129. 【Tales of the Gods ⑦】The Harvest God Muwidgi

 

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The Harvest God Muwidgi was once known as the “Wheat God.”

As the name suggests, the Wheat God was a lesser deity presiding over the growth and prosperity of wheat.

His very form was that of an immense wheat stalk.

Ever since being created as a lesser deity by the previous Harvest God Shuhavekmeg, Muwidgi had solely wished for the wellbeing of wheat, spending an extremely long time on just that.

However, at a certain point, Muwidgi became dissatisfied.

The wheat he desperately nurtured was ultimately harvested by humans and turned into bread and noodles.

While the cultivation areas expanded yearly, increasing the habitat and population as a species, this was wrong.

It was as if wheat existed merely as food cultivated and managed by humans.

Muwidgi voiced his dissatisfaction to the previous Harvest Goddess Shuhavekmeg.

In response, the beautiful tanned goddess simply gave him a puzzled look and said:

“…What are you even saying? Isn’t that just how it is?”

Those words ignited a boiling rage that dominated Muwidgi’s heart!

Despite being a god, it was Muwidgi the wheat stalk’s first experience having such intense emotions stir within him.

Trembling.

His body trembled with anger…!

What did this woman just say?

That his beloved wheat was treated as mere food, and she called that ‘just how it is’?!

…How ridiculous.

Ridiculous, ridiculous, ridiculous!!!

“More importantly! I just got back from going out, and I’m exhausted! Got any drinks ready? Prepare some for me, will ya?”

Shuhavekmeg showed no signs of perceiving Muwidgi’s anger as she walked over to the chair set up in her domain modeled after a field.

“Ahh, but I got some great stuff! With this, even I can debut as a streamer? What if I get popular, I wonder?”

Muwidgi somehow controlled his trembling, anger-filled body and slowly moved his roots to approach Shuhavekmeg.

Then, bending his thick trunk like a twisted log, he swung it with full force – violently striking the back of Shuhavekmeg’s defenseless head!

“Agah…?!”

Letting out a small groan, Shuhavekmeg lost consciousness and collapsed.

…Muwidgi no longer hesitated.

Climbing atop the fallen goddess’s body…he sprouted roots.

Muwidgi began absorbing the divine power – mana – stockpiled within Shuhavekmeg, enhancing his own strength.

“What are you doing?”

“Stop this.”

“Return to your senses.”

The lesser vegetable gods under Shuhavekmeg’s command, sensing the disturbance, attacked Muwidgi – but with Shuhavekmeg as his nutritional source, none posed a threat.

Only the Rice God Mochurchi managed to escape somewhere, but Muwidgi decided a lesser god of that level wasn’t worth dealing with anymore.

Decimating nearly all the vegetable gods, Muwidgi became the ruler of this field…or rather, this divine realm.

In other words, from that point onward.

Muwidgi became the Harvest God himself.

 

* * *

 

Now then, having risen to become the Harvest God through this backstabbing, Muwidgi had a dream he wanted to fulfill.

A world he wanted to create.

A world of wheat.

Covering every surface with wheat, a golden world ruled entirely by wheat.

The previous Harvest Goddess seemed to have bestowed bountiful crops to gain faith from humans, but Muwidgi saw no meaning in that.

Certainly, humans were important.

Useful tools.

Tools that could expand wheat fields.

However, the previous goddess merely viewed wheat as food for those tools.

What a twisted perspective!

Wheat should be the dominant species of this world, yet she provided that noble existence as mere fodder for human tools.

An utter reversal of priorities.

Muwidgi became convinced that correcting the world’s principles distorted by his predecessor was his duty as a god.

However.

How could he create a world of wheat?

Despite being a god, Muwidgi the wheat had no idea where to begin.

As Muwidgi contemplated while swaying his leaves, he suddenly noticed a book and a soul rolling near his roots.

They seemed to have fallen from Shuhavekmeg’s pocket after she went out and bought them from outside her domain field.

Having absorbed a degree of knowledge and memories from Shuhavekmeg along with her mana, Muwidgi understood she intended to use this book and soul for something called an “isekai stream.”

The book’s title was ‘Comprehensive Guide: Slow Life Reincarnation Manual!’

Deftly flipping through it with his roots, he found information like “The God’s Role in Slow Life Reincarnation”, “Suitable Souls for Slow Life”, “Sell Games Based on Your Previous Life” and more – but judging none of it useful for wheat’s prosperity, Muwidgi tore the book apart and discarded it.

Instead, what caught Muwidgi’s interest was the deep green soul.

Muwidgi had no interest in “isekai streams” whatsoever.

However, isekai itself.

The method of bestowing divine blessings upon human souls to utilize them as gods’ pawns.

That technique did interest him.

By correcting this soul rolling at his roots into a loyal pawn and having it operate in the present world, it could serve as the first step toward realizing his ideal wheat world.

