"A-Ah... Ma... Mama..."
"Ahh~! Finally, my son's first word!"
This was the moment I reached one year old. Of course, I faked the stutter, and I felt embarrassed to death just saying that one word—but it was all worth it.
Mother lifted me, boasting to the maids and even to Father about how I'd finally started to speak. Of course, when the handsome playboy asked me to say "Papa," I obliged.
"Pa... Ha... rem... bas... turd..."
"..."
And just like that, Father fell to his knees.
Ignoring that playboy, we had a great celebration that day.
It was my first birthday, after all. And even though Mother's stomach was already starting to swell, she was still quite mobile, so I was brought around the dining hall and introduced to guests who'd come from nearby villages and baronies.
Ah, of course, Krystal was also present. This time, I made sure not to appraise her. Better to let sleeping dogs lie.
Anyway, I felt more like an exhibit at a petting zoo with how many of them tried to pinch my cheeks...
Now that I'd started to speak, it was finally time to begin implementing my "isekai to-do checklist."
As time passed, I slowly grew more fluent.
Of course, by faking "improvement" at each stage.
By the time Mother was nearing her ninth month of pregnancy, I could speak fluently already. And yes, I still called Father "Harem Bastard" from time to time... though I got scolded for the language every time.
Hey, I'm still a baby—they can't exactly punish me!
Around that time, I started signaling my "intelligence" to Father by always carrying a book with me.
Ah, right—I could already read everything in Father's study by that point, so my INT had risen to A+. I wasn't sure if it would ever reach S, but I hoped so.
"Four... Crop rotation? System?"
"Yesh." I nodded, putting on a deliberate lisp.
My first point of focus was farming.
After all, food is one of the three necessities of life.
We were out in the boonies, so hunting was always an option—but from the records of the land's yields and taxes, I could see that crop production had been declining each year.
I explained this trend to Father and warned him of what it would mean down the line.
At the same time, I presented him with a solution: the Four-Category Crop Rotation System—the method popularized by British agriculturist Charles Townshend in the 18th century.
Of course, I had to avoid technical terms like "nitrogen in the soil" or "microorganisms" and replaced them with more "believable" explanations I came up with. This was, essentially, the classic "modern knowledge cheat in a backwater isekai world!"
"Still, I wonder if our farmers would agree to it..."
"They would! I can ekshplain if needed!"
Father seemed genuinely impressed by my findings, but still hesitated about implementing them. Still, it was obvious he didn't want to dismiss my words either.
So he decided to run a small trial—convincing a few farmers with incentivized fields for four years, applying the crop rotation system.
When it seemed like Father might be misunderstanding what crop rotation actually meant, I clarified: we didn't need to plant the same crop across the entire field each year.
Instead, we'd divide the land into four sections and rotate them annually—wheat (a grain/cash crop), sugar beets (a root crop), rye (a grain/grazing crop), and clover (a nitrogen-fixing/grazing crop).
This way, even though the area devoted to cash crops was effectively halved in the short term, the soil would recover its health and yields would steadily climb until stabilizing.
Overall profit should surpass the previous best within about five years—and that was without even factoring in the additional benefits of livestock grazing on the resting fields.
Of course, this was a time-consuming plan.
Which was exactly why I'd told Father about it as early as I could.
For something like this, the sooner you start, the better!
---
Mother's labor came about three weeks after that, right at the peak of winter.
I was genuinely worried. Technology here was primitive by any measure. Midwives assisted with the birth, but all they had going for them was experience from delivering their own children.
No formal medical knowledge. Nothing more.
Thankfully, my fears were unfounded.
Mother safely delivered a healthy baby girl—my little sister. She barely had any hair yet, but the sparse golden strands were unmistakable. Her eyes were a pale, newborn blue, though I could already see hints of green in them.
If I had taken after Father in hair and eye color, my sister seemed to have inherited Mother's.
"Elisha... huh?"
I murmured her name while peering over at her in Mother's arms.
Curious, I immediately cast Appraisal on her, and...
---
Name: Elisha von Grendel
Age: 1 day
Title: First daughter of Baron Claus von Grendel
Status:
STR: F-, AGI: F-, INT: F-
END: F-, MP: E+, LUK: A
Skills:
None
---
"A in Luck!" I couldn't help but gasp.
The highest I'd seen besides myself! Even that witch, Krystal, had only C+ in Luck, after all!
But beyond that and her mana, her other stats didn't seem too different from what I had when I first gained consciousness here. I suppose all babies start with F- across the board, save for MP and LUK?
Anyway—now I had a sister.
My very first sister. Even in my past life (though I still wasn't certain I'd actually died), I'd been an only child.
With someone who needed protecting, I had even more reason to improve our territory.
Faster than lightning.