Tori and her mother spent a whole week harvesting every red chili in the field. They picked a fine-looking cabbage from another patch where they grew vegetables, then bought some potatoes.

They stewed the potatoes and cabbage together, then sprinkled in some salt and red chili powder. Honestly, it tasted pretty good—at least, it went well with bread.

Ordinary crops weren’t any different from those in her old world. The difference was in the magical crops. Tori’s father said this was a particularly rushed job, so he’d be gone for two or three months before he could come back.

She’d made almost no progress with meditation.

After all, there was no chance to meditate. How was she supposed to meditate during harvest season?

The weather had been getting hotter lately. But once the red chilies were harvested, things got a little less busy. At this time of year, her mother usually started making their winter clothes in advance. Tori, meanwhile, tended to the other crops in the fields.

The rest of June was for letting June’s blazing sun dry the red chilies. Usually, a week was about right. Leaving them out too long wouldn’t do, either. Tori didn’t really understand the reasons behind it, and the adults couldn’t be bothered to explain.

She decided to find another way to make money.

“Tori, are you going to play with the other kids today?”

“Yeah!”

“Be careful!”

Of course, kids that age loved to play. As long as they didn’t use a stick to knock the red chilies off their stems, the adults usually didn’t say anything. Naturally, that happened plenty of times—and then the kids’ bottoms got a beating instead of the chilies.

There were two or three other kids Tori’s age in the village. She used to play with them, but not anymore. Even setting aside the whole making-money thing, she was thirty-six years old. Why should she hang around playing with kids? They could go play by themselves!

Tori had her eye on something else she could sell.

Ice mint.

This plant usually grew along rivers and had a water affinity. It was easy to recognize: its leaves were often covered in a thin layer of ice. But in June, in this heat, you’d never find any unless you looked very carefully.

And the riverside bushes weren’t exactly safe.

You might step on a sharp rock, or find bugs and snakes lurking in the bushes. Aside from the spots where people often washed clothes and drew water, the riverbank wasn’t all that welcoming. And any ice mint growing in those spots had already been picked. People from the city often used it to make tea as a summer drink. A plant in reasonably good condition could fetch five copper coins.

That was a pretty good price. Five coins!

She figured she needed some money of her own. Whatever she planned to use it for, having more money was always better than having none. So she walked for over half an hour before finally reaching a stretch of river that people rarely visited.

That was one thing about the magic world that really sucked: villages didn’t have to be built near a water source. After all, most adults could use a little water magic, as long as they weren’t completely useless.

As long as there was moisture in the air, they could water their crops.

Still, having a river was definitely better.

The moment Tori saw the clear river water, she wished she had a fishing rod. Come to think of it, she hadn’t been fishing in ages—not since her father in her old world had fallen ill.

A river like this was almost impossible to resist...

In the end, she shook her head and gave up on making a fishing rod. First, she had to find ice mint. The girl picked up a stick and began tapping through the grass by the river, testing the unseen ground around her as she went. A stick was a handy thing to have.

She seemed to be having decent luck. She did run into a rather vicious “oil toad,” though. It was much bigger than the ones in her old world, and pretty terrifying to an eight-year-old girl. Even a grown woman in her thirties was scared of it. Not that these creatures usually attacked people.

In the end, they parted without incident. That was good news.

The animals in this world weren’t very friendly. They had magic, after all, so their size and strength were both ridiculous. Human kids didn’t stand much of a chance.

By evening, Tori’s cloth bag was filled with ice mint. Well, “filled” was an exaggeration—there were only four plants.

Daily income: 20. Monthly income: 600.

Life was tough.

Still, 20 was a huge sum for an eight-year-old girl. Most kids didn’t have twenty copper coins to their name.

Luckily, ice mint didn’t need much processing. She just had to leave it somewhere out of the sun.

It was a bit of a hassle to find, but compared to the heavy labor of the past few days, it was much easier. That night, Tori finally managed to meditate.

Her magical power had grown a tiny bit. Tori didn’t think that would do much to improve her air-conditioning magic. Though what she did wasn’t really magic at all—it was just releasing magical power.

Still, after meditating, her mind felt especially clear. That was nice. And she didn’t need to worry about her posture, either. She could just lie in bed.

Honestly, she wasn’t very interested in training. If she had to give a reason, well—no cheat, no talent. Even if she trained hard, how strong could she really get?

It wasn’t as if nobody had trained hard. There was someone in the neighboring village who’d done just that. Now they’d moved to town. That was probably the limit of what an ordinary person could achieve.

