"What? You still need to collect taxes when there is a famine like this?"

Gretel finally had some sense and did not ask this question. However, Serira beside him had already ignored it and blurted out:

"Don't they care if you starve people to death?!"

A flash of embarrassment flashed across the old priest's face, and he remained silent. Gretel waved his hand gently, signaling Cerela not to ask further questions, but Bernard intervened:

"Hey, when those big tribes collect taxes, who cares whether the small tribes below live or not? It's like this even in the wilderness - you need his protection, you need his help to kill the monsters, in short, you want

To survive, you have to pay."

The old priest breathed a huge sigh of relief. Obviously, the news that "there are too many bastards in the world, and our kingdom is not the only one" has greatly appeased his pride. He turned around and coughed twice:

"Actually, we are fine... We are far away and the place is barren. We only need to pay for some animal skins, teeth and other warcraft products. The core area of ​​the kingdom, alas..."

This sigh made all the twists and turns, making Gretel's imagination soar in an instant. The poll tax, land tax, and war tax were collected 80 years later;

Why sell your sons and daughters if you can’t pay the taxes, demolish your houses and raise cattle? No, there seems to be no cattle in this continent, so that means demolishing your houses and raising alpacas;

The taxes paid by the nobles are paid back in full, while the taxes paid by the common people are divided into 37%...

Of course, Gretel did not have the grand goal of liberating all mankind, nor did he want to comment on how the indigenous kingdom collected taxes. He just nodded slightly and asked the old priest as if casually:

"What about now, has the potato harvest situation improved?"

Well, if his memory is correct, the potato rot and crop failure seem to be related to some kind of bacteria - or some kind of fungus. The Great Famine in Ireland in the previous life seemed to be caused by this bacteria that spread widely...

"No..." the old man sighed sadly. He rubbed his hands, and his whole body seemed to be a little more stooped, hunched over and huddled up:

"We brought in some new potatoes from the mountains and replanted them. We did get a lot of harvest at first. But this only lasted for one year. Most of this year's potatoes were rotten..."

yyxs.la

Hmm, it sounds more and more like it. Grete held his chin and muttered:

In my impression, if potatoes are constantly planted with the tubers of the previous generation, the varieties will be too single and the disease resistance will gradually weaken.

At this time, there is another potato disease, which is mutually contagious and spreads one by one. It will be slightly better if you replace it with new tubers, but Gretel is very suspicious that the fields where they grow potatoes have not been disinfected at all...

"Can you show me some raw potatoes?" He leaned forward and lowered his voice. Next to him, Idian and Serira coughed at the same time:

Just looking at potatoes, why are you acting like thieves? If distinguished guests like us want to see a few potatoes, how can we not let them do so?!

Gretel turned a deaf ear. Although he was a healer, not a natural priest in the traditional sense, he could still try to treat potatoes occasionally.

Of course, the premise is that the reason for the failure of the potato harvest is what he guessed, and not some inexplicable factors. For example, if a little devil comes to eat potatoes or something, it is completely inappropriate for the Plague Lord to solve these problems.

Obviously, treating humans might be unpopular, but looking at potatoes is less of a problem.

Idian did not speak to stop him. He watched the old priest give a few instructions and asked someone to bring a basket of raw potatoes. He also took one, holding it in his hand and turning it around:

"Did you feel it?"

He turned around and asked. Gretel shook his head very honestly, looking left and right, trying to find a place to put down the mage's cabin, opening his workbench, centrifuge, microscope, and a whole set of equipment——

Feel?

What is feeling?

He doesn't know whether the shape of a potato in his hand is normal or abnormal, whether the wrinkled skin is sick or has been stored for too long, whether the skin is a little blue and has gone bad...

He has absolutely no idea!

"Not very alive." A voice suddenly sounded next to him. Gretel quickly turned his head and saw the elf spellcaster who was traveling with him, the taciturn Ms. Losia, and spoke in a rare voice:

"Contaminated."

"Yes, I feel the same way." Youdian nodded repeatedly:

"Something is corroding and devouring its vitality, making it impossible for the potato to grow normally. It's okay to store it like this now, so it won't rot immediately, but once it's buried in the ground..."

After being buried in the ground, with abundant water and nutrients, these things that erode the vitality of potatoes will be more active than the potatoes themselves.

Without waiting for the potatoes to take root, sprout, complete a life cycle, and produce new potatoes, these things will eat them up and let them rot in the ground.

"Yes, I feel it too." Idian nodded lightly. As a warrior, his mental power is not as delicate as a spellcaster, but it is still sharp enough.

