Now that he mentioned it, I remembered something. After I had given the bioplant seeds to the village and Father cleaned up my mistake, the once dense forest around the village had been turned by and large into farms. Father told me later that he had been improving and taming the bioplants. At the time, I knew he had done a good job, but I hadn’t realized just how dangerous the bioplants started off as.
But if we were going to give the seeds to the villagers right away, then they wouldn’t have to go through nearly as much refinement as in the first go-around. If they slacked off and didn’t care for them, the bioplants might grow out of control and ruin everything. Those extraordinary plants would pose a real test to anyone growing them. You had to take them seriously, I say. They could even end up threatening other villages.
But as long as they were managed properly, there shouldn’t be any problem.
Father seemed to be thinking about just the right way to spread the seeds around. We couldn’t just let everyone have them.
I did remember Father carefully managing the quality of the soil in the farms back in his village. He took charge of a bunch of monsters to keep the earth in good shape.
“We don’t want anyone screaming, ‘At first everything was fine, but then thanks to the Shield Hero, our village was destroyed!’ We really need to decide carefully who we give the seeds to.”
While he was talking, Father was making the modifications to the seeds.
“Each individual we sell to needs to take full responsibility,” Father said. “Since we’re preparing them so that they don’t just destroy the land where they’re planted, they’ll be fine unless the people don’t take care of them. We need to remind the people that they could literally be killed by the plants if they don’t.”
Listening to the conversation was starting to make me feel guilty. If I had known how dangerous they were, I would’ve never given the seeds to the villagers in the first go-around. But Father managed to clean up after me then, as well. The Church of the Three Heroes would be all too happy to blame it on us if something went wrong. But Father seemed to be keeping that in mind, so I decided to stop worrying about it.
“Done,” Father said, standing up. “These are safe enough to make food and sell. So we’ll use your land to test them out, Elena. Thanks.”
“Oink oink.”
“Yep. If all goes well, we’ll make plenty of money out of it.”
With that, our next plan continued moving apace.
After a while, we arrived at a town in Lazy Pig’s family’s territory.
But wait—this town—I knew it!
This meant that Lazy Pig was one of my companions in the first round. That’s right—Elena!
I had known that for some reason, Father always called Lazy Pig Elena, but only now did I realize that that was because Elena was the pig’s real name! I would have never guessed!
And this was the very town in which I entrusted a store to that traitor, I say! So Lazy Pig was the very same person as that vile traitor!
If anything went wrong, she was bound to betray us again. Was there some way that I could kill her off without Father noticing?
Or perhaps the smarter move would be to ensure that we didn’t get into the same circumstances that led her to betray us. She was reasonably powerful, after all.
In our peddling, the evacuation during the wave, bioplant cultivation, and more, she has continuously been helpful to Father. She has some talents that I am unable to offer to him. It would be unfortunate to simply kill her.
But perhaps she didn’t want to betray Father in particular. The events of the first go-around suggested that.
I remembered Father telling me that in the first go-around, he was accompanied by all sorts of unsavory characters, including monster trainers and thieves. So long as it benefitted everyone involved, he made the partnerships work.
I could take the same perspective with Elena. And if things took a turn for the worse, all I had to do was cut her down.
Perhaps there were some advantages to working alongside these kinds of people. Of course, so long as they were competent.
So I decided to continue to allow Elena to serve Father. If she betrayed us, I was prepared to execute her on the spot.
Her betrayal happened shortly after the battle against the Spirit Tortoise. I still trusted Lazy Pig at the time and had gone to meet up with her. I remembered Father had used Elena to catch me in a trap so he could talk to me, but I escaped with Portal Spear.
In the meantime, after arriving in Lazy Pig’s domain, we went into a store and Lazy Pig went straight to the back, discussing something or other with the owner. Afterward, we went to her family mansion and got permission to use some of their farmland. At least that’s what Father told me.
After Father planted the seeds, they quickly sprouted and grew. Soon enough, they sprouted big red fruit, completing stage one of our plan.
Laborers employed by Lazy Pig’s family harvested the fruit and loaded it into our carriage.
“Elena said that she can go around selling to the local merchants here,” Father told me. He turned back to Lazy Pig. “I think it’ll be fine, but we can’t be too careful.”
“Oink oink.” Lazy Pig issued a command to the workers, and we set out on our journey to sell food around Melromarc. And some medicine too.
The villages in southwest Melromarc in particular were stricken by poverty, so we sold tons of food there. In fact, rather than selling, Father ended up giving it away free of charge or for promises to be paid back later.
As a result, instead of money, we started to accumulate all sorts of random objects. That meant a heavier carriage, which Yuki and Kou very much enjoyed.
Along the way, Luna grew up quickly and turned into her filolial queen form before we knew it. Rather than her original pure-navy shading, she ended up having a white coat with navy mixed in. It was a combination reminiscent of only Filo-tan, I say, and she was about to reach her angel form too!
“Luna-chan, I can’t wait for you to become an angel, I say!”
And upon my request, Luna instantly transformed into her angel form.
“Motoyasu, we’re in the middle of a town!” Father protested.
Oho? What was the problem? For some reason Father was covering up Luna with a towel and directing her back into the carriage.