Building A Human Empire By Creating A Clan [EN]: Chapter 11

The next day, I took a young pioneer named Leo around the fields.

I wanted to check on the most important things for people: food, clothing, and shelter.

‘The arable land is divided into three sections.’

It was a three-field system.

The farmland was divided into spring, autumn, and fallow fields.

In the spring, barley, oats, or beans were planted in the spring field, and in the autumn field, wheat and rye were planted. The fallow field was left to rest, as the name suggests.

You might ask why not just plant wheat and rye since they are the staple foods, but in a world without artificial fertilizers, the land’s fertility cannot withstand it.

After harvesting wheat and rye, the field whose fertility has declined must rest for more than a year.

The three-field system was a farming method that increased production by planting crops that absorbed different nutrients than wheat and rye, or by planting crops that helped restore fertility.

‘Wheat, turnips, barley, clover, in that order? A four-field rotation?’

I was thinking of a four-field rotation, a step further than the three-field system.

It would be a long time before the four-field rotation was developed in this world.

If I remember correctly, it would be developed in Germania about 20 years later and partially implemented.

I decided to introduce the four-field rotation to the frontier far ahead of them.

‘I ended up like this because of my desire for achievements, but thanks to that desire, I remember even this kind of thing.’

There was something called the first achievement among Deus Ex’s achievements.

The condition for achieving the achievement was to be the first to introduce advanced science, technology, culture, and systems.

Achievement was not a one-time thing, and they even gave a package achievement depending on how many achievement conditions were met in one playthrough.

It goes without saying how difficult such achievements were in a game with a reality where reality and virtuality were indistinguishable.

Some people complained that it was not a learning game.

I also cursed, but in the end, I didn’t give up and poured my life into it.

What was it about that damn game that made me twist my body to achieve all the achievements in one playthrough, pouring my life into it?

So, naturally, I couldn’t forget the knowledge about four-field rotation, blast furnaces, camshafts, and other things that I wouldn’t use in my previous life.

‘The problem is that knowing and doing are different. In the previous playthrough, there was at least a foundation and new crops had spread, but now there is no foundation and I have to find the crops myself.’

For example, turnips, which are essential for four-field rotation, were like that.

Turnips originally grew in the territory of other races and spread to humans by chance.

Because it was so easy to cultivate and the harvest season was early, it spread throughout human civilization in just a few years, but now was before turnips were known.

‘Not only turnips, but potatoes probably haven’t been spread either. This is troublesome.’

Should I go over to the territory of other races beyond the Great Plains once?

Suddenly, I felt like I knew why nomadic peoples invaded settled peoples in my previous life.

The lands of elves and dwarves, thousands of years ahead of human civilization, were a bonanza [a source of great wealth or profit].

If I could go over there even for a short time and get just one or two things I needed.

I could finish in that one trip what would take ten years.

‘The Council is probably wary, so I’ll hold back for now.’

Suppressing my disappointment, I clicked my tongue inwardly and walked, and I saw pioneers clearing stones from the field.

“Are they going to use those?”

I pointed to several farming tools placed on one side of the field with a gesture.

They had brought them as if they were going to use them right away, but their condition was not good.

The iron blades were broken or the ends were dulled.

I wondered why they were keeping farming tools that should be melted down and recycled.

“Yes? Ah… After Dylan was taken away and the furnace was broken, we can’t do blacksmith work…”

Dylan must have been the name of the blacksmith.

“Did the elves take him?”

“No. Goblins did.”

I frowned.

Goblins, small in stature but with cunning intelligence and a considerable number.

Even though they achieved civilization before humans, their barbarity is on par with monsters.

They always roamed in groups, making plunder their livelihood.

They thought that if they needed something, they could just take it and make it their own.

They had no patience to create something with their own hands.

Therefore, the gap in culture and technology varied greatly from tribe to tribe or kingdom to kingdom.

‘Did they take the blacksmith because they needed a blacksmith slave?’

One blacksmith is particularly important in a village of around a hundred people.

Who will make the farming tools needed for farming, and the weapons to protect the house?

Making arrowheads needed for hunting is also blacksmith work, and sometimes they are precious beings who are called upon more than priests in places where technology is needed, such as walls or mills to protect the village, or pulleys, etc., not limited to smelting.

