Chapter 8
“We’re back…”
Nel shuffled back into her base camp. Its occupants looked up from their work. Fendros, Elise and Ida rose from their seats at the campfire.
“Are you alright?” Fendros’ head went from side to side as she checked over Nel, “How did it go?”
“She won.”
Da Verilyn appeared, sitting atop the tree trunks lying in the camp’s new yard. Since the Frost Dragon was usually in Human or Elf form, Nel was mostly unfamiliar with her liege’s natural expressions. Her voice seed pointlessly proud, though.
“What do you an by ‘she won’?” Elise furrowed her brow.
“She battled the leader of the Goblin tribe for dominance,” Da Verilyn answered. “It was a flawless victory. The first of many conquests, I’m sure.”
Awed reactions rose around the camp. Nel wanted to crawl into her tent and never co out again.
“I didn’t go to conquer them,” she said. “I just went and asked if they wanted to move in and they decided it was a challenge.”
“And then you won,” Da Verilyn said.
“Of course I won!” Nel replied.
“Of course,” the Frost Dragon nodded.
Nel glowered at her liege. That posture of hers must have been pride or sothing. Her minion was subjugating more minions for her miniondom.
“I didn’t an it like that,” Nel said. “It was a pointless fight. They were just Goblins living in the woods. Of course they’re not going to win against an Imperial War Wizard!”
Da Verilyn brought down her upturned head. She settled her wings over her back and draped her tail over the logs, regarding Nel with a brilliant turquoise eye.
“It wasn’t pointless,” the Frost Dragon said.
“It was!” Nel frowned, “There was no need to fight. They could have just said yes or no and that would be that.”
A log collapsed in the campfire, sending a swirl of embers into the late afternoon sky. Da Verilyn let out a frosty sigh.
“You always speak of being a good, responsible ruler,” the Frost Dragon said. “All of your planning these past months is to that effect. But tell : is it more important to be a good ruler by your own definition, or by the definition of your subjects?”
“It’s not one thing or another,” Nel replied. “There are things that lords have to do that their subjects might not know much about or like. Sure, there are certain things that you can do that your people might see as ‘good’, but being good in the eyes of one’s people isn’t enough to be an effective ruler. Nobles blindly pursuing ‘good’ can produce undesirable results just as easily as an utterly terrible Noble can.”
“But what are desirable results?” Da Verilyn asked, “I’ve ntioned this to you before, but Humans from the Empire hold rather extre views on what is desirable and undesirable. Far more than any tribal society that I’ve observed in the last century or so. You are not in the Empire anymore, Nel Gran – not a Human Lord in a Human nation. You cannot build a little copy of the Empire here: it will not work.”
Was that what she was doing? Nel didn’t think she was. She was just trying to make things work as well as she knew how. Maybe that was the problem: all that she knew was ‘the Empire’.
“Then what should I do?” Nel asked, “This is your fief. I’m just here to help make it the way that you want.”
“That may be so,” Da Verilyn answered. “But it is your ho too. By the sa token, it will be the ho of everyone you bring to live here. We Dragons understand that many races may live in one’s domain. You Humans, on the other hand, mostly appear to believe that a land must be occupied by either one race or the other. To understand what must be done, you must understand that your Human perspective is only one of a myriad of other perspectives that you must fit together into sothing that works for everyone.”
“But I can’t keep track of so much stuff!” Nel said, “Humans are complicated enough as it is.”
Da Verliyn’s head snaked forward, looming closer to peer at her.
“Wh-what?” Nel said.
“You have co here to make sothing new,” Da Verilyn said. “A place free from the troubles and sorrows of your forr ho. With that being the case, I do not understand why you feel obliged to recreate the environnt that produces what you wish to avoid. It isn’t as if the Empire is superior to the Sorcerous Kingdom in any conceptual way. And, as I said, the ‘Baharuth Empire’ cannot work here so it is a futile vision to cling to in the first place. Besides, the task is probably not as difficult as you think.”
“At least help out a bit here,” Nel said. “I don’t understand the world as well as you do.”
“But you do understand what needs to be done here more than I do.”
Nel furrowed her brow, sending a confused look at Da Verilyn.
“What are you?” The Frost Dragon asked, “In terms that Goblins might understand.”
“A Human Lord,” Nel answered.
“And what is the ‘place’ that a Human Lord occupies?”
“If we’re speaking strictly in tribal terms, they’re martial Nobles. Powerful warriors that a Human community builds itself around.”
