The Harvest Season

Another week passed.

The fruit trees were laden with blue Orange Fruits, and the busy fruit farmers wore expressions of harvest joy.

Yet, during this normally bustling season, Uncle Darby and Aunt Irene found themselves standing outside the orchard, looking at each other in bewilderment.

Within the Fruit Grove, Walking Grass were darting through the trees. The leaves on their heads were as flexible as hands, allowing them to easily step onto the fruit trees with their own feet and pluck the ripe Orange Fruits.

There were now nearly 150 Walking Grass on the farm, and with their cooperation, fruit after fruit was being harvested.

Uncle Darby and Aunt Irene only needed to sort these Orange Fruits and load them onto a cart, after which Ironclad Rhinoceros would transport them to the farm's cellar for storage.

"These Walking Grass are quite capable," Uncle Darby said, though his mouth remained closed. He actually didn't quite understand why Aiven kept so many Walking Grass.

Now, watching the busy Walking Grass in the field, his impression of them had improved considerably. He had to admit that these Walking Grass were a great help.

This was merely the most basic value the Walking Grass had shown. Aiven watched the scene and chuckled inwardly. He had said it before: in this world, Spirits were the primary productive force.

Before long, the Walking Grass had finished harvesting all the ripe Orange Fruits in the orchard. Now, they just had to wait for the second wave of Orange Fruits to ripen.

After finishing with their own orchard, Aiven led the Walking Grass to the homes of other fruit farmers in the village. Seeing the Walking Grass helping to harvest fruit, the farmers were all pleasantly surprised.

"Alright, it's time for me to get busy too."

In the farm's cellar, looking at the mountain of Orange Fruits, Aiven stretched and decided to prepare all of them into Healing Potions.

A tenfold profit. He could already envision the cellar filling up with gold coins.

Of course, filling the cellar with gold coins was an exaggeration, but if all the fruit from Orange Fruit Village was made into Healing Potions over the winter, earning several thousand gold coins would be entirely possible.

"With this gold, it should be enough to cover the Spirit upkeep for the orchard," Aiven murmured, suddenly filled with motivation, and began preparing the potions.

Currently, the Walking Grass were only being trained in the most basic Sleep Powder move. All the potion ingredients came from the Black Forest. If he wanted to train the Walking Grass further, several thousand gold coins might not even be enough.

"This winter seems to be arriving earlier than usual."

"The villagers of Fruit Tree Village are in for a tough time again."

Qiongsen, the tax collector from the City of Ambition, entered Persimmon Seed Village and sighed as he looked at the dispirited villagers.

In this territory, the farms belonged to the villagers, but the land still belonged to the Lord. The villagers only had the right to use the land.

Therefore, every year, the villagers had to pay a certain amount of land rent to the Lord.

The benevolent Lord had already waived a significant portion of the land rent, but it still seemed difficult for these fruit farmers to bear. After paying the required rent, they were left with very little gold.

But there was no other way. The territory's finances had been very tight recently, and a certain amount of rent still had to be collected, otherwise, the territory would struggle to operate.

After leaving Persimmon Seed Village, Qiongsen rode his Ironclad Rhinoceros towards the next village. Several villages in a row had not had good fruit harvests.

"Next up is Orange Fruit Village," Qiongsen said, looking at the map as he continued on his way.

Originally, he expected the situation in Orange Fruit Village to be similar, but as he saw the smiling villagers from afar, he paused. Did Orange Fruit Village have a good harvest?

"Lord Qiongsen, you seem to have arrived a little later than usual this year," Village Chief Darby said, having been informed of his arrival and coming to the village entrance to greet the tax collector.

Qiongsen nodded at Darby and, after a moment's thought, asked, "How was Orange Fruit Village's harvest this year?"

Upon hearing his question, the simple villagers exchanged glances, grinned, and gave their answer through their actions.

It seemed Orange Fruit Village's harvest was indeed good. Should he consider reducing their land rent? Qiongsen's mind stirred, but since the Lord had given instructions, he felt it was best to handle matters officially.

After ushering Qiongsen into his home, Darby first brewed him a cup of tea and then presented a prepared box, placing it on the table.

This is truly the most straightforward village chief I've ever met, Qiongsen muttered inwardly. He then opened the wooden box and saw it filled with a large amount of gold coins. He counted them; the amount was the same as in previous years.

Seeing this, Qiongsen swallowed the words that were about to come out of his mouth and suddenly found himself in a dilemma: should he accept the gold or not?

"Lord Qiongsen, please count. Not a single gold coin is missing," Darby said solicitously.

I'll accept it for now and report to the Lord. If he wants it returned, I'll make another trip, Qiongsen decided.

He calmly closed the box, nodded, and smiled, "Village Chief Darby, I naturally trust you."

After receiving the full rent, Qiongsen felt a little uneasy and stood up, wanting to take his leave.

But as he expressed his desire to leave, Darby stopped him with a smile, making Qiongsen's heart tighten inexplicably. Ah, I should just follow the Lord's instructions.

"Lord Qiongsen, does the Lord accept Healing Potions?" Darby asked with a smile, rubbing his hands together as he looked at the tax collector.

"Healing Potions?"

Darby immediately nodded, saying with a hint of pride, "That's right, Healing Potions. My nephew prepared them."

This surprised Qiongsen again. Darby's nephew was an Apothecary?

"If they are indeed Healing Potions, the Lord will naturally accept them," Qiongsen said after a moment's thought. The Lord had indeed issued an order to store supplies recently, and Healing Potions were among the most important of those supplies.

Hearing that the Lord accepted Healing Potions, Darby breathed a sigh of relief.

Recently, Aiven had prepared a large number of Healing Potions using the harvested Orange Fruits.

Although he had already taken some to the Apothecary contact point in the city to sell, they couldn't possibly handle such a large quantity. Therefore, Aiven suggested going through the Lord directly.