Re: Level 100 Farmer

Chapter 161 - A New Beginning

The walk back to the farm was a lonesome one, the solitude exacerbated by the deepness of the night. Li traveled down the length of the main road, his steps brisk as they paced over the worn path, over the tracks of boots and horse hooves that had filled the path up throughout the day. 

Few souls, if any, stirred around him, though right now, he figured, the sharpness in sensing lives around him had dulled compared to before when he had let divine power flow through him unmoderated.

A reminder that Iona was fulfilling her duty. She had given back her authority to Li because managing forest fires was no longer the reason for her existence. Now it was to be like a valve that regulated the flow of divine power inherent within him. Though Li did not express it strongly, he could not understate how thankful he was for her sacrifice. It was a level of thankfulness he had not believed he could muster, one that would never have been possible in his old life filled with empty nothings. 

But that made it all the more important for Li to shoulder the responsibilities he had decided to bear, and there were very many indeed. Iona's wish for him to maintain his humanity, restoring the faith of the farmers to its former glory and beyond, securing their lives and prosperities, and ensuring that the garden of peace and wonder he promised did flower into fruition. 

Li could not help but feel that in the face of all these responsibilities, his farm, a farm that belonged only to him and Old Thane, mattered so little, and yet he could not shake off the feeling that he was neglecting something important to him. 

At the farm, starlight struggled to strain through a thick layer of clouds that had cloyed above, making it hard to see the farm's condition normally. To Li, though, his night vision cut through the darkness, and he made his way around the fields. 

Li checked every single stalk of wheat and found that they had been harvested out with clean precision. Old Thane's handiwork. Underneath the soil, he could feel the restful rumbling of the Myrmeke, and at the end of the fields, he beheld Zagan staring at him. 

'So you have decided to shoulder the burden of godhood upon yourself,' communicated Zagan telepathically. 'I must commend you for that. I thought it would take until the aged mortal's death for you to consider the option.'

'I'm just putting my feet into the water, so to speak. I haven't forgotten the promise I made to the old man, and I hope you still understand that.'

Zagan was unphased. 'My personage may not understand it, but it can respect it. And what are mortal years but few and delicate little things that are all the more fragile in those who are aged. There is a certain beauty in ephemerality, in the transience of all things mortal and flesh and blood, and this personage shall not hinder you from appreciating it.'

Li nodded silently and walked past Zagan, checking the back of the farm to make sure all the tools were nicely in order. As he expected, they were, maintained by Old Thane. In the storehouse, he could see the barrels of golden wheat the old man had harvested by himself.

Li sighed as he closed the rickety doors to the storehouse and made his way into the cottage. The door had been broken down by Tia, and so Old Thane had temporarily hung up a tarp to keep the winds and elements out. He pushed the tarp aside and found the cottage alight and warm, filled with a quiet but vibrant energy.

Tia was sleeping by the roaring fireplace, and beside her, Old Thane sat on a stool, leaned over with a smile he pointed at Li. 

"And how was it, lad?" said Old Thane with a wide grin. "Your first day as something more than a farmer. A seer, was it? Mighty fancy, if ye ask me."

"It didn't feel too special. Felt natural to me, if you ask me," said Li as he pulled up a stool from the dining table and pushed it in front of Old Thane. 

Even as the world around them changed and Li brought bigger and grander events around himself, he felt a strange sense of homely comfort that he could pull up a seat by the fireplace and talk to the old man as he had always done. 

"It's just a lot of responsibility," said Li. He noted Old Thane's heartbeat, the little undulations in the flow of his life that he was familiar with which let him know that the old man was tired. "You worked on the fields all day by yourself. You should get some rest. I'll be with you all day tomorrow and as much as I can in the future, I guarantee it. Make no mistake, old man, I have not forgotten this farm and the years of work you've dug into it."

Old Thane held up a hand and shook his head. "Lad, you've no reason to worry about me. You've taken a mighty heavy responsibility upon yourself. The fate of a whole belief, of a whole people upon your single lonesome back. In a way, it makes me mighty proud that the simple farming I taught you has led to such greatness as this, but greatness is a heavy burden.

I am a mere old man, a simple farmer, nothing more. I've little to offer you aid in the ways of seers and spirits and gods, but lad, I can still tend the fields when you are elsewhere – let me do at least that. It is no burden to me that by tilling the land I love, I may ease some of the burdens that you have decided to bear. 

And should you need it, lad, I'll still be here, in this very same little and old cottage, ready as ever to hear about your successes and struggles and, dare I say this, your failures too, mighty incredible as you are." 

"I would say something, but I know you're too stubborn for me to change your mind," said Li with a faint smile.

Old Thane laughed. "Aye, a little flaw I have, that is."

"Principles aren't flaws," said Li. He sat back into his stool and nodded. "But I have my own principles too, old man, and I can't let you just sit at this farm while I'm off and away. So I've decided you can help me far better than just tending to this farm. We can both easily do that. Therefore, I'm going to make you the head of all the farming operations not only here, but for all the farmlands that my followers tend to. In other words, the leader of a farmer's guild once I get to establishing it."

"Oho, I've little quarrel with that. A promotion at this age is never something to shirk."

"Are you sure about that? You never tried to expand the fields on your own. I'd always thought you were a stickler to a humbler lifestyle, content with what you had and nothing more."

Old Thane smiled. "Hehe, I'd only stayed on this lonesome plot of mine for lack of hope, lad. With Aine gone, close friends withered or taken by time and no children to rear, I'd had no ambition of mine own.

But I have you now, lad, and your hopes and dreams are as much yours as they are mine. I would be honored to stand by ye side." 

Li smiled at Old Thane. "Then we get to work starting tomorrow. Let me know if you need any breaks, old man."

"Hah! I'm still as spry as most of the youngsters these days!" 

With a shared laugh, the gloomy night ended on a warm note. Though Li now held under his responsibility almost a hundred lives - a responsibility of a scale he had never once borne or even fathomed - he felt in this moment that it was nothing, that with the old man there as the guide he had always been since he had found himself in this new world, that nothing was impossible.