[Cozy Fantasy] [Farming LitRPG] The Chronicles of Emberstone Farm

Chapter 65 - Sanding you a ton of tax papers to sift through

🙞❤︎🙜

The next day, the System finally finished its work on Skyfang Hill. I heard the chiming notification sound and rushed out of the house just in time to see the magic circle glowing a bright red before disappearing.

“Yes! It’s done!” I said to the others.

We had gotten up at dawn to plant more trees and tend to the animals, thus we were playing around in the [Lotus Pond] and gathering the few seedpods that we could find. I suppose the Adventure Incarnate artists had thought that it was prettier to have flowers rather than seedpods, which meant that there weren’t many available. We did get quite a lot of leaves, however. It was a pity that the pond was far too large for my forest farm.

“Let’s go!” Kharli didn’t wait for my permission and started running right away.

“Wheeee!” Mo wasn’t far behind her.

I waited for Prince Baiyu and his staff to join me before following the girls at a more sedate pace.

“What are you going to do now?” asked the prince.

“At the hill? We’ll have to plant more trees,” I said.

“Do you have enough time for that?”

“We only have one more day here, but we’ll do what we can.”

When we arrived at the foot of the hill, we saw that the hill was now covered in low mounds that ran in a line that rippled and curved, following the contours of the land. Those were the berms. I headed to the nearest one and ran my hand on the raised soil, which was packed hard and covered in green grass. The entire hill was now covered in emerald green grass, except for the shallow trenches lined with rocks at the bottom of the mounds. The trenches were the contour swales.

“How did the grass turn green so fast?!” asked one of the prince’s staff.

“It was the high-level formation, of course!” said another.

“Do you think these ‘swales’ will work?”

“Who knows? The theory is sound…”

Before I had used a Cash Shop item on it, Skyfang Hill had been covered in brown, brittle grass. Now it was blanketed in emerald green grass. The entire place had been obscured by the magic circle while it was being landscaped, so we hadn’t been able to see what was happening. The System must have fixed the grass along with building the swales.

“Everything seems to have gone well,” I said to the prince, while ignoring the others' questions and speculation. “We’ll plant trees tomorrow before we leave.”

Prince Baiyu was looking at the hill with an inscrutable expression on his face. “This…”

I patted his arm. “Don’t fret. Either it will work or it won’t, but I’m pretty confident in my plan.”

He hesitated before replying. “It’s just that you’ve done a lot of work…”

I waited for him to continue, but he looked away from me into the distance.

“And?” I prompted him.

“You know, Shuye was not in favor of this project. We’ve all been here and spent seasons trying to break the curse,” said Prince Baiyu in such a soft voice that I could hardly hear him. “I myself have planted hundreds of trees, but they all died after a few days. I just don’t want you to be too disappointed in case…”

“Aw, you worry too much!” With the System on my side, I was definitely going to succeed. I decided to tease him a little to lighten the mood. “Hmm, but if I do fail, can I count on you to cheer me up?”

He turned to face me and patted me on the head. “You can cry on my shoulder if you ever need to. And hugs are always available.”

Out of the corner of my eye I could see that the girls were inching nearer while, in contrast, the prince’s men were rapidly moving out of earshot. I gave my apprentices a warning look, then took Prince Baiyu’s hand and silently urged him to walk farther up the hill with me.

“Thank you. I hope I won’t need to cry soon,” I said. “Let’s look around.”

“Please, just don’t get your hopes up too much.”

“Eh, you’ll still give me the tax discount even if I fail, right?”

“Of course.”

“Can I claim my expenses, too?”

“Didn’t you read the contract?”

“What?”

“Your expenses will be deducted from the tax you owe.”

“Ah…”

Despite the warning look I had given the girls, they had continued to inch closer and closer to us until they were within earshot, and they looked terribly disappointed when we started talking about taxes and expenses.

“Is everything ready for your departure tomorrow?” asked Prince Baiyu.

“Not yet. I have to make arrangements for the Poop Machines, I mean the Lizardwings.”

“I think I’ll be unavailable tomorrow.”

“Oh, don’t be such a wuss! You can just turn off your sense of smell again.”

“Even if I can’t smell it, I can still see what’s happening.”

I had to admit that the sight of the Lizardwings projectile pooping was extremely off-putting. “It is kinda…”

Our eyes met and we both burst out laughing.

“You should have seen your face when you were running away from them. It’s like you were being chased by a ghost,” said the prince.

“What about you? I’ve never seen anyone jump so high and so fast the way you did yesterday when you thought you were too close and one of them was going to poop on you!”

That did it. When we started talking about the poop machines, the girls stopped following us. I waited until they were out of sight before turning to the prince and giving him a big smile.

“You could’ve just asked them to leave,” he said.

“That would just arouse their curiosity.”

I linked arms with him, and we walked around the hill inspecting the System’s work.

“Look, there’s space here for a small house.” I pointed at a patch of level ground.

“But you already have a bigger house.”

“Yes, but this is such a scenic spot.” I wave my arm at the valley below us. “Imagine what it will look like when it’s all green and full of flowers.”

“That would be wonderful. I’d love to stay in that house if you built it there.”

“Sure, why not? I’ll only charge you one gold piece a night.”

“One gold piece is too much. How about one kiss?”

“Ha! How would one kiss from you count as payment? If anyone was paying anyone for a kiss, you should be the one paying me!”

“I’ll do it! How much?”

“All the money in the world.”

“Ah. How about a kiss for a kiss?”

“I kind of like the sound of that…”

He took me in his arms, and I was glad that no one could overhear us or see what we did next.