Chapter 132: In the Mountain Village

After climbing up the hill, Tauro and his group decided to wait for a while.

They thought the inhabitants of the mountain village might come for them.

After waiting for about five minutes, Bandi, the leader of the bandits, came rushing out of the narrow mountain road with two young men.

“We’ve been waiting for you…! Hahahaha…. We thought you weren’t coming because you didn’t show up on the scheduled date…we almost gave up. Welcome.”

Bandi looked at Tauro with a relieved expression and welcomed the group.

“How long do we have to wait until you take us to your village.”

When Aeris said that, Bandi and the others hurriedly replied, “This way!”And guided them to the mountain village.

The village was rich in nature, surrounded by forests, but the fields were small and the houses were poorly built, as if the land had not been well cultivated.

However, there seemed to be a surprisingly large number of people living in the village and smoke from cooking rose from various places, indicating that people were living there.

On the way to the village chief’s house, Bandi told us about the village.

“We basically live on hunting and lumberjack work. We started to expand our fields in the last few years when we started to have difficulty making ends meet. But it’s not going so well. But thanks to the money from Tauro-san, we’ve been able to have a decent meal for the past week, thank you very much.”

Bandi thanked them on behalf of the villagers.

He was very polite, which was a change from his disgusting behavior when he had acted like a bandit.

Maybe he was better suited for this kind of thing than rough stuff.

But he might have some skills with a sword, since Shin had said he was good with it.

“Why aren’t your hunting and lumberjack jobs working out?”

I asked Bandi, wanting to know why my help was in need.

“For one thing, the price of lumber is dropping and for another… well, this is the chief’s house.”

Bandi announced their arrival at the chief’s house, even though he was in the middle of a conversation.

Bandi called into the room and an old man hurriedly came out from inside.

“Oh, so you are Tauro-san and his party! Thank you for lending so much money to our village!”

The old man knelt down and bowed reverently.

“Oh, Please stop!”

Tauro hurriedly looked to Bandi for help.

When Bandi saw that Tauro was troubled, he hurriedly walked up to the old man.

“Chief! Tauro-san is troubled,  please stand up!”

Bandi lent his hand to the village chief and helped him to stand.

“What? I’m sorry, Bandi. I didn’t mean to embarrass Tauro-san…”

“Anyway, why don’t you and your friends go inside, Tauro?”

“That’s right. Please come in, everyone.”

With the village chief’s words, the group was finally able to catch their breath.

When they were invited into the house, the village chief thanked them again and apologized.

Tauro was embarrassed by his words, but he asked the same question to the village chief that he had asked to Bandi.

The village chief nodded.

“In addition to the price of lumber falling, the number of beasts in the forest have decreased so much that we can’t even trap them, let alone hunt them. The last few years have been particularly bad and we’ve tried to expand our fields to overcome this, but it hasn’t worked out. “

He replied.

“Didn’t you ask the farmers to teach you directly?”

Tauro asked.

“I’ve been told that fields at high altitudes are different and don’t work as well as we’ve been taught.”

“Then try this in the fields you have.”

Tauro pulled out the seeds he had purchased in the city of O’circus from the “magic storage” and unfolded them out on a table.

“What are these?”

“These are tomate seeds, these are tomorro seeds, and these are calashin seeds. All of them are suitable for growing at high altitudes, so try them out. I’ll explain the details later.”

“Oh…! Such a thing? We were just discussing what to plant. I’ll have the villagers do it right away!”

Perhaps grasping at straws, the village chief instructed one of the young men Bandi had brought along to carry the seeds without question.

“And I saw a lot of jagamo leaves around outside, aren’t they edible?”

In Tauro’s previous life, it had been called a potato, and here it was called a jagamo, but he wondered why he had seen the leaves by the roadside instead of in the field.

“oh… Jagamo? They bloom beautiful flowers at the right time of year, but the berries are poisonous and not edible…”

“Oh, so that’s what it is…. The buds and greenish parts of the jagamo are poisonous, but if you cut them out, you can eat it safely. Please teach this to all the villagers. It’s very important. As for how to cook them, there are many ways to eat them, such as boiling, steaming and frying and more importantly, you can eat a lot of them so you can have a full meal.”

Come to think of it, I’ve never seen jagamos on a table in this world.

Tauro had unexpectedly found something that could save the village.

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