The Main Force

After conducting more tests, Gawain decided there was no need to continue verifying it.

Rebecca could not establish a connection with the crystal.

He had Amber come over and try as well, but the result was the same.

It seemed that aside from himself, no one could contact the mysterious monitoring station high in the sky even if they touched the crystal. Then why had Gawain Cecil from seven hundred years ago left this crystal behind?

Gawain believed there were only two possible answers. Either Gawain Cecil from seven hundred years ago had been special, with a unique way of using these crystals, or... these crystals had not been for Gawain Cecil himself, but had been left for him seven hundred years later...

The second answer was especially chilling.

"Ancestor..." Rebecca looked uneasily at the old forefather before her. She had just gone through a baffling series of tests. Though she did not know their purpose, she could clearly tell they had failed, and she feared she had disappointed her ancestor again. "Is it because my talent is too poor, so..."

"No, it has nothing to do with you. Didn't Amber try too?" Gawain suppressed the thoughts churning in his mind and comforted the girl. "This crystal was never meant for ordinary people in the first place. I merely had a whim and asked you to try it. By the way, tell me the results of your survey outside."

At the mention of this, Rebecca immediately brightened. "Right, right, I was just about to tell you! Ancestor, did you know from the start that the land here had already been purified? I searched within the area you marked out and found that it was all uncontaminated land. The terrain is open and flat, and water is easy to obtain. The farmers who came with me said this is the best place for reclaiming land..."

Gawain was not surprised by that answer. Of course, he knew what the situation here was.

At least ten years ago, the pollution in this area had already receded—though no one in the kingdom knew it.

It was unknown when the Magic Tide's influence around the Dark Mountains had faded, but this place had still been a Contaminated Zone at least one hundred years ago. Records from an outpost left behind by the then-still-prosperous Cecil Family proved as much. It was precisely because the Magic Tide pollution had still remained at the time that the Mountain Treasury had survived to this day. Otherwise, the Moen Family might have retrieved those ancient supplies long ago. Then, after the Cecil Family underwent its great upheaval and the Moen legacy was cut off, no one knew the secret of the Mountain Treasury any longer. The kingdom completely abandoned the southern region, that hopeless mess plagued by pollution and disasters year after year, so naturally no one noticed the Magic Tide's retreat.

After all, the "Unclean Wind" still blew over the Dark Mountains every year on schedule. Even though the pollution in the soil had receded, the poisonous dust storms meant this was still no good place for settlement.

Gawain could only be certain of one thing: in the overhead view stored in his mind, there had been no pollution here ten years ago.

The nearest noble territory was Tanzan Town of the Leslie Family. According to Ansu law, nobles large and small along the southern border were also responsible for monitoring the Gondor Contaminated Zone. Thus, Gawain guessed that Viscount Andrew must have known more or less about the Magic Tide's weakening influence. However, to that traditional noble, who lived comfortably off his mines, this temporarily stable land was probably still not worth investing in. Furthermore, the era's wave of frontier expansion had already cooled, so the viscount had likely never sent anyone here to inspect the situation at all...

Gawain nodded and looked at Rebecca. "For now, the confirmed safe area is the portion I marked out. The pollution farther out should have receded as well, but we must wait until the main force arrives before surveying it carefully. Do not go over there yet."

The clear overhead view in his mind was from ten years ago. The Contaminated Zone should have continued shrinking over those ten years, but as for exactly how much... given that the satellite view had turned into a "Magic Imaging Map" and could not be adjusted, Gawain had no way to determine that for now. He could only make arrangements this way.

Time continued to pass. Through Heti's vigorous promotion and a period of adjustment among the people in the territory, the new work system finally began to show results. The workers started to realize that labor meant better rations, while the "clever" ones trying to exploit loopholes and loaf around under the new system realized that something was even more painful than drinking vegetable soup while watching others eat meat: going hungry while watching others drink vegetable soup. To Gawain, their clumsy tricks were hardly clever, and the punishments he imposed had never spared anyone's feelings.

This concerned everyone's future survival. There could be no room for leniency.

Because of the new system's effectiveness, the outpost camp was completed at an astonishing speed and prepared for the arrival of the main force. Under Gawain's plans, the fences around the camp had been extended several hundred meters to the south and east. Large open areas had been left for the seven hundred people to come and pitch tents, while space had also been reserved for carpenters', masons', and blacksmiths' sheds, along with new storage areas for supplies. He also ordered a small temporary wooden dock built where the camp faced the riverbank, with a sawmill constructed nearby to process lumber floated downstream from the logging site in the western forest.

Of course, both the dock and the sawmill existed only on paper for now. One hundred laborers were simply too few. Even with Heti's magical assistance, building the camp left them stretched thin. At times like this, Gawain sincerely wished Rebecca could cast some spell other than a fireball...

