"When I was about to leave that town, I realized that my father had many employees. Many of them were not well-off and depended on work at my father's farm to earn a living. The agricultural products produced there also fed many people—the delivery drivers, the supermarket cashiers selling the goods, even the supermarket cleaners."
"I had a responsibility to them. I had to keep Kent Farm running as it always had, so they could maintain their lives. That was what my father taught me, and I had always kept it in mind."
"But fundamentally, working in the fields day after day held no particular meaning for me. It was merely labor I did to fulfill my responsibilities. I didn't dislike it, but I couldn't say I liked it either. Compared with that, I still preferred being a reporter."
"If I had truly loved farm work that much, I would never have left that small town. Many farmers' children there were like that. They didn't go to college or to big cities, and might even spend their entire lives in that town."
"Whenever I thought about how I once had that choice, I felt a little fortunate that I had come to Metropolis. I liked everything here. Perhaps I had also grown tired of Smallville's uneventful life."
"Later, I went to Mexico. It was a little too thrilling there, but it brought about the greatest change in me. It finally made me realize what it truly meant to break the soil, sow seeds, and harvest crops."
"I had once regarded it as nothing more than a labor process because I had never worried about the harvest. The grain produced by such a vast tract of land was more than enough for the three of us to eat for several lifetimes.