Read I Was Reincarnated as a Poor Farmer in a Different World, so I Decided to Make Bricks to Build a Castle

33 - peddler's intentions

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　The harvest has been very poor.

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　Years of famine have killed people and devastated the land.

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　Man is a fool.

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　We have always been at war with each other, and in recent years, more wars have broken out over food.

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　Then I came across a certain food.

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　It's called Hatsuka.

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　It is ubiquitous and famous for its ability to grow even in the roughest of fields.

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　But it tasted so bad that it was inedible.

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　It is known as a scrappy vegetable produced by poor farmers, because only omnivorous livestock eat it.

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　However, the hatuka I ate on this occasion was different.

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　It tasted bad.

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　It tasted bad, but not so bad that it was inedible.

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　Salted hutka was served on the table even in winter when crops did not grow.

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　It was larger than the previous ones, so it had a crunchy texture and was very satisfying to eat.

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　There are other differences between this hatzka and other hatzkas.

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　It grows faster than others.

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　Ordinary hatzkas are ready to eat in about 20 days.

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　But this one grows well in about half that time.

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　This has begun to spread secretly in a few regions.

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　With this, more farmers might be able to survive a bad harvest.

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　I'm a peddler.

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　When there is war, things move, and profits are made.

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　I can make a profit if I want to.

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　But it's no good if the world is in such bad shape.

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　With this hatzkah, at least fewer people will starve to death.

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　Thus, I decided to do some research on this hatka.

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　A remote village near the northern forest.

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　That seems to be where this hatzka has its roots.

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　I wondered if a new species of hatka had been discovered in the forest.

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　I decided to visit the village to do some research.

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　When I arrived there, I was surprised.

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　Nowadays, every village has a gloomy and somber atmosphere.

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　But in this village, I felt nothing like that.

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　Even though the vendors were poor, they were not on the verge of starvation.

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　It seemed that the whole village was raising the HATUKA, and that they were living a life far away from hunger.

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　In the midst of all this, I met a boy.

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　He was a young boy who had not even been baptized yet.

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　He seemed to want to sell a lot of sandals.

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　They were sandals made from the stalks of the hatsuka plant.

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　I was surprised at this, too.

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　The stems of the sandals seemed to be stronger than normal ones.

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　Normally, sandals are not something you want to buy.

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　The unit price is low and they take up a lot of space, so there is no profit to be made.

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　However, this village was near the forest and they were not going to continue peddling any further, they were only going to take the route back to the city.

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　The amount of goods sold in this village would leave a gap in the cargo.

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　To fill the hole, I might as well buy a pair of sandals.

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　So I buy the sandals from the boy.

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　This boy was a strange child.

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　He was very bright.

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　It seemed he had never seen money before.

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　And yet, he immediately calculated the total amount of money for the sandals.

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　Usually, peasants are not good at number crunching.

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　However, I was surprised that he showed his smarts when he asked me a lot of questions.

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　He kept asking me if I had anything to sell.

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　I ended up answering his questions with all the information I had obtained from my travels around the country.

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　Along with the sandals, I bought a large quantity of hatsukas and went around to various villages.

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　I urged the farmers in each village to grow the hutsca.

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　But every village grows hutka.

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　Even if it was a new kind of hutzka, no one would go out of their way to buy it and grow it.

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　We started to sell the hatzkas as a set with sandals.

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　I don't know if this helped, but there were no buyers.

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　A few of them were even interested in cultivating it half-heartedly, if that's what they said.

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　I was going around the country like this, but something made me think of the boy from the village.

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　I knew that the boy's quick thinking could not be that of a farmer.

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　I felt that way, and for some reason I decided to visit the boy again.

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　From then on, I regularly visited the northern village to peddle my wares.

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　The boy brought me sandals every time.

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　And each time he would ask me questions for a long time.

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　But it was never unpleasant.

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　I began to look forward to that time.

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　My relationship with the boy continued through the years.

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　Every time I visited the village, the boy I saw got bigger and bigger.

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　Somewhere along the line, the boy started selling me more than just sandals.

