Elpis began her explanation, her voice steady and professional. "Alright, if Your Highness thinks about it, what I have found is that the village's soil has deteriorated significantly. To plant anything in this soil will be a great difficulty; the soil outside the village boundaries is in much the same state."
"And what is the most commonly planted crop in this village?" I asked, leaning forward.
"From what I have heard from the people, they only plant potatoes in that soil, year after year."
I recalled a piece of advice I had heard from a friend in my former life; every time we passed a peanut farm, he would say, 'You know, peanuts can improve the soil.' Perhaps I could use nuts... but I wondered if peanuts or groundnuts were even available in medieval times. Perhaps in this world, they were. "Do you know anything of peanuts or groundnuts?" I asked Elpis.
"I have no idea; is Your Highness perhaps talking about peas?"
Peas. I suspected they were related to groundnuts in their effect on the earth. "Do you have the seeds?"
"I have some of them in my bags..."
"Great. Tell the people to plant them at once, and they are to plant no more potatoes for the duration of this year."
"Why?" Elpis asked, her brow furrowing.
"The main reason is that the soil has deteriorated because there are no more nutrients left in it," I explained. "These things are caused by the potato; potatoes should not be planted in the same place twice in succession. They take all the nutrients from the soil without giving anything back. Peas are different; peas can return nutrients to the soil, so the earth will return to its normal state. However, after we harvest the peas, we shall not immediately plant the potato again. We will plant cabbages or radishes, if you have the seeds; after that, we will plant carrots or celery. Once all of these have been planted in that soil, we will plant the potato again... and the rotation continues. It is called Crop Rotation."
"~My~, I did not know Your Highness knew something of this... even I do not quite understand what Your Highness is talking about. This 'crop rotation' is something entirely new to me. But Your Highness, peas alone cannot fulfil the hunger of the people."
"We shall trade them for something else; I believe Cailean can handle that," I said. "And I noticed this village lacks information. I want the people of this village to know the information about everything here, like a board. I do not see a single board, so we need to construct an information board or an announcement board at certain points... are there any craftsmen left in this village?"
"I shall find out," Louis said, nodding.
"Great... let us see... is there anything else that needs to be done for this village?"
I noticed Elpis and Darryl look at one another and offer a silent nod. Darryl was the first to speak. "Your Highness, I have something to say."
"What is it?"
"When we checked the soil outside the village, for some reason... I heard something. A voice, singing from the woods outside the village."
"Singing in the middle of the woods?" I asked, my interest piqued.
"Yes. At first, I thought it was just my imagination... but Elpis could hear it too."
"So, what do we need to do about that?"
"I thought Your Highness and your pet could check it," Darryl suggested.
Suddenly, Aldea barked, "WHY HAVE YOU ASKED HER HIGHNESS TO CHECK IT! YOU TWO NEED TO CHECK IT, NOT HER HIGHNESS!"
"We are afraid if it was something like Her Highness's pet," Darryl grunted.
"Where is your adventurous soul?" Aldea shot back. "Where is your gallantry? Where is your knight's spirit for Her Highness?"
"We know you have a more adventurous soul than anyone here, Aldea, but are you not afraid if it is a mythical beast like the one Her Highness has?"
The two of them began to exchange heated arguments in front of me.
"ENOUGH!" I said firmly. "I shall check it with Geri tomorrow. And for tomorrow, I want Elpis to give the seeds of peas to the villagers so they can plant them, and explain what I have just explained to you to them. If there are some potatoes that have already been planted, I want them to be replaced immediately with the peas. And for Cailean: you can start to seek any opportunity to trade these harvests, and I want you to find other seeds—carrot, celery, cabbage, or radish. The rest of you can help the villagers plant the seeds."
"What about Your Highness?" Louis asked.
"I will check the sound from Darryl's report with Geri."
"Without anyone beside you?"
"I think Geri is enough," I insisted. I thought to myself that it would be best if no one were around me except Geri; what would happen if the sounds were from the spirits?
"I object to it, Your Highness; I shall stay by your side," Louis said.
"NO. You will help the villagers tomorrow, not me."
"But—"
"No 'buts'... that is an order from me. I think you can carry it out, right?"
"Yes, I can, Your Highness," Louis said, lowering his head.
"Great. For now, there is nothing else to do, so all of you can do whatever you wish. I shall excuse myself; I want to meet Geri."