For them to take such a person as a slave because they needed him.

‘Other villages must have been hit hard too.’

It is an overestimation to think that every pioneer village has a smithy in an era where people with specialized skills are rare.

Since it was a plain, there was no natural fence like a forest, so they could easily travel between villages.

Kistler also said that there was frequent communication between villages.

In this environment, it would be accurate to say that one blacksmith is in charge of several adjacent villages.

The more I thought about it, the more absurd it was.

I clicked my tongue.

“At least they left the village intact.”

“We need to leave the ears of grain so we can harvest next year too.”

It was a tone mixed with resignation.

I judged that this young pioneer had learned adulthood after many hardships.

‘Ears of grain.’

The grains that are spilled or dropped when harvesting crops are ears of grain.

Traditionally, ears of grain were considered to belong to the poor.

Because there is no social system to help the poor in this world.

They showed mercy, saying that the grains that fell on the ground were yours.

In order to keep them alive and collect taxes the following year.

‘Are humans just treated as ears of grain?’

Saying that humans are ears of grain meant that they were shown mercy.

In order to exploit humans and crops again next year,

To leave a few humans behind so that the village would not collapse.

“For a pathetic monster, they see far ahead.”

Gritting my teeth…

I bit down hard.

A comedy from afar.

The boy looked embarrassed when I bit my teeth hard enough to make a sound.

Afraid that my anger might be directed at him, he quickly continued.

“Still, we’re lucky that the land is good… If we’re not hunted, at least we won’t starve to death…”

The Oroko Plains are fertile land.

If it weren’t for Tiamar, it would have been eaten long ago.

It’s not for nothing that I took the risk and got this land.

It was too precious to hand over to other races.

‘But just because the land is fertile doesn’t mean farming will be successful.’

The pioneers who cleared the stones were plowing the fields by hand with farming tools.

Plowing with poor farming tools and manpower had clear limitations.

Even though the soil was soft, one person had to struggle to pull the plow, so the plow did not pull easily.

What’s more, the plows that had not been repaired because there was no blacksmith were in a terrible state of maintenance.

The end, which should have been a wide shovel shape, had become blunt, so no matter how hard they tried to pull the plow, it would only push the soil to the side instead of turning it over.

It was natural that the plow did not penetrate deep into the soil, and with that, several people had to stick to the back and plow the soil again with wooden shovels.

It was frustrating in terms of time, manpower, and efficiency.

‘I’ll need seeds for the four-field rotation, a blacksmith, and livestock too.’

The reason why they are doing that hard plowing with manpower without cows or horses is obvious.

Because they can’t raise livestock.

They don’t raise them because they will be taken away if they raise them.

I looked at the fence on the outskirts of the village that had been broken and only traces remained.

The planks that were once a chicken coop were scattered.

It was a trace of plunder.

“How long has it been since you ate meat? What about the hunters?”

“We can’t hunt, so we haven’t eaten it once this year.”

I looked down at Leo and asked why.

“The elves suddenly banned entry to the forest…”

“They told you not to hunt?”

“Yes. They also broke the furnace so we wouldn’t kill the tree spirit.”

I was dumbfounded and made a huh sound and closed my mouth.

Come to think of it, the pioneers all had bad complexions and not much flesh.

I thought it was because the work was hard, but it was malnutrition.

‘Eco-fascist bastards… Do they think humans are herbivores?’

I turned my head and looked at the river flowing to the south.

If the forest is not allowed, the river would not be any different.

Because elves are such beings.

I clicked my tongue.

“Calliope!”

“Yes, Edar-nim.”

“The ones you caught at dawn, haven’t you prepared them yet?”

“Yes.”

“Then prepare them and distribute them. I can’t stand to see it.”

“I understand.”

The animals Calliope caught at dawn were all wolves.

There were twenty wolves, each the size of my chest.

What did wolves, which are carnivores, eat to grow so big?

I knew the answer, but I didn’t think about it and watched the process of butchering the wolves.

“Take one each. It’s a gift from me to you.”

The pioneers hesitated even with the prepared wolf meat in front of them.

They had greed for meat in their eyes that they hadn’t seen in a long time, but they were hesitating strangely.

I realized that it was because of religious reasons.

