Chapter 20: Egg Freedom

After the sacrificial ceremony, daily life hardly changed for the commoners in the domain.

Because Farra did not lay down any complicated doctrines. He had not even planned to do the usual round of proselytizing. He only stipulated that every commoner who joined the territory had to go to the newly built Goddess of Plenty temple and offer a bow, which counted as officially changing their faith.

For now, resources and manpower were limited, and Farra could not afford to build a full-fledged church. He could only have people spend some time putting together a passable little shrine and make do with it. As for the newly acquired Resource points, part of them were assigned to the sheep pen and pigsty, while the rest were all thrown into the farmland that had just begun to be refurbished.

The rate of felling trees and building houses slowed slightly in mid-April, and Farra reassigned a portion of the workers to focus exclusively on farming. By May, thanks to his requirements, the fields already looked much more orderly. The site where Bichi Village had originally stood was virtually brand new. The roads ran straight and square, and the houses lined up neatly. Excess weeds, bramble thickets, and trees had all been cleared away.

Although the place was barren, at least there were no huge boulders buried underground, so the cost of overhaul dropped considerably.

After tossing most of the work to subordinates who were getting the hang of things, Farra suddenly found his own schedule wide open. He sat in his room and used the map supplied by the System to start planning the village and town.

In this world, a city was basically a fortified settlement: a city wall of stone surrounded it to fend off enemy attacks. That was the practice in the slightly better, or rather slightly more “civilized,” regions. Elsewhere, for minor nobles who, like Farra, were assigned to backwater dump lands, they normally just built a castle and let the lord live inside. The slaves and commoners outside longed for the life within those walls. They believed their lord drank milk at all three meals. They imagined the furniture and décor were made of gold, glittering everywhere.

Farra had been curious too. Only after leading a force to attack an imperial lord’s castle and capturing it smoothly did Farra realize that the inside was the exact opposite of what people pictured. At the very least it was worlds away from Farra’s own fantasies. Those castles were disgustingly filthy; no matter how good they looked outside, inside they were basically dirty, messy, and lousy. People of this era had not yet figured out a reasonable way to handle waste. So everything was dealt with extremely casually. Even in the big cities of the age, few bothered about sanitation.

Having lived here so long, Farra had more or less adapted to it. But that was elsewhere. Now that he had a patch of land of his own, he certainly would not keep making do. So, after stabilizing the faith, confirming his rule, and standardizing units of measurement, Farra bumped construction planning up to a priority just below those items. Residential zones and livestock zones all had to be separated. Next, space had to be reserved in advance for handling and reusing waste, along with drainage.

Fortunately, Farra did not need to worry about a water source. There was a river right beside them. The annoying part was that he was not at the river’s upper reaches.

“…”

He still had to take it one step at a time.

Staring at the notes he had marked on the System map, Farra pondered in silence. There was still too little labor. Although one half-beastman could do the work of two humans, it was still not enough. His funds were basically exhausted. For the moment he could not replenish them… and given the current grain reserves, expanding the population any further would leave them short of food. To change this situation, he could only wait. Wait for the first batch of wheat to ripen.

Because of the Resource points, the Level 9 field’s harvest time had been cut to a quarter. In other words, roughly two months would yield one crop. Fields below Level 9 saw very limited reductions in time.

Farra sat at the table, dipped a quill in ink, and did a bit of arithmetic on a blank sheet of paper. For now, wheat and barley could not be relied on. He could first use livestock, whose reproduction had quadrupled, to bridge the gap. Pigs used to need six months to produce a batch, but now it was basically one month per batch… at least in theory. The actual situation still needed observation. Sheep could be harvested every little over two months. Chickens were the fastest; according to observation they were already laying eggs like crazy. The caretakers were downright shocked.

To prevent rumors about “heresy, evil, or demons,” Farra personally held an impromptu ceremony and dumped the cause of this anomaly onto Demeter. He took the chance to proselytize a bit as well. Unfortunately the System gave no prompt, or he would have seen “Faith +1” pop up.

In short, in just one month Farra had already achieved egg freedom. Because this tangible miracle had already appeared, almost every commoner in the territory started praying at home of their own accord even though Farra held no formal religious rites. The moment a miracle actually lands on earth, it never lacks believers.

So, by the end of the year, the Loyalty of everyone who had received the Goddess of Plenty’s grace would probably reach 100.

There was just one problem. Farra’s quill paused, then he wrote a few block characters in an increasingly smooth hand:

… Excessive surplus resources.

“Sigh, why is it that after becoming a lord the things I have to worry about only multiplied?”

Farra doodled a bit, then rose and left his room. He had to convene a meeting every day, and the time for today’s meeting had arrived again.

At present there were basically no conflicts within the territory. Everyone obeyed orders quite well, and after Farra expressly forbade private fighting, public-security issues had almost vanished. Because there was no shortage of food, the deep-seated hostility in people’s bones had eased considerably.

As Farra walked down the street, he could see with his naked eye the rise in the commoners’ compliance and Loyalty.

“Lord, the eggs in the chicken coop are about to fill the warehouse.”

After finishing the routine report, Mas suddenly said, “If we just keep stacking them there, they’ll spoil.”

“Send two men to find out where there are bands of refugees, then have them recruit some of those refugees back.” Farra thought for a moment and replied. “Each refugee brought back can receive two eggs a day as food, but once they join my territory, become my subjects, and become believers of the church, they must not violate the doctrines… make that clear to them. Also, anyone who has killed is off limits.”

“Understood. I’ll have someone make the rounds in a bit.”

Refugee bands were easy enough to find if you were willing to look. But finding suitable ones was not so easy. Because in the wilds of the Nosbaro Kingdom, few refugee groups had not killed. Most had already turned into bandits. Bringing in that sort of people was a hidden danger. It would raise the cost of maintaining order, so Farra did not plan to absorb them for now.

“Any other issues? If not, we’re adjourned.”

Everyone shook their heads.

“Then the meeting is over.”

Farra stood up to leave, then as if remembering something, tossed out another sentence: “Oh right, from now on you’ll report to me every three days. If something urgent comes up see me at once; otherwise stick to the three-day routine.”

“Yes, sir!”