Chapter 151: Rebuilding the Future

A sharp, piercing arrow shot through the ant-man's head. It spun around unsteadily a few times before finally crashing to the ground, dead.

"Nice!" Nelson cheered, but awkwardly noticed that none of the three hundred soldiers responded to him, forcing him to sheepishly shut his mouth.

Victor put away his twin silver short bows, smiled, patted Nelson on the shoulder, and said, "We've won."

"My lord, we've won!" Nelson grinned broadly.

The ant-man's blood dyed the earth green. Hundreds of ant-man corpses littered the valley, and sturdy battle mastiffs darted back and forth, piling the corpses into a single mound. A fire arrow ignited the heap, and roaring flames burst into the sky. The heat wave, mixed with a foul stench, forced Victor to retreat step by step. This was the last group of ant-man in the territory, and Victor had no choice but to burn them on the spot, as no more ant-men remained to devour their carcasses.

After instructing the militia responsible for clearing the battlefield to keep the fire from spreading, Victor led the main force out of the valley. Once outside, he took a deep breath of fresh air and sighed, "It's finally over."

After seven months of effort, Victor had taken the lead in purging the ant infestation from his territory. From now on, Victor only needed to intercept and eliminate retreating ant-man leaders.

During this ant plague, all the villages under Victor's name suffered varying degrees of damage. More than a hundred people died or went missing, and over a million mu of purple sugarcane forests were mostly destroyed. Less than three hundred thousand mu of purple sugarcane forest remained preserved on the western side of the territory. At the same time, Victor lost more than three thousand square kilometers of territory, making the losses heavy indeed.

However, Victor's gains were equally tremendous. Because of the ant plague, all troubles within the territory had been swept clean, the refugee crisis was averted, and tranquil lake and the mithril mine fell into Victor's hands. Furthermore, the alchemy tower's soul fire capacity and financial reserves were increasing every day. Now, he possessed 467 spirit monkey militia, 71 humpted bull militia, 236 auxiliary soldiers, 61 battle mastiffs, and 113 alchemy crows.

Victor had also successfully gained control of the western mountainous region, where he built a fortress and a complete production system. As long as the resources in the mountains were not exhausted, Victor could continuously obtain various weapons, grain, herbs, meat, fuel, swiftbirds, and more.

In terms of politics and diplomacy, Victor had become a hereditary viscount of the kingdom, acquiring the foundation to recruit knights. He had formed a close alliance with the York family; if attacked by ant-men again, he could leverage the York family's military might to further weaken the ant swarm and strengthen himself. Using mithril, he had established a secret trade route with his eastern neighbors, which would help counter potential blockages and isolation from the kingdom. He could also utilize Count Chapman's territory to realize his strategic vision of an eastward-bound caravan.

One could say the future development prospects were boundless. Victor felt refreshed and invigorated.

"Caw!" An alchemy crow flew in from the east, circling in the air. Victor's eyes lit up, and he smiled at Nelson, "Someone is coming from the east. It should be the supplies and gold coins promised by the Chapman family. Take some men to check it out, and then haul the supplies to Tranquil Lake Village."

Nelson acknowledged the order and led over thirty alchemy militia toward the east. Victor, meanwhile, headed back to Tranquil Lake Village with the remaining alchemy militia.

Along the way, the previously boundless purple sugarcane forest now presented a ruined and desolate scene. Broken and rotting purple sugarcane could be seen everywhere, and the ground was full of potholes—the ant-men had even dug up the roots of the sugarcane. Restoring the purple sugarcane forest would take at least thirty years.

"Renault, you have also loaded the gathering and planting skill. The purple sugarcane forest has been destroyed; is there any way to plant barley, wheat, or similar crops in this soil?" Victor asked the alchemy militia with a frown. With millions of mu of land cleared due to the destruction of the sugarcane by the ant-men, Victor would not simply sit by and watch these fertile lands become overgrown with weeds and thorns.

"My lord, there is no way." Renault's reply was as simple and definitive as ever.

Victor was left speechless. Land capable of growing purple sugarcane could not grow crops, yet this was the reality.

Purple sugarcane was the food of the forest centaurs, and it possessed a unique characteristic: exceptionally long root systems. The stalks and roots of purple sugarcane approached one meter, with rootlets extending as far as five meters. Annual rainfall alone was sufficient to meet the growth needs of purple sugarcane. Human crops and vegetables, however, could not survive without adequate irrigation. Consequently, human farmlands were always distributed near rivers and lakes.

The Black Water River ran through the Centaur Hills, spanning eighty-seven kilometers within Victor's territory and forming three lakes—one large and two small—making it the primary water source for Victor's domain. The Black Water River was relatively shallow, with its deepest points under a meter, rendering it valueless for navigation, but quite sufficient for farmland irrigation. Due to the hilly terrain limitations, Victor could cultivate at most five hundred thousand mu of farmland along the banks of the Black Water River.

Five hundred thousand mu of arable land sounded like a lot, but the yield was pitifully small. Agricultural technology in this world was extremely backward. To maintain soil fertility, farmers practiced a simple grass-fallow rotation system, where half the arable land grew grass and the other half grew crops, used alternately. The grain yield per mu of farmland was roughly two hundred and eighty pounds, of which one hundred and forty pounds were seeds, leaving the actual harvested grain at just one hundred and forty pounds. Two hundred and fifty thousand mu of arable land could yield seventeen thousand five hundred tons of grain annually.

