The S-Classes That I Raised

Chapter 657: Farming Is the Foundation of the World (2)

While Liette plowed the field, we brought over some intact trees from across the stream and built our own rest hut. We roughly carved the wood into shape and then used the system to finish it. New recruits or other Transcendents could conjure all kinds of things out of thin air in an empty space, but even with materials on hand and beginner–level system assistance, it wasn’t easy for me.

Still, we ended up with a decent little pavilion. Kind of proud of that, honestly.

“This feels like playing a tycoon game!”

“Game?”

“I didn’t get to play them much, though. Obviously I didn’t have a computer, and they wouldn’t even let me change my phone.”

“But now I’ve got the latest model!” Yerim said, grinning. A phone is a huge deal for kids these days.

Yerim put on her work gloves first, then Yuhyun and Noah pulled theirs on too. They were just sturdy gloves with no special effects, but it felt wrong not to wear them.

‘Wonder what Seong Hyunjae’s side is doing.’

They didn’t have a full dragonization skill or anything, so they’d have to plow by hand. I checked the window and saw the damp, dark soil and—

“Hey! Seong Hyunjae!”

Director Song was running with a yoke slung over his shoulders. The one holding the plow attached to the yoke was that bastard, Seong Hyunjae.

“What the hell are you doing! Is Director Song an ox to you?!”

His strength was turning over the earth at an incredible speed, doing the work of ten oxen at least, but Director Song was still human. Seong Hyunjae glanced toward my window and smiled leisurely. He’d even put on a straw hat while I wasn’t looking. Why not go all the way and wear some granny work pants too. Why are the pants still dress slacks?

And he wasn’t even holding the plow normally; he was standing on the blade like he was water–skiing.

“You pull it, you!”

[I’m in charge of fertilizer.]

The shameless jerk scattered electricity just before the plow blade hit a tree root, burning it black and wiping it out. Then a pretty big rock shattered as well. Thanks to that, the field was being plowed flat and even.

Seeing that, he really was the right one to handle the plow, but still!

[Hyah, hyah.]

“Hey!”

[Mr. Song–Ox, Mr. Han Yujin is worried about you.]

[…I’m fine.]

“Oh no, Director Song! How did you end up with such a terrible master – I mean, team leader!”

In no time, Director Song reached the end of the field and slowed to turn around. That bastard Seong Hyunjae chimed in like he’d been waiting.

[Whoa, whoa.]

[…]

“Why you–!”

Watching Director Song quietly do the plowing made the urge to grab Seong Hyunjae by the collar crash over me like a storm.

“Switch places, switch! You’re the evil calf, we should ring your neck and put a nose ring on you!”

[As you can see, my rear is quite smooth, so I’ll pass.]

I really wanted to kick him, seriously. I’d probably just twist my own ankle, though. Wondering what the other three were doing, I checked the view. Hyunah, Mari, and Samir were huddled in front of their hut sorting seeds.

Oh, we needed to get ready to sow too.

“Let’s see, is this watermelon?”

I hurried to check the piles of seeds. The picture on the bag looked like a watermelon, but the name written underneath was different.

[590B ? Urot

Cultivation period approx. 30 days

Growth temperature 13~22℃

Water once every 5–7 days

Fruit size may be smaller if nutrients are insufficient]

Another message window popped up.

[The more variety in harvested crops, the higher your score!]

Thirty days meant it would fully grow in about four hours. We’d been given a total of sixteen hours, with a week per hour. So a day was a little over eight minutes. At least this one only needed water once per hour. Nutrients would be plentiful enough.

[Time remaining: 15 hours 37 minutes]

[Temperature: 17℃]

Time and temperature appeared as well. I checked the other seed bags too.

“Whoa, this one needs water once every three days. Not too much, not too little…”

In the end, if we wanted to grow multiple crops at once, we couldn’t just make it rain; we’d have to haul water ourselves.

“Don’t worry, Mister. You’ve got me!”

