Land Clearing

Exhaustion must have done the trick, because I'd slept like the dead. Then an impact startled me awake.

I opened my eyes to find Azu nestled against my chest.

She'd woken up at the same time, it seemed.

"Wawawa…"

Our eyes met. For a moment she couldn't process the situation, glancing around in confusion.

Waking up next to me must have given her a shock.

"You're awake. You finally let go, I see."

The hand that had been firmly gripping mine was now free.

It took her another moment, but Azu finally pieced together what had happened.

"Um, I don't remember anything from before I fell asleep… I'm sorry."

"Don't worry about it. It was nothing."

No real harm done, after all.

And honestly, Azu made for a pretty good body pillow.

Her face went crimson as she gingerly peeled herself away from my chest.

The way she peeked up at me from under her lashes stirred something protective in me.

After putting some distance between us, Azu took several deep breaths before she finally composed herself.

Then the two of us went to wake Alexia and Elza, and we all got ready for the day.

It looked like it would be a bit cold today.

Elza apparently wished she could've slept longer, letting out a yawn bigger than usual.

I settled the bill at the inn, and we headed for the portal to return to Kassad, only to find soldiers standing guard beside a sign declaring it closed.

When I asked, they told me it had been temporarily shut down on the Duke's orders.

No word on when it would reopen.

"Well, after what happened, it's only natural."

"The attack, huh. I can't believe it's affecting even us when we had nothing to do with it. What a nuisance those guys are."

I sighed. The portal being shut down was a real blow.

Without it, we'd have to travel on foot.

That wasn't a distance you covered in a day or two.

"Now, now. What's done is done."

"I know, but still."

"So what do we do?"

Our plans had just been thrown completely off track.

The one saving grace was that there was nothing we urgently needed to get back for.

The shop… Kaimol and the others could handle it. We'd added staff, after all.

"Hmm."

"If I'd known this would happen, I would've slept in more."

"It was a sudden shutdown. But we've already checked out of the inn, so…"

Sightseeing didn't appeal to me, either.

So what to do?

"You're going to the Adventurer's Guild? Here, in Alsarm?"

"We've got nothing else to do. Might as well earn a bit."

Despite Alexia's protest, we found ourselves at Alsarm's Adventurer's Guild.

It was sizeable.

Scanning the posted quests, I saw that most of them were merchant escort jobs.

This was the Kingdom's biggest trade hub, so that tracked.

The adventurers here presumably made their living on those kinds of jobs.

The place was full of parties.

Some of them looked to be hastily assembled pickup groups.

Escort quests paid well, but those obviously weren't an option for us right now.

I was wondering if there was anything else when I spotted an unusual listing.

It was a quest for help expanding farmland.

Someone needed hands to clear a large tract of land for agriculture.

Did people really post this kind of thing at the Adventurer's Guild?

If they just needed labor, there had to be plenty of other ways to recruit workers.

"Something catch your eye?"

Elza asked curiously as I stared at the quest sheet.

The pay wasn't particularly impressive. She was probably wondering why it caught my attention at all.

"A little."

It looked less like an adventurer's job and more like day labor.

But same-day pay with meals included? That wasn't half bad.

I looked at the three behind me.

Azu might look like a girl, but after all the monsters she'd taken down, she had the strength of several grown men.

Elza was confirmed to be plenty strong as well.

And Alexia was a mage. Conservatively speaking, she could work with the efficiency of ten people.

On top of that, I had a strong interest in agriculture.

Primary industry was unglamorous, but I'd learned in the Empire that it could be very profitable.

A lone merchant obviously couldn't replicate what a senator-class nobleman did, but I believed it was feasible on a smaller scale.

Though, remembering Orleans, I'd steer clear of using serfs.

If I could gather intelligence while getting paid for it, that was a pretty good deal.

"In a city this developed, and the job you pick is… farming? Are you serious?"

"Ahaha, how fun. I'm good with getting my hands dirty, you know."

"I-I'll work hard at whatever job it is!"

Alexia's face was a picture of disbelief.

Elza seemed to find Alexia's reaction amusing.

Azu was Azu, as always.

There were more typical Alsarm jobs available. Casino bodyguard, for one, which wasn't something you'd see elsewhere.

The pay was good, but I wasn't fond of gambling.

A merchant was already exposed to risk at all times.

There was no fun in piling on more.

"Very well. It's not as though slaves can refuse their Master's orders."

"That's right. But trust me, this kind of work isn't bad."

I accepted the quest without delay and received a map to the site.

Apparently it was northwest of Alsarm.

After about an hour's walk, we arrived.

Sure enough, the place was in the middle of being cleared. People were digging up the ground with hoes and uprooting tree stumps in work crews.

But what really caught my eye was what sat on an altar at the center of the site.

"Um, isn't that…"

"You see it too?"

"No doubt about it."

"… You're kidding. The Fire Elemental's reacting to it, so there's no question."

Sitting there, big as life, was the Earth Elemental Stone.

People had been kept away from it, but it sat there so openly that I doubted my own eyes for a moment.

"What's going on here?"

"Wherever an Earth Elemental dwells, the land becomes fertile. The same should hold true for the stone. The duke probably wants to turn this place into exactly that kind of land, but…"

It seemed we were the only ones who'd noticed.

The other workers showed no sign of concern.

All I overheard was one person muttering about the "weird rock."

"Do they have any idea how many gold coins that one stone is worth?"

"To someone who doesn't know, it's just a rock."

"Well, sure, but still."

Half-exasperated, I found the site supervisor and told him we'd come on a quest.

He directed us to join the crew leveling a designated section.

They'd lent us a full set of tools, so we got to work.