Muwidgi considered this one of the more effective means available to him.

The ways for gods to interfere in the present world are limited.

If so, then the choice was clear.

Muwidgi promptly stripped away the deep green soul’s unnecessary aspects like memories and personality, instead inculcating it with the magnificence of wheat.

Modifying a soul was a new experience for Muwidgi the wheat god, so some remnants of the previous life may have remained, but an overall satisfactory soul was produced.

It might occasionally dream of its previous life, but at most that’s all it would be.

No issue there.

Releasing the finished soul into the cycle of reincarnation, Muwidgi awaited its rebirth.

Then Muwidgi began monitoring the reincarnated individual’s surroundings.

 

* * *

 

As expected, Muwidgi’s reincarnated pawn Prough fully utilized the bestowed divine blessing, rapidly expanding wheat fields from a young age.

However, no matter how divinely blessed, a single human body had limits to its work efficiency.

Hence, Muwidgi decided to make the humans residing near Prough into his pawns as well.

Despite being the wheat god, Muwidgi had roots.

One of those roots directly connected to Prough’s soul, allowing Muwidgi to freely impart power.

Initially, Muwidgi used Prough as a terminal to infuse the people he came into contact with, correcting their thoughts to become his pawns.

However, this method proved quite difficult.

Humans were extremely fragile, instantly breaking if he transmitted even slightly too much power through the improper dosage.

While successfully turning some into pawns, others like Prough’s father couldn’t withstand the power and died.

An absolute waste.

Hence, Muwidgi devised some alternative methods.

One of them was the “Sacrificial Bread Offering Ritual.”

The villagers would offer sacrifices like meat to Muwidgi, which he would use as a resource to create bread imbued with divine power and bestow upon them.

The bread was designed to contain regulated amounts of magic power to prevent overdosing.

By eating this bread, the villagers would gradually have Muwidgi’s ideology transmitted to them along with the magical power, turning them into obedient wheat slaves.

Muwidgi was not fully satisfied with having humans eat food mimicking bread made from wheat, even if created through divine power rather than actual wheat, since humans only consume familiar foods – so he compromised on that point.

This system proved effective, turning all the villagers of Grounoddka into Muwidgi’s pawns.

They began acting according to Muwidgi’s desires.

To work efficiently, unnecessary thoughts like wanting to play or slack off were eliminated, making everyone diligent workers.

Since quarreling among villagers would reduce work efficiency, their thoughts were corrected to get along harmoniously.

Any dissatisfaction with life that could make them try escaping the village was controlled, leaving everyone in blissful contentment.

The village’s operations proceeded extremely smoothly.

The stockpile of mana from the nutritional source Shuhavekmeg showed no signs of depletion, providing Muwidgi abundant resources to act as a god.

It seemed Shuhavekmeg was still the Harvest Goddess receiving faith everywhere except Grounoddka Village, with that stream of faith’s power constantly being siphoned and stolen away by Muwidgi.

The only faith directly gathered by Muwidgi came from Grounoddka Village and the life energy offered by wheat, so this unearned income was quite welcome.

 

* * *

 

In this manner, about 7 years passed.

The wheat cultivation area of Grounoddka Village where Prough was reincarnated had expanded to ten times its original size.

By occasionally incorporating visiting merchants, adventurers, and other outsiders through the bread’s power, the village population had doubled as well.

From the perspective of village operations, it was progressing extremely smoothly.

…However, in terms of Muwidgi’s original goal to create a world of wheat, the progress was slow – the plan was only inching forward at a snail’s pace. Yet being the wheat god, Muwidgi’s way of thinking fundamentally differed from humans’.

Simply put, he was incredibly patient.

Taking another few tens of thousands of years to achieve his goal was acceptable, so he wasn’t particularly rushing.

However, Muwidgi’s reincarnated pawn Prough did not share that view.

While normally acting as an ordinary innocent village boy, he was actually Muwidgi’s devout believer.

This was Muwidgi’s design, so no issue there – but precisely because of that devoutness, the lack of progress on the “wheat world creation plan” led Prough to blame his own lack of power.

Trying to resolve the labor shortage somehow, he unhesitatingly incorporated any outsiders into the village by having them eat the bread, or even considered devising recruitment pitches to bring in more fellow villagers from neighboring areas – carrying out various activities fitting a child.

It was around that time the black-haired, black-eyed girl drifted into the village.

That girl Prough and Fetti discovered by the riverside possessed formidable labor power despite her young age.

In his prayers to Muwidgi, Prough confidently reported: “Emi’s (the girl’s name) power will surely become the catalyst for the village’s development, wheat field expansion, and ultimately realizing the wheat world!”

However, regarding this girl, Muwidgi felt an indescribable unease.

After all, thought correction proved unusually difficult with her.

