A farming village located in Jil Larak Prefecture, in the southern part of Larak Province.
I had come to inspect the paddy fields, where waves of rice ears swayed in the breeze, bringing Anne along with me.
Anne, back in her black dress, stood right beside me, while a man in his forties stood behind us, trembling with fear.
I approached the paddy, gently drew several ears of rice toward me, and examined them intently.
"Anne."
"Yes, my lord."
"It's just as reported. Well done. The growth of the ears really is completely uneven."
"I-I'm so sorry! W-We did our best, but we don't know why it turned out like this either—"
"Don't be frightened."
I cut off the man—the village chief—before he could spin out any more desperate excuses.
With wide eyes, the chief flinched and swallowed hard.
"Did you follow the instructions properly?"
"Y-Yes! The season, the timing, the way we applied fertilizer, the amounts—everything was done exactly the same."
"What about the seeds?"
"Y-Yes, my lord. We saved and used the finest ones from our previous harvest."
"I see."
I let go of the rice ears and surveyed our surroundings.
From a distance, the field looked like a rippling, bountiful sea of rice, but looking closer, it wasn't just this one spot; the growth was erratic across the entire paddy.
"I'm truly sorry! Next time, we'll get it right next time!"
"I told you not to be frightened. I have no intention of holding you responsible or punishing anyone over this."
"Huh?"
Startled, the village chief opened his eyes even wider.
I understood his dread.
The new variety of paddy rice that the Governor-General had personally championed had essentially turned out to be a half-failure, and on top of that, the Governor-General himself had come to inspect it.
Normally, it wouldn't be surprising to face charges for such an outcome, so it was only natural for him to be terrified.
"Continue cultivating them as they are."
"Huh? Ah, yes."
"I'll inform the magistrate as well. Once you harvest them, I will buy the entire yield at double the market price, and I'll exempt your village from taxes this year."
"Huh? W-What do you mean...?"
"It means I want all of it. No matter how the crop turns out, do not try to conceal anything. Understood?"
Saying that, I looked straight into the chief's eyes.
I had no intention of intimidating him, but that single look was enough to send him prostrating on the ground, crying, "Understood, my lord!"
Leaving the chief where he knelt, I walked away with Anne.
"Was that really acceptable?"
"Yeah. I have no intention of placing blame—or rather, doing so would be pointless. Thanks to you."
"You flatter me, my lord."
Anne bowed her head modestly as we walked.
"Thanks to you, I know that this anomaly isn't isolated to this village; it's happening all across Enlil Province. In a situation like this, there's no point in holding a single village accountable. If anything, I'm grateful to you."
"Thank you very much."
"And... I'm glad I came to see it in person and hear it straight from them."
"In what way?"
"Because I found a common factor."
"A common factor... Do you mean the fact that they are using their own harvested seeds?"
"Yeah."
I gave a firm nod.
"To be precise, they're using the seeds harvested from crops originally grown with Noufe's seeds."
"Isn't that... ordinary practice?"
"Yeah, it's completely standard. Up until now, farmers either kept using seeds passed down through generations or acquired reputable seeds and bred them down the line. In that sense, it's entirely ordinary—which is precisely why."
I sorted through my thoughts for a moment and nodded.
"This anomaly is well worth investigating thoroughly."
"Which is why you offered to purchase the crop at double the price and exempt their taxes. A brilliant move."
"It would be a waste if they hid the harvest or destroyed the evidence."
"Indeed. However, is it truly necessary to go that far? Wouldn't it suffice to simply enforce that everyone use Lady Noufe's seeds directly?"
"We'll do that too. We will, but—"
My expression turned serious.
"—my gut is telling me there's something critical here that we need to investigate."
☆
Back in the provincial capital of Larak, inside the Governor-General's office.
I sat down with Noufe, whom I had summoned, and told her everything I had observed in the fields along with the findings gathered through Anne Locke's intelligence network.
After listening in silence, Noufe looked at me with unreserved admiration.
"So that's really what's happening..."
"You say 'really'—did you already know about this?"
"I suspected it might be the case. I've had a feeling for a while now."
"And?"
"I was just experimenting on my own back then, so I thought it might just be a minor anomaly. Besides, digging into it was more than I could handle at the time, so I put it on the back burner."
"Ah."
That makes sense, I thought.
In essence, she had arrived at the exact same conclusion as Anne.
There was nothing wrong with Noufe's seeds themselves; the issue only manifested in the subsequent generation.
If that was the case, then as long as farmers strictly used Noufe's original seeds, there would be no practical issue.
Noufe had been handling everything by herself until recently.
Running out of bandwidth was an understandable limitation, making her decision a pragmatic compromise.
"You really are amazing, though. If we hadn't deployed this on such a massive scale, we never would have confirmed it."
"Let's break down the issue."
As I spoke, Noufe's expression grew serious.
"How do you produce the seeds for your current rice strain?"
"Well, I have two base strains: one that grows quickly, and one that produces high yields. Both were selectively bred to maximize those traits to their absolute limit."
"Right."
"Crossing those two produced a strain that grows fast and yields heavily—the rice that can be harvested twice a year."
"I see."
I nodded and cast my eyes down at the documents before me.
It was a clean summary compiled from the reports Anne's intelligence network had gathered.
Skimming through it—
"Four outcomes, then."
"Huh?...Ah, yes. Four variations."
For a split second, Noufe looked puzzled, but she quickly caught on to my train of thought.
"Fast versus slow, and high yield versus low yield. Crossing them yields four distinct combinations."
"Right. What we're trying to promote now is the 'fast and high-yielding' variety. Did the other three variations appear during your earlier trials?"
"They did."
Noufe nodded without hesitation.
"'Fast but low-yielding,' 'slow but high-yielding,' and 'slow and low-yielding'—all three of those patterns cropped up."
"...So crossing the parent strains yields the intended result in the first generation—let's call it the offspring generation for convenience—but once you reach the grandchild generation, the traits split up unpredictably?"
"Logically speaking, that seems to be the case. But... even so."
"Hm?"
"At the end of the day, all we need to do is produce the fast, high-yielding offspring generation and distribute that for everyone to plant. Couldn't you just use Your Majesty the Emperor's imperial authority to mandate it?"
"We will do that—however."
"However?"
Noufe tilted her head, wondering what else there could be.
Looking her straight in the eye, I answered.
"You only see it that way because you're looking at it from an agricultural perspective."
"Huh? What do you mean?"
"I've also been advancing discussions with Cindy regarding our policies for seed merchants."
"...Ah."
Noufe gasped.
It clicked.
"Exactly. If this phenomenon—where the offspring generation remains uniform while the grandchild generation diverges—applies to other seeds and crops as well...?"
"Incredible! We absolutely have to investigate this!!"
Noufe leaned in, bursting with excitement.