Chapter 15 : Chapter 15
Chapter 15: The Foundation of Order
The winter wind rolled with ice shards, like a rusted file scraping across every inch of frozen earth in the Wailing Wastes.
When that mountain-like Tomb Iron Boar was dragged back to camp by seven or eight of the strongest soldiers using thick hemp ropes, leaving a bloody trail with every step, the entire world seemed to freeze.
Its massive corpse plowed a bloody furrow mixed with mud through the snow, the not-yet-dissipated heat and thick scent of blood mixing together into a domineering, savage fragrance that rushed straight into the Wall of Despair construction site.
CLANG—
A pickaxe slipped from the hands of a skeletal laborer, striking the hard frozen earth with a crisp sound.
As if it were a signal, the worksite instantly fell deathly silent.
Over a hundred gaunt refugees, as if collectively hit with a paralysis spell, froze stiffly in place.
They slowly turned their heads, bloodshot eyeballs fixed unblinkingly on that still-bleeding carcass, their Adam's apples rolling up and down uncontrollably, the sound of swallowing saliva rising and falling in succession, so clear it was heartbreaking.
Hunger, that beast that had lurked and gnawed in each person's belly for too long, completely awakened the instant it caught the scent of meat, releasing a deafening roar.
“Meat… it's… it's meat…”
An old man standing closest, the boar's ferocious tusks and thick flesh reflected in his cloudy eyeballs, murmured in a hoarse voice like a dream-talker, two streams of tears mixed with mud bursting from his eyes without warning.
This murmur ignited the powder keg.
“Meat!!”
“It's meat! We have meat to eat!”
The deathly silence was completely shattered as the crowd erupted in cheers that were nearly crazed after being suppressed to the extreme!
Some fell to their knees, striking their foreheads against the frozen ground, as if only pain could prove this wasn't a hallucination.
“Long live the lord!”
No one knew who first shouted these words, but immediately after, a tsunami of loyalty swept across this small worksite, even drowning out the perpetual wailing wind of the wastes.
“Long live the lord!!”
“What the hell are you all staring at! If you want to eat meat, finish today's work!”
Barrett kicked aside a half-grown boy blocking his way, his roar like thunder.
“Lord Roland has ordered that anyone who completes all today's adobe brick tasks gets double portions of meat tonight!”
He drew the skinning knife that had followed him for years, vigorously wiped it on his rough cloth pants, his one eye flashing with the greed a butcher only shows when seeing prime meat.
He called over several nimble veterans and began processing this enormous prize with practiced skill.
Under the dual stimulation of Barrett's roaring and the meat's aroma, the workers erupted with unprecedented enthusiasm.
They no longer needed the whip. That pig meat hanging high, being butchered, was the best command.
Digging earth for the moat, mixing it with grass fibers and trampling it into adobe bricks, then carrying them to the wall foundation to stack—sweat soaked through their thin clothing, steaming up visible white vapor in the cold air like mobile steam engines.
Caesar stood outside the crowd, firelight dancing in his deep purple eyes, yet unable to penetrate that profound coldness.
He watched those refugees who just days ago had been like walking corpses, now bursting with astonishing vitality over a piece of roasted meat not yet in their mouths.
He watched the pure craving for food in their eyes, and when they looked toward him, that mixture of fear and worship—that awe.
He didn't stay to enjoy this cheap cheering, instead turning to walk toward the other side of camp.
The clamor was left behind him as his gaze fell upon another matter that concerned him more.
It was a winding circular earthen wall, or rather, a massive mound of dirt.
It was ugly, fragile, not even reaching a person's knee height, seemingly ready to collapse at any moment in the cold wind.
But it was there, like a boundary line just drawn on a map, clearly separating civilization from wilderness, order from chaos.
Caesar's gaze passed over the mound to fall upon the more distant field plot enclosed separately by a wooden fence.
There lay Finn Stonefist's “sacred ground.”
At this moment, he was kneeling before that patch of dark brown earth like the most devout saint.
Those rough hands capable of crushing stone were, with a tenderness nearly like caressing a lover's face, carefully digging away a small patch of soil.
He had already guarded this place for seven days.
Seven days ago, when the lord had produced those dried-up Earth Potato tubers looking like stones and commanded him to plant them in this cursed land abandoned by the gods, Finn's heart had been filled with despair.
The soil of the Blackspine Mountains—whatever you plant dies. This was an iron law even three-year-old children knew.
But he dared not disobey.
He could only bury those “seeds” underground as if carrying out an absurd death sentence.
Yet merely three days later, a miracle occurred.
The hard frozen earth was pushed aside by a stubborn tender green shoot.
Finn thought he was hallucinating from hunger.
