Farmer, Not Jedi?

Farmer, Not Jedi?

Chapter 1

-VB-

What was a farmer?

A farmer was not a farmhand. A farmhand was an employee who obeyed the farmer’s order and helped harvest crops, maybe even doing other menial chores, but menial chores and part-time harvest did not make a farmer. Then was a farmer someone who owned the land that they farmed? No, this was also not the case because a farmer could develop the land leased to them by others.

So then what was a farmer?

Objectively, a farmer was anyone who engaged in many agricultural processes to make food or raw material; a farmhand was thus not a farmer because they were engaged in one, maybe two, parts of the agricultural process.

Subjectively, I believed that a farmer was someone who didn’t just produce food or raw material for their use but who went above and beyond to feed as many people as they could without ruining the land. If you pump the land for nutrients without care and ruin the land, then you aren’t a farmer but an exploiter.

And why was I thinking about what a farmer was practically when I wasn’t a farmer myself?

[Farming… Really? For Someone of Your Talents?]

It was a mission from the Company. The Company behind the Waifu Catalog. Or rather, the mission itself had been sent over to me when I was still choosing my build after I got bashed in the head by a rioter but that’s a story for another time. At least I took down a dozen of them before they decked me to the afterlife.

The mission was, in essence, a call to return to a more simplistic life for new Contractors. To not dive straight into the debauchery and madness of the Company but to enjoy their new lease on life and try something more. Oh, and I can’t leave the farm. But, of course, it wouldn’t be the Company if it didn’t fuck with me like that, because that’s what the Company was: an institution that fucked anyone and everyone, metaphorically and literally.

So how was it going to fuck with me?

Simple. It would send raids to try and kill me for the entertainment of other patrons of the Company. It was … exactly what this Company was, even when I only knew about it through stories that we created - while thinking it was fictional.

So. How was I going to survive?

The raids were supposed to increase in difficulty as they progressed. The first raid would have the Company sending 1 Tier 3 companion with 5 or 6 bandits. The last raid would end with an army of 30 Tier 3“elite” bandits, 10 Tier 4 “elite” bandits, and one Tier 5 companion. During each raid, the companions will act as the leader. Oh, and while I was defending myself from these raids - eleven in total over a year - I had to defend the farm I would be dropped off at on a Tier 4 world of my choosing and actually farm.

This, of course, left me with some questions.

What was a bandit? What was an “elite” bandit?

Because I was in the Star Wars universe, and this galaxy was all over the place when it came to technological levels. For all I knew, the bandits might be primitive, armorless apes or effective and terrifying clone troopers. But it would be a primitive, armorless ape capable of hiding in the brushes and ambushing me out of nowhere and clone troopers trained and ready to destroy droids by the hundreds.

Tier 2’s and 3’s were still mundane. Tier 4’s and 5’s were also manageable to even the most basic of Contractors if they knew they had to fight. And I did know, and I grabbed a bunch of powers. Why limit myself when I would be living more than just a year in the Star Wars universe, am I right?

So I grabbed two Template Stacks: Panacea/Amy Dallon and Twice/Jin Bubaigawara. While both powers would start at Tier 4 instead of their original tiers - Tier 7 and 6 respectively - and did not provide direct offense and defense abilities. For those two were powers that provided the most utility and multiplier.

Like now.

“Why the hell aren’t you working, you bitch?!” one of my clones shouted from the field closest to the house as he pulled the woody hoe over his head and brought it back down on a particularly stuck rock.

All across the field, there were a dozen clones doing the same thing as the shouting clone, tiling the undeveloped field that the Company gave us. Yeah, the Compay fucked us in that regard, too. Instead of giving us tools and farm to start working, they gave us no tools, tilled plots, or even a goddamn house. No, they just dropped me off on a savanna on a random planet and just dipped. Oh, and I don’t have clothes, either.

But that’s what I expected out of the Company and why I chose Panacea and Twice over other Templates like Accelerator or Naruto. Panacea allowed me to turn a rather big tree with a large canopy into a treehouse with a comfortable leaf bed that was more like cotton than leaf. Even Tier 4 Panacea was enough to do that, check if food was edible, and try my hand at modifying seeds to produce edible crops. Now, it’s only been a week since I arrived, and I was still clearing out a plot with the dozen clones, which was also my limit with Tier 4 Twice.

… All of this was a start.

“Because I’m working on making plant-based guns, you dipshit!” I shouted back at my own clone, which was essentially me shouting at myself.

“You suck at it!”

“Fuck you, my Hydralisk Mark 2 was a mistake but it was better than your attempt, dipshit!” I shouted back.