“Very good,” Da Verilyn’s tail swished lazily over the logs. “So what is that in Goblin terms?”
“A Hobgoblin.”
The Frost Dragon’s tail stopped. Her wings unfurled and furled again, settling lightly on her back.
“Hmm…you’ve jumped ahead of where I wanted to go, but that’s still good! Let’s step back a bit first, though. What is it that Goblins need that Humans also need?”
“Food. Water. Basic necessities.”
“But Humans and Goblins can procure that on their own without a ‘Lord’, yes?”
“That’s true,” Nel replied, “but without a powerful leader to organise their efforts and face other powerful leaders, that tribe won’t be able to hold their ground against other tribes. They’ll lose to their competitors.”
“Is that a bad thing?”
“Of course it is! They’ll get enslaved or eaten or sothing.”
“Then why did they start dancing around you when you won against their leader?”
Nel fell silent, frowning into the campfire.
“It should an that they were pleased with the outco, no?” Da Verilyn said.
“Pleased about being subjugated?”
“Why not? You are looking at things in a rather Human way…no, it isn’t even a Human way – it’s the way Humans look at races other than Humans. Tell : if a Human nation subjugates another Human nation, do the losers get enslaved or eaten or sothing?”
“O-of course not!”
“Then why must you hold other races to different expectations?”
“Because it happens.”
“Sure, it can happen. Just like the Theocracy sending Elvish prisoners of war to the Empire as slaves happens. You’re just applying the best-case scenario to Humans and the worst-case scenario to everyone else. Why not look at it through a more objective lens?”
“Such as…”
“Well, go back to why ‘Lords’ exist. Subjugating a tribe does an that you can do whatever you want with them, but you made your offer in advance. You didn’t even kill the old leader. The Goblins replaced their old chief with a bigger, stronger one and they received favourable terms on top of that. What’s there to complain about?”
Did it work that way? She supposed that it did for Humans. Imperial propaganda always cast their conflict with Re-Estize in a positive light. They were destroying a corrupt and bloated regi, working to liberate millions of suffering people. The eventual downfall of the Kingdom would bring about a new golden age for everyone.
Would Nel Gran bring about a Goblin golden age? One with delicious, golden potatoes? It was still all too big for her.
“I can sense that you’re overcomplicating things again,” Da Verilyn said. “You need to think in the other direction. Employ universal truths as the foundation of the society that you wish to fashion…or at least that’s what Lady Zahradnik says. As a ‘Lord’, the insights and skills required to build that new reality should be inside of you sowhere.”
“Wow,” Ida said, “Nel is amazing.”
“She was always so quiet back at the Academy,” Elise said.
“Now she’s subjugating Demihuman tribes left and right,” Fendros nodded.
“I-I only did one tribe, okay?” Nel said, “It’s not as if I’m going to conquer the Upper Reaches.”
“But you’re getting more Goblins, right?” Da Verilyn asked, “Six is a bit pitiful looking. As a Hobhuman, you should aim for several hundred thousand.”
She did want more labour, but she never expected to get it like this. And not that much.
“Wait,” Nel said. “I don’t even know how to handle Goblin subjects. Can’t we just start with these ones first?”
“Goblins don’t need much,” Da Verilyn replied. “Going back to the Hobhuman thing, you can just pretend you’re one of those. That’s probably what they associate you with at the mont, anyway.”
Hobhum–no, Hobgoblins were about Human-sized and possessed a similar level of intelligence. They were more orderly and militant than Humans, but they were also pretty evil by Human standards. Nel didn’t want to be evil.
“I can try,” Nel conceded, “but I don’t want to get ahead of myself.”
She went down to the river, boarding the knarr and ordering the Death Warrior captain to bring the ship to the opposite shore where her newly subjugated Goblins awaited. The group shied away from the approaching vessel’s Skeleton crew.
Nel ca ashore, frowning at the Goblins cowering in the bushes. What would a Hobgoblin do? Probably beat them silly for their lack of discipline. Or maybe…
“FALL IN!”
The Goblins jumped out of the bushes and lined up smartly in front of her.
Seriously?
She issued several more drill commands, which they carried out as well. Were Goblins just born knowing them? Could they stick Goblins in the Imperial Army and they’d outperform raw recruits?
Nel marched her Goblins to the riverbank and ordered them to clean up. After that, she had them board the boat. Once they reached the other side, she marched them into the camp. Everyone stared at the orderly rank of Goblins. Nel felt a little bit proud of them.
