Fairy Tale Survival with Ability Copying

That battle had been utterly disastrous for the kobolds of the Mist Swamp.

They had left behind over a thousand corpses, along with several powerful magical creatures that had fallen before the second wall.

The corpses, especially, posed a serious problem. They couldn't recover them, which meant food shortages would worsen once again. The pressure on their own internal system had become immense.

But even so, throughout the next seven days, the kobolds did not dare launch another attack against Levi's side. They had truly been beaten into fear.

As a result, Hornreach was able to smoothly repair its walls and reinforce its defenses. Not only that, they even began dispatching soldiers outside the city at times to sweep through the outer regions of the Mist Swamp, transitioning from strategic defense into the stage of strategic counteroffensives.

Behind all this was the continued expansion of Hornreach's military forces.

In addition to the Greatshield Battle Group, a brand-new Longspear Battle Group was established. Both battle groups reached six hundred men each. Meanwhile, the musket corps was separated into an independent unit, expanding from two hundred soldiers to three hundred, becoming a force on equal footing with the two battle groups.

At that point, Hornreach's standing military strength had officially reached fifteen hundred troops.

Beyond the military forces, the public security garrison was also expanded to eight hundred men. Organized into squads stationed across various locations, they were responsible for maintaining order throughout the territory.

After all, once the population increased, conflicts naturally followed.

That was unavoidable.

At the same time, there was another major reason behind the expansion:

Even more civilians had begun flowing into Levi's territory.

A very small portion of them came with the fleets of the two merchant caravans, settling down and working in Coldwind Keep Town. After all, the town had originally been—and still was—a port town.

In the future, however, it would become a full-fledged port city.

The current docks were far too crude, and expansion plans were already underway.

Still, this newly arrived group accounted for only a tiny percentage of the population increase.

Most of the newcomers actually came from the Silverclaw Territory.

Compared to the stability of Hornreach, conditions there had become catastrophic.

Without city walls to stop them, the kobolds rampaged through the territory like they owned the place, carrying out destruction and slaughter without restraint.

And the kobolds were not alone.

Other magical creatures emerged alongside them.

Some of those creatures were extraordinarily powerful.

Together, they inflicted enormous devastation upon the entire Silverclaw Territory.

Although the Silverclaw Viscount led his cavalry regiment everywhere in pursuit of kobolds and magical creatures, he still could not completely wipe them out.

As a result, countless civilians from the Silverclaw Territory were forced to flee.

Many of them escaped into Levi's Hornreach. The Frostfang Pass, once used to blockade Levi, had already become meaningless.

This caused Hornreach's population to explode.

Originally, after absorbing those eight thousand refugees, Hornreach's population had already reached eleven thousand.

But now, the territory's population had surged directly to seventeen thousand people—nearly twenty thousand altogether.

An increase of a full six thousand.

And those six thousand newcomers were a chaotic mix of all kinds of people.

There were serfs and commoners with nowhere else to go.

There were also skilled craftsmen—blacksmiths, barbers, scribes, and others with practical trades.

Naturally, there were wandering knights as well, along with certain individuals harboring ulterior motives.

Like a flood, they poured into Hornreach, all hoping to secure either a chance at survival—or something more.

But by this point, Levi's control over the territory had already become extremely solid. He had sufficient manpower, and the people supported him wholeheartedly.

So after those six thousand newcomers entered the territory, they were quickly broken apart, absorbed, and integrated into the territory's overall cycle.

Wandering knights and particularly fierce fighters were assigned to the newly established outer battle groups. They would be required to fight against the kobolds and prove their contributions to the territory through combat before earning the right to permanently settle in Hornreach.

They handled the most dangerous work, so naturally, their compensation was correspondingly higher.

As for those unsuited for combat, they were assigned to various forms of labor—primarily mining or brick firing. The work was relatively simple, though physically exhausting.

Of course, people with technical skills were also given places where they could put their abilities to use.

Bakers were sent into the bakeries.

Barbers immediately started working, shaving hair and trimming beards for others. That turned out to be a surprisingly strong demand, and the pay they received was noticeably better than what ordinary laborers earned.

The arrival of these newcomers greatly freed up Hornreach's original workforce.

The residents who had previously been responsible for mining and brick production were reassigned to another critically important task:

Producing cement pipes.

These were in desperately short supply.

Because the new city Levi was constructing was not something he wanted to reek of sewage every single day. Nor did he want the water supply contaminated.

That meant a modern sewer system had to be implemented.

And cement pipes were the key to making it possible.

Their production process was actually fairly simple.

Since Levi possessed modern cement technology, he could create basic wooden molds and take advantage of cement's rapid hardening properties to mass-produce standardized cement pipes in batches, similar to modern drainage culverts.

And because the new city Levi was building covered such a massive area, the number of cement pipes required would naturally be enormous.

These pipes could be installed extremely quickly as well, buried underground almost like assembling building blocks.

In this era, clay pipes or stone pipes were prone to leaking at the joints. But by using cement mortar as the sealant, permanent waterproof sealing could be achieved, completely preventing sewage from leaking out and contaminating the groundwater.

As for the large sewer lines beneath the city's main roads, they could be constructed through on-site pouring using a combination of wooden molds, cement, and crushed stone.

As long as trenches were dug first, then inner and outer wooden molds assembled, cement concrete could be poured into the space between them. Once fully dried, it would form a seamless tunnel structure.