‘The god that humans worship in this world was the wolf god. I forgot.’

The Horbid religion, which worships the wolf god Horbid.

This religion, conveniently called the Wolf Religion, was almost the only religion in human civilization.

Because they worship the wolf god, they worship wolves like cows are worshiped in Hinduism.

Even if wolves attack livestock and eat humans, they must not dare to touch them.

Because the wolf god led humans to the southwest end and settled them when they were wandering aimlessly.

‘Wolves are the sons and daughters of the god who saved humans, so how can you dare to lay a hand on them… it was like that.’

The doctrine of the Wolf Religion was that humans who were suffering from other races should give thanks to the wolf god who liberated them and offer faith, and the vast majority of humans accepted this.

Magic exists, and spiritual beings also exist.

Unlike my previous life, the existence of God had persuasiveness and weight.

In addition, unlike other races, humans did not have a being to call their own god.

Dwarves regarded the master craftsman as their ancestral god.

Elves regarded the World Tree as their father and mother.

Orcs simply regarded the strong as the prophets of their race.

However, humans had no master craftsman, no World Tree, and were even weak.

Horbid was the wolf god, but he took pity on humans and bestowed grace.

‘It’s all a lie.’

Knowing the story of the birth of the Wolf Religion, I found such facts ridiculous.

I know very well the history of dirty collusion, which is too long to tell.

Horbid never pities humans.

The Wolf Religion was just one of several means for other races to easily exploit humans.

‘We must also drive out the influence of religions created by non-humans.’

I thought about the method for a moment and gestured to Calliope.

Calliope, who was gently skinning the wolf hide, picked up a knife.

The blade flashed in the sunlight, and at the same time, the head of the dead wolf rolled on the floor.

“Heok!”

The pioneers who were standing there, unable to do anything, were startled and stepped back.

It was the same even after being horrified by the wolf carcasses that Calliope had piled up in the square in the morning.

Even though the harshness of the frontier had dried up their faith, reverence for God remained.

“E, Edar-nim…!”

The pioneers called my name pitifully, telling me to stop.

But I ignored them and watched Calliope.

What is needed to shake faith is not persuasion but shock.

The shock that the god they believe in is nothing and will neither help nor punish them.

Calliope held up the wolf’s head and held it out in front of them.

Even though it had been dead for a long time, blood was dripping from the severed head.

The pioneers’ faces turned blue as if their own blood was draining away.

“Are you afraid of starvation, or are you afraid of the wrath of a god who neglects you?”

As I took the head and approached the pioneers, they retreated as much as I approached.

Seeing the sight of the wolves, whom they believed to be the children of God, being beheaded and humiliated in a group, they looked at the sky and me alternately, feeling disgusted.

I snorted at their appearance, fearing that lightning might strike, and raised my voice.

“What are you afraid of? Are you afraid that the father of these dogs will punish you? If he had the power to do so, have you ever thought about why he doesn’t answer your prayers?”

I pulled Leo’s shoulder.

The guy with his eyes wide open stiffened his body like a stiff stone.

“Tell me.”

“G, God is always watching over us and protecting us. It’s just… we don’t notice it…”

“Who said that?”

“K, Kistler-nim said that.”

“Was the village chief a priest?”

I chuckled in a low voice.

“You’re wrong. Kistler was also deceived. God doesn’t protect you. He sees you as prey.”

“That’s…”

I grabbed Leo’s shoulder tightly and pointed to the wolf.

“Look. Who is the father of these dogs? Why doesn’t he stop his children from hunting you? Look at this big body. Do you think the wolf grew up eating grass? He grew up eating your brothers and sisters.”

“……!”

Leo’s body began to tremble like an aspen.

He bit his lip and held his breath, as if holding back tears.

From that reaction, I knew that the young pioneer named Leo had lost a brother or sister.

“What kind of god sends his children to hunt those who believe in him? Isn’t it because he sees you as prey?”

I tore off a piece of prepared leg meat and put it in Leo’s hand.

“This is not a sin. It’s a just revenge.”

Then, I took his hand and stretched it over the pot filled with boiling water.

Leo noticed what I was instructing and closed his eyes tightly.

His hand lost strength, and with a plop, the leg meat fell into the water.

