My Farming Domain Is Broken

Chapter 94. A Farmer’s Work

Carlos watched the root for another moment before opening Cosmic’s chat.

[Carlos Goldwin]- Bro, how do I make the troops level up faster? We have fought so many times, but nobody is leveling up except my slime did once.

Cosmic took a little longer to answer this time.

[Cosmic Merchant]- You do not make them level up fast. That is the whole problem.

[Cosmic Merchant]- My two Lizardmen fought in both raids with me. They almost died in the second one, and only one of them reached Level 2 after it. The other did almost the same work and got nothing visible.

[Cosmic Merchant]- The system seems to count real contribution, bro. Not just being near the fight or hitting something once.

Carlos looked toward the portal Kaia had just entered.

[Carlos Goldwin]- Brann, Kaia and Mira have not leveled up either. They are all Level 3 from the start.

[Cosmic Merchant]- Oh, my lobster is too buttery huh? Exactly. Level 3 is already very high you dumbass. You know how strong your troops are? I am not sure but I think you might have never seen their full potential till now because there was no opportunity. Don’t message yet, let me put my whole mind out.

[Cosmic Merchant]- Brann needs hard fights where he actually protects people. Kaia needs real command and training work. Mira needs difficult cooking and production that keeps everyone going. They cannot just repeat easy work and expect a level every few days.

[Cosmic Merchant]- Your new troops will grow faster at the start because they are Level 1. The ones you already rely on need bigger contributions now.

Carlos had to read that all three times to understand it.

It made sense, even if he did not like it. The Training Yard would help Kaia make the soldiers better, but it would not turn them strong overnight. And throwing Brann into harder fights just to force a level was how someone got killed.

[Carlos Goldwin]- So there is no shortcut.

[Cosmic Merchant]- There are probably items and special places later. But if you mean a safe shortcut, no. If there was one, I would have found it before you, idiot.

Carlos almost smiled.

Rowan stood. "Until they get here, nobody touches the clay near the roots. Cedric’s people can move the loose stones farther away and bring flat boards. Nothing else."

Cedric stopped beside them. "Understood."

Carlos looked at Rowan instead of giving more orders himself.

Rowan pointed toward the pile of broken stone. "Put them on the hard ground by the storage shed. Not near this channel."

"We have boards there too," Cedric said. "Rhea can bring them."

"Do it," Carlos said.

For the next hour, Cedric’s group did only the work Rowan allowed. The Shield Militia carried loose stones away one at a time. Rhea brought flat boards. Tomas and Milan kept watch near the boundary with the new combat summons.

Carlos did not pretend to understand why the root work had to wait. He simply made sure nobody treated Rowan’s instructions like suggestions.

Blue filled a small bowl with water from the basin whenever Rowan asked for it. Two watched Blue carefully, then copied the motion by forming a weak Water Shot into another bowl.

Carlos crouched beside the channel and held a board steady while Rowan removed clay with a flat bit of broken tile.

It was painfully slow. At one point, Kaia looked toward the far gate of the district.

"This is worse than waiting for an enemy," she muttered.

"Because you cannot cut this problem in half?" Carlos asked.

"Exactly."

The old channel wall slowly revealed itself. Beneath the first layer of clay, the pale roots spread farther than Carlos had expected. They curled around broken stones and passed beneath the channel bed in thick, tangled lines.

One root was dark and dry near the surface, and Rowan went very still.

Carlos saw it immediately. "Is that bad?"

"It has been damaged," Rowan said. "But not dead yet."

He moved the broken tile away and pointed toward a narrow opening where the channel had collapsed.

"The water cannot reach this side properly. The roots are alive, but they have been surviving on almost nothing."

The panel appeared again.

[Restoration guidance updated]

[A stable water path must be established before sunrise]

[Failure condition: dormant support organism will enter irreversible decline]

"Are they kidding right now? It’s like they change the requirements once I figure something out. Does it even make sense that if I had not checked this crop right now, it would have died by tomorrow’s sunrise?" Carlos asked.

He looked at Rowan. Rowan was looking back at him now, and even he looked worried.

"It could have died, my lord. This is not just the panel making it die faster. I can feel it."

Carlos read the system message again, hoping that a second look would make him go about it more urgently.

Before sunrise was not much time. The sky over the cultivation district had already begun losing its color, and they still did not even have a clear path through the collapsed channel.

Kaia looked toward the broken section with a hard expression. "We can clear it."

"Not with a sword," Rowan said quickly. "And not by smashing through the wall. If that stone is holding roots underneath it, we will kill what we are trying to save."

Kaia looked at him. "Then tell us the fastest safe way."

Rowan stopped for a second.

Carlos could see it happen. Rowan was not used to being asked for orders by soldiers. He was a farmer. He had spent most of his time telling people when fields needed water or where not to step. But then he looked at the roots again.

"The channel does not need to be whole by sunrise," Rowan said. "It only needs water reaching the living roots. We make a small path around the collapsed stone. Not through it."

Carlos crouched beside him. "Can we do that without digging into the roots?"

"If we follow the open side of the bed. The roots are thickest under the old wall. The soil beside it is loose, but there are fewer roots there."

Carlos looked at the line Rowan showed him. It did not look like much. Just a shallow stretch of dirt beside broken stone. Still, Rowan sounded certain.

My Farming Domain Is Broken

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