Building A Human Empire By Creating A Clan [EN]: Chapter 43

It’s been months since I last spoke with the Lord.

The jewel containing Tiamar’s soul was made into a pendant.

I couldn’t entrust it to anyone else, so I wear it myself.

I analyzed its structure while making it into a pendant, but I couldn’t figure anything out.

Even the familiars saw it as nothing more than a jewel.

To anyone, it was just a skillfully crafted gem.

Could Tiamar’s soul really be in there?

‘The Lord has no reason to lie.’

I could find out for sure if I broke it.

But there’s no need to do that.

I lowered my hand, which had been caressing the pendant.

“Oh, the texture is quite nice.”

The familiars gathered in the Lord’s manor were fiddling with documents.

They seemed more interested in the paper the content was written on than the content itself.

Until recently, discussions had been verbal, so it was understandable.

There was parchment and papyrus, but the supply was far from sufficient.

The inability to meet demand caused considerable inconvenience.

Especially for Gerhard, who had established the Governor-General’s office and was managing it.

“Did Pasimea make this?”

“More precisely, Pasimea’s apprentices made it.”

“Oh ho…”

The familiars looked at Pasimea.

She was just about to take a sip from her teacup.

Startled by the sudden attention, she coughed.

But she quickly composed herself, raised one corner of her mouth, and boasted.

“Well, this is a simple task for me.”

“……”

No one offered a word of praise and turned away.

“What’s the production volume?”

“Teaching apprentices means you’re not making it yourself?”

“That’s even better. It means there’s a dedicated workforce for production.”

Pasimea frowned as she watched the familiars whispering among themselves.

She didn’t like the lack of expected response and the feeling of being left out, so she banged on the table to get their attention.

“Of course! You have no idea how much I suffered to build that factory!”

I smiled and nodded at Pasimea’s grumbling.

She was showing off a bit, but it was understandable.

‘It wasn’t just about knowing the method and teaching it.’

How easy would it have been if it ended with just saying how to do it.

Reality wasn’t so simple.

Since the location was the Great Plains, the materials were the first problem.

‘Paper doesn’t use incredibly special materials, but since we had to make a lot of it, even those unremarkable materials were needed in large quantities.’

At first, I tried to make paper from tree bark.

I thought it would be easy to make using mulberry bark as a raw material.

However, it was an environment where even mulberry trees were rare, let alone paper mulberry trees [a specific type of mulberry tree used for papermaking].

I was faced with a wall from the start.

There was no way to plant trees now.

– If paper mulberry doesn’t work… we can make it from hemp fiber!

Hemp was a common plant in the Great Plains and Northern Wallachia.

And its uses were not limited to those two regions but were used nationwide.

The thread made by extracting and twisting hemp stalk fibers, and the cloth made by weaving that thread, were hemp cloth, linen, ramie, etc.

– Everyone wears clothes, right?

That’s what Pasimea said, and she pioneered a route to secure raw materials.

It wasn’t a simple task of cultivating hemp and extracting fibers.

She chose a method of collecting discarded clothing, that is, rags, and using them as raw materials.

– This is less labor-intensive. And economical.

‘I wondered how many rags would come out of Ollimorphous, which has a population of only a few thousand, and how much paper could be made from the rags that come out of here.’

Pasimea didn’t just target the rags coming out of Ollimorphous.

She tried to collect rags from all over the Great Plains and Northern Wallachia.

It seemed like an absurd plan, but there was a very easy way.

– Edar, you have a familiar transport unit, right? Can I use it?

The familiar transport unit was an organization formed for tribute and supply.

The noble class disappeared along with the merchant Pinto.

The trading companies they had formed also disappeared, and logistics were temporarily disrupted.

To fill that gap, I created a transport unit with familiars to travel throughout the Great Plains and Northern Wallachia.

They mainly bought agricultural tools and livestock from Turan and sold them cheaply in the provinces.

Pasimea issued a decree to these people to buy the rags from the villages and cities they visited and bring them to Ollimorphous on the days they came to pay tribute.

– The transport unit goes back and forth anyway, right? And the territory residents earn pocket money, so it’s a win-win.

After the raw materials were secured, it was smooth sailing.

She designed a paper mill and selected people to become apprentices.

After annihilating the Steel Mist Tribe, there were countless refugees.

The most suitable people among those who desperately wanted to learn were selected by Pasimea, and after she directly educated them, this is what came out.

“You’ve worked hard, Pasimea.”

“Hmph. You’re stating the obvious.”

Pasimea turned her head slightly and scratched her nose.

“You’re not going to be satisfied with just this, are you?”

“Of course.”

I chuckled at her embarrassed attitude.

“Let’s stop talking about paper. There’s too much to say in the future… everyone, check from the first page. The overall status is written there.”

“Ahem, I suppose it’s my turn first.”

Griff got up from his seat and cleared his throat.

“Since it’s the beginning of the beginning. I’ll start with some amazing news. The population of Ollimorphous has increased a lot. Really a lot.”

“How much?”

Griff grinned at Pasimea’s question.

“30 times. Based on the day Edar took office.”

A Step Towards Dismantling Feudalism

Griff shrugged his shoulders in front of the exclaiming familiars.

“Amazing, isn’t it?”

“30 times… that’s quite an increase.”

Gerhard applauded.

“Well. It’s only based on the time of appointment, so if you base it on the time immediately after recovering Baguku’s base, it’s about 4 times.”

“Even so, it’s considerable.”

I nodded at Gerhard’s words.

“It’s thanks to wiping out the Steel Mist Tribe. There were hundreds of slaves liberated from Baguku’s base, so how many would there have been in Ugdash’s main base?”

