Three days later.
Tarren Mill.
"Look alive, all of you! Get to work!"
Before dawn had fully broken, Mayor Bevaril was already standing beside the field ridge, directing the farmers as they spread fertilizer evenly over the fields.
The seeds planted in this field were Dreamfoil seeds.
Bevaril kept shouting with a frown, "No slacking! The copper coins the Earl pays you aren't for standing around! Don't forget, if you manage to grow these, there's a huge reward of five gold coins!"
Ten years of an ordinary farmer's income was certainly a huge reward.
Still, even without that extra reward, and even without the mayor urging them on, the farmers would not have slacked off.
They did not understand the point of growing flowers they could not eat, but since the Earl and the mayor had ordered it, they would do as they were told.
Besides, they were not working for nothing. Rhode had instructed that everyone involved in growing Dreamfoil would receive ten to twenty copper coins a day, whether they succeeded or not.
Since the farmers did not have to spend all day in the fields watching the Dreamfoil, this was already very decent pay.
They could hardly thank Rhode enough. Why would they think of slacking off?
Standing beside Mayor Bevaril was Talon, Tarren Mill's clerk.
His job was to calculate each farmer's pay.
At the moment, he was counting the people at work and recording the figures on paper.
He alternated between looking up at the fields and lowering his head to write.
Once he finally finished, Talon stretched and began chatting with Bevaril. "Mayor, what exactly are these flowers for? Why did the Earl specifically order people in every town to grow them?"
"I don't know either, but the Earl must have a reason."
"Mayor,