“My — what a vast vineyard this is becoming.”
Maria in work clothes loses about half her sexiness rating, but gains a diligent, earnest air that has its own appeal.
Add glasses and she’d be the intellectual-office-beauty archetype, complete.
Confession: I’ve always had a weakness for women who look slightly out of place on a sweaty construction site — like an architect dispatched from headquarters for a site inspection.
…Not that any of that matters.
Point is: Maria, dabbing away honest field-work sweat with a cloth, is very beautiful.
“Yeah — the plan is to make alcohol.”
“Alcohol?”
“Truth is, the household budget is in crisis.”
”…Eh? Between the ultra-premium materials the palm-top rabbits supply, and the Cyclops Sonya and I hunted… we should be sitting on an absurd fortune?”
“The construction is eating money at an idiotic rate, the seasonings eat money at an idiotic rate, and… above all…”
“Above all?”
“Your banquets are BRUTAL.”
It’s true.
We import alcohol from Earth at such frequency that the numbers have become genuinely upsetting.
Everyone’s especially fond of canned chuhai, which they drink like water. Like WATER, I tell you.
A case of 500ml cans runs about five thousand yen… which is to say, five thousand GOLD COINS.
We do source liquor from the elf and dwarf villages as the daily baseline — but for parties, Earth booze simply tastes best, so out comes the catalog, every time.
Not that it’s anyone’s fault but mine. I’m the one with ordering privileges.
Point is: the offering-box balance has dropped below two thousand yen, and I am in deep reflection about my life choices.
“So the plan, to start, is wine and sake. Hence the vineyard mega-expansion happening now. Once this is done, the rice paddies expand next.”
Which is exactly why the water channel is non-negotiable.
I’ve grown rice in small batches all along, but that was a fake paddy jury-rigged from the cultivation skill and a trickle of water.
“Wine made from grapes YOU grow, Lord Tatsuya… that promises to be something truly extraordinary.”
Well — sugar content and everything else is fully tunable via Seed Creation, after all.
If I make a half-fermented juice-wine sort of thing, even Katia — who can’t handle liquor — might be thrilled with it.
“I’m planning wine vinegar too, while I’m at it. And elves and dwarves are both serious drinking cultures, right?”
“Broadly, yes. Dwarves especially are bottomless — Katia is the rare exception.”
“Then just selling the stuff should turn a solid profit. Household consumption comes first, obviously.”
“Also — Lady Cornelia is fond of wine, you know?”
“Oh, is she?”
Does wine pair with curry, though…
Actually, does ALCOHOL pair with curry, full stop?
Maybe I’ll make her katsu simmered in curry sometime.
Bound with egg, katsudon-style but sans rice — that would work as a drinking snack, surely.
And so, the agricultural roadmap is set.
Alcohol first.
Also, I miss bread, so a proper wheat field goes on the list too.
Pizza is a guaranteed universal crowd-pleaser, after all.