I stood up from my seat and went to the rear of the tavern.
I saw Geri lying down in the ranch; when I approached her, she immediately pulled her head up to look at me. I went to Geri's belly and lay down there.
"What are you doing here? There is no way you have come here just to lie down in my belly," she said.
"Come on, I just want to be comfortable before I speak to you."
"Sigh. So, what do you want to speak about?"
"There is a report that there was singing inside the woods, just outside this village."
"Singing?" Geri asked.
"Yes. Perhaps you have an idea of what it is before we check it out?"
"And who exactly will be checking it out?"
"Of course, you and me."
"Me and you? Why do I need to bother doing that? Why not go with your people?"
"What will happen if it is one of you?" I asked.
"One of me? You mean spirits?"
"No, it is not; it is just some freaks who love singing in the woods... of course, it is a spirit."
Geri immediately pulled her body away, making me fall to the ground. I immediately lay down again at a short distance. I stood up and walked in front of her. "So, what is your answer?"
"Alright, I shall accompany you tomorrow, but now leave from here. Hush, hush, hush." She even moved her paws to signal me to leave.
"Okay, I am leaving."
I walked away from her and went back into the inn.
Inside the inn, I went upstairs and immediately to my room to see Aalis and Ame. In the room, I saw Aalis and Ame just sitting around on their beds. I walked to them and sat beside them, trying to console them about what Aalis had shared earlier, but they were still not open about it. Because I could not console them at that exact moment, I left the room and went back down to the tavern.
There, I saw only Aldea, Darryl, and Louis. They were playing some sort of game on a board. I looked at it and saw they were playing chess, but with strange shapes for the pieces. They were made from stone, and the shapes were far more detailed than modern chess pieces—it seemed there were human faces on all of them except for the pawns.
Aldea looked at me and asked, "Your Highness, how about you join us too?"
Louis spoke up, "You dare ask Her Highness to join when you do not even know how to play it properly?"
"HEI! I know how to play the game!"
"You know every movement of the pieces, but you do not know how to play them properly."
I sat at the table and said, "So, tell me about this game!"
Aldea looked surprised. "You do not know about this game?"
"Yes," I replied. The truth was, I knew the game, but I decided to pretend that I did not. "How about you, Aldea? Introduce me to the game and tell me how it works."
"Let me tell you about the game, rather than this dullard," Louis said.
"HEI HEI HEI! Your Highness asked me first, so it is my obligation to tell her! And stop calling me that!"
She started to explain the chess game to me, but occasionally I found some flaws in her explanation. For example...
I asked, "So, how many squares are on the board, Aldea?"
She began counting the squares one by one, touching every square with her finger.
"Aldea, do you not know basic arithmetic?" I asked her.
"What is that?"
"Let me teach you. As you can see, in this row there are eight squares, and in this column there are eight squares because it is a rectangle. Rather than counting every square one by one, you can just multiply this row and this column. So, what is the answer?"
"I do not know. And what is this 'multiply'?"
I was genuinely surprised. Louis leaned his mouth toward my ear and whispered, "Aldea doesn't have any basic education; she loves to read, but she reads adventure books and the like, so she lacks some common knowledge."
"And if you know about it, why not try to encourage her to read something else?"
"Because she doesn't want to."
Aldea interjected, "What are you two whispering about? So, Your Highness, tell me about this 'multiply'..."
"Ah, yes! Multiply means the repeated addition of groups of equal sizes. For example, two multiplied by three means there are three 'twos,' and it will be like two plus two plus two, which equals six. So, on this board, the eight has eight; it will be eight plus eight plus eight, for eight times, which equals..."
"Eight plus eight will be..." She stuck out her fingers and started to count, even though she was struggling with the addition of eight plus eight. After a few moments, she said, "Sixteen."
"Next, sixteen plus eight equals..."
And again, she struggled even more than with eight plus eight.
"I think that is enough, Aldea... you can ask someone to teach you about this, perhaps Elpis or perhaps Cailean. I think they know more about this. Now, explain the game to me."
Aldea appeared embarrassed but continued to explain the game. Once her explanation was finished, I pretended I understood everything she had said.
"So, Your Highness, how about a test game? You can play with Aldea to test your knowledge of the game," Louis offered.
"I do not mind it. How about you, Aldea?"
She just nodded. We began to arrange all the chess pieces in order.