Reincarnated to the Past 16: Fertilizing the World ... and Myself? (Patreon)

Reincarnated to the Past
Chapter 16: Fertilizing the World ... and Myself?

-VB-

Shit smelled. 

When I mean shit, I mean literal feces. Human feces, in particular, smelled more than other animals, too. Was it because I am a human that human feces smell stronger to me?

… Or it was because I knew it was dirty and that it held very little value. 

But very little didn’t mean no value, and I intended to use feces to its fullest.

By turning it into fertilizer. 

I was now a slaver, unfortunately, and the tribe was not keen on letting me set the slaves free. The slaves were, as the tribe told me, prisoners of war who lost their right to guest rights when they attacked the tribe. On top of that, they were Scythians, who lost their right to good relations since they have been raiding the Kettins for many generations. 

They told me bluntly that if I were to release the slaves, they would be rounded up to be stoned for their many sins. 

Slaves were, until they proved otherwise, enemies of the tribe. 

It didn’t make slavery right, but I thought that it was better for me to be a slaver than to kill someone through doing what was subjectively right.

Which was why I used them to do what I didn’t want to do: collecting feces. 

Everyday, they returned from the huts, houses, and barns of the tribe, collecting buckets of shit. To do their job, I provided them with gloves, a mask, and decent shoes. I didn’t want them to be sick, and I knew no one liked touching poop directly. 

The buckets of shit they collected were dumped into a big pile in a field within the town but away from most of the houses. We used wooden pitchforks to mix the poop with cut grass and soil. It was going to take six months at the least to turn poop into fertilizer, but it was time I had, now that there wasn’t any raiders or invasions to worry about.

And speaking of time, I had one month or so before my next power came.

“Wiseman.”

I turned to look at the caller and saw that it was Ghigari. I hurried tossed my poop-stained gloves aside, pulled my mask down, and walked up to him. 

“Chief, what are you doing up already? We only just used the medicine last week!”

The medicine in question was primitive Penicillin. While my slave boys had been collecting many many buckets of poop, I was focused on making penicillin mold and refining it into a usable product. I ended up getting this slurry that I applied to Ghigari and other still living and infected warriors of the tribe. 

So far, none who got my medicine died and were showing signs of recovery.

That was a good thing.

But Ghigari should not be up already. He was a fifty year old warrior who’s still recovering from infection.

I glared at the two warrior guards by his side, and they tried to remain firm.

“What are you two doing, letting him up like this?” I growled. 

Ghigari just laughed. He sounded hoarse and weak. “A chief does what a chief wants, wiseman. Do you deny me my wants?”

“I’ll go tell on you to your wife, your son, and your daughter.”

“Urk.”

I snorted. “...What brings you out here?”

“I was curious about this new project of yours. Unlike all other projects you have  made, this one involved poop of all things.”

“It is to make the ground more fertile next planting season.”

He blinked up at me. “Truly? You can make the ground fertile like a god of the earth can?”

I blinked right back at him. “It’s nothing special,” I replied. “Have you asked why the forests are always fertile but fields where grains have been grown become fallow with each passing harvest?”

“No. I am a warrior, not a farmer.”

I rolled my eyes. “Well, it’s because you use up resources in the earth that lets plants grow. Forests don’t lose this stuff because all of the living things die in it, returning this resource to the earth. Your farmlands on the other hand…”

“Gets nothing in return.”

“Exactly. By adding poop into soil here, letting it rest to remove the poison, and then returning this soil back to the farmlands, fallow earth will become fertile again.”

Ghigari looked at me with wide eyes before he turned to look at the pile of shit, soil, and cut plants. “Can this be implemented throughout the tribe?”

“Of course, but it takes time. A pile that big needs at least six months, and it took my people two weeks to gather all of the shit.”

He nodded. “I will talk to you in the future regarding this,” he said and left. 

… It was good to see him up and about, even if he shouldn’t be. 

I saw Bodi come back from his latest shit collecting patrol.

“Drop them off here!” I shouted at him in Scythian tongue while pointing to a spot next to the already existing shit mound. 

-VB-

I woke up and knew that whatever I did next would result in my next power. 

I already prepared for this.

Slowly, I got up from the bed and stared at the cut I made on myself yesterday. It was a shallow thing on the forearm, but I hadn’t treated it. I reached for the rolls of bandage, a tiny bottle of salve, and my new primitive Penicillin and got to “healing” myself. I cleaned the cut, applied the penicillin, dropped the sticky honey salve, and then rolled the bandages around it. 

And I waited.

And then I knew.

I had gained another power.

I grinned like a boy in a candy store. 

[Minor Regeneration]. 

I felt the small cut close underneath the bandage, and I slowly removed the cover. Just as I had felt it, the cut was gone. 

I grinned.

Seeing as this was a great power, I mentally “grabbed” [Perfect Accuracy] and combined it with [Minor Regeneration]. 

I paused as a foreboding feeling rose up inside me as the two powers disappeared and nothing happened.

My eyes widened in joy as something new emerged from within me like a shining beacon.

And then I gulped in horror as the shining beacon of a new power began to heat up. It became seriously uncomfortable.

I gasped in pain, stumbled out of the bed, and then collapsed on the floor.

It burned.

I screamed.