Chapter 22 – The implications were rather dystopian

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Prince Baiyu had definitely fallen madly in love, or at least had a small crush on me.

Every day, he went to see me and offered to sweep the path for me. He always took off his top and enjoyed it when I drooled over him.

Fengying and the maids started teasing me mercilessly about it. Shuye, on the other hand, was worried because I made the mistake of jokingly complaining about having a half-naked Prince Baiyu hanging around my farm.

“If you don’t want him around, all you have to do is tell me,” said Shuye.

“Are you saying you can make him go away?” I said.

“Of course. The biggest taboo among the clans is to harm a human. You know the story?” he asked.

“That the Southernlands were destroyed hundreds of years ago because the ruling family killed a human, right? I heard that a huge lightning bolt destroyed the royal palace,” I said.

“Yes, and a horde of demons invaded.”

“I always wondered why the other clans haven’t cleared the Southernlands of demons.”

“Have you heard of the concept of ‘territory’ among the clans? It’s uncomfortable for us to travel to someone else’s territory, so we only go to the Southernlands when we have to, and only for a short time,” he said. “That’s where Prince Baiyu was these past few weeks. We send a large hunting party to the border to thin the herd of demons and prevent them from crossing over to our lands.”

“But since you can’t go to the Southernlands, does that mean demons can still invade?”

“That’s why many of our warriors are at the border,” he said.

“But not Prince Baiyu? What about you?”

Shuye smiled. “Do I look like a warrior to you?”

I raised a hand to my mouth to hide my smile. In fact, Shuye was a large, scary, bearlike person, but he had a gentle soul.

“Do the demons ever come this far?” I asked.

“You don’t have to worry about it.”

“I’m not exactly worried. Even if they did, the clan would evacuate us using flying vehicles, right?”

“Of course.” Shuye grinned down at me. “But demons can fly. Did you know that?”

“I think I’ll add some more defenses around the farm.”

“I was just joking. Flying demons are actually rare, and you’re in no danger here.”

“Good! I want a relaxing life on the farm.”

As we continued to chat about this and that, I took the opportunity to ask him about Prince Baiyu’s reputation in the clan.

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“He’s young, so people don’t know what to make of him yet, but the fact that his conformation is perfect is a source of pride for the Lady of the West,” said Shuye.

“Conformation?” I vaguely knew that the word meant the shape or structure of an animal, because my mother used to watch dog shows, but I had never heard it applied to people.

Shuye shrugged. “Our mythology states that the gods chose their consorts based on whichever humans had the most perfect form, and since then, our standards of beauty have been based on our beast forms. Perfect conformation means a person has inherited a greater share of divine power than most.”

“But… Aren’t people born with their shapes? I mean, people can cultivate or eat demon beasts for more power, but there’s no way to change your body structure,” I said. The implications were rather dystopian, in my opinion. If conformation, aka physical beauty, was really that important, then it meant that a person’s role was fixed at birth since they didn’t have plastic surgery in this world.

“Conformation only matters if you’re part of the ruling family. The rest of us don’t care, but their power is based on the concept that our gods picked them to lead us, so each offspring is inspected at birth to check if they are fit to rule,” said Shuye.

Ah, I got it now. This must be the reason that Prince Shuye was in that cave alone. He must’ve been hiding his condition from everyone else. “I’m almost afraid to ask, but what happens to flawed babies?”

Shuye scratched his head and avoided meeting my eyes. “Nothing, they just aren’t chosen as a potential heir.”

At least they weren’t killed, or anything like that, though it sounded to me like the parents would lose a lot of face, and the child would be discriminated against.

This topic was making both of us uncomfortable, so we moved on to farming. Shuye gave me next week’s weather forecast, and I showed him the potato plants. The bees had done their work, and small fruits were growing nicely. In a few days, I would be able to gather seeds, and a few days after that, I would be able to harvest the potatoes themselves.

“I’d like to hire the apprentices the day after the harvest,” I said.

“I’ll bring a flying cart to bring the harvest to market,” said Shuye.

We went over some details and parted right before lunchtime. Shuye always left before mealtimes since it was always awkward when he had to turn down my invitation to join me. These days, he dropped by more often, but spent less time talking. Mostly, he would just check the plants and asked me if I needed anything before leaving to patrol his territory.

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When I played Adventure Online, apprentices were something that players used after they got bored by the daily routine. One could hire three apprentices to take care of whichever monotonous tasks they didn’t want to do anymore. Of course, this meant that the players wouldn’t be getting the experience that they would have gotten if they had worked on the farm themselves.

In my case, I thought it would be best to hire more people to expand the farm. This was the real world, not a video game, and the tasks that would only take a few clicks on a computer mouse took hours in the real world.

One of the things that I was worried about was whether apprentices could use the items I had.

I mean, I had already tested it with Shuye who was unable to even touch the items that were bound for my use. However, apprentices might be considered “me” by the System, since apprentices could use the players’ farm machines that other players were not allowed to use.

For example, when I tried to ask one of the maids to press the [Start/Stop] button on the side of the milling machine, she was unable to do it, yet using farm machines was one of the most common tasks that were entrusted to apprentices.

Therefore, it stood to reason that apprentices should be able to use my things. In case they couldn’t, it would be good for me to prepare items for them.

Now that the potato plants had fruited, it was time to harvest the inedible fruits and extract the seeds.

This close to harvest time, the potato plants had grown waist high, with dark green leaves and thick brown stalks. The faint silver glow around them was stronger now. The fruit looked like small green cherry tomatoes. They looked really nice, and I was tempted to eat them, but Deming cautioned everyone that they were poisonous.

After I had finished watering and weeding the plants, I harvested the fruits, carefully twisting the potato plant stems until the small, green fruits that contained the seeds fell into my waiting hand. I carried the harvest over to the nearby table, where I set them down and pried them open gently. Inside the fruits were small, black seeds I would set aside for my apprentices. I took a small spoon and extracted the seeds from the fruits, being careful not to damage them. By the time I was finished, I had hundreds of them, which should be enough for three apprentices to use for a few seasons in case they couldn’t use the seeds I had in my inventory.