The Isolated Marchioness Just Wants to Make a Living
Chapter 6
Chapter 6
* * *
A short while later.
Brisa gathered the knights at the training grounds once again.
Minus the Potato Squad, the knights shuffled in reluctantly.
They had no choice in the matter. Not after Alpheus’s direct order: ‘Follow Brisa’s commands while I am away.’
Standing upon the podium once more, Brisa asked,
“Is there anyone among you skilled in wielding sword aura?”
At the mention of sword aura, the knights snapped to attention, their postures straightening instantly. There was clearly a task at hand that demanded drawn blades.
‘This isn’t like the Potato Squad!’
‘This time, it’s a truly perilous mission!’
They had thought their days of combat might be over now that the war had ended.
Could it be the territorial war they had only ever heard whispers about?
Tension ran through their ranks as muscles tensed with anticipation.
“I am the most skilled among us.”
A burly knight strode forward and raised his hand, his expression already set with grim determination.
“I shall take the vanguard.”
Seeing the young lady’s seemingly anxious expression, the others vied to volunteer as well.
Just as they had on the battlefields not so long ago, every one of them was ready to lay down their lives.
“To have another chance to draw my blade! I will lead the charge at the very front!”
Only then did a look of relief wash over Brisa’s face.
“Thanks to you, Sirs, I believe our estate can be saved from crisis.”
And so, wearing solemn, resolute expressions, the knights followed Brisa in a grand procession.
Behind her, the maids were sniffling and weeping once more.
Brisa kept them quiet with a sharp warning glance, but she could do nothing about the tears streaming endlessly down their faces as if their world had collapsed. A catastrophe of immense proportions was undoubtedly looming.
Whatever enemy awaited them, the knights were prepared to show no mercy.
Yet after a considerable walk keeping pace with Brisa’s brisk strides…
What unfolded before their eyes was not a mysterious enemy army, but an expansive grove of olive trees.
“Now then.”
Brisa declared solemnly.
“Cut them all down. As swiftly as possible.”
At her words, the maids collapsed into a heap of wailing despair.
“You cannot, my lady…!”
“This is simply out of the question…!”
In the midst of their lamentations, Brisa stood firm, arms crossed with unwavering resolve.
The Head Maid sobbed aloud.
“The first Marquis Sears planted these olive trees on this land to express his profound love for his wife! As you well know, the first Marchioness Sears was named Olive Sears…!”
“Indeed. And so he planted olive trees on the plains closest to the Sears manor,”
Brisa replied with utter indifference.
“Where carrots and corn used to grow, no less.”
Turning to the guild master who had accompanied her, she said,
“If I provide this much lumber, it will cover all our outstanding debts and pay for two months’ worth of grain, correct?”
In the end, her plan was to chop down the olive trees to settle their debts.
She had even managed to negotiate the supply from ‘one month of grain’ to ‘two months.’ Though with the increased mouths to feed in the marquisate, even that would likely run dry in about a month.
The Head Maid wept continuously.
Unable to openly defy her master, she chose words that were devoid of objective right or wrong, murmuring plaintively,
“It is such a truly beautiful expression of love…”
Naturally, her merciless master was not moved in the slightest.
“It is a flawed expression.”
“It embodies a warmth of sentiment that nothing could ever replace…”
“It is a misguided sentiment.”
“These olive trees carry the feeling of Sears’s enduring tranquility…”
“It is a mistaken feeling.”
Rancy, however, was hesitating for an entirely different reason.
‘Ain’t this just pissin’ on frozen feet to thaw ’em out?’
The idea itself had merit, but when on earth would they ever harvest their next batch of olives?
“Um, my lady,”
Rancy began cautiously.
“Shouldn’t we think this through a bit? How long d’you reckon it’ll take for olive trees to grow back to this size…?”
Brisa answered without missing a beat.
“An average of three hundred years.”
As Rancy recoiled in shock, Brisa continued nonchalantly,
“The youngest trees are around two hundred years old, and the large ones over there are well past five hundred.”
