Oh Great! I was Reincarnated as a Farmer

by Benjamin Kerei

  I placed the empty mug on the table and headed outside, crossing the square to Jeric’s house. Four village guards were in the process of leaving and I waved as I passed them, headed for the door. They waved back happy to see me. The last thing I’d done before heading to bed was put five crowns on the bar with a note to Gretel that explained I was setting up a tab for the guards. Those men and women had stayed behind to act as bait for something they had no chance against. If that wasn’t heroics I didn’t know what was. And I wasn’t willing to let them pay for their drinking for the next month after actions like that.

  I knocked twice.

  Hamlin opened the door. “I told you, he’s…oh, it’s you, sir. Come in. I believe the master could use some company.” Several objects smashed in quick succession. Hamlin flinched. “This way, sir.”

  I was led through the manor to the kitchen.

  Jeric stood in the middle of chaos, red-faced with anger and swearing incoherently. He didn’t even notice me as he picked up a glass and smashed it against the wall, sending shards in all directions. The kitchen was a warzone filled with debris from shatter plates and mugs.

  “Is there anything I can do to help?” I asked, tentatively.

  Hamlin was nowhere in sight as Jeric turned, seeing me for the first time. “Those ingrates denied my request. They’re going to speak with the regent to request the village be abandoned.”

  “The village is going to be abandoned?” I said, not fully understanding what he meant.

  “Yes, no, maybe. The adventurers’ guild has found a matriarch silkworm spider in the Alovin Woods. They currently have every high-level free adventurer headed there to farm experience. Between that, the border wars, and the recent hobgoblin attack that destroyed the town of Lerbin, they don’t have enough spare people to deal with the giant, right now. They’ve chosen to chase the high-value target instead of coming to our aid. They’re asking the regent to abandon the village until they can come and deal with the giant which might not happen for up to a year. If she accepts their request it means we will have to leave for at least that long.”

  His explanation was less concise than I was used to receiving from him, but I immediately understood his anger. Abandoning the village for even a few months would be disastrous. Some of Ranic’s teachings, along with the books I read, had actually managed to get through to me. So I knew that fields left untended lost levels and quality. Longstanding farms were immune to those losses for a while, but after three months, even those would start losing their growth. In six months, the village would be no better off than a brand-new village. Generations of work would be gone. The local farmers would lose half their production, not counting the cost of going that long without income.

  It was a disaster.

  That wasn’t enough to put Jeric into a rage though. This wasn’t just because of his village. I knew my friend well enough to understand that. This was about his daughter. Without access to the village to gain more experience, he wouldn’t earn enough experience for his daughter to keep her class and remain a noble. A decade of personal sacrifice would vanish and his child would suffer. She’d become an adventurer, living a life of violence, forced to experience what would likely be a painful end.

  That was the anger I saw here.

  Jeric’s emotions washed over me, and for a moment, I wasn’t standing in the room with my friend. I was in my head watching Jeric’s reaction, remembering things I didn’t like to think about.

  Jeric kept throwing crockery and swearing. His anger overshadowed reason.

  I could see that clearly.

  I could also see Jeric’s love for his daughter. It was the same love my father had shown me when he taught me how to play guitar, sacrificing weeks of his free time to help me. Seeing Jeric like this awoke painful thoughts I hated to think about, thoughts of my parents’ suffering.

  Our technology back home was advanced enough that I couldn’t be sure my body was dead. Even now, almost a year later, it could be lying on a hospital bed, comatose, requiring round-the-clock care.

  I didn’t want that. I truly hoped and even prayed that it was in a grave decomposing because it being alive was too painful to think about.

  My father, despite his practical nature, had a soft heart. He would bankrupt our family with medical bills to keep my body alive, on life support. He’d go to the hospital every day and hold my hand waiting for me to come back. He’d talk to me, never giving up hope that I’d wake up. My mother would be right there beside him. She wouldn’t agree with his actions after all this time, but she wouldn’t stop him, and she’d be there every day, sitting beside him, offering support.

  I could see them sitting there day after day, month after month, year after horrible year, until they had nothing left to give. Until everything was taken from them and the hospital let me die because their money had run out. It was a painful reality my family could be living through right now.

  It was kinder for them if my body had suffered a heart attack and died at the convention centre.

  That was a better reality, even if my parents had reacted the way Jeric was doing now, shouting and screaming, being angry at the world over having to deal with a dead son. I knew that despite that sort of reaction, they would become strong enough to deal with my death. Maybe not at first. But they would. Eventually. They had each other for support. They could do it. I’d managed to accept the reality of never seeing them again and I was by myself. They could accept me dying, together.

  Recognising this truth as the source of my anger took me months and it started all the way back at the beginning when I was sitting on the altar next to Damella and Varla. I didn’t see it sooner because it was too painful for me to confront. Too painful to consider. Like a coward I’d run from it, even though it bounced around in my subconscious constantly. It was why I had been so furious with Damella. It wasn’t that she killed me, like I thought at the time. That only made me angry. It was what she had done to my family. The pain she had caused. It turned simple angry into fury. Fury I’d let loose on a child.

