Raising the Grand Duke of the North as a Farmer Behind Dad’s Back - Chapter 8

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Episode 8
[Haniel’s Saint Power Sticker Album (for Children)]
* Saint Power Stickers Currently Held: 16
* Collected Stickers: Thumbs Up, Footprint Boom!, (Not Yet Obtained), (Not Yet Obtained), (Not Yet Obtained) ……
– Children can freely place stickers where they wish and express themselves boldly!
– Collect more stickers, and you might just unlock something special!
The Saint Power I’d gathered during my time in the Northern Territory amounted to just that.
‘The ten I received when I first arrived in the North were the most; the rest came from little tasks like climbing up the carriage steps one at a time, sleeping under a blanket, and brushing my teeth for three minutes.’
But if I completed this task alone, I’d have two hundred Saint Power Stickers!
And once I had those, maybe I could actually be of help to the Northern Territory. Then even the Duke, iron-willed as he was, might let me stay here!
My eyes blazed. I eagerly shoveled stew into my mouth with the spoon Camilla had given me.
“Slurp! Gulp!”
Stew consumed!
“Steward, is there any farmland nearby?”
“Farmland? I suppose there might be.”
Ding. So that’s how indifferent she was to other people’s business!
Camilla chuckled at my vacant expression.
“Child. You didn’t actually come here thinking you’d farm, did you? In the Northern Territory, where it snows or threatens to snow for three hundred sixty out of three hundred sixty-five days?”
“I just—”
“Never mind that. You’d be more productive collecting monster droppings.”
“B-but I’d still like to take a look……”
“Hmm. The snow did clear up for once today. I was thinking of taking you outside after the stew, so I suppose why not.”
I clutched at the hem of her skirt.
“The Duke said I could stay until the day after tomorrow!”
“When did he say that?”
“Just now, when you said I’d probably die in two days!”
“A little thing like you would last here maybe…… two days? Then you’ll die.”
“So that means I can stay alive here until then, right?”
“Is that really how it works?”
I swung my arms wildly.
“It does! Totally does!”
It was complete sophistry, but for some reason, Camilla’s eyebrows twitched as she looked down at me.
“……You really are adorable. Touching enough to stir the heart. The way you’re all smudged and rumpled makes you look just like a freshly dug potato.”
A potato?!
“That’s an honor!”
Camilla hoisted me up into her arms.
I did my best to make an appealing, potato-like expression. When our eyes met, Camilla’s eyebrows twitched again.
“……Smudged. Adorable. Sigh, never mind. Let’s go.”
“Yeesss!”
I emerged outside wrapped snugly in a large blanket (there were no children’s clothes…).
Gripping tight the hoe I’d borrowed from the steward.
A moment later.
Haniel met a glorious failure at Hoeing once more.
“It’s so hard!”
Getting Camilla to take me out to the farmland (or what looked like one) had gone well enough.
Crack!
But the ground was completely frozen solid.
With only a child’s meager strength, the hoe’s blade refused to penetrate at all.
And on top of that, the hoe was impossibly heavy!
If Camilla hadn’t secretly helped me from behind, I wouldn’t have been able to raise the hoe properly at all.
“Children these days really do enjoy strange pastimes. Hard to keep up with their sensibilities……”
“I won’t give up!”
Clink! Clang! Clink! Clang!
Haniel swung the hoe down against the ground with determination. And yet.
[Challenge! Hoeing! (0/5)]
‘Why isn’t it going up?!’
Sure, no soil was crumbling from the hoe’s blade.
Sure, I couldn’t feel the essential act of hoeing—that sense of churning the earth—at all.
‘But still! Still!!’
Clink! Clang! Clink! Clang!
‘Look at that hoeing! Real hoeing, no joke! Might even rank above average for a six-year-old!’
Haniel silently willed it with all his heart.
Then the letters before his eyes wavered uncertainly, blinking like a hesitant flame.
[Challenge! Hoeing!……]
Pop!
[Challenge! Hoeing! (0.00000001/5)]
‘Ah, so I did get encouragement points!’
Even stingy with it, though!
“Well now. Not bad at all. Among the six-year-olds I know, you’re the best at that hammering business.”
“Ahem.”
It’s hoeing, though……!
Haniel looked down at the ground he’d been torturing. Despite all the commotion, not even the smallest scratch marred its surface.
