Gen looked out at all the villagers, staring at him in a mixture of disgust, shock, confusion, and a trickle of dawning realization.

Oh, good! It looked like the vomit show had at least gotten their attention. Hopefully, Gen wouldn't have to do something like that ever again.

“You’ve been having some problems with villagers getting sick and throwing up like this, right?” He called to the farmers, gesturing to the black blob beside him. “They’ve been heaving up all this black gunk and you haven’t been able to tell why?”

The farmers all looked at each other, muttering to one another uncertainly.

“It’s the squash!” Gen continued, pointing at the field to his left. “That stuff is poisoning you guys. It’s black because of some weird disease, and whatever that disease is, it leaves toxins that make you sick.”

“Ridiculous!” The old woman shouted at him, gripping her cane furiously as her eyes flashed. “That squash is our only food supply. It can’t be the problem here.”

“I just took one bite and started hacking half up half of my internal organs!” Gen countered immediately, glaring right back at the woman. “What else could’ve done that but the squash?”

“M-Maybe you were sick before.” One of the farmers pointed out, his eyes flickering around as he held his hoe. “And you just picked now to throw up.”

“Oh yeah. We all know how easy it is to choose when you throw up.” Gen gave the man a hard stare, and the farmer immediately ducked his head, conceding the point.

Gen looked back at the old woman, holding his hands out to her pleadingly. “The elders in the last village didn’t want to admit that the squash was bad, either.” He began, recalling the sinking feeling he’d had as those old leaders continued to deny the truth. “They kept telling people to eat it, but it was only poisoning them and making them sicker. They wouldn’t get rid of the squash, even though its smell alone made everyone feel like vomiting.”

“It’s our only food source.” The old woman croaked, still glaring at Gen. He could see some of the desperation and fear mixed in her eyes as she spoke, though. “We have nothing else to depend on in this famine but the squash. Even if it makes us sick, being sick is better than starving to death.”

Some of the farmers muttered and nodded in agreement, a few glancing nervously at the pile of black goo by Gen’s feet, and others focusing solely on his face.

“That’s what the last elders said, too.” Gen frowned, lowering his hands slowly to his sides. “And that’s why I burned their crops one night.”

“To force them to go hungry?!” One of the farmers demanded, her panic renewed as she lifted her hoe at him again. “You don’t get to make that choice!”

“I was forcing them to find another means to get food!” Gen shouted back, glancing over at the woman. “There was a forest nearby with plenty of berries and wild animals. They should’ve stopped eating those squash and turned to resources in the forest a long time ago.”

“We’re farmers! Not hunters or gatherers.” One man scowled, shaking his hoe at Gen. “That’s not our way of life! We can’t feed a village on something we don’t know how to do.”

“Yes. And I realize that now.” Gen said slowly, feeling the guilt trickle through his body at those words. “I realize that I took away their livelihood and tried to make them change to something else, instead of helping them figure out what they could do as they were.”

That was where he’d really gone wrong with the last sim. Burning all the crops was a downside, of course, but you could still get away with it if you maybe tried to grow something new where they used to be. Gen hadn’t thought in those agricultural terms, though. He’d just wanted to get rid of what was making people sick and make them find something better.

It was an agriculture exam and he’d tried to take the agriculture out of it. But more importantly, he’d left the people in that last village with no other options for survival but to change their entire way of life.

He wasn’t going to make that mistake again.

“I won’t burn anything or take away your land.” Gen continued, looking at all the farmers around him. “I won’t make you do something you don’t know anything about. But I want you all to know what these squashes are actually doing to you. So you stop poisoning yourselves and admit you need to do something about them.”

The people shifted in place, mumbling to one another and looking at each other and Gen. The old woman gripped her cane tightly, lips pursed into a frown as she looked him up and down.

“Why are you even trying to fix it?” She finally asked, eyes narrowed untrustingly at him. “You have no authority over our villages. You’re just a random stranger who stopped by. You have no reason or right to help us.”

“I’m just a new villager trying to find a place to settle.” Gen said immediately, the same story he’d gone with in the last village. “And I don’t want to settle somewhere where all the crops are poisonous. So I want to help fix them.”

