Chapter 32

The progress of the land reclamation changed day by day.

The amount of stones. The depth they could turn. The flow rate of the waterway.

The number of days until sprouting. The number of withered seedlings.

Lydia wrote them down one by one.

At night, under the light of the candlestick, remembering the sensation of the soil left on her fingertips, she lined up numbers and observations.

That role was originally something the steward or a clerk should bear. But she petitioned the Count.

“Please leave the record of this reclamation to me.”

The Count stared at his daughter for a while, and eventually nodded.

“If you can write it through to the end, then try it.”

She wrote of setbacks, too.

The day water was insufficient and the seedlings collapsed. The voices of giving up that emerged among the farmers.

She wrote of hardships, too.

The abundance of stones. The manpower spent on reinforcing the waterway. The backlash against the neighboring country’s tools.

She wrote of successes, too.

That the new plow turned the soil deeper than expected. That the drought-resistant seeds took root. That the ridges they tested on only half the field stood until the end.

Sometimes, there were nights when her pen stopped.

Maybe it is impossible.

There were days she thought that. Every time, she would take out a letter from her desk drawer.

It was the one from the Third Prince. Unadorned text. Short words.

Make time your ally.

Because she had reread it so many times, the paper had become soft. Lydia let out a soft breath.

“I can still do it.”

Muttering so, she took up her pen again. The records eventually became a single volume of reports.

Progress. Failures. Points of improvement. Costs. Yield.

A document organized as facts, not emotions.

It became a treasure of the territory.

Later, when other territories tried to open up highlands in the same way, that report was copied and passed around.

Proof showing that the success of that highland was not a coincidence, but an accumulation.

The fruits of the reclamation and Lydia’s precise records would eventually be useful in other territories as well.

Time had certainly become her ally.

Eventually, that rumor spread on the wind.

That crops had borne fruit on the highland of the Crawford family’s territory.

At first, no one believed it. There’s no way things would grow on that water-scarce land. Can we really rely on a neighboring country’s technology?

The talk of building a retention basin and reinforcing the waterway had been laughed at until now as “unnecessary hassle.”

There was a way of doing things that had continued for many years. Protecting that exactly was the art of maintaining a territory.

But—a harvest permits no excuses. If one actually looks at a field with swaying ears of grain, doubts crumble faster than words.

The following year, construction of a retention basin began in the neighboring territory. In the territory next to that, stones were stacked for waterways, and unfamiliar seeds were sowed. People finally realized.

Protecting is not bad. But with just that, one does not move forward. It was preservation, but it was not improvement.

The highland field of the Crawford family had imperceptibly become a testament.

Changing is not losing.

Re-choosing is not betrayal.

The harvest quietly, but certainly, moved the hearts of the surrounding territories.

Eventually, his name also began to be whispered.

The Third Prince.

At first, some laughed it off as a whim born of youth. Some frowned, saying that joining hands with a neighboring country meant showing weakness.

But the ears of grain that bore fruit on the Crawford family’s highland quieted those voices little by little.

“He produced results.”

There are no stronger words than that.

In the court, too, the direction of the wind changed.

There were no flashy military exploits. No brilliant martial honors.

But grain increased. The anxiety of starvation retreated slightly.

Everyone finally began to understand. To make a country strong is not solely about swinging a sword.

The Third Prince’s name, before anyone knew it, was no longer “incompetent.”

One who does not stand out, but surely accumulates.

One who does not boast loudly, but shows things in form.

The ears of grain on the Crawford family’s highland were quietly pushing up the evaluation of the Prince as well.