Hydralisk “gun” was the ranged option I was making for myself with a bit of biokinesis. Unfortunately, I wasn’t adapt with biokinesis as Panacea, so I was struggling to make a plant shoot darts at really fast. Nevermind supersonic, all ten was us had trouble with finding the right gene expressions, structural support, and more.

Which was why there were also three of us, three clones that chose not to make ranged weapon in the first place, who were snickering at us because instead of making guns, they chose to make dense wooden armors and warhammers. Their gimmick - “Don’t call it a gimmick!” - was that their shields, if it got lit on fire or damaged enough, would spray sticky flame retardants everywhere toward the enemy. Still, our “guns” worked and can

The question was exactly how the Company would try to screw me over from this point on.

-VB-

I got my answer the next day.

My morning routine was exactly in this order: wake up, climb down to the ground from the treehouse, go over to the shrub-turned-basin, wash myself, go over to berry-tree that must be a mutant monster in the eyes of its siblings with how plum and juicy its fruits were in comparison to theirs thanks to yours truly, and take a piss.

Right at the “eat juicy berries” part, a rocket came out of nowhere and burned my treehouse.

“Wha-?” I muttered as I stared at the burning tree. “My house!”

I whirled around and glared, looking for whoever fired that rocket. I didn’-.

I jerked back as something struck me on the shoulder, and stumbled until I fell on my ass.

“Ow,” I muttered as I reached up and -.

Oh.

That’s blood.

Well.

Hmm.

Shit.

Fuck.

FUCK!

I quickly rolled into cover behind the berry bush, and winced as a few more bullets whizzed by, thankfully missing me. Then I quickly made all twelve clones, and they fanned out.

I heard someone screaming from far away, but now I had a general direction where they were coming from.

Thankfully, none of our weapons had been in the treehouse but stacked around with other tools. My clones, while I stayed safe, grabbed them and quickly began firing back while the shield and hammer wielding “knights” slowly advanced on the enemy position.

I heard a few screams.

“Go get ‘em!” I laughed while sweating in pain.

“Shut up and let us fight, you dipshit idiot! Who the fuck stands around after someone shoots a rocket at their house?!” one of the clones barked back at me, and I shriveled up.

“I-I was in shock! Surprised!”

“All of us are in pain because of you! Go fucking die!”

“Idiot!”

“Stupid dipshit!”

“Do us a favor and dig a hole for us to bury you in!”

My own clones were verbally abusing me…

“It’s my first combat. Why are you all being so mean…” I whined pathetically.

Did I ever mention that laughing and jokes were how I dealt with stress when I couldn’t destress how I normally do?

I winced when I heard another fwoomp and then an earth shaking explosion. Then a scream.

“CLEAR?!” one of the clones shouted.

“CLEAR!” another clone confirmed.

I poked my head above the berry bush, and saw my clones dragging bodies and stuff over to me. At least they were dragging them around the tilled plots and not through them. They dropped them off in front of me.

And I realized then that one of the three “knight” clones had died and half of the “gunners” had also died.

Looking down, I saw six people. Five of them, who looked like the average jungle commandos, were dead. Wooden spikes, each as long as a finger, piercing their unarmored body parts. Once they were gathered, my clones quickly stripped them of their clothes because they were dead and we were naked, not because we were into necrophilia.

The sixth person was different. Too pretty for a fighter or soldier. Too … personalized with their equipment.

On a whim, I pulled out the Company phone, a device given to all Contractors as a way to contact the Company, and took a picture of her. My eyes widened.

“Stephanie Gorgeouspalace… a Tier 3 Combatant and Saboteur from the To Aru verse.”

The Company really did pull Companions from other universes to send at me.

… And the phone also mentioned how this Companion wasn’t Stamped yet.

Without much thought, I pulled out my Stamp and marked on the back of her right hand. The mark, a mere circle, dimly glowed for a bit before subsiding.

To Stamp someone was to turn them into an asset, because it allowed a Contractor to sell them. The Stamp, as I understood it, didn’t do anything other than let the Company “lock on” to the target.

“... At least I won’t be lonely,” I hummed. Then I looked around and sighed. “Damn it. It took me a whole day to turn that tree into a house.” I sat down and allowed one of my clones to use my own power on me to kill the pain receptors, dug out the bullet, and slowly healed me because that was the best I could do with my Panacea shard right now.

Once I was healed, I looked around and found another tree to turn into a treehouse.

“I’m making you fireproof this time,” I grumbled.

“Hey.”

I looked over my shoulder and saw one of the clones looking down at the naked and dead bodies.

“What?”

“Their bodies shouldn’t be completely dead, right? Just mostly.”

“And?”

“... Zerg.”

“... What?”

“A zerg hatchery. We got flesh here. We can shape flesh. Why not … make a flesh house. With bone defenses.”

I scrunched my nose in disgust before realizing that… it may not be a bad idea.