“There were six Goblins before,” Da Verilyn noted.
“Huh?”
She counted the row of Goblin heads. Sohow, she had gotten an extra one. She couldn’t tell which Goblin it was.
Well, one more probably wouldn’t hurt…
Nel went over to her tent and grabbed a clipboard. She walked over to the Goblins, starting from the right side.
The first Goblin was one of the mystics. She was garbed in the sa soft leather outfits as the other Goblin. Stains from bruised vegetation covered her tunic. Feathers, beads and smooth stones were attached to strips of rawhide, hanging out of her ss of black hair. She looked like a village girl trying to decorate herself. A green one.
Nel wrinkled her nose at the odour that wafted from her.
Even if I ordered them to clean up, I guess they only do it in the way that they know how…
She took so notes on the Goblin’s appearance before pointing a finger at her.
“「Clean」.”
A swirl of magical motes washed over the Goblin, removing every stain on her person. The stains on her garb vanished as well, though not the accumulated damage from being so poorly maintained.
“What’s your na?” Nel asked.
“Fi.”
It was an unexpectedly cute na for a Goblin.
“You’re a mystic, right?”
Fi nodded.
“What kind of mystic are you?”
Fi tilted her head, brow furrowed. Assuming Goblins had similar expressions to Humans, she didn’t know what Nel ant.
“Can you cast healing magic?” Nel asked.
Fi nodded.
So that makes her a divine caster...a Druid? Priest? No, Alchemists can cast healing spells as well…
And then there were the other categories of magic that weren’t commonly practised amongst Humans of the region. To complicate things even further, schools of magic were shared between all categories of magic. It was possible for so spells that were usually seen as belonging to one category of magic to be developed for another. Alchemists, who were arcane casters, learning rudintary healing spells that were usually associated with divine magic to imbue their potions with was an example of this.
She couldn’t be careless about identification, so she gestured to her right.
“Stand over by the fire with the ladies over there, please,” Nel said. “We’ll go over what you can do after I’m through with the others.”
Fi went over and plopped herself onto the log beside Ida. The Goblin clearly cared less that she was sitting beside a Human than the Human cared that she was sitting beside a Goblin. Since they all eventually beca accustod to Zu Chiru and his apprentices, Nel hoped that they would be able to do the sa with the Goblins.
The next Goblin was the one she had ‘challenged’ for leadership of the tribe. He wasn’t a Hobgoblin, nor was he particularly strong-looking. His leather tunic was ssier than that of the mystic, caked in dirt and dried bloodstains. He held his bow in one hand and had a rawhide quiver at his hip. In his other hand was a flint-headed spear. A knife that was nearly identical to the spearhead was tucked in his crude belt.
Nel took note of his appearance before casting a Clean spell on him as well.
“What’s your na?” Nel asked.
“Nob,” the Goblin answered.
“What is it that you do, Nob?”
In response, Nob looked down at his equipnt.
Right.
Upon closer inspection, it was easy to tell the Goblins apart. Not only did they have the tools of their respective trades equipped, but the ss created by their work was all over them. It was like checking soone’s palm for calluses or looking for other marks of one’s vocation. In a way, it made the Goblins honest people that didn’t try to hide what they were as many Humans might.
“So you’re a…hunter? Or maybe a warrior?”
Nob tilted his head.
“Sa?”
If they ate whatever they killed, Nel supposed that it might be the sa. Still, there were distinct differences between Fighters, Rangers, Knights and all of the other ‘warrior’ vocations out there. Since these Goblins lived in a highland forest, there was a high chance that their warriors would be Rangers, but one couldn’t be sure.
Nel poked her chin with the end of her pen. After a mont, she looked at one of the n nearby.
“Mister Baur.”
“Yes, Mistress Nel?”
“Is there any way for us to figure out if soone’s a Ranger or not?”
“Sure is,” the Ranger nodded. “I’m guessin’ you want to check this guy here?”
“Yes, please.”
Nel turned back to address Nob.
“I’d like you to go with Mister Baur here, Nob. Have you worked with Humans before?”
What am I saying? There’s no way–
Nob nodded.
Really?
How in the world did that happen? Maybe so of the Demihumans in the Upper Reaches interacted with the Human settlers along the new highway. If that were the case, would she be seen as condescending while she herself was trying to figure things out?
