Chapter 395 - 384: Feathered Beasts

Chapter 395: Chapter 384: Feathered Beasts

The sea breeze, carrying the salty tang and humid heat, blew across the newborn land.

Jon wiped the sweat from his forehead with his sleeve, squinting at the magnificent structure rising from the sea. It formed a perfect arc, holding back the once-turbulent waters and enclosing a calm inner lake.

The surface of the grayish-white wall still bore the tangled texture of plants, and it was as hard as mountain rock. A few days ago, he had been just another refugee in Golden Thread Province, destined to either die of sickness or starvation. Now, he stood on this miraculous land, a mason’s trowel in hand.

Not far away, a deafening roar interrupted his thoughts.

Ola stood beside a huge machine, his reddish-brown beard trembling with his bellows. "Put your backs into it! Are you goblins from the surface? That Blood Crystal isn’t for you to nap with!"

A group of Dwarves bustled around the machine. It was constructed of brass pipes and a cast-iron shell, with wisps of steam seeping from its riveted seams.

Inside the machine, a fist-sized, dark-red crystal pulsed. A thick pipe extended from the machine’s base into the bed of the inner lake, while another ran over the dike, pumping the extracted seawater back into the outer sea.

A dozen or so similar pumping machines were working simultaneously, and before long, the black seabed began to emerge.

"Jon! What are you daydreaming for!"

A sharp rebuke rang out. Jon jolted, seeing a Knight in brand-new chainmail looking at him.

It was Knight Regina, the first vassal on this newly enclosed land. He was the second son of a southern Baron and had come to the White Tower Territory, betting his entire fortune on this land.

Perhaps because he had invested so much, the new lord was a little overexcited, spending his entire day on the construction site. He even rolled up his own sleeves, leading the work with shouts of encouragement, his eyes shining as he looked at every inch of his land as if it weren’t mud, but glittering gold.

"Get to work!" Knight Regina pointed to the inner side of the grayish-white dike. "Build a stone wall behind it, reinforced with mortar. The Lord’s Mansion’s technical manual is very clear: the fast-growing Red Leaf Trees have a strength limit. We must prepare for the winter storms."

Jon immediately picked up his tools and joined his companions in the work.

Knight Regina wasn’t idle either. He was directing several strange-looking, giant insects. They had six legs, scythe-like forelimbs, and bodies covered in metallic carapaces. The old-timers in the territory called them "Worker Ants."

These ox-sized beasts, acting like draft animals, pulled a special cart fitted with a huge scraper. As they moved forward, the scraper plowed through the top layer of the sticky seabed, and the scraped black mud was automatically funneled into the cart’s compartment via a simple mechanism.

Jon had heard others say that after being processed, that black mud would become a fertilizer more precious than gold.

Soon, the first patch of drained land was leveled by the Worker Ants. Another team followed immediately, using white lime powder to draw straight furrows on the black earth. Then, they began to rush-plant a crop called "Sea Salt Potatoes."

The entire construction site was like a giant anthill. Thousands of laborers and hundreds of Worker Ants, driven by an unseen will, worked toward their own small goals, together creating one miracle after another.

Velin stood at the top of the first main dike. This great wall separating the ocean from the land was wide enough at its crest for four horse-drawn carriages to travel side-by-side, and it had already become a bustling artery of traffic. Carriages laden with stone and timber rumbled past, kicking up faint dust as they passed teams moving in the opposite direction, carrying grain and tools.

His gaze swept over the edge of the dike, looking down upon the bustling land below. The original bay had been transformed. Several secondary dikes divided the seabed into a series of massive terraces. Each terrace was a vast plain of over ten thousand mu, large enough to easily accommodate three or four standard Knight’s Manors.

On the first plots of drained land, planned roads and the outlines of villages and towns were already visible. On the middle terraces, large groups of farmers were using Worker Ants to till the soil, preparing for the first season of salt-tolerant crops. And the final layer, closest to the ocean, was the fiefdom of Knight Regina and his peers.

Velin stood at the edge of this bustling "highway," letting the sea breeze tug at the hem of his clothes as he quietly surveyed this brand-new territory.

Tristan stood at his side. The wind whipped his hood back and rustled the pages of the notebook in his hand.

"My lord, at the current pace, Phase Two of the ’Reclamation by Dike’ project will be completed twelve days ahead of schedule," Tristan reported, reading his data. "The total enclosed tidal flats and saline-alkali lands amount to 127,000 mu. The ships from Dawn Territory can reach the Newly Cultivated Land in a single day. After planting two seasons of Sea Salt Potatoes to improve the soil, we will have at least 100,000 mu of viable farmland here by next spring."

He turned a page in his notes.

"’I’ve created a model based on the current population growth rate, grain consumption, and the projected yield of the Newly Cultivated Land. By the autumn harvest, after subtracting the territory’s internal consumption and strategic reserves, we project a surplus sufficient to feed three hundred thousand people for a full year.’"