‘I suppose that’s how it must look…….’
There was no denying it.
‘Hoeing frozen ground is pointless.’
Which meant he needed hoeing that actually worked. The act itself wasn’t enough—it had to fulfill the purpose and meaning behind the act.
So then, what now?
Hoeing equals farming equals need for thawed soil equals to thaw the soil……?
Haniel blinked. Then he spun sharply toward Camilla.
“Excuse me—where is the Duke right now?”
* * *
Basil strolled through the village with no particular hurry.
Then exasperation struck him.
‘That little brat, fearless as they come.’
What made the kid so eager to come here of all places?
And suddenly this talk of farming, for that matter.
Truly, an absurd little creature.
Basil squeezed his fist as though erasing the child’s touch from his palm.
He had always hated anything young and weak.
Children? Naturally, he took no liking to them.
The little one might have looked cute with those round features and sturdy bearing, but that was all.
In any case, he’d entrusted the brat to Camilla—that ice-cold Deputy Commander of the Knight Order, renowned as the Frozen Knight—so by now the child would surely be outside the territory without so much as a whimper.
‘Good bye, baby hippo.’
He gave a short, snorted laugh.
Lost in these thoughts, he’d arrived at the Village Storehouse without noticing.
“What? Sand mixed in with the salt, you say?”
“Yeah.”
Basil nodded lazily.
He was the sort of man who looked like a painting even when sitting carelessly on a wooden crate in a storehouse. Though his palette was rather fierce and terrible.
The supply officer who’d returned that morning wore a troubled expression.
“The sample batch the Southern Region showed us was fine, so I figured it was safe. But this—I don’t understand it.”
“Take it all back and demand a refund. If the mood strikes, punch the merchant in the gut on your way out.”
“……The punching part might be…… well, that won’t get us our money back, will it?”
The head of the merchant company, freshly returned from the Southern Region.
Ruden, one of Basil’s knights, let out a heavy sigh.
“Times have changed, sir.”
“So what do you fight with now?”
“Instead of fists, they lob things like lawsuits—elegant, drawn-out, and expensive ways of fighting.”
“A tedious age. ……Well, there’s no helping it now, I suppose.”
After the war ended, his mercenary company had taken on various roles necessary to running the Bertus Territory.
On the battlefield, Ruden had been the quartermaster. So here, too, he’d taken on similar duties.
The goods he handled had simply shifted from weapons to everyday supplies. Rather a bit of a change, actually—quite a bit, really.
“In any case, my apologies, sir. I can’t believe I made such a blunder.”
Ruden polished his glasses and bowed deeply.
“It’s not your fault the Southern merchants are crafty.”
Basil dismissed the concern with a wave, regarding Ruden and his subordinates.
“We should still have Crystal Portal Usage Tokens left. Go and settle it.”
“Ah, well about that……”
Ruden scratched the back of his head.
“We’ve exhausted our Crystal Portal Usage Tokens this time around.”
“What?”
“The thing is, on the way here I realized we were short on sugar and cloth, so I ended up making several extra trips and used it all up.”
“…….”
Basil fell silent.
A Crystal Portal Usage Token — the kind needed to ride the teleportation portal.
That crystal-shaped magical device, no larger than a fingernail, was absurdly expensive. Which meant not wasting it was an unspoken rule.
This had probably been Ruden’s last one.
“Ruden, you.”
“Um…… Your Highness.”
At that moment, Ruden spoke in a daze.
“Did you perhaps get married while I was away?”
“What?”
“If not that, then…… it seems you’ve somehow become an unmarried father with a child.”
What’s he talking about?
Basil whirled around, following Ruden’s gaze.
And he lost his words.
He’d spotted a drawing of some potato-shaped creature.
“Gasp!”
Below the window.
A pair of pink eyes, barely peeking out, widened slightly.
“Huh?”
The Little One glanced at Basil’s reaction, then looked down at the sketchbook. Then—
“Oh no, I opened the wrong page!”
With fumbling fingers, the page turned to the next one…….
What’s this Little One doing?
Looking closer, it was a bundle of old newspaper scraps bound together like a sketchbook.
And the child was holding it up like a placard, waving it about.
The little one, too small to reach the window sill, peeked out with just their eyes and, catching Basil’s attention, flipped through the pages with a “Next, next!” and a quick rustle.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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