Chapter 100: A Hundred Hectares
Spring had changed the color of Althoff, but beyond the original fifteen-hectare basin, much of the surrounding land remained exactly as Raymond had first inherited it: hard, pale, stubborn ground that could support weeds more easily than crops.
Inside the basin, green shoots covered carefully divided fields, irrigation channels carried water between plots, and farmers moved through soil that had already proven it could produce a harvest.
Raymond stood alone on a low ridge before sunrise, far enough from the settlement that no worker could see what he was doing. He checked the empty road behind him, then opened the System inventory and selected the reward he had deliberately held back until spring.
[ Tier III Land Upgrade Card ]
[ Coverage: 100 Hectares ]
[ Effect: Permanently upgrades designated compatible land into fertile agricultural soil. ]
[ Irrigation, cultivation, seed, labor, and agricultural management not included. ]
Raymond almost laughed at the final line. The System had apparently learned that giving him land only created more work.
He activated The Lord’s Eye, traced the boundaries of the agricultural zone Harlan, Gideon, Ormond, and Edric had already surveyed, and carefully excluded future roads, drainage corridors, processing sites, and water infrastructure.
The selected area spread outward from the existing agricultural basin across gently rolling ground east of the planned Agricultural Processing District. Once satisfied, Raymond confirmed the designation.
[ Compatible Land Confirmed. ]
[ Activate Tier III Land Upgrade Card? ]
[ YES / NO ]
"Yes."
The card dissolved into light within the System interface. Then the ground changed.
The transformation moved beneath the surface. Pale, compacted earth darkened gradually from the center of the designated zone outward, as though moisture and life were spreading through soil that had forgotten both. Hard clods loosened.
Thin patches of struggling grass shifted as the ground beneath them deepened into rich brown earth. Raymond crouched and pushed his fingers into soil that yesterday would have resisted a shovel.
His hand sank easily. The transformation continued until the entire hundred hectares stretched before him as fertile land waiting for work. Beside it, the original fifteen-hectare basin suddenly looked like a garden.
By the time Harlan and Gideon arrived with the first agricultural crews, Raymond had already prepared his explanation. The newly improved ground would be presented as another blessing made possible through the Goddess of Life, the same divine authority people already associated with the earlier miracle.
Raymond hated how convenient his own fraud had become, but convenience had never stopped him before.
Harlan barely listened. He walked past Raymond, knelt at the edge of the transformed land, and dug both hands into the soil. Gideon followed more slowly. Neither man spoke for a while.
Behind them, farmers gathered along the marked boundary, murmuring as they looked across a field so large that the people standing at the opposite end were difficult to distinguish.
Months earlier, Harlan had been a starving farmer trying to force crops from dead ground while winter approached. Gideon had been little better.
They had measured food in handfuls, watched neighbors weaken, and expected the soil beneath their feet to bury more people than it fed. Then fifteen hectares had changed everything. They had treated that basin like sacred ground because, to them, it practically was. Now Harlan stood and slowly turned his head across one hundred new hectares.
"That’s all ours to farm?" he asked. Raymond answered carefully, "It belongs to Althoff. For now, the government holds the farmland. Nobody privately owns these fields yet."
Harlan glanced at him. Raymond continued, "We’re going to establish a proper system for landholding instead of handing pieces away permanently because we’re excited. Some land may eventually be leased. Some may be sold under conditions. Some may remain public. We’ll settle that properly."
Harlan nodded without disappointment. The distinction mattered because Raymond refused to create a future disaster by distributing government land casually and discovering twenty years later that half the agricultural district belonged to three families who had bought desperate neighbors out.
For the spring planting, the Department of Agriculture would allocate cultivation blocks and farming rights without transferring permanent ownership.
Households and farming groups would receive fields to work, production obligations would be recorded, and the government would retain title until Raymond established clear rules for leases, sales, inheritance, consolidation, abandonment, and land limits.
Farmers needed security, but Althoff also needed a land system that would survive prosperity.