That was reassuring. But that wasn’t the end of it. Their optimal growth temperatures were all over the place too. Some crops loved heat, others liked it cold.

“First we should group together crops that grow in similar temperatures.”

“Hyung, how about we build a greenhouse on one side? I’ll control the fire.”

“You’ll have to keep it warm until all the crops are grown, are you sure?”

“Of course, no problem.”

Yuhyun answered calmly, like it was obvious. He had both fire and water; how could we not win this game?

While we diligently sorted what we’d plant, Liette finished turning over all the soil and came back. She was covered in ash and dirt but looked cool as hell. Who needs a tractor.

I operated the system to sprinkle rain on the soil, which had dried out and gone crumbly from the heat.

[Connecting to dungeon environment.]

So it’s a dungeon. This really did feel like a System Administrator training course. As soon as it connected, the mana flow of the island rushed into me.

“…Urgh.”

“Hyung? You okay?”

“The system mana flow is just… a little unfamiliar.”

I could feel every part of the island at once, directly. It was like I’d used my Teacher skill on the island itself. How did Seong Hyunjae handle this so easily. Well, our rank and experience gap was huge.

Following the system’s assistance, I slowly formed rain clouds. The sensation of clouds forming felt strange. Power that went beyond a skill – controlling the weather. No wonder Transcendents who managed systems acted like gods.

‘Even if it’s power they can only use inside dungeons.’

Humans flailing around inside the greenhouse they’d set up themselves probably looked ridiculous to them.

Plip, plip.

Soon, rain started to fall. Yuhyun raised an arm to shield my head, and Yerim moved the falling raindrops aside.

“Let’s go in, hyung.”

Nothing good comes from getting drenched. We quickly climbed up into the pavilion and sat down. Raindrops dripping from the eaves were surprisingly atmospheric. Yerim and Noah came into the pavilion too, but Liette stayed outside. It’s not like she’d catch a cold, but– gasp!

“Hey! What are you doing!”

Liette suddenly stripped off her top. I hurriedly covered Yuhyun’s eyes beside me. Yerim was also a girl and Noah was her brother, so they were fine… probably.

“There’s ash and dirt all over it~”

“Go wash it in the stream over there! Somewhere we can’t see! Don’t strip! Hey! You’re not even embarrassed?”

“Why would I be?”

Laughing brightly, Liette stood there getting soaked in the rain.

“Sweetie, embarrassment is for the weak.”

“That’s a difference in social skills! Just because you’re an S–rank Hunter doesn’t mean you go around stripping in public!”

“Even if they do strip, they’re not embarrassed. They can be confident without needing to protect or hide anything. People in weaker positions in human society feel shame more than the strong do. If someone finds a flaw, it’s dangerous for them~ So they’re more cautious and more moral.”

“…Still, though.”

Being strong didn’t mean you lost all sense of shame or turned unethical. Not necessarily, anyway.

“…Yuhyun, you haven’t really felt embarrassed either, right?”

“What other people think has nothing to do with me. If it doesn’t involve you, hyung, it can’t affect me at all.”

Feeling embarrassed was definitely an emotion born from being conscious of other people’s eyes. Even if I grabbed him and gushed “Oh my baby” and showered him with affection on a busy street in broad daylight, he wouldn’t feel embarrassed at all. It’d be the same if he ever dated someone, in the one–in–a–million chance he did. Embarrassing actions just wouldn’t register as embarrassing.

“Seong Hyunjae keeps up appearances, but if someone secretly took a nude picture of him, he wouldn’t be embarrassed either.”

If anything, he’d critique the photographer’s skill. Your peeping skills are decent, but artistically this is trash. As long as the subject wasn’t me.

Director Song would probably be the same unless it disrupted his plans. Stripping on the street would be a legal issue, but if it were an accident, he’d stand there bold as brass.

Liette goes without saying, Hwang Rim even more so, and Shishio would be proud too. Hyunah would only be concerned about her position as a guild leader, not about shame.

“If you can live just fine on your own, you don’t really need social skills.”