“Indeed. That merchant sold a lot of his own people.”

“Yes, the number of liberated slaves was greater than the entire population of the Great Plains territory.”

I tapped the item indicating the population of the Great Plains territory with my index finger.

[Oroko Great Plains, Population Change by Region]

Ollimorphous: 1,025 -> 4,759

Lagoa: 106 -> 627

Anbas: 91 -> 436

…

…

…

‘The total population of the Oroko Great Plains is 17,557.’

This figure is, of course, limited to my territory in the Great Plains.

‘It’s really increased a lot.’

I put down the document.

Nearly 4,000 people have increased in Ollimorphous alone in a few months.

The other villages have increased by as little as 50 and as many as 500.

The total population at the time of appointment was about 5,000, so it has more than tripled.

‘The vast majority of these are liberated slaves.’

There’s no way it could have increased this much through childbirth in just a few months.

Most of them were slaves liberated while wiping out the Steel Mist Tribe.

The tribe, which numbered in the tens of thousands, had thousands of slaves.

Most of them were settled in Ollimorphous, and some were dispersed and settled in the surrounding villages.

‘The rest are immigrants. The number of immigrants has surged as we occupied Northern Wallachia and started building the walls.’

Ollimorphous alone receives dozens of immigrants every day.

And that number is gradually increasing.

It would be an unmanageable number for a normal territory.

It was an absurd immigration offensive, but

I somehow managed to accommodate it.

‘The funds are sufficient. It’s thanks to preparing supplies through Turan.’

In fact, there was a moment when those funds were on the verge of running out.

However, the situation has stabilized to the point where we can continue the rationing system until the next harvest season by mining the gold mine in Lagoa.

‘We can’t be satisfied here. We need to attract more immigration to the point where we can shout that we’ll move half the population of Northern Wallachia here.’

“Griff.”

Griff looked up at my gaze while reading the document.

“Are the liberated slaves adapting well?”

“Well… they are adapting well. There are minor problems, though.”

“Minor problems?”

“There are so many of them. They can’t help but clash with the existing settlers. Besides, most of them are experiencing mental problems.”

That’s right.

It would be different if they had become slaves from pioneers like the blacksmith Dylan.

Most of them were slaves and serfs from birth in Wallachia.

Their way of thinking was very different from that of pioneers or free people.

It was likely that the atmosphere would be strange since so many of them had moved in.

“Is there any conflict?”

“It’s not that kind of problem. You know… how humans see Edar. It’s just noisy because they’re singing hymns all day long.”

I chuckled and shook my head.

“Religion…”

The majority, no, all of the liberated slaves had religion.

That religion was not an existing one like the Wolf Cult but a new religion.

It was a ridiculous thing that had not yet properly established a name or doctrine.

I wanted to say that it was truly rootless, but I couldn’t.

‘The object of their belief is me.’

Chuckles kept rising, but I held them back.

It was inevitable, and it was something I had condoned.

Most of the liberated slaves were people whose limbs were not intact.

Many were so severely injured that it was fortunate if they were only ‘not intact.’

Caring for these people required considerable labor, so I felt sympathy but couldn’t easily do anything about it.

‘At this time, it was Kistler and Rachel who volunteered to take care of them.’

Instead, they took the warehouse to use as a clinic.

I knew that they were going to use it as a chapel in reality.

However, there was no better way to heal those who were mentally wounded like Dylan’s wife, to reform those who could not abandon the idea of being slaves, and to prevent them from falling into alien religions.

‘If I leave them alone, alien religions will infiltrate. It’s better to make them believe in me than that.’

Calliope said, ‘It’s better than worshiping dogs.’

I agreed with that statement, so I condoned Kistler and Rachel.

And as a result, the liberated slaves fell into a new religion.

“Also, some people feel intimidated because the sect is so large.”

“Hmm.”

I tapped the table with an unlit cigarette.

The initial population of Ollimorphous was only about 100 people.

The current population is over 4,000, and the vast majority are liberated slaves.

It was a situation that could be unsettling from the perspective of the existing settlers.

However, I understood the inside story from Griff’s words.

“Who feels intimidated?”

It wasn’t just me who noticed that.

Rachel, who occupied one side of the seat, frowned and asked.

“Isn’t it you who feels intimidated? I know you don’t like my activities. But you have to say it right. Who among the territory residents hates us? How helpful are my children [followers]?”

Rachel raised her voice.

“I guarantee you, they are much, much more helpful than you.”

Griff shrugged his shoulders and swallowed his words.

‘That’s not wrong. It’s a great help that the liberated slaves are helping the familiars.’

Free people also help the familiars, but the scale of labor and the way they handle things with faith and numbers is incomparable to that of the liberated slaves.

‘But there’s no way Griff doesn’t know that. The reason he’s trying to keep Rachel in check is probably because of religion.’

Griff hated the fact that familiars or humans worshiped me.

The worship I’m talking about here refers to seeing me as an object of faith.

He hated seeing me as an object of blind faith.

‘All the familiars regard me as their creator and master, but their attitudes toward me are different. Griff tends to regard his relationship with me as familial.’

Griff and Pasimea regard me as family,

Rachel as an object of faith,

Gerhard as an object of loyalty,

‘Calliope is…’

Calliope, who was standing behind me, gently placed her hand on my shoulder.

She was trying to cut off my thoughts by reading my thoughts.

I patted the back of her hand and smiled lightly.

“That’s enough.”

I stopped Griff and Rachel, who were arguing.

“I know what you’re thinking, so I won’t say anything more. Let’s move on to the next discussion.”