A singular week went by in which Thom spent his days looking at everything inside his bag, making weird plans with every little item, and fantasizing about what he could buy with the mountain of gold inside of it. They were easy days. Perhaps too easy. Resting didn't bother him, but he was anxious about not lending the farmers a hand.

He stopped and looked at the field in front of him. It was a moderate size terrain. But the look of the earth, the color of the plants growing from the soil, and even the air that Thom breathed around it felt off. The condition of the farm, as well as the farmers' lives, was in a poor decline that Thom couldn't stand to watch.

I understand that times are tough, but how much has he been abusing this terrain? Has he even been using any kind of fertilizer? I thought we had it tough, but now that I think about it, wasn't our farm in better condition than this?

Thom decided he couldn't watch and stay far from the problem any longer.

He grabbed a cartwheel from the storage shack, as well as a hoe and a shovel. He took everything to the side of the field, and rolled his sleeves up like he had been doing it his whole life. A smile appeared on his face. That nostalgic feeling was something he had missed.

Thom graved the shovel, and buried it deep on the ground. He twisted it around slightly to loosen up the roots of what seemed to be a beet, and then grabbed it with his hand.

Pluck!

He pulled the vegetable, and tossed it to a side into the cartwheel. Then, he started doing the same with the next one.

"Lad, lad! The hell are you up to? Those are not ripe yet, they'll take a while!"

A short and chubby man came running from the farmhouse, and stopped just before Thom could start to dig his shovel in the next patch of dirt. Thom simply smiled at him, and then signaled to the ground.

"Eh?"

"Old man, you're not getting anywhere if your soil is in such a bad condition. You should take more care off it! It's what gives you the food you eat, no? See there? The earth is all broken up and deteriorated. Not even a ground hog would make a nest there."

"But we can't let the land rest. If we do, we won't make it to the end of the month."

Thom sighed, and didn't pay any attention to the man's blabber. He grabbed yet another one of the beets, and pulled from it.

"Ha..." The old man named Mars started to nervously fidget with his hands. He could not understand the actions of the young man in front of him.

"Mars... Trust me. It'll be fine. And if you were to find yourself in a bad situation because of me, I'll give you the money to survive trough it. You've really helped a whole lot."

"It's... It's fine. It's just that no farmer likes to see his field butchered before it's time to pick it up. Ah. I guess you could understand. So, kid, just ask me first next time, aye?"

"I will, don't worry. Sorry for acting on my stupid impulses."

Pluck!

「Learning successful. The subordinate active skill [Pluck] has been obtained. It has been successfully subordinated to [Farmer]. When using this skill, plucking elements from the soil is 200% easier. Repeated use may ware down on stamina.」

Hm... So it is possible for Skill Master to give other skills like this? What a useless skill, really. But if it has given me something like this without searching for it, then it could probably give me something better if I try, no?

Thom came to reality again, and grabbed one of the beets before cutting their roots with the shovel first. Then, he activated [Pluck], and the beet came out just as quick as the ones from before.

"My, lad. I wish I was as young as you. That's some impressive strength you have there."

How much easier could it have been his job as a farmer when he was a kid if he had such a ridiculous skill? If a completely random skill could be this useful, then, what if he sought for it?

"Hey, Mars." He called for the man when he was about to turn away.

"Hm?"

clink

Thom threw him a golden coin and smiled. "Buy all the fertilizer and twelve different seeds the next time you go to the market. Also some different soils, if you can. And... Well, by that time, I guess the filed will be clean."

"Ah... Yes!"

Thom spent another two weeks in the farm. He had been obsessed with trying different things with the materials he had obtained, how plants reacted to different fertilizers, how the soil could affect the growth of seed A, B, C, and even what plant could act better as a fertilizer after it had died. He had almost twenty spaces in the farm's plot with different plants, labelled with colors.

After two weeks, he had obtained insight on a few things he didn't know before, or that he had only followed as orders from his mother when he was back at his own farm. The rate at which plants grew, the difference in treatment that a plant needed depending on what soil one use to plant it.

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"Aha." Thom nodded, standing in front of the cartwheel filled to the brim with fertilizer and bags of dirt. "I get it now. If knowing all of this makes me better at doing farming jobs, it should be attributed to the farming skill. It's only knowledge... But could knowledge count as a type of skill of it's own depending on how you apply it?"

「Learning successful. The subordinate passive skill [Green Knowledge] has been acquired. All botanic-related skills are twice as efficient. The grow of plants planted by the user will grow at two times their normal rate.」

"Got it!" He pumped his fist upwards. "Huff. So [Green Knowledge]? It took me two weeks to obtain it... But it only took me a few minutes to get the [Pluck] skill. Is it the difference in power? Usage? Does the passive and active label have anything to do with how fast you acquire it? Hngh..."

Thom decided that it was way too complicated to think about. He might not be the dumbest, but he was certainly far from the scholars that had taught him the ways of the world back at his village.

Thom crouched in front of the plants, and touched their leaves with a smile. Would everything he planted grow twice as fast from now on? Would it apply to things he had already planted? What was the original measure for the growth of the plants? Where did the nutrients come from to make it grow faster, and what kind of repercussion would it have on the soil?

Well, those are questions for later.

He shook it off, and smiled while looking at the ground.