After saying this, a hazy green light shrouded the egg-sized potato in his hand:

"Well... let me see if I can save it with the power of nature..."

The blue light shrouded it, sweeping back and forth, cleaning it up. Next to it, seven or eight pairs of eyes were staring at the potato:

The old priest, the young warrior who was ordered to deliver the potatoes, and the indigenous women looming outside the clearing outside the bonfire.

Before Gretel set out from Nevis, he had already imbued himself with various magics such as "twilight vision" and "dark vision". He could see at a glance that there were also indigenous children pulling on their mothers' skirts and watching eagerly.

Potato swallows saliva:

"Are these potatoes still edible?"

They look dry and wrinkled, and some places seem to have mold spots, and some places seem to have sprouts, and are a little green. Just the common sense of Grete's few potatoes, this thing can't be eaten, right?

"You can eat it, you can eat it!" The young soldier who brought the potatoes nodded vigorously:

"These potatoes are still fine, enough for a meal! - Of course, this one is a bit inappropriate, but after being purified by the noble Lin Xing, it will definitely be fine!"

Gretel sighed silently. He even wanted to eat moldy potatoes like this, which shows that the life of the local indigenous people has reached a certain level. In other words, they would rather die of poison than starve to death...

Hope they can help.

He looked at Idian, who had obviously finished casting the spell, and nodded with satisfaction. He turned sideways and handed the potato in his hand to Losia:

"Can you feel it for a while?"

The female elf mage rolled her eyes at him. Instead of reaching out to pick it up, she applied a cleaning technique on it and rolled up the dust and dirt on the potatoes. Idian smiled sheepishly: "Hehe":

"forget……"

Luo Xia said nothing, her slender fingers fell on the potato, and she stroked it twice. The female elf nodded in thought:

"It's okay. But, how much power do you have to deal with the potatoes that a tribe wants to grow?"

"..."

Idian was silent for a moment. For a moment, he worked hard to exercise the muscles on his face and smiled at the caster beside him:

"Isn't it you..."

"I won't do it." Luo Xia's eyes instantly turned cold. The female elf flicked her silver hair, turned away, and no longer participated in any discussion.

"Why--"

Idian subconsciously stretched out his hand to retain him. Unexpectedly, Losia took a few steps quickly, jumped onto an old tree outside the cave, and closed her eyes to sleep.

Udian: "..."

He shrugged, turned back as if nothing had happened, smiled at Gretel, spread out his hands, and made a helpless gesture:

"There's nothing you can do. That's how pure naturalist spellcasters are. Even if they open up farmland to plant crops, they think they're destroying nature. Hey, Gretel, what can you do? What are you going to do?"

Gretel had already unfolded the mage's hut and got into it, leaving only the silhouette of Udian. Behind him, Cerela followed suit and followed quickly. She stopped slightly at the door of the mage's hut and turned to give Idian a sweet smile:

"Let's go research! Research~~~research! Don't worry, Gretel is awesome, and he will definitely figure it out!"

It's not that I'm worried... Idian's raised arms fell weakly:

But, little Gretel, you took away all the potatoes! Although I am only a warrior, I - according to human terms - am also a three-ring nature priest, and I can also be studied together!

But Grete obviously had no intention of taking him to study together. He and Cerela entered the mage's hut one after another, and the walls of the hut immediately disappeared. The attitude was very obvious, "Do not disturb outsiders."

Idian's long pointed ears stood up and then fell down, fell down and stood up again, but he couldn't hear anything. He snorted unconvinced, sat down on the spot, and closed his eyes——

Well, this time, the shaking of the earth gave him the answer. The people inside were walking around, and there were hard things vibrating, maybe they were chopping potatoes——

Buzz, buzz, buzz. Idian pricked up his ears and curiously guessed. This movement may be crushing, this movement may be grinding, this movement, could it be that the centrifuge is spinning?

"Don't worry too late!"

He shouted in vain across the mage's hut. He didn't know whether the sound transmission function of this thing was turned on or whether the people inside could hear it. When he turned around, Bernard looked at him with an incomprehensible expression:

"Sir, the boss and Miss Serira, they are not like this..."

"Of course I know!" Idian rolled his eyes at him:

"I want to remind them not to spend all day and night as soon as they start researching, but pay attention to rest! Gretel should remember that he is still a mage and needs to get enough sleep, right?"

Idian didn't know if his worries had come true. He only knew that the next morning, near noon, Gretel came out with disheveled hair and a basket of potatoes:

“Where are the potato fields here?”

"Did you get the results of your research?"

****
Chapter completed!