Making money was better. Once she had cash, she could chug Meditation Potions. Wouldn’t a potion-chugging build be way better?

That was what Tori thought.

As for the idea that people who devoted all their attention to making money could never reach the highest levels—she wasn’t aiming that high! She just wanted to move up a little in the world. She didn’t need to be a noble. Couldn’t she just become comfortably well-off?

Obviously, she could.

And that was exactly what Tori planned to do.

She’d already noticed a serious problem with this world: knowledge was kept under lock and key. It wasn’t like her old world, where at least some knowledge was available for anyone to look up, and people could teach themselves new things. Knowledge in this world was just too expensive.

Take red chilies, for example. Tori knew they were an ingredient in some kind of Potion. But what Potion, exactly? She didn’t know. How were the chilies processed? She didn’t know. How was the Potion made? She didn’t know.

That was why the village chief was so well-liked: he knew a lot about red chilies. Maybe he’d studied them specially. Then he shared what he knew with the whole village, helping everyone make a better living—though getting rich was still a long way off.

She’d heard her parents couldn’t afford to attend Magic Academy when they were young. Now, at least, they could save enough to send their child to Magic Academy. They had the village chief to thank for that. It was just...

From Tori’s memories, the older kids who went to Magic Academy didn’t look very happy when they came home. Their faces were always clouded with gloom.

It was understandable, really.

Take the village chief’s child, for instance. Their magical power was stronger than that of other kids their age. But where was Magic Academy? Neither Blackwater Town nor Asta Town, the nearest towns, had one. The only place with a Magic Academy was Dais City, where the lord lived.

The lordship was hereditary. Tori had heard that the first lord was named Dais. It was the most prosperous place the villagers knew of. In Tori’s terms, it was like a prefecture-level city. She had no idea about provincial capitals, and she didn’t know anything about the royal capital, either.

In short, the six towns and thirty villages nearby all belonged to Dais City.

What kind of people were the kids in the city? No money, no strength. They’d probably just get bullied and mocked if they went there. Honestly, it might not be good for the kids at all.

But Tori still had a whole year before she had to worry about that. She wouldn’t start school until after next year’s red chili harvest was sold. She wasn’t old enough to enroll yet.

She had to make as much money as possible before then. A lot of things were easier when you had money to pave the way.

Early the next morning, Tori went out again. She spent another day looking for ice mint. She felt like she was getting the hang of it, and today she found six plants.

She spent another two or three hours gathering some plants that looked a little like bamboo.

On the third day, she found five plants.

On the fourth day, she found three.

Tori realized it would probably be hard to find any more ice mint nearby. Going farther would be dangerous. Who knew what kinds of animals—or magical beasts—lived in places people rarely visited?

She had no intention of getting herself killed.

After all, she wasn’t strong enough to take that kind of risk.

Why couldn’t she have gotten a cheat ability?!

Still, at least she’d finished making her fish trap.

She’d see if she could leave it in the river and catch a couple of fish. The girl licked her lips. Red chili powder was a great seasoning. She was sure it’d taste amazing on grilled fish.

After all, her mother was very frugal when buying meat, so they ate vegetables most of the time. One gold coin for tuition was just too expensive.

10,000!

That was just ridiculous.

Sure, there were schools in her old world with even higher tuition, but at least there was compulsory education. In this world, everything cost money!

If she made 600 a month, that would only be 7,200 a year. Still not enough to cover tuition.

But she could take a big chunk of the burden off her parents.

After securing the fish trap in the river, she went back to looking for ice mint. She really might have picked all the ice mint from this area. She found only three plants that day, too.

But she really did catch some fish.

Luckily, most fish weren’t too terrifying. Satisfied, she carried her bamboo basket home.

Her mother was surprised. She’d really thought Tori had gone out to play. Then she finally noticed the ice mint in Tori’s cloth bag.

“What’s this...?”

“We’re going to sell the red chilies tomorrow, right? I’d like to sell the ice mint I found over the past few days, too. Is that okay, Mom?”

“Of course! Absolutely! Tori’s all grown up!” Her mother seemed deeply moved. She packed salt around one of the fish Tori had caught, then hung it up to dry. “When your father comes back, tell him you caught this. Let him have a taste.”

Then she prepared the other fish, and she and Tori made a bowl of fish soup together.

The fish soup tasted good.

But Tori noticed that her mother seemed to be crying.

“Mom, what’s wrong?”

“Tori’s all grown up...”

You already said that.

She figured this wasn’t so bad after all... maybe? She quietly drank her fish soup and looked up at the blue moon in the sky.

She really had been transported to another world!