The thought that Bard might know about his wanted status and was acting on it made Belsus's entire body stiffen for a moment.
If it were all true, then inciting that beautiful man to curse Belsus was likely just the beginning of a massive trap...
If he had any luck on his side, it was that Calain, who was guarding the front of the theater, hadn't noticed his presence yet.
Suddenly, Belsus noticed a flaw in his reasoning. Despite being so tense his head was pounding, he managed to regain his composure and reassess the current situation.
Let's assume it was true that Calain had colluded with Bard to arrest him.
'Then why is he standing out in the open like that?'
Standing tall at the building's main entrance with his sword strapped to his side, Calain was exuding a presence so intimidating that passersby were frightened into giving him a wide berth.
If Calain was waiting in ambush to catch him, he should be hiding. He shouldn't be making it this easy for Belsus to spot him.
Furthermore, if catching Belsus was truly the goal, Calain wouldn't be standing guard with the expression of a deeply humiliated young man.
Moreover, he wasn't even trying to hide his belief that this job was beneath him.
Unless Calain himself had fallen into some sort of trap, this wasn't the absolute worst-case scenario for Belsus.
Belsus took a slow, deep breath, releasing the extreme tension that had been burning through his body.
But it was too early to relax. If Calain was here, there was a high probability that other royal knights were stationed nearby.
Since Calain was the youngest in the order, he would never be assigned a solo mission.
'I'll have to wait to catch Bard until after I figure out when the knights are leaving.'
He had wanted to return to Heean's side proudly.
Blood pooled and dripped from his teeth biting down on his lower lip. Having bitten down until his lip split, Belsus forced his heavy feet to move and retreated from the area.
The man, as massive as a wild beast, vanished without a trace, as if he had never been there at all.
---
Without a doubt, that woman possessed the most beautiful physique Calain had ever encountered in his life.
"Just for the first day after we arrive in the city, please, I beg of you."
But at the same time, he was certain. This woman was incredibly cunning and fully weaponized her appearance.
Beautiful eyes and a slender face reminiscent of a fairy descending from a blue moon. Elegant curves that couldn't be completely hidden despite her body being draped in long fabric. This was all aside from the praises for her that littered the world like stars in the night sky.
Furthermore, the target of Persephone's ridiculous request turned out not to be Calain, but...
"It is an honor, My Lady."
To think it was a senior knight who happened to be the stain of the Munce Knights and an avid fan of Persephone.
Thanks to him, Calain was dragged into this mess. Since Calain was the youngest in the order, he couldn't exactly disobey the commands of a senior knight.
"I'm counting on you, Calain. Just know that if you try anything funny with Miss Persephone, you're a dead man. Hahaha!"
The senior knight, August, had dragged an easy target like Calain along to stand guard at the Nature Troupe together. Unable to defy his senior, the Knight stood in front of the building, swallowing a stream of curses while feeling thoroughly degraded.
He had no choice. Calain himself wasn't exactly in a position to proudly remain in the knighthood, so he couldn't afford to cause friction with any of the other knights.
He had become a Hunter despite being a knight, and unable to abandon those abilities, he greedily continued to use them.
However... this guard duty didn't bring only immense psychological trauma.
Strangely enough, Calain had stumbled upon an unexpected catch here.
Behind the Nature Troupe's temporary lodgings, a padlock secured a red carriage meant for transporting prisoners. This meant a criminal was inside.
A transporter, having been summoned belatedly, came running over in a huff. He asked Calain about the prisoner's identity, as he needed to take the appropriate precautions for the transport.
Calain replied with an indifferent expression.
"He is a Hunter carrying a token that doesn't belong to him. I captured him alive on charges of token theft and unauthorized Hunter activities."
"A Hunter, you say? Then, by any chance, do you know what his ability is?"
"I haven't figured it out yet, so be cautious."
The transporter guarded the carriage, visibly tense.
"Hah..."
His long, once-shining blonde hair was a tangled mess, and his pale skin was covered in scratches. The male, teetering on the boundary between boy and man, squeezed his hands, which were bound by heavy restraints. Dark blue bruises mottled his wrists.