“I think I’d be embarrassed, though?”

“Yerim, it hasn’t even been a year since you became S–rank. The learning effect is big for you.”

“Like how Han Yuhyun is just barely living like a human? Without you, Mister, he might’ve gone feral as a kid.”

No, not that far…

Okay, maybe.

“And when we’re dragons we’re completely naked~ It just doesn’t show because we’re reptiles!”

Liette threw her arms wide and chirped. Noah lowered his head, looking mortified.

“…Please think of the scales as clothes.”

“O–of course, Mr. Noah.”

Don’t say stuff like that, Liette, now I can’t not think about it! Thank god dragons are ovoviviparous reptiles.

The rain soon stopped. I grabbed the seed bags Yerim and Noah had picked out. The field was big enough that it was better to scatter seeds and grow whatever survived rather than plant each one by hand.

“Has anyone here actually farmed before?”

I was sure no one would, but unexpectedly, Liette raised her hand.

“I used to work at a vineyard!”

“Huh? You grew grapes? You?”

“Yeah. I’ve been strong since I was little. Lots of people came looking for me during busy seasons.”

Come to think of it, how long had Liette and Noah’s parents lived with them? I didn’t know the details, but it must’ve been years before dungeons appeared. In the end, Liette, still a kid, must have taken on the role of head of the family.

“I mostly worked harvests though~”

I glanced back at Mr. Noah without thinking. Our eyes met, his light gray gaze carrying a bitter smile. Whatever you said, what Liette had done was abuse, but relationships between people weren’t that simple. Even the worst villains sometimes have a speck of kindness. That’s why people hesitate and stay in homes everyone else can see they should escape from immediately. Really, instead of getting frustrated and asking victims why they don’t leave, we should be throwing the abusers out, but reality doesn’t work that way.

‘Still, Mr. Noah can choose now.’

Liette had changed a little in her own way too.

“I’ll scatter the Korean melons and melons in this field!”

“Yeah. It’s easier if we group ones that need watering at similar times.”

Yerim and Noah flew up with the seeds. Liette headed toward the stream saying she had to wash her clothes, and I gathered seed bags with Yuhyun and went to one side of the field.

“Plastic sheeting, plastic sheeting…”

Let’s turn the bags into plastic. Thin and translucent. It took some fumbling, but I managed to create a long strip of plastic. This system really could do anything. I guess it was easy when you were borrowing the power of multiple Transcendents plus the primal force that created the world.

We put up a pretty convincing greenhouse and scattered the tropical crop seeds inside. Then Yuhyun made small flames here and there inside. The air warmed up in an instant.

“They’ll grow great at this rate~”

The me and my brother inside the dungeon must be eating well and living comfortably too. They were probably raiding every seed company and farming anything they could get their hands on. I wondered how the two of them were doing. We had no way to contact them, but still, not so much as a little tip–off.

“Anything you want to eat? We didn’t even get to make kimchi for winter last year. I did plant cabbage though.”

“You like strawberries, hyung. I saw something similar to strawberries, let’s build another greenhouse and plant them.”

“It’s not that I like them, they’re just easy to eat.”

Peeling fruit is more of a hassle than you’d think. Strawberries go in in one bite and you don’t have to pick out seeds. Seedless grapes with thin skins are nice too.

I figured once we’d planted the seeds, all we had to do was water properly and keep the temperature right.

“Yerim, fields 13 and 14! Water!”

“Ack, wait a sec!”

Yerim flailed and created fine droplets, scattering them. Just flooding the place wouldn’t have been hard. The problem was, the seeds were on the verge of washing away, and the sprouts weren’t neatly planted, just tossed and germinated. A bit more force and they’d all be swept off. So we needed more delicate control than usual.

“Fog, fog!”

I hurried to pull out some fog. I just had to use the stream’s moisture to make fog, draw it over the fields, then raise the temperature so it would fall lightly as water.

[Temperature is dropping!]