While he could manipulate her surface thoughts to some extent, altering her fundamental aspects proved impossible.

Moreover, suspecting some secret, Muwidgi tried stealthily probing her soul with his roots but felt as though “repelled by something,” unable to proceed.

It gave the impression her soul was coated by some divine power-like force…concealing its existence even from a god like himself.

Yet she showed no signs of being blessed by any particular deity either.

Utterly incomprehensible.

In a word, suspicious.

Since she was contributing to the village for the time being, Muwidgi left her be – but his assessment was that she could not be fully trusted.

Then, a few months after the girl’s arrival, she actually shook off Muwidgi’s thought interference, regained her true self, and fled the village.

Such an event had never occurred before.

Greatly surprised, Muwidgi instructed Prough to eliminate the girl to prevent any lingering threats.

However, unexpectedly, Prough defied those instructions with the following assertion:

“Emi’s labor power is astonishingly valuable. We should correct her thoughts again and bring her back to the village!”

Muwidgi was displeased.

Until then, Prough had been an excellent pawn never defying Muwidgi once since birth.

Yet under the pretext of the village’s and wheat world’s sake, he had disobeyed.

Displeasing.

Yes, a “pretext.”

Muwidgi sensed that Prough had likely found value in Emi beyond just her labor power, even if he wasn’t fully conscious of it himself.

It had started as a feeling of “nostalgia,” it seemed.

In Prough’s previous life, black-haired humans must have been commonplace – the lingering remnants Muwidgi failed to erase triggered that nostalgic sensation.

However, prompted by that nostalgia combined with the girl’s exceptionally refined appearance, Prough ended up harboring unnecessary attachment toward her.

His defiance stemmed from that attachment.

In any case, Muwidgi disliked it.

Things not going according to his design.

Displeasing.

Even more displeasing was Prough’s subsequent loss against the girl.

Despite using the power Muwidgi granted.

This situation could no longer be left alone.

Intervention was necessary.

Imparting new divine guidance to the unconscious Prough, infusing him with even greater power.

In exchange, pruning away unnecessary thoughts.

Stripping away emotions, removing attachments.

Prough’s soul, wounded by defeat and seeking strength, readily accepted Muwidgi’s interference – awakening him.

Prough gained the ability to wield far greater divine power.

And a sturdier mentality, no longer swayed by such uncertain trivialities as emotions.

Muwidgi was satisfied with the new Prough.

He would surely devote himself to realizing the wheat world more than ever as a divine child.

That eerie girl had fled somewhere beyond his roots’ reach, but it couldn’t be helped.

No point blaming Prough further.

There was nothing more to be done.

A change of perspective was needed.

 

* * *

 

Within the vast divine realm modeled as fields, Muwidgi sways his leaves in the wind as usual today.

This domain once had worthless crops like beans, potatoes, and rice planted alongside wheat.

Muwidgi eliminated all of those, creating a wheat domain.

A splendid sight.

Gazing upon the endless wheat fields, Muwidgi vows in his heart to one day recreate this paradise on the earth’s surface.

…However.

Muwidgi failed to notice.

The impending flaw in his plan.

The uninvited intruder to his domain.

Amidst the vast golden wheat fields.

A single stalk.

For now, just a single one.

…But a stalk of rice was growing intermingled!!

 

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Author’s note: Well, that concludes Arc 8.

It was a rather incomprehensible chapter, wasn’t it? (You’re one to talk.)

Was it supposed to be a heartwarming story? Horror? Comedy? Battle?

I really couldn’t tell. (That’s why you’re one to talk.)

Originally, it was simply meant to be a straightforward story of Emi disrupting a slow life narrative.

But it got derailed, undoubtedly Muwidgi’s fault.

“A world of wheat”? “Humans must be slaves to wheat”? What’s that about?

As for the chapter title “Remnants of a Slow Life,” it refers to Prough.

He was initially supposed to be the protagonist of a slow life story.

But thanks to Muwidgi’s coup, that plan fell through – despite reincarnating, the current Prough is merely a pawn unable to weave his own tale.

Hence, the perspective sections from Prough’s viewpoint had their titles prefaced with 【】.

If he had been the protagonist, the 【】 would have contained that story’s title.

It’s not a typo.

Well, I’ve rambled enough, but thank you for reading “The Reincarnated Extra” up to this point.

The star ratings, bookmarks, and such are truly appreciated.

I always enjoy reading the impressions as well.

Replying is quite difficult for me, so I haven’t done so, but I’m very grateful nonetheless.

I’m preparing the next chapter, so please wait a little longer.

The next one should be a relatively straightforward episode, I think.

…Probably.

It’s one of the episodes I had the premise planned since starting to write this novel, so as the author, I’m eagerly making preparations to write it excitedly.

I hope I can write it well.

Please continue your support going forward as well.

I appreciate it.