Mage? Magic Engineer!

Collecting grain was always a major issue. From a farmer’s point of view, you painstakingly sowed the seeds, weeded and fertilized the wheat, and watched as the stalks shot up, the heads of grain appeared, and the fields gradually ripened to a plump, golden yellow.

Finally, after all that hard work, you would harvest the crop and separate the grain from the stalk.

This also meant the grain was about to be separated from the one who grew it. The lord of the land, the farmer’s creditors, and their lackeys would come crawling out of their mansions and castles to take the lion’s share. All that was left for the farmer’s family was a pitiful amount of grain and the gnawing feeling of a half-empty stomach.

Fortunately, things were different in the new lands. From sowing to reaping, intimidating but efficient Mechanical Bodies were there to help. The combine harvester was especially impressive—a great steel spider with a rolling scythe hanging beneath it. Once harvested, the crop was immediately sent up a conveyor belt to a thresher on its back, then ejected from the "spider’s rear" into a small dump truck trailing behind.

Of course, the harvested grain wasn’t handed directly over to the farmer. Instead, staff from the "Zweigling" Agricultural and Commercial Society recorded the gross yield on the spot before hauling it off to a mill powered by a Steam Engine.

For the pain of losing one’s grain, there was a soothing balm: a land deed.

"Is this really mine?" The farmer, once from Valois and now a homesteader in the new lands, took the deed. He held the thick sheet of paper in his palm, his voice filled with disbelief.

"Want to double-check? Chom, plots 337-339 in Kempson South District. A total of fifteen mu for your household."

"Yes, yes... that’s right. Fifteen mu, not an inch less." The farmer’s heart finally settled. He couldn’t believe that in just six months, he had acquired his own land in a foreign country.

No, that wasn’t right. In Valois, he was merely a tenant farmer. When the Nobility were in power, he farmed for them. He handed over a portion of whatever he grew, and his lord would "graciously" give back just enough so his family wouldn’t starve. Then some commissioner or another drove the Nobility out, only to show up with Firearms and a Gallows, demanding he hand over his surplus grain all the same.

Then the Empireists came, and the commissioner fled back to the city in terror. Chom gritted his teeth and made the most important decision of his life: to pack up his family and run as far away as he possibly could.

He’d nearly died on the road, but at least now his life was complete. He had achieved something he wouldn’t have dared to dream of back when he lived in a straw hut.

’Fifteen mu...’ He couldn’t read all the words on the deed, but he clutched it tightly and turned to leave. "Hey! Fifteen mu!" He had the sudden urge to shout it all the way from the mill to his new home. ’I have my own land!’

"Hey, hey, hold on! Don’t be in such a rush," the staffer called out, stopping the overexcited man. "Your grain... this is what’s left over. It’s all yours. You can haul it away with this ticket, or you can sell some of it at the next window for cash."

Chom’s situation was typical for the immigrants in Kempson. Back in the old country, one laborer could manage five mu at most. But here, with the help of machinery and with irrigation managed for them, a household with two laborers could now work thirty to forty mu. When he had first arrived and was waiting for his first harvest, he even had enough spare energy to do odd jobs to make ends meet.

With himself, his wife, a son, and a daughter to feed, the harvest from just three mu—boosted by fertilizer—was enough to provide a year’s worth of rations. The Special Zone’s taxes, the land purchase payments, the rental fees for the Mechanical Bodies, seeds, and fertilizer... all combined, about seventy percent of his total harvest was taken.

It was a high percentage, but his family would much rather give up seventy percent of a fifteen-mu harvest than return to being tenant farmers. Back then, they would work themselves to the bone all year to manage five or six mu, only to have half of it taken away and be left half-starving.

And the land was his now! His! Thinking of this, Chom remembered he could still work odd jobs during the off-season. Which meant... He immediately took some of his share of the grain and exchanged it for cash. He bought a headscarf for his wife and a can of expensive fruit preserves for his children. Then... he carefully wrapped up the last of the money, tucked it into an inside pocket, and climbed onto the wagon carrying his coarse flour, humming a tune all the way home.

On the bumpy road home, flour dust that had clung to the sacks at the mill puffed up into the air, becoming motes of ash dancing in the sunlight. Chom wanted to breathe it in deeply, as if he could taste its sweetness.

