Chapter 39: Boil Your Water
Tara’s Tent – Nighttime
Later that night, Theo, Tara, and Erika were having dinner together inside Tara’s tent. Theo had been dragged there so they could continue discussing the mess caused by the other villages, a mess that still showed no sign of being solved anytime soon.
The three of them sat around the hearth where a large pot of beef stew bubbled steadily over the fire. Roper can be seen already happily munching his meal in the corner.
“Ugh, I already hate tomorrow,” Tara frowned while scooping stew into a bowl with a ladle. “God knows how many chiefs are gonna come just to bitch at me again.”
She shoved the filled bowl toward Erika before scooping another one.
“Why not just threaten them with some scary necromancer curse if they won’t stop complaining and do what they’re told?” Erika muttered while sipping her stew. “You know, something dramatic. Cough blood. Explode. Rot from the inside.”
Tara handed Theo his bowl next.
“Nah, history from my world already proved that people who rule through fear always collapse sooner or later.”
Theo accepted the bowl and gave Tara a small nod of thanks.
“Fear is expensive. You have to keep reminding people you’re dangerous every single day,” Theo continued, “Productivity slows down, everyone starts hiding things from you, and eventually somebody sticks a knife in your back. That’s one of the reasons I’m against slavery.”
He blew lightly on the stew before taking a sip.
“Ruling through hope, however, is vastly superior in the long term,”
He continued explaining between bites.
“Hope does half the work for you. People willingly push themselves harder because they think the system benefits them personally.” He said, “Heck, they will even protect it voluntarily because they have something to lose if it collapses.”
Erika stared at him for a few seconds with her usual perfectly maintained smile, though her eyes clearly had already lost focus halfway through the explanation.
“Aaah, I get it,” Erika said cheerfully.
“No, you don’t,” Theo replied immediately, looking at her completely unimpressed.
He took another spoonful of stew.
“Too bad money doesn’t exist in this place,” Theo muttered. “Money is probably the greatest tool humanity ever invented for selling people hope.”
“Yeah, gold and silver don’t mean much in Border Prison,” Tara said.
She finally have her own bowl and start eating her stew.
“Commerce only really exists in the Agros settlements, and even there they mostly use grains as currency.” She said, “That’s why whenever merchants get condemned here, any merchant worth their salt knows the best way to survive is sticking themselves to the Agros.”
“Heh. Worth their salt.” Theo chuckled. “I always find it funny how people compare a man to kitchen ingredients.”
“Huh?” Tara frowned. “What do kitchen ingredients have to do with anything?”
“Because you said ‘salt,’” Theo replied.
“No, I said ‘worth his salt,’” Tara answered back. “I didn’t even mention salt in it.”
Theo froze. For a few seconds, he just stared at Tara with a dumbfounded look.
Was this another universal translator issue?
Maybe Tara had used a completely different idiom in Civaran language, but whatever magic handled translation automatically converted it into an Earth equivalent inside his head.
“Say,” Theo asked curiously, “why did nobody here ever figure out salt can disinfect wounds?”
“How would we know?” Tara replied casually. “On any parts of this world, people just ask a mage or drink a health potion to heal injuries. Honestly, when you first told us to pour salt water into wounds, it sounded insane.”
She stopped for a sip from her bowl.
“But apparently it works. Not as fast as healing magic, but it works.”
And just like that, Theo finally understood something. The existence of magic had completely distorted the technological development of this world.
Why bother discovering practical solutions when magic already brute-forced the answer?
Civilization in Civara hadn’t developed around efficiency like Earth, it developed around magic.
Then suddenly, an idea began forming inside Theo’s head.
“…Hmm,” Theo muttered while slowly putting down his half-finished bowl. “I think I just found something.”
He put his bowl down and curled his finger against his lips, thinking. Meanwhile, Tara and Erika simply continued eating their stew while watching him quietly.
---
Conference Tent – Few Days Later
After several days of brainstorming and discussion, Theo and Tara finally came up with a way to make the other villages cooperate more willingly.
Inside the conference tent, every scavenger chief had gathered after receiving Tara’s summons.
Meanwhile, standing at the front of them all, Theo had once again put on his full necromancer performance outfit. Dark robes, staff, and all.
“Miasmaaaa! Miasma is eeeverywhere!” Theo declared dramatically, both hands raised toward the air like a preacher warning his flock about divine punishment.
“Gasp!” The scavenger chiefs visibly recoiled at the announcement.
Then silence followed.
“…Isn’t miasma basically poison?” one of the chiefs asked carefully.
“Correct!” Theo instantly pointed his staff at the man. “And because we live this close to demon territory, the miasma here is even thicker than anywhere else!”
He lowered his voice ominously.
“But the most dangerous part… is that you cannot see it with your eyes.”
Several chiefs immediately stiffened.
Theo suddenly pointed his staff toward a mug of water sitting in front of one of them.
“It’s in the water! That is why you must boil it first before drinking!”
Then he swung his staff toward another chief whose hands were visibly filthy.
“It’s on our hands! That is why you must wash them before eating!”
Then his staff shifted again toward Drak, whose appearance suggested he haven’t bathed for a month, which probably true.
