My Farming Domain Is Broken

The next three days made Ironroot feel different.

It was definitely not safer by any means, but productivity-wise, things were thriving. It was as if the territory had a rhythm now.

Every morning, Mira counted the food before the Hearthkeepers lit the first fire.

The forty meals for the four-Lord agreement were prepared separately from Ironroot’s food and placed in marked containers.

Nobody touched them by accident. Nobody had to ask whether Brann’s five meals had been counted either. Everything was already done.

Brann checked once on the first morning, then carried rocks from the southern field for the rest of the day with the satisfied focus of someone who had received an important answer.

Since the thought of not getting food got in his mind for some reason, the Bearkin was always paranoid for food even though everyone did their best to make him comfortable.

Rowan spent most of that first morning at the Spirit Farmland with Tarin, Sela and the two new Farmers.

The charcoal boards had become full during the night. The first wheat row had been written down so many times that Carlos could barely tell which lines were notes and which were corrections.

"Farming is getting crazy now, huh?" Carlos said.

Rowan did not look up from the board.

"All I am doing is trying to make things repeatable, my lord."

"Even now, it doesn’t look like you are excited, Rowan. At least pretend a little, man."

"The wheat grew in 25 minutes. We might bring that time down further. They are excited about only that, and that is the problem, my lord."

Carlos looked past him.

The second Spirit Farmland wheat row was already high enough to bend in the breeze. Blue hovered over the ordinary-water channel, watching Rowan’s hand signals closely. It only used controlled Mana Water on the wheat rows with the exact same spacing and soil depth as the first test. The bean rows received less. The cabbage, onion, carrot, turnip and leafy-green rows received none until Rowan had their ordinary timers recorded.

The rule annoyed Carlos at first. Then the second wheat row matured with the same clean gold color, and its seed heads were heavier than the first.

Rowan checked every few stalks before allowing the harvest.

--

[Common Wheat seed harvest complete]

[Seed quality: High]

[Recorded cultivation conditions matched]

[Seed yield increased]

--

The two new Farmers stared at the final line.

Tarin lifted both hands. "It worked again!"

"It worked because you followed the record," Rowan said. "Now write down the result before you start celebrating."

Sela grinned at Tarin when he immediately reached for the charcoal.

By the end of the first day, Mira had three blue-marked seed bags in Cold Storage instead of one. They did not fill the room. Carlos could still carry all of them under one arm.

But the bags no longer looked like a hope someone had spoken about during a meeting. They were enough to plant another wide wheat section in the southern farmland while keeping the next Spirit Farmland rows supplied.

Rowan chose the section himself. He gave the new Farmers half the seed, kept a protected portion in Cold Storage, and planted the rest in the ordinary field with beans beside it.

"Why not put all of it down?" Carlos asked.

Rowan pointed at the sky.

"Because disease exists and we don’t know if it will ever rain, my lord. Someone could step on a row. A seed reserve exists so that one bad day does not send us back to nothing."

Carlos looked at the bags Mira held close to her side.

"Fine. Keep the reserve. But make the new rows wide."

"That part was already the plan."

The southern wheat did not grow like the Spirit Farmland wheat. It had no Silverwood roots beneath it, no plot-fertility blessing, and no reason to finish in half an hour.

But with the prepared soil, regular water, and Farmers watching it from sunrise to evening, its rows thickened fast.

On the second morning, the first southern wheat was ready.

Carlos found Mira standing at the edge of the field with a grain head in one hand. Her apron had flour on it. She had come directly from the kitchen.

"Is it enough?" he asked.

Mira looked across the rows. Wheat filled most of the field, with beans climbing in the next section and cabbage leaves beginning to spread farther back.

"This is bountiful, Carlos," she said. "What you could call a real harvest. We take what we need for food, put the next planting seed aside, and store the rest."

Carlos waited and Mira gave him a small smile.

"The kitchen will have more than it needs today."

He had not realized how badly he needed to hear that until then.

The harvest became the entire territory’s work. Brann carried bundles from the field to the drying racks in armfuls so large that Kaia ordered him to slow down twice.

The Shield Militia carried smaller loads and kept people from walking over the bean rows. Elias watched the soil after each harvested section and had the Farmers replant immediately where the next cycle could begin.

Mira and both Hearthkeepers worked between the kitchen and Cold Storage. Some wheat became flour.

Some became the day’s meals. The best grain was marked as planting seed. The rest was dried and packed away.

Carlos carried sacks until his shoulders hurt, then stood in the storage room while Mira counted.

The shelves did not suddenly look full. The target was still six hundred and thirty portions, and Ironroot was nowhere near that comfortable number.

By the third morning, the kitchen had kept more than eighty meals out of the daily work cycle. The first southern harvest added grain behind it. The hundred Preserved Provisions no longer sat alone as the only thing between Ironroot and another food problem.

Mira closed the Cold Storage door and looked at Carlos.

"We are still not ready for more people."

Carlos nodded. The daily summon panel had refreshed that morning. He had seen the small notification when he woke up and closed it without opening the options.

New Farmers would be useful. Another Hearthkeeper would be useful. More defenders would make Kaia happier.

But like usual, they would also need meals, beds, space, training and equipment. Ironroot had started crawling out of the hole because it stopped pretending every useful thing had to be taken immediately.

"No summons," Carlos said. "Not until you tell me we can feed them without risking the future reserve."

Mira looked at him for a second, then nodded once.

"Good. I will tell you when that changes."

Tarin found them before Carlos could leave the storage room. He was trying very hard not to run.

"Rowan said the cucumber seeds are ready, my lord."