The Department of Agriculture had already prepared provisional allocations. By midday, clerks sat beneath canvas awnings with household registers, farming experience records, available labor counts, and lists of tools and animals.
Nobody received land simply by shouting loudest. Experienced farming households were assigned workable blocks according to family labor and available equipment. Smaller households were grouped where cooperation made sense.
Former refugees from Reth, Fellcross, Marden, and scattered settlements received cultivation rights beside long-term Althoff residents. Agricultural specialists moved between tables checking proposed crop distributions so enthusiasm did not result in one hundred hectares of the same grain.
Harlan signed allocation sheets while Gideon organized field supervisors and answered farmers who wanted to know exactly where their assigned sections began.
Then the land started filling with people.
Survey teams marked field boundaries with stakes and numbered signs. Oxen dragged plows through the first sections, turning dark furrows in long straight lines.
The ten oxen obtained earlier were no longer enough for the scale of work, so privately owned draft animals and government animals were pooled through compensated work arrangements while additional livestock procurement continued.
Iron plows moved steadily across the soil. Where animals were unavailable, teams worked with hoes and hand tools to prepare smaller plots. Wagons carried seed from government stores to distribution points, where clerks recorded every sack before it left.
Farmers signed or marked receipts, loaded grain seed, vegetables, legumes, and other approved crops, then carried them toward their assigned fields. Nobody was simply handed supplies and forgotten.
The Department tracked where seed went, what was planted, and what acreage each farming group was responsible for cultivating.
Edric’s crews followed almost immediately because fertile soil without water would merely produce a more expensive failure.
The original deep-well irrigation pump could not magically serve one hundred additional hectares, so temporary channels were cut from suitable water sources while engineers mapped a larger irrigation network.
Drainage ditches were placed where low ground might flood. Small holding ponds were marked. Water schedules were drafted before planting reached the more distant blocks.
Raymond watched laborers digging channels while farmers plowed beside them and appreciated how different this was from the first fifteen hectares. Back then, everything had felt like a desperate miracle performed against a deadline.
Now specialists, Departments, surveyors, logistics clerks, farmers, engineers, wagons, and animals moved together as parts of an agricultural system.
Over the following days, spring planting spread across the transformed land. Bare brown fields became patterned with furrows. Seed disappeared into rows. Stakes identified crop sections.
Oxen walked until their flanks shone with sweat, were changed out, watered, fed, and returned later.
Tool repair stations appeared near the fields because broken plows no longer needed to travel back into town. Food carts arrived for laborers.
Agricultural clerks moved through the plots recording progress.
Harlan and Gideon rarely stopped walking.
They inspected depth, spacing, drainage, seed use, and field assignments, correcting mistakes before they multiplied across hectares.
On the sixth evening, Raymond found both men standing on the same ridge where he had activated the card. Below them, the original fifteen-hectare basin lay green and established. Beyond it stretched the new hundred hectares, no longer empty.
Hundreds of people dotted the fields.
Oxen crawled along dark furrows. Wagons moved between seed stations. Irrigation trenches cut shining lines through the soil. Smoke rose from temporary field kitchens. Farther away, Althoff’s new roofs and construction cranes could just be seen beyond the roads.
Gideon folded his arms. "I remember when fifteen hectares looked impossible."
Harlan gave a quiet laugh. "I remember when one good field looked impossible."
Raymond said nothing. He understood why neither man looked away. They had spent years learning how to survive on land that gave almost nothing back. Now their problem was no longer whether the soil could grow food. It was how to organize enough labor, animals, water, storage, transport, processing, and markets to handle what that soil might produce.
Harlan watched the distant city for another moment before speaking. "We’re going to need more granaries."
Raymond smiled. "That’s the spirit."
"No, my Lord." Harlan pointed toward the fields, then toward the growing residential district beyond them. "Before, we planted because if the harvest failed, people died. Even with the first basin, we were still thinking about surviving winter."
His expression changed as another wagon rolled toward the fields carrying seed. "This isn’t that anymore."
Raymond followed his gaze.
Harlan finally understood what the scale meant.
They were no longer farming merely to survive.
They were farming to feed a city.