’Three hundred thousand people. According to rough estimates, the entire Duchy had a population of less than three million.’

’A grain reserve for a tenth of the Duchy’s entire population. The Prince would be very pleased to hear that number.’

Just then, a messenger on a swift horse came galloping from the distance along the gravel road. He reined in his horse at the base of the dike, dismounted, and scrambled up the steep slope in a few bounds.

"Count, my lord!" the messenger panted. "Construction Site Three on the coast and the transport convoy... they’ve been attacked!"

Below, Ola had been about to walk up the dike to report on the newly hired Dwarf artisans. Hearing this, he instantly flew into a rage. "An attack? Who dares cause trouble on White Tower Territory’s land!"

"It wasn’t people, my lord!" The messenger hadn’t caught his breath yet. "It was... a flock of big, white birds!"

Velin and Ola exchanged a look.

Site Three was at the other end of the coastline, where a new quarry was under construction. When Velin and Ola arrived, the scene was a mess. Several carts carrying food were overturned, sacks of black bread and salted fish torn open, their contents scattered everywhere. A dozen or so workers were injured and were being sent back to the city for treatment.

"Damn it!" Ola’s anger flared as he saw a claw mark on a worker’s arm that was deep enough to show bone. "These feathered bastards!"

In the sky, dozens of huge white birds circled. Their wingspans exceeded ten meters, and their hook-like talons glinted coldly in the sun.

They were the same aerial bandits Velin had encountered before: the Big Thief Gulls.

One of the Big Thief Gulls let out a sharp cry, broke away from the flock, and dove like an arrow. Its target was the last cart that had yet to be unloaded.

"Protect the supplies!" Ola roared, raising his war axe.

Several guards raised their shields, forming a crude shield wall to protect the cart.

The Big Thief Gull was extremely clever. It didn’t charge the shield wall directly. Instead, it wheeled in the air, using its wings to kick up a cloud of sand and dirt that it flung into the guards’ faces. The guards scrambled in confusion, their vision blocked. In that moment of distraction, another Big Thief Gull silently swooped in from the side, hooked a large sack of flour with its talons, and deftly snatched it away.

Having succeeded, it immediately soared upward and rejoined the flock. The entire maneuver was perfectly coordinated and fluid.

"By my father’s war axe!" Ola’s face turned beet-red. "They’re provoking us! My lord, these beasts are provoking your authority! Give the order, and I’ll lead my Knights to their nest on the cliffs and destroy it! I’ll boil all their eggs and eat them with my ale!"

He was already about to charge out.

"Stop." Velin’s voice was not loud, but it brought Ola to a dead halt.

Velin didn’t look at him. Instead, he took a brass spyglass from a leather pouch and carefully observed the flock in the sky.

"Ola, do you see that bird with the injured wing?"

Ola looked in the direction he was pointing and, sure enough, saw a Big Thief Gull whose left wing had an unnatural twist to it, making its flight a bit unsteady.

"I see it! When I charge up there, I’ll chop that one up first!"

"Look at the birds around it," Velin continued.

Ola looked again and saw that the injured Big Thief Gull was constantly flanked by two or three companions, guarding it and keeping it from falling behind.

’Helping their weak and infirm is a sign of a social species.’

Velin lowered the spyglass.

’These creatures were even smarter than he had imagined. They had a social structure, knew how to cooperate, protected their weak, and might even possess a basic language. What’s more, they had long memories. If Ola really took his men and slaughtered them in their nests today, then for years to come, every ship from the White Tower Territory that put out to sea would likely face endless harassment.’

’Driving them off or hunting them down were not the optimal solutions.’

’An absurd idea surfaced in his mind once again. He was reminded of a famous joke from his past life.’

"Ola."

"Yes, my lord!"

"Have your men guard the remaining supplies. No one is to attack without my direct order." Velin turned to an attendant at his side. "Go to the city hall kitchen. Have them immediately prepare one hundred pounds of french fries. Extra salt, and make them crispy. Bring them here as fast as you can."

Ola’s jaw nearly hit the floor.

"M-my lord?" he stammered. "French fries? You mean... the kind you eat? Is this really the time to be thinking about that? Those bastards..."

"They are Level 4 Magical Beasts, Ola," Velin interrupted, walking to the edge of the Newly Cultivated Land. "To kill them all, what price would we pay? How many lives would be lost? And even if we won, what would we get? A pile of bird meat and feathers?"

Velin turned and looked at the bewildered Dwarf Baron.

"Let’s look at this another way. Why are they attacking us? Because we’ve occupied their territory, and we have the food they want."

"Right, so doesn’t that mean we have to fight them?" Ola couldn’t follow Velin’s train of thought at all.

Velin looked into Ola’s eyes. "So, rather than drive them away or hunt them down, why don’t we... domesticate them?"