I turned eleven.
In this past year, I received almost all the necessary knowledge for a noble from Miss Margaret.
By the way, I gave her another wyvern magic stone and asked her to “please make it convenient!” She then sent a letter to the Carranheit Vicount family, who are our patrons.
The content seems to be something like, “Wow, the son of Mr. Rayvan is amazing! A real genius! Maybe he should be given a scholarship!”
Later, as an alumnus of the academy, Miss Margaret also sent a letter to the academy saying, “Please take care of Mr. Rayvan’s son, Exus, who is an incredible child!”
Thanks to that, I am now certain to be able to attend the academy.
Until now, I had to get the highest grades in the entrance exam to become a scholarship student, otherwise, I couldn’t afford the tuition. But thanks to Miss Margaret’s letter, I can now enter regardless of my grades.
I’m happy about that.
Lately, since I have nothing more to study, I’ve been playing with the familiar I created with “Generate Magic.”
A “familiar” is something like an existence between a living creature and AI.
I happened to catch a beautiful black owl in the forest, used magic to reconfigure its body, inserted AI into its brain, and turned it into something like a half-magical creature that I don’t quite understand.
Now, I’m having fun doing various things for the AI’s learning.
While doing so, I let the familiar owl fly and learn.
I also release nameless familiars into the magic forest and the village for data collection.
And when I borrow the owl’s perspective to look at the village… huh?
For some reason, there are strangers in the farm I made for my younger siblings.
Did something happen?
It seems they are using my family’s help.
Well, isn’t that fine?
Indeed, I rarely see them face to face anymore, but we did have a steward and maids.
And about twenty soldiers, now that I think about it.
Their families were apparently being treated coldly in the village, and now they seem to be managing the cornfields and such.
I tried teaching my brother something like the Flanders farming method, but clearly, there aren’t enough hands.
Norfolk agriculture? That requires more hands and fertilizer than we have. I’ve shown him the roadmap, so I think he’ll start it eventually.
But still, there’s an excess of labor in the village, so isn’t that good?
Every household has more than six siblings, and more than half of them will die of illness or starvation or become thieves.
Of course, the second and third sons will be treated almost like slaves as tenant farmers.
So, it’s not a bad idea to take in unwanted kids and make them into farmers.
The inheritance I left for my brother, excluding reading, writing, and arithmetic, is…
This cornfield. It’s quite large.
And potatoes.
And rapeseed and bamboo.
I also found pumpkins. Pumpkins are good; they’re easy to grow.
I also pushed on him sugar beets, radishes, and maple.
And tomatoes… profitable crops and those that grow well even in this country, which is like France.
Some cattle, horses, sheep, and chickens caught from the wild.
Beehives.
Five watermill cottages.
A small mansion, several houses, and several livestock sheds.
A washboard. This doesn’t exist in this world yet.
I also gave him a moldboard plow (a new type of hoe). It’s basically a hoe that you have animals pull, and it scratches the hard ground to till the fields! But this new type not only scratches the ground but also has the function of piling up and mixing the soil.
Crossbows (surprisingly, because there are convenient methods of combat like magic, there are no crossbows, guns, or cannons in this world!)
Catapults (these don’t exist either! Seriously?!)
Charcoal making (originally a secret technique of craftsmen, not widely known)
Pottery (the method of making this is also a secret technique of craftsmen)
The method of making bottled preserves (from experiments, I found that if you stick the skin of a slime found around here on the lid before closing it, it seals nicely. And the container is pottery)
And that’s about it.
Industrialization? That’s for later.
In this world, you have to be able to eat first.
Economics, the Industrial Revolution, industrialization, those are luxuries, too ambitious.
First, you have to feed people.
If more than half of the children born die for various reasons, there’s nothing you can do.
Generally, even on Earth, there was an agricultural revolution before the Industrial Revolution.
With the establishment of superior farming methods, rural people had surplus, and the labor force for industry increased.
Sudden industrialization is impossible.
…Well, if I seriously used magic, it would be easy, but I have no obligation to do that much.
I just left an inheritance that would bring the territory, which was heading in a negative direction, back to zero.
If it went completely negative, that incompetent father of mine would be released into the world in the name of my family.
But if I killed him now, my younger siblings, the maids, and the soldiers would all be in trouble.
I hate people like my father who don’t make an effort and are worthless, but I like good children like my younger siblings who learn quickly and try hard.
However, I don’t intend to treat them too specially. Not because it’s not good for them, but because even if I have a good impression of them, doing that much for them is somehow irritating.
Besides, if I fixed everything with magic, the stupid villagers would get carried away.
I can’t ruin everything because of my temporary emotions.
I have to stick to the plan, teach my brother various things, and make him a fine lord.
Oh, I’m not teaching my brother magic.
If my brother also became a magician, he would be taken away somewhere else.
