The Defeated Dragon Chapter 9

9 – The Peanut Settlement’s Infertile Land

The date-red Fierydragon carrying the Earth Knight Liszt crossed the muddy land before arriving at the peanut settlement. The peanut settlement was a very small settlement with thinly scattered seven or eight grass huts.

“Stop spacing out! Have you not seen that the Sir Lord has arrived, hurry up and kowtow in salute!” The settlement’s clerk scrambled to knock on each hut’s door.

Those living in this place were all serfs.

With numb expressions, which was a consequence of living their lives in oppression, the serfs came out of their huts alike a tide. They stood woodenly at the doorways, not knowing what to do. Only after they were berated by the clerk, did they slowly knelt on the ground and saluted in Liszt’s direction.

The adults were apathetic.

Only the few naked children were raising their heads from time to time, using their filthy yet bright, big eyes to size Liszt up, followed by having their heads pushed down by the adults, making them kneel on the ground in the same fashion as the adults, their heads nearly sticking to the ground.

“Who is in charge of the peanut settlement?” Liszt inquired.

Gort was unconcernedly sitting atop his horse; he also did not know who the person in charge of the peanut settlement was. The clerk uttered: “Sirs, that would be the lame Old George.”

“Tell him to come over.”

The clerk very quickly came while supporting an old man with a lame leg being dragged behind him. The old man was wearing patched clothes. With his withered old body, he seemed to be an oil lamp about to extinguish.

“Sir Lord, Old George is here.”

The clerk pushed the old man, seemingly intending to make the old man salute. However, the old man looked very nervous as he stood there woodenly, not knowing what to do.

Liszt waved his hand, indicating for the clerk to retreat, before saying gently: “Old George, there is no need to be nervous. I am the Baron Liszt Tulip, the Lord of Flower Town. I heard that there is a problem with the peanut settlement’s peanuts. Take me to the fields to take a look, to see if I can solve this problem.”

“Ah, oh, Baron… Sir Lord…” Old George stuttered nervously, “I will lead the way… Heavens be thanked… peanut settlement is saved… Sir Lord has come to save us!”

In his excitement, Old George raised a gust of wind as he walked.

Because it was manned by serfs, there was no footpaths in the fields; therefore, Liszt could only inspect the fields by standing outside the farmland. Each field had only a ravine as a dividing line, with different serfs seeding different fields.

Nearly 90% of the farmland’s output belonged to the aristocracy, that is, to Liszt.

Only the remaining 10% were theirs to use as rations.

Currently.

The peanut fields, which were supposed to be green, were instead green interspersed with yellow. The peanut crops lacked vitality as they feebly lied on the ground. The soil was moist. Obviously, the serfs had been watering the peanut crops, yet it was not enough for the crops to thrive.

Old George wiped the tears off his face and said emotionally: “Sir Lord, we do not lazy around. We water the peanut crops three times a day, yet they still keep dying. Currently, only the peanut crops on Archie’s field still have not wilted, but they also cannot endure for much longer. Some of the leafs are already starting to turn yellow.”

Following the direction in which Old George’s finger was pointing at, Liszt saw a long field in the middle of the peanut settlement’s farmland.

The field was green, its peanut crops had much more vitality than the wilted greenish-yellow crops around it.

Liszt dismounted his horse, went next to the farmland, stooped down and pulled out a yellowed peanut sprout. He was about to carefully examine it, when Gort suddenly said: “Liszt, you should not do this dirty work. If there is anything you want done, then it is just fine to send the serfs to do it.” Even though he was a destitute chevalier, but in his heart, alike the average aristocrat, he still looked down on commoners.

Liszt did not pay him any attention.

Instead, he examined the peanut sprout in his hand.

He was not an agronomist, but he had cultivated his share of fields when he was young, so he was no stranger to agriculture. Peanuts of the two worlds had some similarities and some differences. However, he could still determine that the current state of the peanut sprout in his hand was due to malnutrition.

“Have you tried to use ashes or manure on the fields?”

“What?” Old George was confused, “Sir Lord, we had only used water, three times a day!”

Liszt asked: “You have not used any fertilizer?”

Old George was taken aback, asking: “What is fertilizer?”

Not even knowing about fertilizer… Liszt was speechless: “How have you been cultivating the peanuts?”

Old George babbled for a while. Long story short, before cultivating the peanuts, they would burn the the weeds that grew during last year’s autumn and winter; after finishing seeding, they would water and weed the crops. From generation to generation, they would grow their crops in this fashion, with the harvest being particularly low. Only aristocrats could use sprites to affect the growth of plants and achieve a higher yield.

Realizing this, Liszt could not help but to shake his head.

Without using fertilizer, no matter how good the soil was, the land would turn infertile after cultivating plants several times. No wonder the peanut crops were dying, that is, dying from ‘hunger’.

Following this train of thought, Liszt became puzzled: “Why have they not yet starved to death? Now that the peanuts are like this, will they starve to death?”

According to Old George, they cultivated the plants in this fashion every year. And apart from the times when there were droughts or floods, the yield had always been like this. Therefore, the lack of nutrients in the peanut fields may have some other cause.

“What is the cause?”

His gaze fell on the field in the middle as he contemplated.

Suddenly, he had an epiphany as he recalled the reward of this mission. The mission requirement was to rescue the peanut fields, while the reward was one sprite worm. Based on the way he had received the reward from his first mission, Liszt felt that the sprite worm would not appear out of thin air, he would probably suddenly pick it up on his journey back.

“Rewarding me with a sprite worm… And the malnutrition of the peanut fields…” Standing up, Liszt had already arrived at an answer, “I am afraid that the origin of the malnutrition is my reward – the sprite worm. Sprite worms are born from plants, then this sprite worm of mine ought to be a peanut sprite worm.”

He waved his hand and called out to the crowd: “I am going to examine the field in the middle.”

The crowd tiptoed to the peanut field in the middle, where the peanut sprouts were still full of vigor. Liszt rummaged through the memories of his predecessor; when he was little, he had witnessed the harvest of a silkworm-looking sprite worm, which hid inside the flower of a plant or inside a bud.

Different sprite worms had different patterns.

At present, he had four sprite worms – one tulip sprite worm, one thorns sprite worm, one maize sprite worm, and one alfalfa sprite worm. The cultivation of sprite worms required matching farmland. At present, Gort was still searching for suitable farmland to cultivate the sprite worms.

After a moment of looking, Liszt had yet to find a peanut sprout pregnant with a sprite worm.

“It might still be too early. If the nourishment does not keep up, than the peanut sprite worm might fail to be bred.” Liszt could not help but to clench his fists. Sprite worms represented productivity; this mission could not end in failure.

Thinking till here.

He said to the crowd: “I believe I have already understood the reason behind this issue. Old George, treat the peanut fields according to the instructions I am going to give you now.”

“Praised be the Sir Lord!” Old George cried tears of joy.

Gort asked in astonishment: “Liszt, have you really discovered the reason behind this issue? When have you cultivated peanuts? What is the cause of the peanuts’ wilting?”

“It is still too early to say. It will become clear in a few days.” To not get ahead of himself, Liszt did not expound on the reason behind this issue. He was worried that if his guess was wrong and there was no sprite worm, that he would make a fool of himself.

Therefore, he first wanted to treat the peanut sprouts before saying anything more.

Chapter end