  Humans aren’t always rational when are loved ones are involved.

  My mind went into overdrive, hoping to find something that would help my friend, and spare him the sort of pain my parents had to experience. A less painful but still rather painful answer came to me. “Am I correct in assuming you can’t gain experience once you’ve been ordered to abandon the village?”

  Jeric turned and glared at me. “Yes, why?”

  “Because we have until then for you to lose the remaining land around the village to me at ten times its value.”

  Back when I’d needed land to test baiting monsters, but couldn’t afford it, I’d developed a method using a bunch of different rules that allowed Jeric to give me the villages land for free, accidentally creating an exploit for noble experience in the process. Jeric had informed me, at the time, that using the gambling method with all the village-owned land would likely earn him enough noble experience for his daughter to keep her class. Knowing that, I’d still asked him not to share the method with anyone until I was ready. He’d agreed despite what it might cost him, because that was the sort of person he was. He was the kind of friend I didn’t deserve to have.

  Jeric froze, and then he blinked twice. “But…the taxes…” There was a hint of hope in his tone.

  “I’ve got more than 2500 crowns worth of experience in my bag at the inn and that’s at base. I can put the experience up as collateral while I sell off some of it to pay for the land. How much land can there be?”

  Jeric put down the plate he was about to throw, losing some of his anger. “Arnold, there are more than 12,000 fields of unfarmed land around the village. That is 750 crowns in taxes which need to be paid in advance. I know you are trying to help, but I can’t let you do that. You can use that money to pass through your thresholds.”

  “Holy shit.” I took a breath, trying to get past the price he had said, opened my mouth and, “Holy shit,” came out a
second time.

  It took a few deep breaths to pull myself together. The high price didn’t change what I wanted to do. It only made me cringe while doing it.

  “Jeric, let’s be honest: its money I wouldn’t have without your help. Once this whole giant issue is taken care of, I can make more by continuing to use my method, and I’ve more than enough for the foreseeable future even if I don’t sell above base.”

  Jeric seemed to settle into thought. “I suppose if you had to, you could lease the land for the price of the taxes. It would certainly attract more people to the village once this was all over. And you wouldn’t lose out.”

  Jeric had to be genuinely desperate to accept such flawed reasoning. Like a good friend, I used that against him for his own good. “Exactly; now let’s go play cards before you get that order to abandon the village.”

  Several hours later, Ranic burst through the parlour door, followed by Jeric’s panic-stricken butler and Wallis, the guard captain. Hamlin was clenching and unclenching his fist, staring daggers at me. The captain was looking around, befuddled.

  The captain cleared his throat. “I apologise for the intrusion, sir, but Hamlin said there was a crime being committed here.”

  “That charlatan is taking advantage of the mayor in his delicate state,” the butler snapped, pointing his finger at me accusingly.

  Ranic took everything in at a glance—the cards, the contracts, the letters of debt. “What’s going on here?”

  “I’m buying the land owned by the crown,” I said.

  “It looks to me like you are gambling,” the captain said.

  “It’s both,” Jeric said before looking at the butler. “I’m sorry to have upset you, Hamlin. Let me explain what’s going on.”

  It only took Jeric three minutes to explain, and then the captain only had one question. “Is this legal?”

  “Entirely,” Jeric replied. “I had several lawyers check the first time we did so—and I need to invoke your oath that you do not share this with another living soul.”

  Hamlin burst into tears, holding one hand to his mouth. “You’re helping the master gain enough experience so his daughter can keep her class. I didn’t realise. Please forgive me,” he sobbed.

  “You were looking out for him,” I said, more than a little uncomfortable. I never knew what to do with crying people. “I can’t hold that against you.” I turned to Ranic. “I think he needs a drink. Would you mind getting it for him?”

  Ranic turned to the captain. “Can you do it? These two have stumbled onto an absolute goldmine of experience and they’re only doing it at about 5% efficiency. I need to improve their output before they screw up a perfectly good opportunity.”

  The captain nodded his head, put his arm over the distraught butler's shoulder, and led the poor man through the house to the kitchen.

  Ranic turned to the two of us. “You two can’t seem to help yourselves when it comes to causing trouble ineffectively.”

  We stared at the old man with our full attention.

  Jeric broke first. “You implied there was a way to improve my experience gains?”

  Ranic grinned. “That depends. Is there any particular reason you aren’t raising the value of the land you are selling?”

  “He’s buying it at the absolute limit of the price the crown can set. If you know how to raise that price on a stagnant village, please say.”

  “Build a house of scholars that specialises in farming,” Ranic said.

  “I told you a month ago, the village doesn’t have the money and the regent refused to loan us the funds.”

