Chapter 88: In The Field

Under the blazing sun, a pair of a man and a woman are walking along a crop field, each carrying a watering can in their hands.

“Looks like the crops are growing well here, Master Azrael,” Alina says as she is watering some tomatoes in the field.

“The temperature and pressure on the island are regulated to be similar to that of the temperate region on the surface. So we can pretty much plant crops here despite our altitude and location.”

“I see.”

The day after the incident in the imperial capital, Azrael and Alina go back to their floating island to spend a day off there. Azrael has deepened his involvement in the empire’s internal affairs, so he decides to cool it off for now.

Currently, they are in the cultivated land on the island, a few hundred meters from their house. There is so much unused space here, so they have uprooted acres of trees and turned the land into farmland for them to grow crops locally on the island.

The number of crops they can plant is currently a few, as they are limited by the season and the number of people to take care of them.

So far, they have planted warm-season crops such as tomatoes, squash, herbs, carrots, and so on. They procure the seeds from the empire, as it is the only place they have been visiting.

They also have planted some fruit trees on another cultivated plot, an orchard. In the future, Azrael has been planning to explore more of the world to gather as many seeds, seedlings, and saplings as he can. He is hoping that he could find similar crops that he enjoyed consuming in his previous world.

They want to be as sustainable as possible, but this island is bare of anything but trees and wild animals. Cultivating farmlands is their first step in becoming resourcefully independent from the main continent.

“In addition, the surface area of the exposed layers of earth of the island is reinforced by Claire’s magic. So water cannot just fall to the ocean, which makes the soil moist.”

“So that’s why we can dig wells here, huh? Though we have to dig deep to reach where the water sits.”

After making the floating island, Azrael realized that water would soon vanish on the island if they did not do something about it. The solution they came up with is to seal the bottom and the sides of the island with an invisible barrier to trap the water in the soil.

Claire then cast ritual magic to permanently deploy the magic. After that, she put a dome barrier around the circular piece of land to help regulate the temperature and air pressure on the surface.

Other than farming, they have been thinking of bringing livestock on the island for their meat. There may be wild animals on this island that were brought along with the land, like hares, wild boars, and birds, but Azrael is thinking environmentally and decided not to touch the wildlife here so that they would not disrupt the ecosystem.

Azrael could just hunt monsters in the ocean and bring them to the island, but that raises some problems. Firstly, sea monsters are enormous and hard to store. Secondly, only a few cuts of the few monsters available are suitable for the human palate. Even if it was edible, it would be too tough to chew.

Buying meat from the city is their only way of obtaining meat for now.

As they are watering the crops, Alina thinks of their current situation and changes the subject.

“Master Azrael, will we still be going to the imperial capital after this? Many people have witnessed your strength, and they would either see you as a hero or a threat. Wouldn’t that ruin your plan of staying low?”

When Alina asks him those questions, Azrael puts down the watering can to think about it for a while.

“To be honest, I was not expecting to reveal my strength this early. While it is true that I intend to hide it to stay low, I know that it is just temporary, as I would be forced to show my powers when it is needed.”

Azrael then paused to approach Alina and look at her eyes.

“I did it to protect you, Alina. Nothing is more important to me in this world than you.”

“Oh, Master…” Alina averts her gaze from him as her cheeks turn red. “You do not have to go that far for me…”

“You are that precious to me, Alina.” Azrael gives her a warm embrace.

Azrael has become an adventurer in the imperial capital for the reason that he wants to experience the life of a resident in this world. He does not want to lock himself on this island together, and he also wants to fulfill his curiosity by exploring more of this world.

By staying low and not gaining attention, he would gain some level of freedom. But the problem with it is that he would not become influential enough to make connections.

Even though he has found his true intention in this world, he still is not giving up on the hope of him coming back to his previous world, and he needs as much information as he needs.

“So what will you do after this?”

“Well, now that I have revealed a portion of my true strength, I would probably just play along with it. I am sure that the empire would not just ignore this matter. They would probably approach me again for their own interest.”

“Didn’t we have settled it with the questioning yesterday?”

“The knight captain indeed promised that they would not reveal anything to the public and bother us anymore, but I cannot say the same for the empire overall.”

“They would still be bothering us?”

“Highly likely. They discovered that there is someone in the empire capable of easily subduing a disaster-class threat, and they cannot just ignore it. Especially when there would be a potential war with the Tixiar Empire around the corner. They would either declare us a massive threat to the empire or seek power from us to help them fight the incoming threat.”

“Can we just move to another place?”

“We actually can, but I already did a favor to Carlene. I will remain in the Siafran Empire until I have fulfilled the task of helping Siafran to fend off the Tixiar forces. And after that, I have yet to decide what to do.”

“So we will continue adventuring in the imperial capital?”

“For the meantime, yeah.”

Alina notices that he sounds like he has other plans, which turns out to be true.

Even though they only ventured into the upper floors of the imperial dungeon, Azrael can assume that the bottom would not entertain him a bit.

From what he has learned, the boss of that dungeon is just a mere lesser dragon, which has only a yellow core and is definitely not going to satisfy him. Since magic cores are getting more expensive the more magic they store, Azrael would be forced to sell the high-quality cores for extra money.

He has been thinking of finding new sources of magic cores, but the imperial dungeon is the best place Western Revoria can offer, if he ignored the unknown potential of the Detho Forest.

The ocean is his best choice, as he can farm dozens of blue and a few purple magic cores on a daily basis. The caveat is that he has to cover a wide area just to find one, unlike in the dungeon, where monsters pop up within a short interval, albeit significantly weaker.

(Azrael, can you hear me?)

(Hm? What is it, Claire?)

Suddenly, Claire calls him via telepathy. She does seem to be in a hurry, so Azrael thinks that it is not urgent.

(I detected a magic beast entering the premises of the villa in the kingdom just now. It’s probably carrying a letter from Carlene.)

(I assume that it has something to do with the incident in the imperial capital.)

(I think so too.)

(But what could she possibly want now?) He wonders. (We will get there in a moment.)

After that, Azrael cuts off the call before he turns to Alina.

“Let’s stop here. We will go to the villa on the surface.”

“I understood.”

◆◇◆◇◆◇

In an instant, his vision changes from the interior of their house to the front door of Claire’s secret villa within the Tontheo Forest in the Kingdom of Roheazul.

“Lady Claire! Lord Azrael!”

Immediately after, realizing that they are not threats, a man in light armor with a spear in his hand is running towards them. It is notable that the man has a missing left arm from the elbow. It was amputated due to a certain incident not long ago.

“You are… Gerald, right?” It takes time for Azrael to remember the man’s name.

This man is one of the three who survived when a griffin attacked their carriage on their way to the port city. Finding himself guilty of it, Azrael decided to take them to this villa.

“May I ask why you take a visit here?”

“Claire said something just entered the barriers. Have you noticed anything?”

As Azrael is talking with Gerald, Claire begins scanning the surroundings. Upon looking around, Claire found an envelope near the barriers on the side of the premises. She then walks toward it before she picks it up and cracks the wax seal to read its contents.

“What is written in it, Claire?” Approaching her, Azrael inquires.

“It’s quite serious, so let’s discuss it inside.”