Leon didn’t rush to harvest the green onions right away. Instead, he circled around the patch, making sure they weren’t artificially planted. Only after confirming they were truly wild did he step up to the nearest one and reach out his hand.
These green onions looked similar to the ones Leon was familiar with, but they were taller, with thicker stalks and longer leaves.
He pulled one out from the soil. By sight, it was about thirty centiters long, a vibrant green all over, with a roundish bulb at the root tinged with pale purple.
“Green Onion (Foraged): Grows rapidly in spring.”
Perhaps he had pulled a bit too hard, because so of the onion’s juice clung to his fingers. He brought them close to his nose. A pure, distinctive onion fragrance instantly filled his senses.
It was even purer than leek, making Leon narrow his eyes in delight. If he’d used this in the morning instead of leek, the onion olet might have been even more fragrant.
Satisfied that the sll matched what he knew, Leon crouched down again and began pulling the onions out, one by one.
If not for the system-provided backpack, he wouldn’t have had a clue how to carry so many. After harvesting less than half, he already had over a hundred onions. Strangely, three of them couldn’t be stacked with the others and occupied separate slots.
Curious, Leon took those three special onions out, along with one regular onion, and examined them side by side. Aside from being a bit longer and having a deeper color, the special ones weren’t much different.
“So these are high-quality crops? I wonder if they’re silver-star or gold-star.”
Muttering to himself, he put them back in the backpack and resud his onion-pulling operation.
By the ti the sun was high overhead, he had harvested the entire patch.
Thanks to the system backpack’s inventory display, he didn’t need to count manually. One glance told him all he needed to know: 217 regular onions, 16 high-quality ones, and one unique specin that wouldn’t stack with either type. This last one was entirely erald green, roots and all.
With that unique find, Leon was certain the sixteen special onions were silver-star quality, while the erald one was a gold-star premium. There was also the elusive iridium-star quality—nearly perfect—but he figured he wouldn’t be seeing those until his foraging skill improved.
Glancing at the pitted ground left behind, Leon wiped the sweat from his brow and stood, stretching to ease the strain on his back from crouching so long. If he didn’t, he was sure he’d end up with a slipped disc sooner or later.
Rather than leaving imdiately, Leon pulled a regular onion from his pack and peeled away the pale purple skin at its base. Sure enough, inside were clusters of pink worms, each the size of a speck, squirming up and down.
Since these were wild plants, untouched by pesticides or human care, it was no surprise to see so many parasites clinging to the bulb.
The idea ca to him from a mory of the ga: if the player’s friendship with the two kids in town was high enough, they would trigger a side event. In it, the kids would chat about wild green onions, reveal the presence of worms, and teach the player a special technique to remove them without harm. Using that thod would make the onions sell for five tis their normal price.
In reality, Leon wasn’t about to grind for the kids’ affection. If children could figure it out, then surely an adult like him could, too. He decided to see if he could unlock the green onion handling technique on his own.
Now that he’d confird the worms were there, his first idea was simply to kill them.
Lacking any sympathy, Leon carried the peeled onion to the riverside and subrged the bulb in the water. The flowing current quickly loosened the worms’ grip, washing them free to float to the surface.
A few stubborn ones clung tightly, so Leon swished the onion back and forth until every last worm was gone.
“Rough green onion handling technique unlocked. Each roughly processed green onion will now sell for double its original price (technique can be upgraded).”
The system’s voice rang in his mind as the last worms drifted away.
Sure, he’d unlocked the technique—but “rough” and “double price” made him frown. Why was his thod only worth twice the value? Was the key to the fivefold increase sparing the worms’ lives? The goal was still to remove them, wasn’t it? Was the system dinging him for a lack of humanitarian spirit?
He had plenty to complain about, but the system wouldn’t listen. All he could do was stew on it and think about how to unlock the perfect handling technique for that fivefold boost.
Just as he reached for a second onion to try carefully removing the worms alive, Leon noticed movent in the water.
The worms he’d washed away, floating like rootless duckweed, had drawn the attention of nearby fish. Discovering the easy protein, they sward in, gulping down the helpless little creatures.
So of the livelier fish even leapt from the water to snatch them, their scales flashing in the sunlight before splashing back down, sending droplets flying. Leon stared, wide-eyed.
“Plump little Smallmouth Bass… I didn’t think they’d like these worms. Huh? Wait a second—this might be a good discovery!”
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