The old woman hummed for several seconds, still eyeing Gen with distrust.

Gen held his breath, waiting to see what she would say. The other elders had taken him in pretty quickly after that claim, probably because his strong body made it seem like he’d be a great asset to a farming community. However, with a reputation for burning crops hanging over his head now, any leader of an agricultural village would have some reservations about taking him in.

Gen couldn’t sweet-talk as well as Kenox could. He just had to hope that she could see the earnest look in his eyes and hear the truth in his words when he said he wanted to help.

The old woman stared hard at his face, taking in every inch of his expression. Her eyes looked down at the pile of black vomit, frown deepening as she took it in. Then her sharp gaze settled on Gen again, fingers tightening on her cane with finality.

“You got yourself sick to prove to us that something was wrong.” The old woman said aloud, frowning at Gen. “…You’re right. We’ve been denying that it’s the squash all along. No one wanted to admit it, even though we could all tell. But you…you threw the truth right in our faces.”

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The old woman sighed, leaning down on her cane and shaking her head. “It took a crop-burning upstart from spirits know where to make me actually pay attention to the real problem in my village.” She muttered, knuckles white. “Very well. What’s your name, boy?”

“Gen.” Gen said with a small smile, slowly lowering his hands from the air. “My name’s Gen.”

“Well, boy,” The woman looked back up at him, her face a little softened now from how it’d been before. “You can stay with us in this village.” Then her glare came back and she pointed her cane menacingly at the tall boy. “But no helping.” She hissed, eyes flaring threateningly. “Not without supervision. And you’re not allowed to be on your own for the first few weeks, either. I want you watched at all times.”

“Yes ma’am.” Gen nodded quickly, relief flooding through his body. “No helping. No going anywhere without a babysitter.”

“And you do whatever I say is the best solution.” The woman continued. “If you want to try something out, you come tell me first. I make the rules around here.”

“Got it.” Gen nodded again, still smiling at the woman. “Run things by you first.”

The woman nodded at his cooperation, glancing around herself at the farmers still holding their tools in Gen’s direction. “What are you fools doing? Put those down!” She snapped, waving her cane at them. “And get this idiot a tool of his own. If he thinks these crops are so poisonous, I want him clearing them out properly, right away.”

“Yes ma’am!” The farmers lowered their tools and a few rushed off to find Gen something to work with.

The old woman watched him for a few more seconds as the rest of the farmers slowly dispersed, a few still casting Gen suspicious looks, and others holding their stomachs with queasy looks on their faces.

“I want you to get rid of all this poisonous squash, in a proper way.” The old woman croaked at Gen, giving him a stern look. “Dig up every single one in all of the fields. Then dispose of them.”

“How should I do that?” Gen asked, racking his brain to remember how rotten vegetables were usually dealt with.

“We generally add rotten vegetables to a compost pile in that shed over there.” The old woman pointed out a low-roofed hut near them at the edge of the village. “We use the compost as fertilizer for future crops. But it looks like these vegetables might not be so good for fertilizer.”

“The disease might be getting passed on through the compost.” Gen agreed, frowning at the shed. “Especially if the plants have been turning out like this for a while.”

“In that case, add the plants you dig up to that compost pile.” The old woman ordered, coughing slightly into her arm. “Then get rid of the pile in the shed. Bury it. Leave it in the forest. I don’t care. We’re starting from scratch.”

“I’ll probably burn it.” Gen thought to himself, glancing over his shoulder at the old woman. “It might be best not to mention that for now, though.”

“If the disease got into the soil,” Gen said instead aloud, turning back to the woman. “The next generation of plants might still grow with sickness, even if we don’t use the same compost.”

“So are you saying we need to till an entirely new field now, boy?” The woman snapped harshly, glaring at Gen. “We don’t have the time for that! We need a food supply and these fields will work just fine once they’re clear.”