Archer gave up trying to force the restraints open. It might have been possible for a strength-based combat class, but as an agility-based Hunter, he wouldn't be able to break these bindings even if he died and came back to life.
'This is your fault, you farmer bastard. You better come rescue me, you hear?'
He had only come to deliver a letter to Persephone at the Farmer's request. Failing to notice the knights stationed around the area, he approached the lodgings and was captured. For a master of stealth like him, it was a colossal blunder.
'What is Calain going to do to me? Will he kill me himself to absorb my EXP?'
So I'm the one being hunted today. Archer let his bound hands drop helplessly.
One day later.
'Why isn't Persephone showing up? There's no way she wouldn't come after reading that note. Did that bastard Archer actually deliver it properly?'
Heean had been sitting at the meeting spot, waiting alone for the past thirty minutes.
---
About an hour passed. Not a single soul could be seen in the alleyway where we were supposed to meet.
Ultimately, I decided to head back. I had a mountain of things to do, and waiting around here was a waste of time.
'Do I need to barge into the troupe's quarters to call Persephone out myself?'
I did have a track record of sneaking into the troupe's warehouse to 'borrow' cooking ingredients. However, that was only possible because it was the chef's warehouse, someone who wouldn't have crazed fans lurking in the audience.
The lodgings used by the actors, on the other hand, were naturally guarded by their own security personnel.
Don't tell me that idiot Archer carelessly waltzed in there and got caught by the guards? Is that something a long-range sniper should be doing?
Leaving the hopeless meeting spot behind, I returned to my lovely farm, only to end up swearing even more. Even though I should have been used to the sight from the past few days, I still clutched my forehead as if seeing it for the first time.
'Fuck. My farm...'
Curses were the only thing leaving my mouth. I took a shovel and buried all the rotten vegetables. Holding back tears in front of their graves, I paid my respects to the fallen warriors who had fought honorably.
I also resolved to eat nothing but meat during the mourning period. I had no desire to eat vegetables grown on someone else's land anyway.
I spent the entire day scrubbing the inside and outside of the house. Even in a video game where all you had to do was click a mouse, a complete reset like this would bring you to tears. But having to redo everything manually with my own two hands and feet felt like absolute torture.
[Lv.4 A Farm Imbued with the Grudges of the Unjustly Deceased]
Why the hell did the farm's level name change to something so ominous?
The only silver lining was that all the items in my inventory were completely safe.
Whenever I farmed, I always kept exactly thirty units of fertilizers, pesticides, eco-friendly growth elixirs, and other farming tools in my inventory so they'd be ready to use at a moment's notice. And even though I kept a stack of thirty, if I used just one and it dropped to twenty-nine, I would immediately replenish it to maintain the perfect thirty.
Whether it was twenty-nine or thirty, today was a day to be truly grateful for the obsessive organizational habits I'd developed since my gaming days.
This time around, I generously blew through my stockpile of farming items.
After ruthlessly pouring out the best elixirs I was currently capable of making, sprouts shot up from the soil in just half a day.
'Right, I just need to start over. I just have to grow them again. It's not like I haven't done this plenty of times before.'
Although they were still small, fragile little green sprouts, seeing them densely dotting the soil like a tiny army made me feel infinitely better.
After sprouting them, I provided individualized care tailored to what each vegetable liked best, eventually growing them into rather sturdy stems.
'Wait, what is going on here...?'
I noticed an odd discrepancy in my plants, something completely different from before.
I immediately ran an experiment.
I separated them into a control group and an experimental group, and even brought in a lowest-grade monster from outside to act as a test subject.
Dark circles formed under my eyes from staying up all night, and my eyelids grew heavy as fatigue rapidly set in. But I deemed sleep a waste of time and devoted myself entirely to the experiments.
I simultaneously worked on restoring the farm while observing the 'changes' happening to my plants. And so, just three days later, right before the second regular dungeon opened, I came to a conclusion.
'This wasn't just a normal farm after all.'
Looking down at my fields, I let out a soft gasp.
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