There, he noticed a small blue stone tied up to his ankle, laced by a minuscule chain that went around it. He wondered where had he gotten it from.

Hm... It was here since I got to this farm. But who gave it to me? Ah. I'm assuming somebody gave it to me. Why is that? I could have simply found it, no? Wait, this is strange. Why wouldn't I remember something I'm wearing? That's like forgetting how did you put on your shirt. This... Was... Given to me...

Thom stood up while feeling extremely dizzy. What was that foreboding in his heart that told him something had gone extremely bad at some point? He looked up for some reason, and saw the moon already rearing it's shape at the late evening sky.

The moon. She said... She'd help me get it if I so wanted. That shiny.. Shiny...

Then, something incredibly strange struck him.

"Runa! Sh*t! How long has it been? How could I have completely forgotten about someone like her?" He covered his mind in terror. Could have he really forgotten all about her. "This is not good. If I forgot her, I'll forget my whole life soon as well. This place is really sucking me in... Am I being absorbed into—"

"Lad!"

A hoarse voice suddenly cut his train of thought, and he looked at his right side to find Mars waiting for him at the porch of the farmhouse.

"Dinner's ready early today! Get 'ere in 15 minutes!"

"Ah...! Okay, thanks!"

He saw Mars get into the house again, and Thom sighed as if expelling all the exhaustion out of his body, something he had found himself doing a lot more often as of late. He took two steps back, and let his body fall inside the wheelbarrow. He fell on the bags of dirt, and accomodated himself in the tiny space he was in. After swinging his legs once, he looked at his ankle, and saw a blue stone tied to it.

"Huh." He frowned. "I wonder where I got this from."

•••

It had already been one week since Thom got his last skill, and he had spent the next one doing more tests and seeing that the soil was properly nurtured. It had rained twice in that week, and Mars seemed extremely regretful that there were no crops on the field for those two times. Rained wasn't sparse in the area, but it was a blessing nonetheless when it occurred.

Thom, however, didn't pay him any mind. He was focused on thinking what to grow and what to do when the soil was recovered. And, as he had understood, even loosing a few weeks was fine since the crops he planted would grow twice as fast. That should be enough to make up for lost time and make it to the end of the season without the crops going to waste.

It was a peaceful day. The orange color of the sky was already starting to paint the whole world into the color of gold. For anyone inside the walls, that would probably be a comfortable scene to admire. But for those that did not have such a guarantee to their safety, the setting sun would only mean it was time to go inside their houses.

Thom was about to act like the rest of country bumpkins of the world, when he heard laughter coming from the road in front of their farm. A group of five men kicked open the doors of the farm, and Thom immediately knew what was about to happen.

Mars, who always sat at the porch at this hour, hastily stood up and ran towards the field. He cupped his hands together as he nervously awaited for the suspicious party to arrive. Thom looked at the window where Merry was looking trough, and simply saw her slowly shaking her head as if telling him not to do a thing.

Oh man. Am I about to get in trouble? Yes. Yes I am.

The men came by spitting at the ground and tearing leaves from the bushes at the sides of the fence, which Merry took extreme care of. Thom didn't know who they were— although he could make a rather harsh guess— but he could already feel a murderous intent surging from the depths of his stomach.

"Heyyy, old Mars! How's the.. Uh, how's that sh*t going? Tuh!" The man spat on the ground. "The debt and all that. You still owe us five golds.

"T-This month is better! We can actually give you this much!"

Mars smiled as he pulled two pouches from his pockets, and gave them to the man in front. The man looked inside and saw around fifty silver coins. He sneered, and threw them back at Mars.

"I don't want your filthy silvers, old man. Gold! If you're gonna pay me, pay me at least a gold! Your son was brave enough to take 7 from us, so give us at least one!" He exclaimed.

"But... Impossible... We, we don't have that much." Mars moved forward.

"Don't get close to me, you filth!"

Thom's eyes opened, and he immediately jumped in front of Mars.

Bang!

A body crashed against the ground, leaving a trail on the dirt he had hit. Mars gasped as he moved to Thom's side, on the ground, and helped him get up by pulling from one arm. Thom cleaned the blood dripping down from his lips. There was a deep frown in his forehead that exuded killing intent, but he simply straightened his body, fastened his clothes, and flicked his thumb.

The man in front grabbed what Thom had tossed, and revealed it to be a golden coin. He opened his eyes in surprise, and smiled.

"Heh. So not only your workers take your hits but also pay your debts? Kek. We're gone for today. But we'll come back in a month. You better have another gold coin ready for me! Kek!"

The man turned around while spitting again, for some unknown and unwarranted reason, and his crew followed him neatly out of the farm.

"By my gods... Young lad, I... I'm really sorry. I'm used to this, you shouldn't be the one to suffer for my incompetence! There's no reason why you should do something like this..."

Thom sighed after hearing his words.

"I just hated dumbassess at the top." He smiled. "And debt collectors are some of the most annoying people on earth. I wish I could have hit him back. Don't worry about that, Mars. Let's go inside. Merry must be waiting for us to serve dinner."

"Yes... Yes, you're right. Let's go, lad."

They followed a trail to the house in silence, but the anger from Thom's heart didn't subside. He had already created in his head a list of people he wished to kill. Those five men, and the one who had sent them, were the first ones on such list.