  Ranic pointed at me while staring at Jeric. “If my maths is right, you’re about to gain 375 crowns in the village coffers, even after you’ve paid the king’s portion. That’s enough to legally secure a loan from me and purchase the slot to construct the house of scholars. If you put the order through your village system now, that amount will be deducted from the crown's treasury, and you can reimburse the cost at the end of the month.”

  Jeric frowned. “How will having a building slot available change anything?”

  Ranic smiled. “It won’t until you allow me to build the house of scholars I requested a month ago. Once you send through the construction request, the village will go through an automatic revaluation phase. For the next week, the price of land here will be able to fluctuate. Usually, that wouldn’t mean anything. However, I’m a level 99 scholar with a speciality in farming. Since the house of scholars would be built with the intent of my being in charge, the base price of the land in this village will immediately triple, re-establishing its pre-stagnation value.”

  Jeric started to fish mouth.

  I was no less surprised. I hadn’t known Ranic and Jeric had talked about building a house of scholars again. The way the old man spoke, I thought he’d leave Blackwood the moment our contract was over. But apparently, that wasn’t true. Ranic was making his own longterm plans.

  Ranic wasn’t done. “Now, I’ve done enough walking around the village to estimate the current value of the farms here, so you can trust me when I tell you that once Arnold purchases the next 1% of the available fields at the maximum price, the minimum value of the land will increase by a further 8%. From there, you will have to continue to buy the village in 1% increments to trigger auto-revaluation. The fact that it is the minimum price being changed and you are buying it for the maximum will cause a compounding effect. I’ve no idea what the final price of the land will be. I need paper to do the math. But it’s going to be a stupidly high price, easily more than ten times what you are currently going to be able to sell it for and that’s with my house of scholars. It’s going to take years for the price to correct itself, but if you are going to do this, then do it right.”

  Jeric and I both stared at each other, unable to actually comprehend what Ranic was suggesting. What we were doing was already ridiculous. If Jeric could get ten times as much for the land, that would be ten times the experience, which would be more than enough for his daughter to keep her class—but we weren’t talking about ten times. We were talking about…I didn’t know how much, but it sounded like a lot.

  Tears began to form around Jeric’s eyes.

  Ranic snapped at him. “We don’t have time for that. You need to go and order my damn house of scholars—or weren’t you listening?”

  Congratulations, you have purchased 5000 fields’ worth of farmland. This level of affluence has earned you a new title: Landlord

  Landlord

  Level: 1

  Effect: +1 intelligence.

  Congratulations, you have purchased 10,000 fields’ worth of farmland. This level of affluence has earned you an increase in level for an existing title: Landlord

  Landlord

  Level: 2

  Effect: +2 Intelligence, +2 charisma

  Congratulations, you have reached the maximum potential for your Gambler skill.

  Skill: Gambler

  Level: 100

  Effect:

  +200% to your gambling ability

  +100 luck

  Congratulations, you have reached the maximum potential for the Gambler skill. You have earned a new title: Skill Master

  Skill Master

  Level: 1

  Effect: +10% to skill experience.

  Congratulations, you have reached the maximum potential for your Merchant skill.

  Skill: Merchant

  Level: 100

  Effect:

  +200% to merchant ability

  +200% when haggling above base price.

  Congratulations, you have reached the maximum potential for the Merchant skill. You have earned a new level for your title: Skill Master

  Skill Master

  Level: 2

  Effect: +20% to skill experience.

  Ranic didn’t allow us to rest. He started yelling at anyone who could be of any help to come to our aid. He brought in his stimulant powder when we started getting tired, which turned out to be a less intense ver
sion of cocaine that wasn’t addictive, and made sure special food was always on hand for when our stamina dropped more than a few points. Everything was streamlined—and not one second of it was fun.

  There was none of the casual atmosphere we shared the first time we had done this. We were both incredibly serious, letting Ranic shuffle and deal as quickly as he could. We added a timer to the game, making a single hand last no longer than a minute. In the beginning, I lost slightly more this way, but as I built up the level of my gambler skill, the overall rate at which I won increased.

  It was hell.

  But it was worth it.

  My hand moved across the contract for the last time as I signed my name. As I put down the pen, a wave of exhaustion flooded me. A large silver crystal of experience formed in Jeric’s hand.

  He stared at it in wonder.

  I gave Ranic a tired grin as I slumped into the parlour chair.

  The old man smiled back. “Damn, I’m good.”

  I nodded, tiredly. It had been two days since any of us had slept…and the walls were moving. No call arrived for the village to be abandoned. We’d beaten the regent’s decision. We could have stopped when we reached the amount of experience Jeric needed, but none of us wanted to. I had been gaining crazy experience in my merchant and gambler skills. This was a once in a lifetime chance.

  At 750 crowns, the price of reaching level 100 in two skills was insanely low.

  I tapped the table tiredly to get Ranic’s attention. “Now that you’re not busy, do you mind telling me what luck does? My gambler skill is maxed out after all this, so I figured that I should probably know.”