Potatoes

Potatoes

After everyone had sworn to renounce their noble status, Ryan looked at them with a sudden thought.

"According to the oath you just made, swear it again before the Spirit of the Stag of the Axeniel Continent."

Though they did not understand why, Baron Azur and the others complied.

Ryan looked at his Spirituality Panel. Well, there was no reaction.

With an oath witnessed by the Lord of Dawn, these people would have no power to resist him within his territory.

Ryan looked at the soldiers and maids around him.

"You heard it too. From now on, you are my soldiers and slaves."

The soldiers exchanged glances, then one after another dropped to one knee and swore their loyalty to Ryan.

"Good."

Ryan found a leather stool and sat down. This time, however, the former nobles all remained standing, not daring to overstep their bounds.

"You are all Mage Apprentices? That makes sense. There is no longer any possibility of becoming knights here."

"Tell me about this place. Are there any other noble territories nearby? I need people right now."

"Where... should I begin?"

Everyone looked at Azur, as though he was the only one with even the slightest connection to Ryan.

After a brief pause, Azur said,

"What Lord Ryan wants to know should be what lies around us besides our territory."

"Then... let me start from a month ago."

"A month ago, this place was still prosperous. We had over eight hundred slaves and more than two hundred soldiers. Aside from us, there were five or six other baronial lords at the time."

"There were another four or five noble territories nearby. About a dozen miles south stood a Mage Tower. In exchange for Gold Coins, they taught us the Meditation Technique."

"Further south, we do not know. But the mages from the Mage Tower said that on the southern coast stood Furnace City, where underground fire burned and winter's cold could not reach."

"But everything changed one day a month ago."

"A group of followers of evil devils came to us. They invited us to offer sacrifices to the devils, saying we would receive food and fire. But what they truly wanted was to burn the slaves and even the commoners to death, then eat them. Their flames burned brightly and drove away the cold only because they were fueled by corpse oil."

"When we refused, they wanted to attack us. And among us, several barons were tempted as well."

"They incited all the slaves to open the gates. After eating human flesh, the slaves followed those Cultists away."

"None of us were willing to eat people. We would rather starve to death. We hid deep within the fortress and waited until they had opened the granary and carried away all the food before we came out."

"We tried to seek help from the Mage Tower, but the place where it stood had already become ruins. A Golem Puppet had occupied it."

"Then we hid back in the fortress until today."

It was a simple tale of surviving the apocalypse and the misfortune they had encountered. Hearing that they had done nothing evil even after running out of food, Ryan could not help but view them more highly.

It seemed these people still possessed the pride and convictions of nobles, even the faith of knights.

Those Cultists had helped him select people.

Even in the depths of despair and hunger, these people had remained rational.

"Where did these potatoes come from?"

Ryan pointed at the spotless plates on the table.

"Potatoes? You mean those berries?"

"When we went to the Mage Tower for help, we did not find any mages, but we found these... potatoes. There were several hundred pounds of them, all stored there."

Azur pointed behind Ryan. Ryan turned and saw a massive stag statue, along with the cabinet beneath it.

He opened it and took a look. They really were potatoes. Yet somehow, these people had kept the potatoes from sprouting when they should have.

Was that normal? Was it not?

Ryan did not know. He only knew from memories of his previous life that in a place called Siberia, potatoes feared the cold even less than people did.

To be safe, Ryan looked at the clearly treated potatoes and asked for the location of the Mage Tower.

"Gather the soldiers here, then follow me."

Ryan looked at a soldier beside him, then at Azur.

"Use this time to pack up your belongings. Do not forget that you traded all your property for this chance. You will have no opportunity to return here in the future, so do not leave anything behind."

The few of them nodded silently, seemingly not yet recovered from losing their noble status and all their possessions.

Amid the wind and snow, Ryan and his Knight Retainers followed behind thirty soldiers. Unlike Ryan's group, every one of those soldiers had ropes tied around their bodies.

"Looks like those people were able to eat only because of these soldiers."

Brandt spoke softly. He understood very well what such practiced movements meant in a world where ordinary people could see no farther than fifty meters.

"They are good soldiers."

Harrington spoke as well. He wanted to compete with Brandt in everything.

After walking for roughly two and a half hours, Ryan finally saw a stretch of collapsed ruins. A month of fierce wind and snow had buried its uneven contours, leaving only faint traces of the grand buildings that had once stood there.

"This is where we found the potatoes."

A soldier pointed toward a corner of the ruins. "The snow was not this deep back then. There was a stove there that seemed able to keep out the cold. The potatoes were there."

"Where is the Golem Puppet you mentioned?"

Ryan looked around, unable to find any trace of a monster.

"I-I don't know."

A month of relentless wind and snow had drastically changed this place.

"Perhaps it left. Spread out and search carefully, but do not go too far."

As soon as Ryan finished speaking, the soldiers scattered. Their method of searching was primitive: they carefully tested the depth of the ground beneath the snow, then felt around with their hands.

Compared to them, the five Bronze Knights of the Clayton Family had a much more convenient method. The Flame Dragon Breathing Technique gave them blazing energy, allowing them to melt the surrounding snow with ease.

"My lord, this seems to be a cellar."

Harrington soon called out in delighted surprise.

Once they confirmed that there really was a hidden space below, Ryan gathered everyone together. When the cellar was opened, the pitch-black entrance made them wary.

This had been a mage's domain. No one knew whether terrifying spells or traps lay inside.

In the end, the soldiers took the lead.

"My lord, it is safe below."

After safety was confirmed, Ryan and the others began entering the cellar as well.

Oil lamps were still burning inside. By their light, Ryan saw a table, a notebook on top of it, and three treasure chests in the corner, filled to the brim with sprouted potatoes.