I was still hungry, but life forced
to engage in things I sincerely hated. The hostead turned out to be more than just large—it was monstrous. We stepped out into the yard, and the Demon of Poverty began reading off figures from his notebook with the air of soone who was now my personal treasurer.
— "Alright," he lectured. "Land: about nine hundred hectares. Plowland—three hundred and fifty; hayfields—two hundred and fifty; pastures—three hundred."
I froze.
— "Livestock," the demon continued. "Thirty horses, one hundred cows, three hundred sheep. Poultry: one thousand two hundred chickens, one hundred and sixty geese, three hundred ducks. A granary, three barns, two haylofts..."
— "ALL OF THIS IS OURS?!" I nearly sat down on the dirt. "Did Mira buy an entire province? A whole village should be living here, or at the very least, a landed lord with a staff of twenty plown just to keep all of this from starving to death in a week."
The problem was clear: far too much responsibility for a single square ter of my laziness. I had to improvise.
I cracked my knuckles.
SNAP.
The first golem erged from the earth—three feet tall, made of stone, with wide, shovel-like palms. Another twenty-four followed.
— "Alright, runts," I pointed toward the stalls. "Clean the manure, scrub the barns. I want it so shiny the horses go blind. Move out."
the army of stones rustled obediently toward the filth.
I teleported to the field. The soil here was exhausted; whoever had owned it before us had clearly squeezed every last drop out of it. I’d have to fix that later, but for now...
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THUD!
I created ten teams of heavy golems. Five-ter-tall behemoths, whose arms I imdiately shaped into multi-row plows. To assist them, I added mini-golems—their job was to run behind and rip out weeds, stones, and roots. The field began turning into furrowed land at a speed that would have made a local god of fertility hand in his resignation.
I returned to the barns. The horses, the sheep, the cows... there were too many of them. Soone had to graze them, and I'll be damned if I'm going to run after every stray sheep.
I took clay and water and began molding herders. An image from an old book flashed in my mind: a stern herdsman with a wild gaze. I granted them the rudints of fire magic (to scare off wolves) and added one useful modification—their heads could detach from their bodies and fly nearby to provide a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree view.
— "Let's call it 'advanced patrolling'," I muttered, embedding the basic knowledge from Poverty’s book into them. Dogs? Fine, we’ll do without them for now.
For dessert, I tackled the chicken coop. One thousand two hundred chickens. One. Thousand. Two. Hundred.
— "Why so many?!" I stared at the feathered sea. "What are we going to do with this many eggs?"
They had to be collected, checked for freshness, hauled to the cellar...
I created five more collector-golems. Now, every chicken had its own personal stone overseer.
Returning to the house, I found the Demon of Poverty. He stood with his mouth agape, watching a squad of manure-cleaners march past him.
— "I... I thought we’d have to slaughter half the herd just to cope," he managed to say. "But you just... you just created slaves."
We entered the house. The Demon of War was sprawled lazily on the sofa.
— "I can feel your toys vibrating across the whole district," she smirked. "It's better than watching Poverty try to milk a cow. And I told you," she glanced at her neighbor, "giving nas to the food was a bad idea. Glair, Rosmarinda... now they're just fertilizer in Greg’s field."
Poverty sniffed, looking offended.
— "Listen," I sat at the table. "I need salt. And spices. And a lot of other things we need to buy in town. Do we even have money?"
— "No," Poverty replied curtly.
Depressing. Extrely depressing.
I closed my eyes, tuning into the link with the golems in the chicken coop. Right, in the last five minutes, three hundred and twelve eggs have been collected...
— "If we don't have money, then we’re bartering," I decided. "Ti to find out what a dozen eggs goes for in this kingdom nowadays."
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