Of the seven Goblins, all of the ones without mystic’s attire claid to be ‘hunters’. Nel assigned a pair of Rangers to each to assess their capabilities.
Alright, now for the interesting part…
Interesting to her, at least. As a mage raised in the Empire, the idea that she was about to see what a different ‘sphere’ of magical knowledge had to offer was undeniably exciting. New fields in magic theory could very well be within her reach. Even if they weren’t sophisticated, a large population of tribal Demihumans potentially had centuries, if not millennia to develop and refine all sorts of unheard-of spells.
Nel switched to a fresh page as she went over to join the two mystics by the fire. They remained seated beside Ida, bare feet dangling a dozen centitres off of the ground.
“Let’s see…I suppose we should start with Fi? What do you usually do for your tribe, Fi?”
“Mash.”
“Mash?”
The Goblin looked around. She stood up on the log and hopped off, going over to snatch so leaves from a pile of wood waste drying out for kindling. Taking the gathered leaves, she bundled them up and started rolling them between her palms. The scent of bruised vegetation filled the air.
“A herbalist?” Fendros said from the side.
“Maybe,” Nel murmured. “Fi, do you gather plants by yourself?”
“Hunter get!”
“But can you do it?”
Fi stood there for a mont before nodding and wandering off.
“Wait!” Nel said, “I wasn’t asking you to do it right now – just whether you could or not.”
The Goblin returned to her seat.
So the ‘hunters’ go out and forage plants, which makes them more likely to be Rangers. If Fi can do it too…
That crossed off one broad field of divine casters, which were Clerics and Priests. Divine casters who were rooted in ‘organised religion’ often doubled as apothecaries in villages. However, they were broadly ‘city folk’ who didn’t do very well in the wild, so they relied on locals to gather reagents for them.
A part of her was relieved that they weren’t of a priestly vocation. She wasn’t sure what would happen if so weird Goblin religion took root in her camp.
Nel reached into one of her belt pouches, producing a minor healing potion. She held it between herself and Fi. The Goblin mystic frowned, reaching out to take the potion. She looked at it every which way, eventually figuring out how to unstopper the vial. After sniffing it for several monts, she raised the potion to look inside. The content spilt into her eyes and all over her face.
The Goblin let out a startled screech, flinging the vial into the fire and bolting into the bushes nearby.
“Not an Alchemist, I guess?” Nel said.
“Probably not,” Elise agreed. “That was an expensive way to find out, though.”
“I-I didn’t think she would do that! More importantly, does that make her a Druid?”
The others shook their heads unknowingly. Druids and druidic magic weren’t a topic that received much focus in the Imperial Magic Academy. For the most part, the Empire saw Druids as a nuisance that impeded developnt. They had little influence, save for in the Adventurer Guild where they often protested the posting of commissions that threatened the balance of nature. If the targets of said commissions were a threat to imperial citizens, however, their protests were generally ignored.
Nel looked over at Da Verilyn.
“Is there sothing like a Druid Circle here?”
“The closest thing to it would be the institution run by the Lizardn priests,” Da Verilyn replied. “They’re all practising Druids, but they usually call themselves ‘priests’ or ‘shamans’ as most tribal Demihumans do.”
“Is Fi anything like them?”
“I’ve hardly seen anything out of her,” Da Verilyn said, “but it should be sothing similar to what most tribal cultures in the region have.”
Since Fi still hadn’t returned, she moved on to question the next mystic: a male nad ‘Gog’.
“Gog,” Nel asked, “are you the sa sort of caster as Fi?”
Gog shook his head.
“Then what do you do for the tribe?”
The Goblin reached into his tunic and pulled out a pouch. Nel found it filled with white crystals.
“Liz,” Nel said, “can you toss one of the empty pouches over there?”
Nel caught the small leather bag and handed it to Gog. The Goblin held it up in both hands.
“「Summon Spices」!”
Fendros buried her face in her hands.
“Goblin work,” she moaned. “I’ve been doing Goblin work for years.”
“I-it’s alright, Rei,” Elise said. “Salt is important!”
“Quiet, Goblin number two.”
Elise slouched powerlessly in her seat with an ashen expression. She was right, though: salt was important. The use of Summon Spices also explained how the Goblins were getting the reagents to produce leather.
“What else can you cast?” Nel asked.
Gog shook his head.
That’s it?
She thought they would identify what he was through the spells that he had, but now he could be anything. Lifestyle magic was universal.
“Well, that’s fine too,” Nel said. “You can join Rei and Liz’s production team.”