New farmers like Chom, whose harvests had gone smoothly, were all overjoyed to receive their land and surplus grain. But not everyone was so lucky.

Rorschach sat atop a Mechanical Body, listening to a report from an Agricultural and Commercial Society employee as he moved along a path between the fields. Preliminary statistics showed that, for various reasons, about thirty percent of the new immigrants had fallen short. Their harvests weren’t large enough to meet the output requirements for purchasing their plots.

Some had applied fertilizer incorrectly. Others were simply unlucky and didn’t get a good plot of land, or had been unable to farm due to a sudden health issue.

Then there were two types of people who had let their land lie fallow:

The first had discovered they could make more money from manual labor than from farming. ’To hell with farming,’ they thought, ’I’m packing up and getting a job at the factory!’

The second group consisted of original city dwellers, some even from Old Kempson City itself. They assumed the Special Zone’s policy was a simple land giveaway. They claimed plots purely for speculation and never made a serious effort to cultivate them.

These speculators had originally planned to hire others to do the farming for them. However, since the Special Zone placed no restrictions on who could claim new land, any would-be hired hands who understood the policy simply went off to claim their own plots. This left the "little bosses" dumbfounded, unable to find their "professional players."

"How should we handle these cases?" The Agricultural and Commercial Society’s internal data showed that while grain production had seen an unprecedented increase this year, "Zweigling" itself was suffering staggering losses. This was because the construction of irrigation, the leasing of farm machinery, and the sale of seeds and fertilizer were all being done for free or at "rock-bottom prices."

The Special Zone’s accountants were horrified by the balance sheets, feeling this wasn’t land cultivation but financial self-sabotage. But Rorschach stood firm, insisting on his policy of using Magic-based industry to subsidize agriculture. "All you people do is count your coins. Money, money, money! Have you looked at our non-agricultural population? If no one farms the land, what are we going to eat?"

"Our factories now concentrate tens of thousands of people in one place. If we don’t subsidize our farmers to keep them planting, who is going to feed us all? Relying solely on imports means taking a small loss now to avoid a much bigger one later!"

Rorschach’s attitude hadn’t changed. Land could not be left fallow; it had to be cultivated. Waste was not an option. "For those who fell short, we need to handle it on a case-by-case basis. If it wasn’t their fault, allow them to apply for a one-season extension. Let them take their share of grain for rations. After this year’s winter wheat is planted, they can still get their deed next year as long as they pay off their debt. Make sure you explain that clearly to them."

"As for the speculators, they should back down once they realize it’s not easy money. If they have other sources of income, reclaim their fields. Use whatever grain was produced to offset the cost of machinery, fertilizer, and seeds. If that’s not enough, you’ll have to pursue them for the rest of the debt."

"All the abandoned and reclaimed plots should be consolidated, preferably through land swaps. We can trade good plots for the poor-quality land that some farmers ended up with..." Rorschach considered the operational capacity of the farm machinery, then gave an estimate.

"It would be best to group them into units of about five hundred households and organize them into collective farms. Hire the farmers who didn’t get land and train them as employees. Each member of the farm will receive a forty-percent stake, which they are not allowed to sell. Of the remaining sixty percent, have the Agricultural and Commercial Society or the Steel Factory buy half, and put the other half on the market. Don’t those city folk with spare cash love to... invest? Let them help the Agricultural and Commercial Society recoup some of its losses."

"These collective farms must be managed properly. Plan the irrigation, prioritize their fertilizer supply, and when they’re short-staffed, apply to the Special Zone for more machinery. Most importantly, the training for the operators must keep pace. We need these farms to compete with the fields of smallholders and serve as an example. The next round of land reclamation will use a mix of both collective farms and individual claims."

"And the cooperatives—we need to support them more as well. In short, whether in industry or agriculture, the more people unite for production, the more they specialize and cooperate, the more we must support them."

As for the smallholders who now owned their plots, they faced two possible futures. Either they would steadily accumulate wealth, rising from small landowners to middle-class, and eventually becoming wealthy magnates, or they would lose their land due to natural disasters, personal misfortune, or market volatility.

Rorschach was determined to suppress the first outcome while preventing the second. He didn’t want to see smallholders become tenant farmers again. Instead, the cooperatives and collective farms would act as a safety net, allowing them to become agricultural workers or guiding them toward jobs in the factories.