even to raise his head. Never once in her life had she imagined she would see anybody in a fluster on her account, and it left her feeling oddly awkward.

On the Grace estate nobody treated Dong-hui carelessly. That had been true even when Chloe Grace was running about playing the thoughtless little wretch. Still, their reactions, nothing but awkward to her at first, were growing familiar by degrees, and there was something in the old saying after all: the position makes the person.

“They tell me you are spoken of as quite an outstanding farmer.”

“You do me far too much honor.”

The praise had come out of nowhere, and it only wound the farmer tighter.

“Your name is…”

She was on the point of asking what it was when a blue status window came floating up in front of her eyes. It made its entrance flashing away noisily, so flighty about the whole business that the mystery she had felt the first time she saw one was wearing off at a great rate.

Oho! Come up with a splendid name.

Last time, handing out names had won her an expansion of her Activity Radius; this time all it was offering was Hidden Points. The expansion had been far and away the better reward, but this was something all the same. Hidden Points went further than one might think, so it was hardly a loss.

Dong-hui thought for a moment and came up with the name of an actor whose flower-like good looks had made him popular of late.

“Charnwoo?¹”

Rolling her tongue for all she was worth, she had produced a name that ought to sit quite well even in this world.

How about it? It is the name of a seriously handsome actor — do you like it?

Where is the power button?

While she cast about for a power button that was not even visible, the status window wobbled in front of her eyes like Crayon Shin-chan’s backside and vanished.

Let’s not get worked up at a lifeless thing.
Let’s not get dragged along by it.

Dong-hui calmly settled her mind and turned a benevolent smile on the farmer, who was watching her with that guileless face.

“Ah, no, no — I had it confused. Your name was… Farmer, was it not?”

If the architect’s name was Builder, what else would the farmer’s be but Farmer? Dong-hui looked at him with a face full of expectation and raised her eyebrows.

“Yes, that is right.”

Farmer, for his part, was moved that the lord should know the name of a mere commoner, and frightened by it at the same time.

Master Scrooge the butler knew all about me, of course, but that her ladyship should know as well!

Stiff with nerves as he already was, he straightened himself further still and waited for the lord’s next words.

Dong-hui faced him as he blinked those eyes as clear as an ox’s, and waited demurely for her Hidden Points. She resolved that once the points were hers she would put them by in earnest, bit by bit, and expand her Inventory without fail.

It felt rather like being mocked for scoring fifty by a friend who had only scored twenty himself, but eighty-five points was hardly nothing. Dong-hui’s heart grew a good deal more benevolent than it had been a moment before.

“The reason I called you in, Farmer, was to get advice about farming.”

“I beg your pardon? How could you, of a lowly fellow like me…”

Farmer’s body gave a jerk, like a man who had taken an electric shock. With no notion of how he was supposed to take a situation this unreal, he kept stealing glances at poor blameless Scrooge. But Scrooge was no less astonished, and could only look from the lord to the farmer and back wearing the very same expression as Farmer.

“Are you not an expert in farming? So it is only natural that I, who know nothing at all, should get advice from you.”

“Wh-what help could I possibly be to you?”

Perhaps his nerves had loosened a little; there was less trembling in his voice than at first. So the goat’s voice had come of fright after all. He listened keenly, every nerve on edge, as though he would not miss a single word she said.

Dong-hui patted his shoulder with one hand in encouragement and went on.

“I intend to reclaim the wasteland that lies near Grace Castle.”

Farmer’s face turned sour in an instant. Making a living had been so hard that there was no counting the effort he had poured into trying to reclaim that wasteland. He had failed every time, and despaired. What he had thrown away then was not only time and effort but every last scrap of hope.

His expression had changed in a flash, but Dong-hui was not disappointed, because she was sure she could turn his disappointment into hope.

“Of course I know the wasteland is not suited to farming. But there is a way to turn that land into something useful.”

“…Is that true?”

Farmer answered belatedly, as though he could not believe what he had heard. The news was so astonishing that even the voice that had stammered and shaken recovered its composure. He had felt as keenly as anyone for the land around the estate, left lying neglected.

Dong-hui leaned in as though she were about to tell some tremendous secret, and Farmer, sitting across from her, tilted forward along with her. Satisfied with that, she dropped her voice to a conspiratorial whisper, her eyes just as secretive.

“It takes a very special fertilizer. It has been made already, so take it away and see if you cannot turn the wasteland into rich soil.”

Disbelief was written plain on Farmer’s face. How a noble raised in comfort inside a castle all her life, who did not know the first letter of the word farming, had come by a method for making fertilizer was past his understanding.

Seeing his bewildered face, Dong-hui racked her brains for a reason he could accept. She could hardly start explaining status windows and the like to a Farmer with those innocent ox eyes.

“I read it in a book. The library inside Grace Castle has a great many excellent books in it. I came upon it there by chance.”

Farmer nodded slowly, though his head kept tipping a little to one side as he did it. Before he could raise any further doubts, Dong-hui rattled on about the state of the land and the state of the climate, all of it out of the terrain advice, with scraps of English thrown in.

“Farming, you see, is a hard business on eks-peer-ee-unce alone. What it takes is proper tek-nol-o-jee, and skee-yul, and feel-yung, and pash-un, and above all the dreee-um not to giv-up. You know?”

She said it fast, rolling her tongue as though it had been buttered, and Farmer’s eyes went round as he nodded quickly.

“I shall take up my lady’s command and do my utmost to make it so.”

Before he knew it, the eyes Farmer turned on the lord were full of trust. Dong-hui smiled with quiet satisfaction at the way the conversation had turned out. Merely dredging up that many words from her scraps of English had all but given her a headache.

“Take pains over it. If the reclamation succeeds I shall give you a great reward.”

“I shall do my very best.”

Somewhere along the way, Farmer’s voice had filled with confidence.

“The workers who are to help you have already been chosen. I am appointing you the one in overall charge of the reclamation work, so I hope you will do your utmost.”

While Farmer was answering, Anna, who had stepped out for a moment, came in with a tray piled full of food. White steam rose in wisps from the bread made of Dural and from the piping-hot soup.

“Put it here.”

Anna moved the food she had brought onto the table. At the nutty, faintly sweet smell, Farmer swallowed hard before he knew he was doing it. The hunger his nerves had kept him from feeling at all clawed fiercely at his stomach the instant that scent hit him.

Afraid his belly might rumble in front of her ladyship, he wrapped both arms around it and screwed his eyes shut. Better not to take it in with his eyes at all than to stare at food he could not eat. He was thinking how good it would be if he could stop up his nose as well when the lord’s kind voice reached him.

“You will not have had any breakfast, so take this first.”

“My lady…”

Farmer’s great eyes went damp. Feeling awkward somehow, Dong-hui rose from her seat.

“It will be uncomfortable for you with me sitting opposite, so eat in comfort. And if it is not enough, ask for more.”

She said it with a face that made nothing of it. Farmer had been at a loss what to do even with the food in front of him, and in the end a tear fell from those great eyes of his with a plop.

Welcome. First time with a lord this kind?