Gog strutted over to sit with Fendros and Elise, who still looked devastated over having their practical value downgraded to ‘Goblin’. Maybe it would encourage them to study harder.
Fi returned a while later and Nel continued her interview. As far as magic went, she could cast Create Water, Summon Spices, Detect Animals or Plants, and Light Cure Wounds. In addition to having Light Cure Wounds,Detect Animals or Plants pointed to the Goblin mystic being a Druid.
She would have to see the Lizardn in Warden’s Vale about what she could do with Fi. For the ti being, she had Fi help with reagent production and act as the camp healer. What sort of ‘mash’ she would co up with was yet to be seen.
Joel Baur returned with Nob two hours later. The two Human rangers carried a dressed boar on a pole between them while the Goblin followed carrying the boar’s bristly hide in both arms. They disappeared into one of the storehouses before coming out to join Nel at the fire.
“How did it go?” Nel asked.
“Guy seems to be a Ranger,” Mister Baur answered. “A pretty basic one, but a Ranger nonetheless.”
“What did you do to figure that out?”
“A bit of common sense–er, no disrespect intended, Mistress Nel. Rangers do things other people can’t, just like Wizards, Blacksmiths, Imperial Knights or whatever else. For us Rangers, we move through wild terrain faster. Not just copses or fallow fields, but real wilderness. Like this ss you see all around us – the type of terrain that’d take city folk two hours to get through a kilotre, if they don’t get lost outright. The more experienced a Ranger is, the easier it is to get around, but it’s pretty clear even with inexperienced ones.
“On top of that, Rangers have wilderness skills. We can track and do things like identify plants and animals, forage and dress the beasties that we hunt. Also…if you’re willin’ to risk it, just get in a scrap. A Ranger’s a lot tougher than the average villager. I’ve seen my ‘pa thrash a drunk Imperial Knight once or twice. Army tried to recruit him after, but that life wasn’t for him.”
Rangers were always associated with the savage frontier and many stories featured brave village Rangers who faced its threats. When Nobles ran into trouble with beasts, raiders or monsters, they’d consult with their Rangers before anyone else. If the problem was minor, a Ranger – or a group of them – would just deal with it themselves.
Imperial patrols always included two scouts – usually Rangers – for the exact sa qualities that Joel Baur listed. It was a bit strange that people commonly separated Rangers who were Imperial Knights or Adventurers from ones just living out in the villages when they were essentially the sa. The main difference between them was that village Rangers specialised in local work while those in the Imperial Army addressed the needs of border patrols. Adventurer Rangers specialised themselves for jobs that they did out of their respective bases.
“Have you run into anything dangerous yet?” Nel asked.
Mister Baur exchanged looks with several other Rangers present.
“…that’s actually sothing we’ve been aning to talk about, Mistress Nel.”
“Y-you found sothing dangerous?”
“Er, not anything like a monster,” Mister Baur said. “It’s about the local wildlife. We’re moving in and carving out territory here, so we have to ensure that the natural balance of the land is preserved.”
“You an we’re taking up space, so we have to kill animals?”
“Basically,” the Ranger nodded. “Da Verliyn’s the boss here, so the final numbers are up to her.”
The people around the fire sent looks in Da Verilyn’s direction. Nel cleared her throat.
“You said there was room for ten farming villages, right? This first site will be the harbour town for those villages.”
“That’s right,” Da Verilyn replied. “The southern valley under my mountain was what I had in mind. Ten was just a guess since I’m not sure how your Human villages would fit along the river, but there should be around two hundred fifty square kilotres for you to use.”
“Right, so two hundred–wait.”
Nel closed her eyes and scratched her temple.
“Did you say two hundred fifty square kilotres?”
“It’s a sort of skinny stretch along the river,” Da Verilyn said, “but it should amount to around that.”
“But two hundred fifty square kilotres is enough for twenty-five villages,” Nel told the Frost Dragon.
The ridiculous expanse of Da Verilyn’s – and Baroness Zahradnik’s – territory once again ca around to slap her in the face. Her liege had allocated twice as much land as Nel’s father held to Nel and it was only a fraction of Da Verilyn’s total territory. The average Barony in the developed portions of the Empire only had about fifty square kilotres of land, so Nel always believed House Gran was not in the worst of situations as far as minor Nobles went. As it was, Nel would be a seneschal responsible for a county-sized territory.
