I opened my eyes one morning to find all thirty members of the Farm Brigade kneeling in two neat lines next to the bed.
Nope. Don’t do that. Seriously, stop it, or I’m gonna start thinking you’re actually trying to scare the crap out of me. You’re... You’re not bullying me, right? Right?
I stared at the Farm Brigade. Thirty eyes stared back at me. Seriously, quit it.
I somehow managed to find the nerve to get out of bed, at which point I was immediately led to the field.
Oh, it must be harvest time. Don’t know why all of you needed to come fetch me, though. Or why you were kneeling like you were at a tea ceremony.
The Farm Brigade were definitely the most mysterious variety of dolls I’d made.
I’d never grown vegetables before, but even I could tell that we’d grown a bumper crop. Well, all I’d done was sow the seeds and water them once—the rest was all thanks to the Farm Brigade and the itsy-bitsy insects. I hadn’t even realized they were anywhere near ready to harvest.
I decided to start with the more familiar-looking vegetables, of which there were ten.
They look edible enough. Doesn’t mean they’ll taste any good. Plus, some of them might not even be edible in the first place— Hang on a minute. What...?
There was a new building beside the field—built without my knowledge, as usual—which turned out to house all the farming tools. The One Eyes had clearly struck again, though I had absolutely no idea as to when they’d built it. As always, I chose to ignore it.
Harvest time.
Out of the ten familiar-looking vegetables, seven were ripe enough for harvesting today, as per the Farm Brigade’s gestural explanations. Despite the size of the harvest, the work didn’t take long at all—again, mostly thanks to everyone but me.
Harvest time: check. Sampling time: go.
I poured a small amount of water into a large stone pot and placed a raised stone plate inside, then topped it with one of each variety of vegetable. After covering the pot with another stone plate to serve as a lid, I slowly began heating the pot with magic. The result, hopefully, would be simple, steamed vegetables, which would allow me to verify the taste—and edibility—of each variety.
A short while later, a tantalizing scent wafted through the air when I lifted the lid and used Ascend to lift the contents out. First, I carefully inspected each vegetable for any worrying changes—all clear.
Let’s begin. First up, we have...a potato. Tastes just like one anyway.
Specimen number two had a lovely, fluffy texture but was essentially tasteless.
Shame.
Vegetable number three was mildly sweet with a somewhat sticky texture.
Sweet potato.
The fourth variety I tried was juicy and a little crisp.
Kind of like daikon radish.
I found another of the vegetables and tried it raw. Yum.
Contestant number five featured viscous, pulpy flesh, reminding me of taro.
Number six, while sweet, had an incredibly bitter aftertaste.
Rejected.
Finally, the seventh vegetable—it had a syrupy, pulpy texture and didn’t taste like any vegetable I’d tried before, but it was delicious nonetheless.
I teleported all but the second and sixth varieties into the Chronostasis rooms, moving the remaining vegetables into a temporary storage room on the first floor. Then, I got to work cooking.
Dinner that evening was a buffet of vegetables and meat. The animals seemed bewildered by the spread at first, but soon enough, they each found one or two varieties they seemed to enjoy. Watching everyone dig in brought a smile to my face.
The next morning, a single Farm Brigade doll waited beside my bed. I followed it to the field to find the ants and spiders eagerly tilling the newly emptied soil.
Guess they really did enjoy their veggies.
Ten days later, we harvested the last of the initial crop.
First, there were the tubers. There were seven varieties of potatoesque vegetables, which differed greatly in texture and taste; three types of radish-like crops, which had different sizes and levels of sweetness; one (very sweet) sweet-potatoish tuber; and two varieties of something like taro.
We also harvested some non-tuber vegetables: three that looked and tasted like pumpkins, of which one variety was ridiculously large; one that smelled like ginger, and four types of oniony vegetables. Beyond that, there were thirteen more types that were completely unfamiliar, and I had absolutely no idea how to classify. They were all quite tasty, though.
All in all, we’d ended up with a bumper crop of thirty-four types of vegetables. I left ten of each variety by the field to turn back into seeds later and teleported the rest into the Chronostasis rooms to be sorted.
In the end, four types didn’t pass my taste test, three of which were either extremely bitter or downright tasted weird. All the rejected vegetables got moved into the temporary storage room for turning into fertilizer later.
Any that were overly sweet or acidic, or downright flavorless—but not inedible—were stored in a separate Chronostasis room. Hopefully, I’d be able to turn them into seasonings. I was starting to get sick of fish sauce.
I’d tried my best to help with the harvest, and apparently, it had shown. I hadn’t been escorted out of the field at any point, at least, which I decided meant I’d succeeded in making myself useful.
It was hard work, but it was fun. Maybe they’ll let me help with the watering next time too...