After saying goodbye to the patrolmen, the two continued along the stream that divided the forest into northern and southern halves.
Yupa had not seen the Erdtree on his way in because he had entered the valley by a path on the other side.
After they passed a vast expanse of charred remains, the view suddenly opened up.
Ahead, in a clearing once covered in plant ash and charred wood, lay several level plots of farmland, each about half a mu in size.
Strangely, the plots were all circular.
Beruto and several farm foremen were gathered around one of the plots, with leather seed bags at their feet. They seemed to have just finished sowing.
"Princess, Master Yupa!" Beruto noticed the two approaching, wiped the sweat from his brow, and waved to them.
"What are you planting?"
Yupa was surprised. Starting tomorrow, it would be the season of still winds, which the people of the Valley of the Wind called the "harvest season." There did not seem to be any crops that needed to be sown at this turn of the seasons.
"Your Highness?" Beruto turned to Nausicaä, silently asking her something.
"It's all right. I've already told Master Yupa."
"I understand." Beruto nodded. "Watch closely, Master Yupa. I'll bet you've never seen a sight like this anywhere else!"
With that, Beruto turned and walked to the center of the field.
Just as Yupa was about to ask another question, the agricultural elder dropped to one knee and raised his right hand to his forehead.
First, a speck of golden light appeared in his hand. After a brief buildup, a strange and magnificent Erdtree Mark burst forth beneath him. Golden light surged outward, covering the entire circular field.
The next second, countless wheat shoots wrapped in golden light broke through the soil and grew at a frenzied pace.
Though the farm foremen and Beruto had seen this sight countless times,
they still had not grown tired of it, and they never would.
This was a miracle bestowed by the Erdtree.
In just a few minutes, an empty plot had become a wheat field so dense that a person could almost stand on it.
Yupa's mouth went dry as he watched it happen.
He had seen starving people fight over a wheat cake, tribes shed rivers of blood over a spring, and nations go to war over a patch of fertile land...
Having traveled to countless places across this desolate land, he knew all too well what the word "food" meant to people.
"Well? How does this sight compare to the beautiful scenery you've seen on your travels in distant lands?"
Beruto came over to them, panting. Even with his Blessed-level physique, casting Erdtree's Favor, a prayer that consumed considerable energy, was still somewhat strenuous.
Yupa opened his mouth, but no sound came out.
Farming had held little appeal for him in the past.
It was precisely because he had not wanted to be tied to the land that he had set out on his travels.
But now, he had to admit one thing...
Even after traveling across half the continent, none of the sights he had seen were as moving as the wheat field before him!
He instinctively looked away from the enormous ears of wheat, trying to calm his surging emotions, but immediately noticed something else out of the ordinary.
Not far away, a field strewn with potato vines, seemingly just harvested, caught his attention.
He bent down and scooped up a handful of soil. He found that the dry, grayish-white earth would not hold its shape even when he squeezed it hard.
Dry, cracked, compacted, and lacking cohesion... these were signs of barren land whose fertility had been exhausted.
"The price of rapid growth," Nausicaä explained softly. "The land needs time to recover."
Yupa silently opened his hand, letting the sandy soil sift through his fingers.
At the sight of this soil, the emotions that had surged through him when he witnessed the crops grown through the Favor subsided considerably.
"A price... As expected, there must be a price behind a miracle."
Without saying much more, the two continued on. After they left the burned area, the scenery around them changed once again.
As they walked in the shade of the forest, an unusually fresh scent filled the air. It was a world apart from the scorched earth they had just left behind.
Soon, a small golden tree appeared before them.
"We're here, Master Yupa."
The awe every person from the Valley of the Wind felt upon coming before Mu En for the first time was far beyond what words could describe.
It was not just because of the flowing golden light, but also because of the strange surroundings.
There was not a trace of sand, dust, smoke, or any other distinctive smell, only air so clean it seemed almost insubstantial, as light as nothing when breathed in and out.
Yet when Yupa stepped into the golden light, his warrior's instincts made his whole body tense slightly. An unsettling feeling of being watched lingered in his mind.
That was Mu En's attention, focused on him.
So this is Yupa, the swordsman?
He could tell that every movement the man made exuded an air of strength.
Mu En's most vivid impression of Yupa came from a scene in the original story-
In a rage, Nausicaä had raised her sword and thrust it at a fully armed Tolmekian heavy infantryman.
Then Yupa had entered the fight alone.
With a short sword in his right hand, he had pinned the heavily armored soldier in place, while tensing the muscles in his left arm and stopping the blade with his bare flesh.
It had been a full-force thrust from Nausicaä, who already possessed strength beyond that of an ordinary person.
The scenes of her knocking a strong soldier flying with a hammer or lifting a heavy machine gun with her bare hands and firing it proved as much.
Even so, Yupa had suffered only a minor wound, which healed completely after a few days of rest.
Mu En suspected that if anyone else had made that thrust, it was questionable whether they could have injured him at all.
His combat prowess and physical abilities were so formidable that it was no exaggeration to call him the pinnacle of humanity in the world of the Valley of the Wind.
Although Yupa had already exhausted his potential, and his body had begun to decline with age,
as long as he accepted the Erdtree's blessing, he might instantly become a Blessed comparable to Nausicaä, or even reach a higher level outright-that of a "knight-level" Blessed.
And Mu En himself would gain another powerful source of Runes.
"Nausicaä, ask your teacher if he is willing to accept the blessing."
"As long as he agrees to fight for the Erdtree, I can grant him a powerful physique, a long life, and fighting skills the likes of which he has never seen. What do you think?"
Mu En was confident that the terms he had offered should be ones Yupa could not refuse.
After Nausicaä relayed his words, he clearly saw desire appear in Yupa's eyes.
However, after hesitating for a moment, Yupa still shook his head. "Thank him for his kindness on my behalf, but I'll pass on fighting for someone else."
As the saying went, ignorance was bliss.
The more a person saw, the more they thought, and the more worries they had.
A mysterious being like the Erdtree bestowed power, purified the land, and made crops grow... Was faith really all it wanted?
Could there be a price behind the blessing, like the depleted land, that the Valley of the Wind-or rather, Nausicaä-could not bear?
Until he got to the bottom of it, he would not accept the invitation, not even if it came from the student he regarded as his own child.
And in the worst case, he could still lend that student a hand...
Even if he had to face a god, he would have no fear.