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

34 - land ownership

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"Ars, you came back with something amazing.

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　One day, I was talking with Father Paul in church.

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　He looked at the text written on parchment and said to me, "You are a good man, but you are not a good man.

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　But what did he mean by "amazing"?

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　Father Paul is the man I was named after at my baptism.

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　After that, I come to church sometimes.

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　It was to learn to write.

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　The only time I have ever seen letters in this seemingly empty village was in a book that the priest was holding at my baptism.

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　By the way, both my parents were illiterate.

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　The best way to learn was to go to church.

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　On days when it was raining and they did not go out to the fields, they would visit the church and listen to the lectures on letters from the priest with the books by their side.

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　This time, it was during the lecture on the letters that the priest had made his suggestion.

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　Usually, he uses his books as teaching materials, but this time, I brought in a piece of parchment with letters on it, saying that I had something I wanted him to look at.

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　The parchment was something I had gotten on a recent trip to the city.

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　It was issued to the Fontana family as a license for the future sale of the beast.

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"By 'great,' do you mean the Fontana family's permit?"

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Yes, it is. But I am not talking about a sales permit.

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"No?　So you mean the other one?"

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Yes, that's right. I'm talking about this document that officially recognizes the forest clearing as yours, Ars.

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　With that, Father Paul held out a sheet of parchment on his desk to me.

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　There are two documents that I received from Mr. Raymond, the Fontana family's vizier.

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　One of them was about the sale of the beast and the other was about the ownership of the land.

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"My father was very thoughtful. He didn't want us to be asked for wheat as a tax on the land we had cleared. Thank you for your help."

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"I see. Assyra did it. But this document is not only about taxes. Do you understand?"

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"Yeah ...... no, I don't know, but ....... I'm sure it doesn't say anything that unusual."

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　The parchment contains only a few words.

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　To officially grant me the land north of the village where the forest has been cleared.

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　And that the land be taxed in money, not wheat.

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　In short, it says only these two things.

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"Listen. First of all, this document says that the land you reclaimed from the forest is yours. Do you understand that?"

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"Yes."

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"Now I have a question. Where is the land you cleared?

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"What?　No, I thought you said it was where you cut down the trees in the forest and cleared the land."

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Yes, it is. That's what pioneering is all about. But what is important here is the sentence "the land you cleared". It does not include the items of when, where, and how much land. In other words, it includes all the land you have cultivated and all the land you will cultivate.

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"Well, that sounds like a quibble, but is it supposed to be?"

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"Now, let's add the following text to the list. The tax is to be paid in money, not wheat.

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"What's wrong with that?"

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"The noble house of Fontana has officially granted you a title to a piece of land, and you pay a tax according to the amount of land. But it is not wheat. That means there is no problem if it is not farmland.

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"Well, yes. The reason is that the land was originally intended to raise usernames, not to grow wheat.

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No, there is no indication anywhere that the land is for raising the beast of burden. In other words, there is no problem to do anything on this land.

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"What do you mean?"

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"You see, you were told by the Fontana family that you would be treated like a great family."

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　I don't get it when people talk about aristocrats and powerful people.

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　I asked Father Paul a lot of questions after that.

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　And what I found out was that nobles are the rulers of the land, but they are not perfect emperors.

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　The Fontana family rules the land of Fontana, but they are not in complete control of the land.

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　There are some powerful families who have controlled a part of the land for a long time, and they are said to rule the land by giving some privileges to these families and adding them to their families.

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　The compensation is usually in the form of money or other payments, or the provision of soldiers who can be used in times of war.

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　And from what I have read in this document, Father Paul is trying to tell me that he is treating me in the same way as this powerful family.

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"I don't know why they gave me such special treatment. Just because a messenger beast that can be ridden was born, it doesn't go that far, does it?"

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"Maybe they never dreamed that Ars would have such a large area of land, or that they would be able to cultivate it."

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　Father Paul said that land is an invaluable asset for many people, but it is also an immovable object that cannot be taken with you.

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　This time, I presented a rideable Valkyrie, a messenger beast, to the Fontana family.

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　So Mr. Raymond, as a member of the Fontana family, must have thought

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　I am not the eldest son of a farmer and I should not be able to stand on my own and go to another land ruled by another nobleman and produce my own beast of burden there.

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　I would like him to continue to produce the beast for the rest of his life and benefit the Fontana family.

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　Then, the land that I cleared for the forest to grow the food for the conjugates should officially be my personal property, not my parents'.

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　That way, I should be able to bind myself to the land for the rest of my life.

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　But Mr. Raymond was unaware of my pioneering abilities.

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　He probably never dreamed that he had the power to cultivate such a large area of land that he could call himself a landowner or a wealthy family.

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　As a result, he acknowledged my ownership of the land by a short form of writing.

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　As a result, I was granted the right to own as much land as I could increase and to use it freely.

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　In other words, I can do whatever I want with this land as long as I pay for it.

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　It seems that I had changed my job to a wealthy family without realizing it.

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　I don't know what I am supposed to do, though.

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　For the time being, I have decided to just do what I have to do.

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