Oil floated on the surface of the bubbling water, and a strong smell wafted out.

Ironically, the blasphemy against God returned as a savory meat smell, even though it smelled gamey.

“Do you feel God’s wrath?”

Leo trembled, but cautiously opened his eyes and shook his head.

I smiled and patted him on the back to send him back, and met each of the gazes focused on me.

Gulp…

Someone couldn’t resist their instincts at the smell of boiling meat and swallowed their saliva in hunger.

Was it just saliva? I could hear the sound of stomachs growling.

‘What value is there in a belief that can’t even satisfy hunger?’

I sneered without saying a word.

“I said I would protect you who live in my land. Humans who live in my land do not worship wolves. Humans will worship humans, but they will not worship animals. If you cannot follow these words, leave immediately.”

“……”

No one answered my words.

Instead, they trembled their eyes, their shoulders, and their legs, revealing their fear.

It must be the appearance of the faith that remained until the very end refusing to be abandoned.

I erased my solemn expression, put on a benevolent look, and lowered my voice.

“I am different from the self-proclaimed god who you believe in but does not reveal his appearance or voice. I am here in front of you. And I promised to protect you from being hunted. And I will give you land so that you don’t eat your neighbors because you can’t overcome hunger. Are you still worried even with this?”

The trembling stopped.

The pioneers looked at each other and cautiously took the meat.

And when someone put a piece of meat into the boiling water like Leo, they started putting it in one after another.

The action stopped when the pot was so full that the water was about to overflow.

“…Horbid-siyeo.”

Belatedly, someone else chanted the name of the wolf out of anxiety.

Perhaps a punishment would be imposed for the sin of violating God’s children.

As Leo did, they were afraid, but soon the anxiety disappeared when nothing happened, and a sense of relief as if they had put down a heavy burden was revealed on everyone’s face.

With that, I was sure that their faith in wolves had disappeared.

‘Humans are free beings. Even if they have no choice but to worship someone, they should target the same humans. How can they worship a dog?’

I leaned against the fence, watching them take out the well-cooked meat and share it.

A boy approached me with a slightly frightened expression and handed me a bowl of porridge.

“E, eat it…”

I looked down at the bowl of porridge.

It was a yellowish wooden bowl.

Inside was porridge made of oats and wolf meat.

In my previous life, oats meant oatmeal, and oatmeal meant health food.

But here, oats were a symbol of poverty.

It was a crop used as livestock feed, and if there was no livestock, it was used as food.

Even now is the time to start sowing oats.

It is obvious what kind of taste the long-stored grains will have.

I took the bowl and took a bite, suppressing the urge to frown without realizing it.

‘It’s not good.’

Only the rough oats and dry meat taste lingered in my mouth.

‘I’ll make you something separate.’

Calliope’s thoughts were read.

‘It’s okay.’

I looked at the pioneers sitting on the dirt floor and eating.

They were smiling, wondering what was so good.

Was it because they ate this smelly meat?

Or was it because I promised to protect them?

Either way, a sense of complexity welled up inside me as I looked at them.

It was an emotion I hadn’t felt when I accepted Deus Ex as a game.

A comedy from afar, a tragedy from up close.

Now that the virtual has become reality, so close that it’s indistinguishable, I was just a human.

In a world where humans live inhuman lives.

‘If they need it, they take them as slaves, they have a duty to be hunted but no rights, and it’s natural to be bitten to death by a dog for religious reasons? How ridiculous do they see humans as?’

It was not simply because humans were weak and other races were violent.

It was because humans themselves gave up resistance and sold each other to protect themselves.

‘Even rabbits bite foxes when cornered. But the humans of this world. The kings, nobles, and priests have never bitten once. When they had to bite and resist, they sold their own kind to seek safety. With that kind of mind, how can I say that the race that is king, noble, and powerful is not a monkey?’

I suppressed the rising disgust and put the lukewarm oat porridge in my mouth.

‘Humans should never be treated like this. Humans were not born to be used as slaves. Human potential is infinite. If we can gather the skills that are being eroded from within and release them to the outside. No race will ever look down on humans.’

Therefore, humanity must be united.

We must eliminate the parasites that are eating away at humanity and unite the divided world into one.

‘And I will have to do it.’