Frantic, he pressed his advice, arguing that cutting them down was far too temporary a fix.
“Then we won’t be tastin’ another Sears olive for three hundred years?!”
Even as he spoke, he had no expectation of being heard.
Whenever Rancy voiced a vehement opinion during a crisis, everyone invariably ignored him.
Usually, they would not even deign to reply. Yet Brisa gave him a serious answer.
“Not quite. It takes about twenty years for production to stabilize. Peak harvest occurs between fifty and one hundred and fifty years. By that measure, these trees have long passed their prime.”
Hm?
Stunned by the stream of agricultural knowledge rolling off her tongue, Rancy and the guild master were struck dumb.
“Therefore, it is far better to cut them down and plant crops better suited for this soil.”
“Better… suited… crops?”
Parroting the words dumbly, Rancy realized something startling. Somewhere along the way, he had completely stopped thinking of Brisa as merely the ‘ringleader of nonsense-spouting maids.’
The guild master seemed to feel the same way.
“Most lords haven’t the faintest idea about their estate’s crops, you know? At best, they only know the market price,”
the guild master whispered.
“Yet this young lady is remarkable. Based on my own knowledge, her estimate of the trees’ ages is spot on.”
Brisa continued coolly,
“The choice of crops to cultivate must be determined by knowledge, not sentimentality. Why do you think Sears olives have always been of such poor quality? What the farmers planted on this land through generations of empirical experience was surely the correct answer.”
With that, she retrieved a small rod from her pocket.
“Olive trees thrive in soil that is neutral to slightly alkaline.”
Driving the rod into the dirt, she continued,
“There could be other variables, of course, but considering this was originally a field for carrots and corn…”
She chanted a quiet incantation over the rod, and it turned a vivid red.
“Just as I thought.”
Brisa nodded in satisfaction.
“The soil here is slightly acidic.”
Rancy could not make head or tail of what that meant.
The guild master’s eyes, however, went wide.
“Matching crops to soil types is the absolute foundation of agriculture! But what in the world is that rod?”
“A magic tool used to measure acidity and alkalinity… It’s used during potion-crafting practicals at the Academy. It’s rather expensive and quite difficult to come by.”
Rancy had a sudden revelation.
That was undoubtedly one of the ‘supplies’ Brisa had bought with the massive debt she racked up before heading off to the Capital Academy two years ago.
“In any case, I believe other crops will grow far better in this soil than olive trees. For instance…”
Brisa’s eyes narrowed as she looked into the distance.
Beyond the crest of the hill, at the end of the winding path, a group of people was approaching. It was Philip and the Potato Squad.
They were dragging heavy handcarts, loaded to the brim with seed potatoes.
* * *
“Planting potatoes… here?”
Philip wore a look of utter bewilderment. Even he had never imagined she would plow up the perfectly fine Olive Plains.
“I naturally assumed you intended to plant these seed potatoes in the back garden or the estate grounds…”
He was not allowed to finish his sentence.
The maids glared daggers at him and burst into vehement protest.
“Potatoes in the back garden?!”
“Good heavens, potato blossoms blooming in the marquis manor’s garden instead of pansies?! Do you truly believe that makes any sense?!”
“Absolutely not! The garden is the very face of the estate! Filthy potatoes have no place there!”
The ‘Sword Aura Squad,’ who had been busy felling trees, caught only a few stray words from afar and chimed in loudly.
“Hear, hear! The Potato Squad cannot be the face of the Knight Order!”
“They look far too much like potatoes themselves!”
Flabbergasted, the Potato Squad could only nod along helplessly.
“A-A-All right… W-We get it…”
Brisa did not take the Potato Squad’s side either.
“I have other plans for the back garden.”
And with that, Brisa oversaw the logging of the olive trees in swift, methodical order. The Potato Squad then began loading the timber onto the very carts they had used to haul the seed potatoes.
