[Homestead Ledger: ¥0] [Assets: 1 Wooden Cabin, 2 Acres Arable Land, 150 Daikon Turnips] [Overhead: ¥0/month. Status: Utopia.]
The morning sun crested over the untouched peaks of the Northern Alps, casting a warm, golden glow over the Kurosawa farm.
Yuto stood on his front porch, holding a mug of hot water with a single, thoroughly reused tea leaf floating in it. He took a deep breath of the crisp, unpolluted air. No sirens. No stock tickers. No debt collectors. Just the quiet rustle of the forest.
He looked out over his fields. To say the Vanguard had adapted to agricultural life would be an understatement. They had min-maxed it.
Out in the dirt, Kurenai was currently serving as a human tractor. The Oni had strapped a heavy iron plow to her shoulders and was sprinting back and forth across the field, tilling an acre of land in roughly four minutes without breaking a sweat.
"More rows, Alpha?!" Kurenai shouted from across the field, throwing up a massive cloud of perfectly aerated topsoil.
"That's enough for today, Kurenai!" Yuto called back, a warm smile on his face. "We don't want to over-leverage the soil!"
Nearby, Isabella was handling the irrigation. The gladiator had abandoned her Colosseum armor for denim overalls. She summoned her twin water-blades, but instead of slashing, she rapidly spun them like a sprinkler system, showering the crops with perfectly purified, mana-infused hydration.
It was a zero-cost, high-yield operation. Yuto was in heaven.
"Master, I am dying," a miserable voice groaned from the roof.
Yuto looked up. Shion was draped over the wooden shingles like a melted piece of taffy. The succubus was clutching a dead smartphone to her chest.
"I haven't had a packet-loss argument on a forum in six months," Shion whimpered. "I miss the toxicity of the internet. I miss artificial flavorings. Master, there is no Wi-Fi out here. There isn't even 3G. We are living in the dark ages. Please, let me go back to the city to day-trade."
"No," Yuto said, taking a sip of his weak tea. "Day-trading requires capital. Capital requires bank accounts. Bank accounts have maintenance fees. We are living off the land, Shion."
"But I want a soda!" Shion cried.
Yuto sighed. He walked over to a wooden crate resting by the porch. It was overflowing with massive, pristine white daikon turnips they had harvested the day before.
"Fine," Yuto said, tossing a burlap sack to the succubus. "Take thirty turnips down the mountain to the village in the valley. Find a general store. Barter the turnips for a bag of rock salt and, if the exchange rate is favorable, a single bottle of generic cola. Do not accept currency. We do not pay taxes on barter."
Shion's eyes lit up with pink, binary code. "A mercantile quest? Oh, Master, you are too generous! I shall extract maximum value from the local peasants!"
"Just the salt and the soda, Shion!" Yuto yelled as she swooped down, grabbed the sack of turnips, and flew off toward the valley. "And don't haggle too aggressively! We don't want to draw attention!"