The Harvest

Farm work… is Hell.

Although Haruki started out enthusiastic, this reality soon made itself clear to him.

Unlike in modern times where heavy machines can harvest whole fields in no time at all, in this isekai world that was still stuck in medieval times everything had to be done by hand.

He worked all day every day, from dawn till dusk, under the scorching hot August sun.

With his left hand he would grab a handful of wheat stalks, and with his right hand he would sever them with a sickle. He’d then repeat this action about ten thousand times per day.

It was a maddeningly boring and repetitive task, like some sort of torture method meant to slowly break someone down psychologically.

More than that, it took an incredible toll on his body. His muscles were constantly sore, after the first day he could hardly feel his arms.

Haruki had spent his entire life as an indoor creature, the body he had diligently cultivated to play video games and watch anime was not fit for hard labor. He was completely out of shape.

The experience was nothing like the town-builder games Haruki had once played as a teen. He had never worked so hard at anything in his life.

Nevertheless, Haruki had made a promise to Johannes and Lillianna. If he didn’t want to be thrown out into the world to fend for himself, he had to do a good job helping with the harvest. That promise was the only thing keeping him going.

The fourth day of the harvest started with a cool morning, but that only meant it was going to be all the more hot by the afternoon.

As soon as the first glimmers of sunlight appeared above the horizon, Haruki, Lillianna, and some farmers from a few other families who shared the nearby fields all gathered together, where Johannes split them up into teams.

“Haruki, you, Lillianna, and Rudolph will all finish up that field over there by the trees today,” Johannes ordered, pointing off into the distance. “I’ll finish up this field here with the others.”

They headed out to their designated field, carrying their sickles and balls of twine to tie the stalks into bundles after cutting them.

“How are you feeling today?” Lillianna asked him. “Are you still feeling sore all over?”

“I’m feeling alright, I think my body is starting to get used to the work,” Haruki replied. He had lied, his body was still feeling as sore as ever, but this wasn’t something he wanted to admit in front of Lillianna. Especially not when Rudolph was also there.

Rudolph was a hulk of a man. He was over 190 centimeters tall (6’3”) and was strapped with muscle. He was the type of man who was born to be a farmer, or a professional wrestler.

Haruki couldn’t help but feel intimidated around the guy, not because he was scared of him — Rudolph was a gentle giant — rather because Rudolph was everything that Haruki wasn’t.

Doing his work next to such a huge and powerful man, it was immediately evident how inept Haruki was. Rudolph was the only one who preferred to use a scythe instead of a sickle, which not even considering his faster work speed allowed him to cut three or four times as much wheat with every swing.

Haruki had tried using the scythe once, thinking maybe he too could get his work done a lot faster if he used one. However, just a few swings were enough to tire him out, plus he only had the power to cut through about half of the wheat stalks he hit with it. It was clearly a tool only special people could handle.

When it came to doing farm work, Haruki didn’t have any chance of competing against him.

They began their work for the day. As the hours went by and the sun rose, the temperature quickly climbed up. By the afternoon the sun was scorching down on them from overhead, calling it hell was barely an exaggeration.

While they did their work, Lillianna hummed a pleasant tune, which helped distract Haruki a bit from the harsh work he was doing.

Lillianna had told him that throughout the rest of the year she mostly stuck to household tasks and taking care of the animals, but during harvesting season in the late summer and then planting in the fall all hands would be needed for farming, and she was no exception.

Besides, she was more capable than a lot of the men, especially Haruki.

They took a short rest while Rudolph went to refill their canteens for them.

“How is your foot doing? It hasn’t been bothering you at all, has it?” Lillianna asked.

“No, there hasn’t been any pain at all so far.” This, at least, was true. Haruki’s foot had hardly experienced any pain since Lillianna first healed it.

Lillianna grinned upon hearing his words, clearly proud of the job she had done with her magic.

“How do you do that anyways? The magic, I mean,” Haruki inquired. “When I was in Thistleholm, they said that someone like me can’t use magic.”

“I guess the ability to use magic isn’t terribly common,” she said. “You have to have the blood of one of the ancient magical races within you, and even then it is pretty rare to be able to use it well. I can barely use it myself, the magical blood inside of me is very thin.”

“Magical races?” Haruki asked, not sure what she meant by the phrase.

“You know, stuff like the beast folk and elves, the type of strange people they say used to live alongside humanity long ago.”

Haruki was starting to get the picture. This didn’t sound all too different from a lot of the fantasy series from his past life, only here it seems like all those fantasy races are no longer around.

“So, do you know which of these races you’re descended from?” Haruki asked curiously.

“My mom always told me that long ago there were people called fairies who lived deep in the forests, and that we had one of them as a distant ancestor. It was also my mom who taught me how to use my magic when I was really young.” Haruki noticed her eyes light up when mentioning her mom.

“So what happened to the magic races?”

“They each died out for one reason or another. They aren’t around any more, but enough of them interbred with us humans for there to be a lot of people with magical blood in them.”

Lillianna picked up a dried, brown leaf on the ground and closed it within her hand. She shut her eyes for a brief moment and then opened her hand again. The leaf was now green and full of life, as if it had just been plucked off a tree.

“When I close my eyes and focus on something I’m touching, I can sorta hear its True Name floating around inside my head. I can then change that name slightly, altering its sounds and changing its properties in real life,” Lillianna explained.

“That’s really amazing, I wish I could do something like that,” Haruki said.

“That’s about the most special thing I can do, though. Reverting an object’s True Name back to its previous state is the easiest form of magic, that’s what I used to help heal your foot,” she said. “I’ve heard that more powerful magicians can use their magic to change things entirely, stuff like converting the air into fireballs or even transforming the environment around them.”

Haruki thought back to the pair of jerks that had humiliated him back at the Adventurer’s Guild. If that’s what being a real magician meant, then it’s probably better that Lillianna wasn’t like them.

“Well, I think what you can do is pretty cool,” Haruki said. “It’s not like you're going off on adventures and fighting monsters. Just having any magical abilities already makes you special enough. Back where I come from where nobody can use magic, people would kill for an ability like that.”

She sat there smiling silently, as she stared off into the distance. The wind blew a small gust and she brushed her hair out of her face. Haruki noticed a light blush on her cheeks.

“And where is it that you come from, Haruki?” she asked.

Just then, Rudolph returned with their water bottles refilled.

Haruki grabbed his sickle and stood up. “I’ll guess I’ll have to tell you some other time.”

They resumed their work, laboring hard into the night.