Ordinary people in this world possessed immense strength and ravenous appetites, with adult males requiring about 1.5 kilograms of food daily. Most critically, the year here consisted of sixteen months, with thirty-six days per month, meaning an adult consumed about 0.8 tons of grain annually. In other words, a territory of nine thousand square kilometers relying solely on farming could only sustain twenty thousand adult men. Factor in women and children, and once the population exceeded thirty thousand, food shortages would inevitably ensue.

This was why lords of the Centaur Hills chose to cut down the purple sugarcane forests, planting alfalfa and drought-resistant rye in those soils, supplementing food shortages through dairy farming and goat husbandry, while periodically organizing their subjects for gathering and hunting activities. If Victor adopted the same measures, the optimal population size of his territory could not exceed forty thousand.

"Renault, can earth-tubes be planted here?" Victor asked full of expectation.

Renault shook his head. "My lord, earth-tubes also require water."

Hundreds of thousands of mu of purple sugarcane forest were worth millions of gold solars, but now they could only be used to grow cheap pasture to raise cattle and sheep. Still, things had reached this point, and Victor could only let out a long sigh. "Sigh, then let's grow grass and raise cattle. Ox tendons and hides are still quite useful."

When Victor arrived at Tranquil Lake Village, Nelson was already waiting for him.

"My lord, the supplies and gold coins sent by the Chapman family are all here." Nelson trotted up joyfully and reported, "Forty ox carts, forty healthy oxen, forty dairy cows, two hundred sheep, one hundred and twenty thousand pounds of wheat seed, ten thousand pounds of salt, forty thousand gold solars, and one pound of mithril."

Victor had requested these supplies from the Chapman family in lieu of ten thousand gold solars. The most valuable item was the one-pound block of refined mithril; although their combined value fell short of ten thousand gold solars, they were precisely the supplies Victor needed most. Count Chapman couldn't strictly be called stingy this time—had Victor not insisted, the Count would have preferred giving fifty thousand gold solars rather than substituting with supplies. Lords close to the Centaur Hills had suffered disasters to varying degrees, making it clear that food shortages would inevitably loom in the near future. Under such circumstances, money could not always buy food.

Victor handed the wooden box containing the mithril to an alchemy militia member, signaling him to take it back to the secret base. Seeing Nelson staring longingly at the wooden box, Victor chuckled, "I have a use for this mithril. Next time we trade with the Chapman family, I can consider having two mithril battleaxes forged for you."

"Thank you, my lord." Nelson rubbed his head sheepishly.

"You've earned this. If not for you, not a single stalk of our purple sugarcane would have been left." Victor nodded, then added, "Once these goods are unloaded, take ten two-wheeled flatbeds and go meet Lilia. They should be setting out as well."

"Understood, my lord!" Nelson said excitedly; he had been waiting for this day for a long time.

Before long, Nelson left eagerly with a dozen militia. Victor turned around and issued his orders: "Jack, take 150 men to clear out the ruins of Tranquil Lake Village first. Drag all the wreckage to Brick Kiln Village to use as fuel, restart the giant brick kiln, and produce ordinary blue bricks."

"Shaik, take 50 militia and 80 auxiliary soldiers to clear the ruins of the Hill Camp. Build a smithy there, produce farm tools, refine sugarcane sugar, brew purple sugarcane wine, and make coffee."

"Morel, take 150 men to find a spot at the estuary of Tranquil Lake and build a camp capable of holding 1,000 people."

Watching the alchemy militia spring into action, Victor felt full of confidence for the future. To rebuild the territory, he had brought a full 500 alchemy humans out of the mountain fortress. This would be the first large-scale integration of alchemy humans with ordinary people, and Victor no longer needed to hide it.

***

Lilia stood in an elegant long dress before Victor's subjects, saying coldly, "Lord Victor has cleared the ant-men from the territory, and now is the time for us to return home! I know some of you are afraid, some are unwilling to leave Black Fort Town, and some want to betray Lord Victor! Make your choice. Those willing to return with me, stand behind me. Those unwilling to leave, stay where you are. Lord Victor will not make things difficult for you."

A commotion rippled through the crowd. The first to step behind Lilia were members of the Battle Bear Mercenaries. Then Morin stepped out, bowed respectfully to Lilia, and took his stand behind her. Dean and the other village chiefs followed, moving over one by one. The guards and members of the work-point system stepped out consecutively, followed by women and children. Finally, nearly two hundred people remained in place.

Everyone looked coldly at those who stayed. Only Dean lowered his head with a flush of shame. Most of those who stayed were villagers from Brick Kiln Village, all of them his subordinates.

"I'm already very satisfied that you were able to stand over here," Lilia said indifferently to Dean.

"My lady, I'm sorry. I didn't expect these people..." Dean was consumed by shame; only his team members and their families had followed him across.

"It doesn't matter. This is a good thing. What the lord calls 'true gold refined in fierce fire' is precisely this situation."

Lilia let out a soft sigh. Most of the villagers from Brick Kiln Village were freemen who had recently joined Victor's territory. They had not experienced the defense battle of the Hill Camp, nor joined the work-point system, and had no family ties here. When monsters swept through the territory, they naturally chose a more powerful lord, especially since the York family had been actively courting them. Lilia was well aware of this, but she hadn't expected Dean to choose to return to the territory, given that he was a prime target for recruitment by the York family.

"Lilia, the York family's scribe refuses to lend us rations, and they won't even return our wagons! But Lady Nicole has already gone to talk to him," old John limped over on his wooden prosthetic leg and said angrily in Lilia's ear.

"I know."

Lilia's casual demeanor surprised old John. How had this young girl changed so much from before?