Preparation

Using Tree Arrangement, I quickly straightened up the orchards that I had been expanding haphazardly.

Honestly, I had always thought I should do something about it, but I had left it alone because it was too much trouble…

Since replanting and moving the trees I had originally planted was troublesome, apples ended up in the middle of the vineyard, and a Water Muscat I had tossed in for fun was stuck in the Wind Muscat orchard—so things were pretty jumbled.

First, I decided to put all of this in order.

I could do the fine partitioning of orchards later, but for now I had to fix the current situation where all kinds of fruit trees were mixed together.

So I began deciding the orchard zones.

Here would be the apple orchard, here the peach orchard, here the persimmon orchard… and so on.

At present, the orchards consisted of seven types: peach, apple, pear, mulberry, persimmon, chestnut, and grape.

Adding the Element Fruit orchard planted together in Simurg-san’s residential area made eight in total.

By far the largest was the vineyard, followed by the peach and apple orchards. The other four were roughly equal in size, with the Element Fruit orchard being the smallest.

The size of the village hadn’t changed, but the number of trees I could plant had increased.

So I arranged the orchards radially, surrounding the village.

Of course, I left plenty of space between the trees so the villagers wouldn’t feel pressured or cramped.

As for the vineyard, I placed it a little away from the village.

Grapevines were low trees, and their vines grew rapidly.

Even if I allowed for width, they would still get in the way of movement, so in the future, when other shrubs could be planted, I would deal with them similarly.

Now that the trees were sorted by type, things looked much cleaner.

At the very least, I managed to fix the vineyard that had been sticking out like a bump, and the overall appearance wasn’t so bad anymore.

Also, Simurg-san’s residential area behind my house was now harder to see, camouflaged by other trees planted around it.

With a Tree Barrier added, it would be completely soundproof.

No matter how many strange cries Simurg-san let out, no one would hear them.

And I too could work on developing Element Fruits without anyone finding out.

“…And so, I decided to make preparations.”

“…Woody, forgive me, but I have absolutely no idea what ‘and so’ is supposed to mean…”

When inspiration struck, it was best to act immediately.

So I decided at once, as preparation for emergencies, to show Nadja—the one who would surely command at the frontlines if anything happened—the Element Fruits I had been developing until now—.