BXBX NOVEL Chapter 69 - 65: Found the Control Tower_l
The Minotaur auntie scooped out some holy water with a ladle and skillfully watered the sacred mushrooms with it. After she finished watering all of them, she noticed a bit of holy water still left at the bottom of the bucket, which she decided to drink straight away. The pure holy water didn’t have much taste, but it was absolutely clean and wouldn’t upset her stomach even if she drank it frequently.
After drinking, the Minotaur auntie patted her belly and let out a burp, causing the fat around her waist to ripple in waves.
“Eh, have I gained weight again?” she exclaimed with delight, patting herself again. She lifted up the heavy mounds on her chest, adjusted her dress a bit to make it looser and hid her belly. After that, she peered around a bit guiltily to ensure no one was watching before finally letting out a sigh of relief. She could hardly bear it if someone saw the bit of fat she had managed to accumulate.
Just then, a tall and slim female Minotaur approached quickly. Upon seeing the
Minotaur auntie, her eyes brightened and she shouted from a distance, “Sister!”
The Minotaur auntie turned pale with fright, immediately making a motion to cover her mouth. She sheepishly glanced towards the temple and noticed the Silver Skeleton lifting his head to look at her.
The Minotaur auntie immediately turned to run towards the slim Minotaur, covering her mouth and dragging her away.
“Are you crazy, you can’t yell around the temple,” the Minotaur auntie scolded, her voice so loud it echoed.
Despite the term “sister,” the slim Minotaur wasn’t actually Minotaur auntie’s biological sister. In the Minotaur tribe who worshipped their ancestors, all members of the same generation were considered siblings. Let’s call her Minotaur sister.
“Didn’t you hear? The leaders are planning to excavate that old ruin. They’re recruiting people to dig, promising two pounds of food per day, and there are rewards for those who dig the most. Do you want to come along?” the Minotaur sister asked excitedly.
Two pounds? Isn’t that less than the amount of beet leaves she usually sneaks every day?
“No, I’m busy working at the temple, I can’t leave,” came the reply.
“Oh come on, how much can that old temple even pay you? Is it enough to feed yourself? Don’t starve yourself thin. The two pounds of food from the excavation site is just the minimum. If you work more, you get more rewards. Considering our strength as Minotaurs, we could easily earn those rewards. I heard the reward is a chance to eat till you’re full. My God, I don’t remember the last time I could eat until I was full. Oh, have you put on some weight, sister?” The Minotaur sister patted her emaciated shoulders as she spoke.
The moment Minotaur sister mentioned ‘starvation’, Minotaur auntie instinctively sucked in her belly. The phrase ‘eat till you’re full’ brought her shame; she had been eating to her heart’s content recently, putting on weight as a result.
When Minotaur sister called her ‘fat’ , Minotaur auntie hurriedly denied it: “No, no, that’s nonsense. This is just water weight due to starvation, water weight I tell you. But regardless, I’m not going. The temple has entrusted the sacred duty of watering and caring for the crops to me. Even if I starve to death, I can’t abandon that duty. You can take big boy one and two instead. They have big appetites and strength, they can eat and work.”
When the two big tubbies from the Minotaur auntie’s family were taken away, they whimpered pitifully, realizing that they’d no longer get to eat their fill or nibble on beet leaves. From now on, they could only labor hard for their two pounds of food.
Almost everyone in Witch City was mobilized, from strong Minotaurs to the young, old, sick, and pregnant. It didn’t matter if they could work or not, as long as they came they’d receive a pound of food, two pounds if they could work and rewards for those who toiled the most. The one who worked the hardest could eat their fill.
Wasn’t this supposed to be a recruitment of labor? It felt more like a form of disguised relief, an attempt to provide aid through work.
Two days later, people from Ice City arrived, and everyone was actively working. They dug up the sand and temporarily piled it nearby. They quickly unearthed a piece of construction under the Divine Seat and stayed there overnight whenever the Resting Wind blew.
The more people that came, the faster the excavation progress, the more buildings were unearthed, and the more people could be accommodated.
The former world transit station was home to tens of thousands of residents. It was only abandoned due to the incessant Resting Wind making maintenance too costly. But the buildings were still intact. The construction quality of the Undead Empire was indeed excellent; a quick clean-up of the unearthed buildings and they could be used again.
The major part of the maintenance costs was labor. With a crowd of starving people now here, labor was no longer a problem, especially since Lisa strongly insisted on it.
“This is the perfect solution,” she explained, “It solves the labor problem and gives everyone something to do. We certainly can’t afford to keep them idle, not even the elderly and children. Otherwise, it would be very easy to have problems. We should keep them busy, so busy that they’d fall asleep as soon as they laid down, giving them no time to think about idle nonsense.”
Lisa had experience in large-scale relief efforts and knew that keeping people busy after a disaster was better than letting them be idle, as the latter could easily cause confusion.
Some strong individuals with experience in farming were organized. As soon as the Resting Wind stopped, they would get up immediately to sow and water the crops, while Ange only needed to walk over and step a footprint. That resulted in a miracle.
When the crops matured, undead beings would come and remove the footprint, putting an end to the Instant Death Halo, and then harvest quickly.
With everyone’s cooperation, Ange could farm three times a day, totaling about nine hundred mu, but he could only experience the joy of harvesting once.
Because the Instant Death Halo could only be activated once at a time. When it stopped at one place, he could rush to the next plot to start it up again, not needing to participate in the harvesting.
That wasn’t great though, but he couldn’t explain why.
Fortunately, Negris understood his feelings: “For you, farming is a source of joy. But when you are forced to farm, it becomes a pain. Moreover, it is missing the most joyful part: the harvesting. Maybe it’d be better if you just farm once a day by yourself. ”
“Oh,” Ange agreed with the logic and decided the next day to farm by himself and not let humans help. As a result, the planting area dropped back to two hundred mu a day.
Anna looked concerned: “Why won’t he let us help anymore? The production is so low. The rice grown is so delicious, why not plant more?”
“Sir must have deeper intentions,” Luther contemplated, “He’s communicating to us through this action; we should not become dependent, our fate has to be in our own hands. How wise. Anna, we should also organize a workforce to rebuild the destroyed farm, shouldn’t we?”
Anna rolled her eyes: “We’ve already started rebuilding; we will just be able to commence the sowing as soon as spring arrives next year. It’s too late for now.”
Luther scratched his head and praised her: “Anna, you are indeed more capable. You think ahead and plan well. I can rest assured with Ice City in your hands.”
Anna retorted: “Don’t you think about shirking responsibility; you are the rightful heir.”
Before Anna could finish, someone hurried in with a report: “Lord, we’ve uncovered the control tower of the teleportation array, but there’s something inside. It’s already killed two of our people.”
Luther immediately responded: “Notify Sir!”