Having a rough look with the knowledge and instincts from his Farming skill, the rice plants did indeed look weak to Vandalieu.

There was plenty of water, and the plants didn’t look like they were affected by disease. As Vandalieu went to lick the soil and examine the soil’s composition by taste, there was a weak reaction from his Danger Sense: Death spell.

“Could it be poison?” Vandalieu wondered. “Disinfect.”

The reaction disappeared from the soil immediately. It seemed that there were substances harmful to the body present in the dirt. The Detoxification spell worked on the rice plants, so it seemed that this really was the cause of the poor harvest.

“But why is there poison in the soil?”

This was strange. The soil of this village seemed to be the same as the soil of the other cultivation villages. If the poison had mixed into the water used to irrigate the fields, Danger Sense: Death would have reacted to the irrigation channels as well.

“Have you been using a special fertilizer?” Vandalieu asked, but everyone, including the village chief, shook their heads.

“We’re using compost made from plant and wood ash and human waste. But the other cultivation villages should be doing the same,” said the chief.

“Oyaji, there was one time where the gentlemen from the Knights’ Order came to train and brought some insecticide for us as well, wasn’t there?” said his son.

“Now that you mention it, you are right. That was the Knights’ Order led by the duke’s eldest son, Prince Lucas, was it not? But he apparently delivered the same insecticide to the other cultivation villages…”

The conversation between the Dwarf village chief and his son, who couldn’t be told apart other than by whether their hair and beards were black or white, didn’t make anything clear.

Well, the insecticide was suspicious no matter how Vandalieu thought about it, but he couldn’t think of a reason for the Knights’ Order spreading poison only on the fields of this cultivation village.

As long as there weren’t any strange familial conflicts happening, anyway.

If I recall, the cultivation project was started by the second son, Belton, and the leader of the Knights’ Order is the oldest son, Lucas. The traveling merchant, the bandits, the tamer and this village’s fields… I have a bad feeling about this.

Even if there was a familial conflict, why were there conspiracies targeting poor people like these on the edge of the region? It would be better off if they would just have bloody conflicts between family members in their own castles and mansions.

“For now, I’ve erased the poison in the soil of the fields and the rice plants,” Vandalieu told the villagers.