“Not around here, it’s not,” Da Verilyn told her. “Have you seen Baroness Zahradnik’s villages?”
Nel went over to the tree stump that served as her desk, unrolling the map that Nonna had given her.
“You an these things here?”
Da Verilyn raised her head, tilting one side of her head down towards the map.
“Yes, that’s right.”
“But they’re huge,” Nel used her fingers to try and figure out how much land each village covered. “Each one must manage thirty-five to forty square kilotres! They’re like baronies on their own…how many people live in each?”
“No more than three hundred per village,” Da Verilyn replied. “Not including the Undead.”
“…and how many households are Farrs?”
“Twenty.”
No wonder little girls are running around with bags of gold coins here…
Each village must have been wealthy beyond the imaginings of the average rural tenant in the region. They had absurd amounts of land to manage and Undead made it possible for one household to manage sixteen households’ worth. According to the almanac provided by the administration, they used druidic magic to enrich the fields and crops, achieving an unprecedented number of bushels per acre.
Even if they were subjected to a ninety per cent tax rate, a Farr here would still be wealthier than the average minor Noble. Commodity-wise, at least. The price they commanded for those commodities was another thing entirely, but at least they would never starve.
The raw martial might of the Sorcerous Kingdom was infamous throughout the region. Barely anyone outside of the Sorcerous Kingdom, however, knew that its single duchy could probably rival a large country in terms of its rural industry.
“I’m going to have to rethink our plans,” Nel said. “There’s just no precedent for any of this…”
Nel felt like she had been repeating that over the past few days, but so many ridiculous things kept coming to light.
“Is that going to affect my taxes?” Da Verilyn asked worriedly.
“Of course!” Nel answered, “You’re going to be making a lot more than I thought.”
“Oh,” Da Verilyn seed to brighten, “that’s good, then.”
Leaning against her tree-stump-turned-desk, Nel frowned down at the map.
“So we’re using about ten per cent of your land, but it’s the best land…at least for farming. Mister Baur, how many predators do we need to displace for two hundred fifty square kilotres of forest like this?”
“That’d depend on how bountiful the land is, Mistress Nel. There are plenty of grazers out in the woods, but I got no idea how many there’d be per square kilotre yet.”
“Do you know, Da Verilyn?” Nel asked.
“Down here, there should be around twenty deer per square kilotre or so mix of animals equivalent to that. I only eat about two per week if I’m around and if I’m awake, so they’ve been breeding like crazy and on their way to overrunning the place since the resident tribes moved away.”
Mister Baur crossed his arms, rubbing the stubble of his beard.
“One wolf-sized predator goes through about twenty deer per year,” he said. “We’ve got hundreds of different ones to get rid of, assuming they’re coming in to take the role that the tribes once had.”
“Do we have to kill that many animals?” Nel frowned.
“That or they starve when we clear the land,” the Ranger said. “We could chase ‘em off, but they’d just be competing for food elsewhere. Sothing’s gotta give sowhere – gotta rember that we got other citizens in the wilderness out here too. Imagine dumping hundreds of wolves and thousands of deer on a neighbouring territory. It’d be a disaster.”
“If we’re putting in all of this work,” Fendros said, “we may as well be the ones profiting from it.”
“What do you think, Da Verilyn?” Nel asked.
“I knew it would happen the mont I decided to give you this land to manage,” the Frost Dragon seed to shrug.
“Then I suppose we should get started on that,” Nel sighed. “Don’t hunt more than we can process in the camp though: I don’t want any of it to go to waste.”
“Will do,” Mister Baur nodded.
Nel went over to one of the logs in front of the campfire, sitting down to continue examining the administration’s map. At least hunting could continue throughout the winter. The price for at in the duchy was high, too. In the end, however, it was an effort that was culminating into so unknown result.
Ten farming villages growing potatoes…
The original idea seed simple enough. With everything she now realised, however, it was no longer so simple. A cosy set of sleepy farming villages was far from what Nel would have on her hands. There was going to be a massive surplus and she would have to figure out what to do with it.
“We need to go out,” Nel muttered.
“What was that?” Fendros asked.
“We need to go out and see what the rest of this territory is doing,” Nel answered. “I wanted to take my ti looking around while we set ourselves up, but everything here is just too far out of line with what we’re used to.”
Undead labour aside, even her basic expectations were in tatters. Thankfully, reality wasn’t filled with unpleasant surprises so far, but ignoring what was going on around her would leave them far behind.
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