“It’s on our skin! In our hair! That is why we must bathe regularly!”
Drak reflexively touched his own beard.
Theo then lowered his tone from dramatic preaching into something quieter. Heavier.
“Otherwise… the miasma slowly enters the body,” Theo said solemnly. “It breeds inside you… little by little… until eventually…”
He paused.
“It kills you like poison!” he roared suddenly, raising his staff high again. “Without exception!”
Several chiefs instinctively leaned their bodies backward. Intimidated.
In the end, the easiest way to make uneducated people obey was the same method parents used on children. By scaring them.
There was a reason every old folklore sounded ridiculous while somehow still carrying useful lessons underneath.
“And remember this!” Theo continued with another dramatic sweep of his sleeve. “Miasma especially loves misery! It gathers around suffering! Around filth! Around rot!”
He pointed randomly around the room like a prophet exposing hidden evil.
“It is the reason food spoils! Meat rots! And wounds…”
Theo lowered his voice again.
“…become death.”
A few chiefs visibly swallowed.
“And the miasma on those things is so concentrated that merely cleaning with water—uhh, I mean boiled water!” he corrected quickly
“T-Then, Advisor…” Tara suddenly spoke right on cue, her tone hesitant. “If boiled water alone isn’t enough… how do we cleanse highly concentrated miasma?”
Theo immediately shot Tara a sharp side glance before raising his staff again.
“How do you preserve meat from rotting?” he asked the crowd.
“B-By curing it with salt,” Cynthia answered carefully.
“Correct!” Theo dramatically pointed at her.
“Salt!” Theo raised his voice again like a prophet revealing forbidden truth. “Salt is the weakness of miasma!”
Several chiefs immediately began murmuring among themselves, commenting this threatening revelation that somehow highly educational.
“That is why we use salt water to treat wounds here in Blackstone!” Theo continued loudly. “The boiled one!”
He emphasized the last part heavily again. After all, the entire performance would become pointless if these people started scooping random river water into open wounds because they only remembered the “salt” part.
“I see…” Drak muttered slowly. “That actually makes sense…”
The other scavenger chiefs also began nodding in agreement.
“That concludes the important matters I needed to address today,” Theo announced solemnly.
He turned around dramatically and began walking toward the exit of the tent.
“I shall return to my investigations,” Theo declared while continuing his slow exit. “There are still many unseen dangers that may threaten the people of our Grassland Alliance… and I alone must uncover how to stop them.”
Then, just before reaching the exit flap, Theo suddenly stopped.
He looked back over his shoulder.
“But remember this,” he said in a lower voice. “Even under my supervision, this alliance will eventually collapse if its people refuse to cooperate with one another.”
Then he walked out of the tent, cloak swaying behind him, leaving the entire room silent for several long seconds.
“It’s a good thing he’s on our side…” Cynthia admitted quietly after seeing Theo’s dramatic exit.
“Agreed…” Drak muttered with a solemn expression. “Salt, huh… that’s gonna be a problem.”
He rubbed his beard slowly.
“We’re too far from the coast.”
“No,” Tara cut in firmly. “We might already have the solution.”
Every chief immediately turned toward her.
“We recently discovered a salt mine inside the stone ravine,” Tara said with a confident smile. “Near the demon hounds’ enclosure.”
The mood inside the tent shifted instantly, several chiefs visibly brightened.
“T-That’s good news then!” Cynthia said excitedly. “We can mine it and distribute it to every village!”
The others quickly began murmuring in agreement. Finally, something useful.
“No,” Tara interrupted again.
The excited murmurs died almost immediately.
“Unlike bison or crops,” Tara continued calmly, “salt cannot reproduce. Once the mine runs dry, it’s gone.”
The room quieted.
“That means we cannot waste it carelessly,” Tara said. “We’ll need to use it sparingly. Carefully.”
And unfortunately… that made perfect sense. If the salt mine was depleted, they were finished.
No salt meant wounds became dangerous again. Preserved food became harder to maintain. The entire “miasma” explanation Theo had just shoved into everyone’s heads would suddenly become a nightmare.
“That is why I believe every village—and every person within it—should earn the right to receive salt,” Tara continued. “By working for it.”
The chiefs frowned slightly.
“You mean… like how the Agros pay everything with grain and food?” one chief asked.
“Like coins in the outside world,” another added.
“That’s right,” Tara replied with a nod. “If we truly want to build a strong territory, we’ll eventually need some kind of currency.”
She folded her arms confidently.
“And for now, salt is perfect for that. It has practical use, it lasts long, and now everyone already understands its value.”
The chiefs exchanged looks. Some interested, some cautious.
“But then who controls the salt distribution?” Cynthia asked carefully.
“You said the mine is near the demon hound enclosure,” another chief added with visible suspicion. “That means Blackstone controls the mine.”
“…Tara,” Drak muttered grimly, narrowing his eyes. “Are you planning for Blackstone to take complete control of the salt mine?”
The atmosphere inside the tent shifted immediately. The earlier excitement vanished, several chiefs now stared at Tara with sour, bitter, and suspicious expressions.
But Tara merely grinned.
Confidently.