Chapter 364

Haruto turned toward Kagura and Kanna and gave them a quick reminder.

“Kagura, Kanna, catch as many cabbages as you can. Just be careful not to damage them.”

With that, Haruto rushed forward as well.

He moved extraordinarily fast, crossing dozens of meters in the blink of an eye and closing in on the cabbage swarm.

Haruto reached out with his right hand and accurately caught a cabbage flying straight toward him.

The instant his palm closed around it, he felt surprisingly powerful resistance.

Despite looking like an ordinary cabbage, it was struggling with at least twenty or thirty kilograms of force.

No wonder the residents of Axel had been so nervous. If something moving this quickly struck an ordinary person with that much force behind it, it could easily cause an injury.

For Haruto, however, such resistance was insignificant.

He tightened his grip slightly and effortlessly suppressed the cabbage.

Barely a second later, the cabbage that had been struggling violently went completely still, its leaves drooping limply.

Haruto casually stored it inside the Gourmet Restaurant.

After getting his first taste of success, he immediately accelerated.

His figure flickered rapidly through the cabbage swarm, and every time he raised a hand, another cabbage was caught with perfect accuracy.

Within only a few minutes, Haruto had already captured several hundred.

Kagura’s performance was even more eye-catching.

She opened her wind fan and swept it toward the cabbage swarm overhead.

Whoooosh!

An enormous tornado suddenly formed.

Kagura controlled its strength with extraordinary precision. The vortex possessed enough suction to drag in every cabbage nearby, yet remained gentle enough that it wouldn’t shred them into pieces.

Large numbers of cabbages flying through the air were helplessly swept into the tornado.

After spinning around inside for several rotations, they became completely disoriented and lost the ability to resist.

Whenever enough cabbages accumulated inside the vortex, Kagura dispersed it.

The dizzy vegetables immediately dropped to the ground and piled together into a small green hill.

Then Kagura would simply wave her fan again.

A new tornado formed, and the next round of harvesting began.

With such an efficient method, Kagura collected cabbages far faster than Haruto.

She barely even needed to move.

Simply standing in one place and waving her fan was enough to harvest enormous quantities.

The nearby adventurers could only stare in amazement.

“You can use wind magic like that?! That’s incredible!”

“If I knew wind magic, I’d make a fortune every cabbage season!”

“I knew Kagura was beautiful, but I had no idea she was this strong!”

And yet, as astonishing as Kagura’s harvesting speed was, even she couldn’t compare with Kanna.

Kanna merely raised the Mirror of Death and let its surface reflect the cabbage swarm overhead.

Every cabbage caught within the mirror’s influence suddenly stopped flapping its leaves as though all strength had been drained from it.

Without the slightest struggle, they simply dropped straight out of the sky.

Even Haruto looked surprised when he saw it.

He had originally assumed Kanna’s power could only affect creatures possessing souls, since the Mirror of Death was primarily used to manipulate and absorb souls.

These cabbages clearly had no souls, yet her ability was still having an extremely pronounced effect on them.

Apparently, Kanna’s power influenced more than souls alone.

Naturally, Haruto had no complaints about that.

Eventually, he stopped catching cabbages himself and instead focused entirely on storing the enormous piles Kagura and Kanna were bringing down.

Elsewhere, Kazuma and his companions were also having a reasonably successful harvest.

Kazuma used Steal to capture flying cabbages with relative ease.

Aqua managed to collect quite a few with the help of various tools.

As for Darkness…

She was busy enjoying the sensation of high-speed cabbages slamming into her body.

Once the cabbage swarm finally passed over Axel, the annual cabbage harvest officially came to an end.

The adventurers returned to town in a massive procession, their faces glowing with the satisfaction of a successful harvest.

Doors and windows that had been tightly shut throughout Axel began opening again.

Residents leaned outside and cheered for the returning adventurers, many of whom were carrying sacks and baskets overflowing with freshly captured cabbages.

Back at the Adventurers Guild, everyone immediately began celebrating.

Cabbage salad, cabbage stew, and all manner of other cabbage dishes were brought out and arranged across the tables.

Barrel after barrel of chilled sparkling wine followed.

The adventurers raised their cups, drank freely, and loudly boasted about their “heroic achievements” during the harvest.

Haruto, Kagura, and Kanna found a relatively quiet corner and sat down to sample the cabbage dishes themselves.

There was crisp and refreshing cabbage salad, hearty cabbage stew with a rich texture, and plenty more besides.

The celebration continued well into the night.

By the time the moon had risen, most of the adventurers finally departed, drunk and carrying the results of their harvest with them.

After eating and drinking their fill, Haruto and the sisters left the guild as well.

On the way home, Haruto took out his Adventurer’s Card and checked it.

Thanks to the monster-subjugation quests they had completed earlier, along with the experience gained during the cabbage harvest, his level had already risen to 20.

He had also gained another 60 skill points.

Apparently, as an advanced-class Magic Swordsman, Haruto received three skill points every time he leveled up.

According to what he knew, ordinary classes generally received only one skill point per level.

Of course, leveling wasn’t the only way to obtain skill points in this world.

For example, the Crimson Demon school possessed potions capable of directly increasing a person’s skill points.

Naturally, even among the Crimson Demons, such potions were probably fairly rare and were generally reserved as rewards for outstanding students.

Haruto suspected that other items with similar effects almost certainly existed elsewhere in the world.

Still, it wasn’t something he particularly needed to worry about.

He had already started with an enormous number of skill points.

…

Early the next morning, Haruto brought Kagura and Kanna back to the Adventurers Guild to look for more quests.

The guild was noticeably quieter than usual.

Although many adventurers had made a considerable amount of money during the cabbage harvest, quite a few of them had also suffered varying degrees of damage to their weapons and armor during their “battle” against the vegetables.

To an adventurer, a weapon was practically a second life.

As a result, many were spending the day repairing their equipment or simply purchasing replacements.

While Haruto’s group was examining the available quests, a noisy commotion suddenly caught their attention.

Haruto turned around.

Aqua was sprawled across one of the dining tables, clutching Kazuma’s arm with both hands.

“Kazuma! Kazuma, please! Lend me some money!”

“I thought I was definitely going to make a fortune during the cabbage harvest, so I spent everything I had in advance! I even ordered the most expensive sparkling wine at the tavern, and now I owe the owner almost a hundred thousand eris!”

The more Aqua spoke, the more miserable she became.

She had caught a huge number of vegetables during the harvest.

Unfortunately, every single one of them had turned out to be lettuce, which was practically worthless.

Haruto listened from nearby with a speechless expression.

Aqua’s Luck really was unbelievably terrible.

Even adventurers who captured only a handful of vegetables usually managed to get at least a few actual cabbages.

Aqua, on the other hand, had worked for most of the day without catching a single one.

Every last thing she brought down had been cheap lettuce.

Haruto rubbed his chin thoughtfully as he watched Aqua throw a tantrum.

Somehow, he couldn’t help feeling that Luck this catastrophically bad was probably more than simple coincidence.

Perhaps it had something to do with Eris.

After all, Aqua’s Axis Cult had spent years antagonizing the Eris Church.

They even had teachings claiming that “Eris pads her chest.”

And while Eris usually appeared dignified, gentle, and compassionate, she definitely possessed a somewhat mischievous side beneath the surface.

As the Goddess of Fortune, she naturally ought to possess abilities connected to Luck.

Making Aqua just a little more unfortunate didn’t seem entirely impossible.

Of course, whether that was actually the case was something Haruto couldn’t say for certain.