Standing on the high ground by the riverbank, Gawain watched a large wooden plank structure being completed in the distance. It was one of the few buildings in the camp that could truly be called a house, and it was a very large one. It and the wide open area around it would serve as a temporary smithy for some time to come. Although the Mountain Treasury contained many smelted Metal Ingots, they were difficult to use in camp construction. Most were mithril, adamantine, red copper, and Purple Steel. No matter how broad-minded Gawain was, he could not possibly melt those things down to make nails, could he?

The iron mine in the east had completed its preliminary survey. Though it was not yet time to excavate it into a proper mine, they could still bring back some ore to assess its quality. The first batch of ore had now been dug out. Once the blacksmiths built their furnaces, Cecil Territory would have entered the Iron Age...

What a headache.

Thinking of the Magic Tide that might arrive at any time and the mysterious monitoring station in the sky, then looking at the slowly progressing frontier camp before him, Gawain could not help shaking his head and sighing.

Amber, who was standing beside him with a hand shading her eyes while staring at who knew what, noticed Gawain's movement. She turned and frowned at him. "What are you sighing for? Can't I rest here for a while?"

"Could you stop assuming the worst of me?" Gawain gave her a helpless look. "When have I ever truly exploited you?"

"Arguing with you is fun!" Amber said righteously. "You're the first great noble I've ever seen who can trade barbs with people without getting angry. It feels so fresh!"

Gawain turned his head away and ignored her.

Amber, however, had no intention of giving up. "Hey, hey, you still haven't said it. What were you sighing for?"

"Too slow." Gawain shook his head. "It is far too slow."

Amber's eyes widened. "You mean their work speed? This is slow?!"

Then she wildly waved her arms. "Do you even have a conscience?! These are the fastest-working serfs and laborers I have ever seen in my life! Yesterday, they finished all the added fence walls in less than a day, and today they started building the smithy. Do you know how insanely fast that is?"

Then she muttered, "Before, when I saw you feeding them meat, banning whipping punishments, and all that, I thought you really were a good person..."

Gawain glanced at her. "I am a good person, and I was not blaming them for working poorly. I'm not blind. I can see they have not been slacking off. But overall... it is a fact that the construction of this camp cannot keep up with my plans."

"Your plans were unrealistic to begin with." Amber curled her lips, then looked at Gawain suspiciously. "Come to think of it, I thought something was off before... You've been acting strange these past two days. You always look as though something is weighing on your mind, and you've drawn all sorts of bizarre things on paper. Especially this morning. The camp had barely gotten its frame up, yet you were already considering building a Barbacane... What are you panicking about?"

Without turning around, Gawain said, "I'm panicking about the end of the world, the sky falling, and visitors from beyond the heavens. Is that good enough for you?"

"You just won't admit it. Hmph. But I've been watching, and you are panicking." Amber put her hands on her hips. "Let me think when it started... Ah, right, when Sunspots appeared on the sun! You've been restless ever since then..."

This time, Gawain was genuinely a little surprised. He looked Amber up and down. "Do you spend all your free time watching me?"

"Who has that kind of free time?" Amber put her hands on her hips. "But your changes are impossible to hide from anyone, okay? In fact, those two great-granddaughters of yours from who knows how many generations down the line noticed too. They just did not dare ask you..."

Gawain froze. "Really? Has it become that obvious?"

After a brief moment of surprise, he could not help reflecting on the changes in his state of mind lately and considering how he ought to adjust. Amber, meanwhile, pinched her chin and thought for a while before suddenly asking, "What exactly were those visitors from beyond the heavens you just mentioned?"

Gawain: "..."

Why was this woman's reaction time as erratic as Brownian motion, sometimes long and sometimes short? When she had not responded just now, he had thought she had not paid attention to that phrase at all...

Just then, a small figure suddenly appeared at the edge of Gawain's vision. The little maid Betty, dressed in a coarse cloth skirt, was trotting toward them.

The little girl ran up to Gawain, took several deep breaths, then blinked her big eyes and said blankly, "Lady Heti asked you to come over."

"What does she want?"

Betty thought for a moment. "I forgot!"

Gawain: "..."

At that moment, Amber suddenly noticed that Betty's hands were empty and could not help asking curiously, "Where's your precious frying pan?"

Betty raised her head and answered with a serious expression, "Miss Rebecca said this is our new home. Since we're home, I put the frying pan in the kitchen."

When she went out with everyone, she had to carry the cooking utensils. Once they got home, she put them back in the kitchen—that was what Mrs. Hanson had taught her.

But Gawain already knew why Heti had summoned him.

He had already seen the figures appearing in the distance to the west.

The second group... had finally arrived.