The structural strength of this design was extremely high. It could even double as an air-raid shelter.

In addition, there was enormous demand for P-traps.

Those were things needed after houses were built.

At the sewage outlet of every household—for example, beneath a toilet—a U-shaped cement bend pipe would be installed, always retaining a small amount of water inside.

That layer of water could block sewer odors and plague-bearing foul air from flowing back indoors. It had remarkable effectiveness in preventing diseases such as the Black Death that spread through fleas and airborne contamination.

Then, combined with sedimentation tanks and inspection wells, the entire sewer system could remain functional for many years.

The sedimentation tanks would be built from cement. Solid waste would settle and ferment there, while liquid waste flowed into the main pipelines. All that was needed afterward was to periodically hire "night soil collectors" to clean out the accumulated solids.

As for the inspection wells, every thirty to fifty meters, a vertical maintenance shaft built from cement would be installed, with a heavy cement cover placed on top.

Not only would this make it easier for workers to climb down and clear blockages or dredge sludge, it could also function as a ventilation shaft.

At the bottom of each inspection well, an even deeper pit would be designed.

Sand and sediment that failed to flow through would sink into this pit instead of clogging the main pipeline. During maintenance, workers would only need to clean out the pit itself rather than dig up the entire sewer line.

With this system in place, the entire city would no longer stink of sewage.

However, this entire underground network had to be completed before any surface buildings could begin construction.

In other words, if the underground infrastructure was unfinished, then construction above ground could not even start.

As a result, producing cement pipes and P-traps became an extremely urgent priority.

Once the newly freed labor force began manufacturing those things, production immediately skyrocketed.

The finished materials were carefully transported away and buried beneath the designated underground locations.

The overall pace of city construction improved dramatically.

But Levi still felt there was a shortage of manpower.

Seventeen thousand people still weren't enough.

With Bittervine Bread available, Levi no longer had to worry about being unable to feed everyone like before, when resources had been stretched painfully thin.

It was just that Bittervine Bread tasted terrible.

But considering their circumstances, nobody really had the luxury of being picky.

Besides, Levi wasn't only providing Bittervine Bread. There was also dried whale meat with an overwhelmingly earthy, muddy taste.

Those foods were cheap enough that, with the wages Levi currently provided every day, people could absolutely afford them.

And if they wanted to eat something better, the territory had those options too.

The two merchant guilds had brought in plenty of good goods from the outside world. There was even white bread and wine available.

As long as they were willing to spend the money, they could enjoy them.

Of course, taxes still had to be paid.

But that was another matter entirely.

In any case, Levi felt that manpower remained insufficient and that the city's construction pace was still too slow.

So he approached the representatives of the two merchant guilds and proposed purchasing slaves.

The moment the two guild leaders heard that, their eyes lit up.

Both guilds were involved in the slave trade and had a considerable number of slaves on hand already. They immediately patted their chests and guaranteed Levi that they would ship slaves over to him vessel after vessel.

Levi nodded in satisfaction upon hearing that.

That was one measure.

As for his second measure, Levi began actively recruiting civilians from the Silverclaw Territory.

Because conditions there had truly become disastrous, Levi's propaganda campaign actually succeeded in drawing over quite a large number of refugees seeking shelter in Hornreach.

Within a short period of time, Levi's territory gained another thousand residents.

And these were comparatively high-quality additions to the population.

The territory's total population officially reached eighteen thousand.

Their arrival pushed the speed of territorial development forward by another major leap.

Honestly speaking, coordinating twenty thousand people was an enormous undertaking.

The only reason Levi could manage it so effectively was because he possessed Detection, allowing him to monitor the overall situation. On top of that, he had established proper systems, assigned talented individuals to appropriate positions, and enjoyed overwhelming public support.

Only then could he command the entire territory as though moving his own arms.

If it had been anyone else trying to handle this situation, the whole thing would have collapsed long ago.

But even so, it exhausted Yalina, the Sky Knight Rune, the wolf-eared Little Red Riding Hood girl, Miss Odelle, and the others nearly to death.

Levi himself was not having an easy time either.

Still, as they watched the new city improve day after day, everyone felt a strange sense of excitement deep in their hearts.

They suffered through it while enjoying it at the same time, gritting their teeth and persevering onward.

But where some rejoiced, others suffered.

While Levi's territory flourished and absorbed massive numbers of people from the Silverclaw Territory, that same territory was suffering devastating destruction.

More than half of its wealth had effectively evaporated, while the indirect losses were impossible to calculate.

During these past days, the Silverclaw Viscount had constantly been fighting and dealing with kobold outbreaks spread throughout the territory. Both mentally and physically exhausted, he had long since become utterly worn down. His hair had already turned streaked with gray, making it obvious just how immense the pressure weighing on him truly was.

And now he heard that Levi was still poaching from his territory, aggressively absorbing its population.

Population represented the future development of a territory.

What Levi was doing was shaking the very foundation of the entire domain.

How could the Silverclaw Viscount possibly not be furious after learning all this?

Inside the conference hall, he roared in rage, completely losing all composure. He even drew the longsword at his waist and shouted: "I'm going to chop that damned Levi to pieces! That treacherous bastard has completely disgraced the honor behind the word 'nobility'!"

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I will post some extra Chapters in Patreon, you can check it out. >> /TitoVillar

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