“But they might not. And then we’ll have wasted our time just to make another bad food supply.” Gen argued, looking at the field in worry. Squash were deep-rooting plants. He remembered that from his frantic studying. Some species even dug their roots down two to three feet into the earth. There was a high chance that this disease might’ve spread to the soil around their roots, even several feet down.

But the old woman wouldn’t budge. “We use our fields.” She said firmly, slamming her cane against the ground. “Don’t forget that you’re just a guest in this village, boy. You do as I say.”

Gen bit his lip, staring at the rotten vegetables as his mind raced to figure out what to do. He wouldn’t be able to talk this woman into changing her ways. It was shocking enough that she was letting him help at all. There was no reason for her to let him take charge.

How could he help out? If the villagers wasted their time on growing another sick crop, they really would starve. Maybe even before the crop finished growing! They needed more food in the meantime. Healthy food, from a healthy field.

“Okay. I’ll clear everything out.” Gen said slowly, turning back to the elder as a group of farmers ran up again, one of them carrying a hoe clearly meant for him. He took the hoe, feeling the gritty wood beneath his palms and gripping the implement tightly.

He gave the old woman a firm glare of his own, planting the hoe on the ground beside him. “But can I have your permission to till out a field of my own in the meantime?” He asked, one fist clenched at his side as his other gripped the hoe. “I’ll clear all the bad plants out and get rid of the bad compost. You can plant a new crop in the cleared-out fields. While you’re planting the new crop, I’ll start a new field. If the new crop fails, you’ll have a back-up field in brand-new soil to try planting in.”

It wouldn’t be enough. If the next crop failed, the village probably didn’t have enough back-up food supplies to hold themselves over for another one. Gen would have to figure something out that could keep them all fed in case that happened.

But he wanted to set something up for the village in case things went wrong. He had to.

The farmers around him all glanced at the old woman, waiting to see what she would say. She was giving Gen another glare, clearly pissed-off with his constant impudence and not willing to give him any more special permissions than she already had.

But it wasn’t more work on her part, in the end. Just something Gen was doing to himself that could turn out to be useful.

Eventually, she conceded.

“Fine.” She snapped, waving a hand in the air and turning away to lean on her cane. “Go till a back-up field if you really want to, boy. But clear out these ones first! And don’t you dare do a thing unless someone is watching you.”

“Yes ma’am! Thank you!” Gen beamed brightly, lifting the hoe into both his hands and facing the rotten field beside him with a wide grin. His energy felt restored, confidence flowing through his veins again as he stared down the sick field.

He had a foothold, here. Sure, this would be another long sim for him – probably a week or two at the very least – but he was actually getting something done. Clearing out the poisonous plants with the blessing of the elder, and starting up a new field that wouldn’t have the same disease.

That was something.

Gen lifted the hoe high above his head, bringing it down firmly into the soil around the rotten squash and sending clods of dirt flying. He repeated the motion, hacking at the ground around the squash, cutting down into the earth so he could get to their roots.

He heard the old woman huffing and shuffling away behind him, back to her house for the day or perhaps to tell the other villagers about the maniac who’d just moved in.

He could hear her ordering the other farmers to begin clearing out some of the other fields around the village in groups, the villagers rushing to follow her command immediately.

The sun was still high in the sky, although it was definitely getting lower now, not beating as hard on Gen’s shoulders as it had before. He continued to dig at the ground, uprooting squash and overturning the land with the rotten vegetables as best as he could.

He’d get through this first order. He’d clear everything out and then start working on a field of his own right away. In the meantime, he’d have to figure out how to provide for the village if their next crops grew in sick. He needed to take care of these people, even if they still didn’t trust him to do so much as take care of himself.

When he glanced off to his left, he could see a gruff-faced man watching him from the closest house, leaning against its wooden walls as he eyed Gen unblinkingly. Probably his assigned babysitter for the next few weeks.

Yeah. They definitely didn’t trust him.

But that was okay.

Gen lifted a hand into the air and gave the man a bright grin and a wave, continuing on with his work in the field with a happy hum. He had the chance to make things right now. He wasn’t going to be discouraged by a bit of mistrust and hard work.

He was going to save this village, no matter what.