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　Magic mushrooms.

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　Mushrooms from the forest are very valuable and are sold at a high price.

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　The profit from the sales to this village has not been so great until now, but now it is enough to make a profit.

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　But is such a small child really in the forest?

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　It is too dangerous.

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　It's too sad to lose a boy I've come to know while he's still so young.

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　I advised him to wait until he is a little older to go into the forest.

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　But he insists that there is no problem.

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　The boy's eyes are full of confidence that he will be all right.

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　But this is dangerous.

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　I have seen eyes like this many times before.

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　There have been many young people with delusional confidence.

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　I'll be fine.

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　Many talented young men have died saying that.

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　At least I can prevent them from doing so.

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　So I thought about what else I could buy from the boy.

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　And I soon found it.

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　A brick.

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　There is a brick building behind the boy's house that he uses for storage.

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　At first I thought the shed was more solid than the boy's house.

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　I spotted the bricks.

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　These bricks were made with amazing precision.

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　All the bricks were so exact that you would think they were exactly the same.

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　Moreover, all the surfaces were so beautiful and consistent.

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　You would think that they would make a solid building material even if they were just piled up.

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　Such bricks were piled up like garbage on the ground near the shed.

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　I wonder why they made so many bricks.

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　I heard from some people that other villagers had taken them and used them without permission.

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　If that's the case, we can buy them from them.

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　After all, there are places that buy bricks for building materials now.

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　With this in mind, I asked the boy if he would be interested in selling the bricks.

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　But the boy gave me a surprising response.

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　He offered me a certain dish to buy instead of the bricks.

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　I knew it. .......

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　I saw the tableware and knew who the boy was.

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　It was the most beautiful tableware I had ever seen, and there was even a glass made of glass.

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　A peasant would not have such things.

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　The boy is too smart to be a peasant.

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　The boy probably comes from an aristocratic family.

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　Maybe it's an ancestral heirloom.

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　He might be from a fallen family, judging from the fact that he lives in the same tattered clothes as the other peasants in this village.

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　Still, I wonder if they are showing such a valuable thing around to other people.

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　Who knows what kind of bandits might come to the house.

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　I was going to tell the boy that he should not show this heirloom-like dish to others unnecessarily.

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　But then I remembered my previous warning not to go into the forest.

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　He might not even listen to me if I told him it was okay.

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　So I tried to convince them from another direction.

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　I told him that it was impossible because I did not have the connections to sell this tableware.

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　The boy nodded his head and stopped talking about the tableware after that.

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　Well, I got greedy and bought one set at a discount.

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　The exchange with the boy continued in this way.

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　Soon the boy was old enough to finish his baptismal ceremony.

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　After the baptismal ceremony, every family is troubled by the magical mischief of children, but there was no sign of such a situation.

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　The boy, or rather Ars, surprised me again.

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　It was because the egg of the beast that Ars bought was born as a cavalry type.

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　The amazing thing about Ars is that he is always ambitious.

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　Even though he sells things like bricks and magic mushrooms, he is always looking for something new to sell.

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　I once asked him why.

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　I need weapons to go to war.

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　That was the reason Ars told me.

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　I knew it.

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　Ars must want to restore the fallen aristocracy with his war deeds.

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　I wondered if Ars's parents might not be his real parents.

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　For some reason, they might be taking care of and raising a child of a noble family who escaped with a family heirloom in his possession.

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　I became convinced of this when I saw Ars riding the Valkyrie, a beast of burden, without a care in the world.

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　He is definitely going to be a big shot.

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　I had a hunch.

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　We may need to establish a stronger relationship.

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　So I made a deal with him.

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　A deal to monopolize the beast that Ars raises.

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　I guess I've been buying sandals for not much profit in the past.

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　It seems that even in Ars's mind I was worthy of his trust.

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　The terms of our agreement were almost equal.

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　This relationship must be maintained at all costs.

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　By the time I grow up and return to the nobility, I must have more trust than I have now.

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　And so, my life began to revolve around a boy from the frontier.

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