“Aaagh! Yuhyun, tiny flames in fields 4 and 5, please!”

“Okay, hyung.”

Making fog lowered the temperature. Same with the water Yerim made. The water sucked up the heat. Thanks to that, I couldn’t use Sighing Mist and had to directly control the droplets.

“Sweetie, there are weeds here.”

“Mr. Yujin, here too!”

“Please take care of it!”

And weeds started sprouting, seeds blown in from who–knows–where.

[Crop 101 is drying out!]

[Crop 39 has excess moisture!]

[Crop 91 temperature is too low!]

Warning windows popped up nonstop. I appreciated the heads–up, but hold on, hold on!

With each day being less than ten minutes, the crops were literally shooting up and changing every hour. Some had grown quite tall in just two hours.

As we kept sprinting around like that…

[Harvest Crop 214!]

“The corn’s done!”

The corn was the first to bear and ripen, in only three hours. Corn in this place grew faster than bamboo shoots after rain. Noah tossed a basket. Liette caught it easily and started picking corn.

“Look at this corn. It’s just bones.”

“What?”

Liette peeled one and held it up. Why was that thing so shriveled? The kernels were sparse and it looked terrible.

What, did it not get enough water?

Should we have had chemical fertilizers and pesticides after all? There hadn’t been any message about disease.

“Leave the bad ones in the field! We’ll burn them and use them as nutrients!”

“Whoa, Mister! Over there!”

Yerim soared up and pointed toward the sea.

What now!

[Monsters have appeared to target your crops!]

“…Kill the monsters!”

Why were sea creatures coming after land crops!

Stepping on Willow Leaves, Yuhyun sprinted toward the shore, almost flying. He was holding a flail instead of a sword. Mr. Noah flew over with a sickle.

“Watch your skills! No fire, no poison!”

Whoosh! The flail swung toward a big turtle–like monster. Its shell shattered in an instant and blood sprayed.

…Could we use that as fertilizer?

Then the sickle sliced through a water snake’s neck. Water snakes bared their fangs viciously and lunged at Noah. As he swung the sickle, Noah pulled out his tail and stretched it long.

– Sss!

The water snakes latched onto his tail one after another. They poured venom in with their fangs, but Noah’s poison resistance made it useless. Noah simply lifted his tail and slammed it down. Thud! The snakes clinging to it were all flattened at once.

[Crop 6 is drying out!]

“Gah, Yerim!”

There was no time to watch. Even in the middle of that, the crops were growing, water was short, temperature rising and falling.

Somebody save me.

I wondered how Seong Hyunjae’s team was doing, but I had no time to check. Hearing lightning now and then at least told me they were still alive.

“Mister, the cabbages look done too!”

“R–right!”

“But more than half of them are just the size of lettuce!”

We were screwed. Why weren’t these kids growing.

Another temperature warning popped up. A sigh escaped me.

‘Can’t really blame them.’

Sometimes the water was late or too much, but temperature was a problem too. It kept drifting even when I didn’t touch it, and if clouds thickened a bit, it could tank all at once. I had to correct it every time, but I was clumsy with the system, so I was always lagging.

I watered, dug up potatoes, and focused my attention on the island’s crops. I could feel the faint mana of the growing plants. The fields I managed felt like they were registered to my keyword and linked to my Teacher skill.

‘…Can’t I give them a growth buff?’

This space was mine right now. If so, maybe my skills could apply.

I looked over at one greenhouse. The one where we’d planted strawberries. I set down the potato basket and went inside. In the warm air, I knelt and whispered to the strawberries.

“Kids, I love you. Grow up big and strong.”

Strawberries, grow! I love strawberries! I really do like strawberries! I stroked the leaves and even gave them a kiss. Good thing I was inside the greenhouse. People outside probably couldn’t see clearly what I was doing, right?

And then time passed like a war again.

“…Hyung, the strawberries are the size of Korean melons.”

Yuhyun, who’d gone into the greenhouse to adjust the temperature, came back and told me, a little flustered.