He rubbed his eyes. That patch of green was still there, facing the cold wind, stubbornly proclaiming life's existence.
Today was the seventh day.
According to the lord's statement of harvest every ten days, observable results by seven, he could dig up one plant to look.
Finn's heart pounded like war drums.
He dug away the soil. When his fingertips touched a smooth, solid object, his body jerked violently.
Immediately after, he released a roar of disbelief!
“It… it grew! Merciful Father God! It grew!!”
He used both hands, digging at the soil almost frantically, yet his movements carried a trace of sacred reverence as if afraid to disturb a holy relic.
Soon, strings of fist-sized, smooth-skinned, heavy earth-yellow tubers were brought out intact from underground by him!
Not just one, but strings! A full seven or eight! From just one plant, he harvested this much!
Finn raised that string of fruit high like raising a king's scepter.
He roared toward the sky, tears mixed with mud washing two furrows across his weathered face.
This news, like wildfire across a plain, instantly spread throughout the entire camp.
“What? Something actually grew in Finn's field?”
“Impossible! That land is cursed!”
“Quick! Go look!”
The workers building the wall threw down their tools one after another, surging over like a tide.
When they saw with their own eyes that heavy string of fruit in Finn's hands, and the small pile of potatoes at his feet, everyone went mad!
This wasn't an ordinary harvest.
On this cursed land that only devoured life, any form of harvest was a divine miracle!
They cheered, they howled, some even excitedly threw Finn and those golden tubers high into the air.
More people fell to their knees, kissing this land that had made them despair yet now granted them life, releasing suppressed sobbing.
Caesar quietly watched all this, finally allowing a slight ripple to rise in his profound eyes.
He knew that from this moment onward, he was no longer merely a lord who intimidated the masses through martial force.
In these desperate people's hearts, he had become… a deity walking upon the earth.
Night fell. Three enormous bonfires blazed in the camp's center, driving away the wastes' cold and the fear in people's hearts.
The Tomb Iron Boar was divided into hundreds of pieces, speared on sharpened wooden sticks and roasted over the fire.
Fat dripped into the flames with sizzling pops, the domineering meat fragrance mixing with the clean scent of burning wood to blanket the entire camp.
The newly unearthed Earth Potatoes were thrown directly into the embers at the bonfires' edges, buried in hot ash.
Before long, a simple yet enticing charred fragrance wafted thread by thread from beneath the ashes.
Barrett personally took charge, using a Knight's longsword as a meat cleaver, fairly distributing food to every laborer who completed their tasks.
A large piece of pork roasted crispy outside and tender inside, sprinkled with coarse salt, plus two steaming hot roasted potatoes split open.
This was their first truly filling meal since arriving in these wastes.
No clamor, not even conversation.
Throughout the entire camp, only the sounds of vigorous chewing and ravenous devouring remained.
Everyone ate until their mouths dripped with oil, faces bearing an expression of almost sacred satisfaction.
Caesar sat alone in his tent, a portion of roasted meat and potatoes likewise lay before.
He didn't move.
First, he expressionlessly treated the wound on his forearm.
The Tomb Iron Boar's dying counterattack had been extremely fierce, its tusk carving a wound deep enough to see bone.
He cleaned it with strong liquor, sprinkled on wound medicine, then wrapped it with clean linen.
After completing all this, he finally shifted his attention to the two trophies on the table.
One came from the Howling Wind Wolf King, entirely azure-green, feeling wind's lightness and sharpness when held.
The other, just extracted from the Tomb Iron Boar's skull, was grayish-yellow in color, heavy in the hand, emanating earth's solidity.
He could clearly feel that the slender black-gold Battle Energy in his dantian Qi Sea was transmitting signals of extreme craving toward the energy these two “stones” released.
Like eagerly waiting young eagles catching the scent of bloody food brought back by their mother.
Caesar's eyes became sharp.
He needed power, even greater power, and he needed it now.
He didn't immediately absorb them.
The battle with the boar had consumed massive amounts of his stamina and energy. At this moment his body hadn't yet recovered to its peak.
Rashly absorbing this kind of violent energy source would be no different from suicide.
He picked up a piece of roasted meat and silently began eating.
The scalding food entered his belly, transforming into the purest heat flow, repairing his body's deficits.
An hour later, when he felt his limbs and bones refilled with strength and his breathing had become long and steady, he finally picked up that Howling Wind Wolf King's Magic Core and pressed it against the skin of his chest.
There lay a dark red tattoo resembling an evil dragon devouring a longsword.
【Absorbable energy source detected (Wind Attribute - Inferior). Absorb?】
“Absorb.”
Caesar issued the command in his mind.
A gluttonous feast was about to begin.