Commercial Acumen

The Odyssey Region was a place where various powers were tangled together, not one that had completely lost all order.

Thugs and the alien races each had their own rules of conduct.

For example, the Pioneer Territory, a holy land to thugs, was a place of order with its own rules.

The Pioneer Territory was a remnant of the Gewalt Federation's attempts to reclaim the Odyssey Region.

In those years, countless ambitious knights with dreams came to the Odyssey Region with their teams, hoping to make a name for themselves.

After that war, the Odyssey became a buffer zone between the Gewalt Federation and the Alien Kingdom. The Alien Kingdom could hardly stand by and watch the Pioneers reclaim the Odyssey.

Without a doubt, they all failed. Some died in the Odyssey, while others fled back to the Gewalt Federation.

The followers and subjects they had brought with them were mercilessly abandoned in the Odyssey, where they became drifters. They were the predecessors of the Odyssey's thug gangs.

Likewise, the Gewalt Federation would never allow the Alien Kingdom to occupy the Odyssey.

Caught between the competing powers, the Odyssey became home to drifters and native tribes.

The Pioneer Territories left behind by the Pioneers were occupied by large drifter groups. Some became thug gangs, while others maintained self-governing strongholds.

The leaders of those large thug gangs and strongholds had pacts between them. They maintained peace on the surface and joined forces against outside enemies.

Of course, thugs didn't call themselves thugs. The thug gangs in the Pioneer Territory called themselves mercenary groups.

There was a certain amount of order in the Pioneer Territory, but backstabbing between its factions was very common.

Over the years, some factions had become history, while powerful thug gangs had also moved into the Pioneer Territory.

As time passed, the Pioneer Territory grew several times larger than before, becoming humanity's largest stronghold in the Odyssey.

Most of the mercenary-group and stronghold leaders in the Pioneer Territory had connections with nobles from the Gewalt Federation.

They often took nobles' bounties and engaged in highly profitable businesses like slave trafficking and smuggling.

Sometimes, they acted as black hands, taking money to deal with Pioneers who had been exiled by certain noble families.

Medivh's uncle Wester had hired a mercenary group from the Pioneer Territory at great expense, planning to give him a surprise.

Unfortunately, Wester had miscalculated. Medivh hadn't naively gone to the Pioneer Territory; instead, he had headed elsewhere.

"Captain, someone spotted a skeleton roaming the Wilderness."

That day, the Blood Crow Mercenary Group's intelligence chief came to see their captain with the information he had just gathered.

"A skeleton? What does that have to do with us?"

The captain of the Blood Crow Mercenary Group looked puzzled. The undead were no longer a threat in this day and age, and they were no longer the embodiment of fear. There was no reason to take them seriously.

What did a skeleton appearing in the Wilderness have to do with the Blood Crow Mercenary Group?

Had someone they killed turned into a skeleton?

That would be pretty funny, wouldn't it? With a skeleton's frame, could it really come looking for revenge?

"Have you forgotten the Hobarton Family's job? That Pioneer named Medivh is a Necromancer Apprentice!"

The Blood Crow Captain clearly hadn't given the matter much thought, so his subordinate reminded him.

"Oh, you mean that job!"

"We've already completed it. If Wester still wants to kill his nephew, he'll have to pay extra!"

The Blood Crow Captain's scruffy face broke into a strangely sly grin as he came to his senses.

It was hard to imagine that this unkempt, burly man had so many schemes up his sleeve.

They had already followed Wester's additional instructions and searched all the way from the Pioneer Territory to Winter Canyon, but hadn't found Medivh.

According to the contract, they had fulfilled their end of the job, and Medivh was presumed dead.

Now that Medivh seemed to have risen from the dead, it was a separate deal.

If Wester didn't pay extra, the Blood Crow Mercenary Group wouldn't waste its time searching the Wilderness for Medivh.

"Right. I'll contact the middleman and get in touch with Wester of the Hobarton Family!"

The Blood Crow Mercenary Group's intelligence officer's eyes lit up. As expected, the captain was the captain. His perspective on the matter was exceptional; his business acumen was worth a lifetime of study.

They wouldn't lift a finger before they saw the money. They wouldn't send anyone to hunt for Medivh until Wester offered an additional fee.

Until then, they would assume Medivh had died on his way to the Pioneer Territory.

If Wester didn't pay up, then the necromancer behind the skeleton was someone else, and had nothing to do with Medivh.

The Blood Crow Mercenary Group didn't think a necromancer reduced to living in the sewers had any wealth, so they had no interest in plundering him.

Medivh didn't know that a hidden scout had run into the Skeleton Assassin he had sent out to explore. He also had no idea that his uncle had prepared a surprise for him in the Pioneer Territory of the Odyssey.

At that moment, he was patrolling Kurd City. After nearly a month of construction, the Livestock District in the Nine-Grid District's southeast corner and the Graveyard District directly to the south had both been enclosed by walls.

The walls around the two districts were still unfinished, and the skeletons were continuing to lay bricks and build them higher.

Still, the walls, already seven meters tall, were enough for the time being. The herbivores kept in Kurd City District had been moved to graze in the Livestock District.

The bones buried in the Graveyard District were now protected from being dug up and eaten by wild beasts.

The Graveyard District was currently being renovated, with the skeletons following the blueprints Medivh had drawn for a multi-level underground palace.

The Graveyard District would have a vast underground structure, with specially treated bones stored on different levels.

This was the bone farm Medivh had planned: a future source of spellcasting materials.

Like wine aging in a cellar, the older the bones in the Graveyard District's underground palace, the richer their historical legacy.

Excavation had begun on the wall foundations in all the other districts of the Kurd Nine-Grid.

There were no proper armies in the Odyssey Region. For now, the unfinished walls, seven or eight meters high, would serve as a stopgap; adding to their height and thickness could wait.

Medivh planned to build the basic structure of the Kurd Nine-Grid first and get each district up and running.

The summer farming season in the Odyssey Region would begin in just over a month. If they missed this planting season, they wouldn't be able to grow wheat in Kurd City's Farmland District until the second half of the year.

"Medivh, where are we supposed to get wheat seeds?"

Audrey followed Medivh as he toured his territory. Looking at the level fields, she asked the crucial question.

They had arrived empty-handed, without bringing any seeds.

At the mention of wheat seeds, Audrey began to miss the taste of honeyed white bread.

It had been a full eleven months since she had left Loran City with Medivh. She hadn't eaten bread in nearly a year.

Their daily meals consisted of high-quality meat, fish, and all kinds of wild vegetables. They had no staple foods.

"Let's plant potatoes first."

At this point, crossing through Winter Fortress to buy wheat seeds in the Gewalt Federation would attract too much attention.

They couldn't leave the land fallow, and as it happened, the Skeleton Assassin had discovered a potato field a while ago. Medivh could make use of that.

"Wonderful! Mashed potatoes, fried potatoes..."

The potatoes hadn't even been stolen yet, but Audrey was already imagining all kinds of dishes she could make with them.

The girl had gone too long without a staple food. She was famished!

One dark, windy night, a group of skeletons crept up to the outskirts of a drifter stronghold that had a potato field.

The Skeleton Assassin knocked the field guards unconscious with Sap. A group of skeletons dug up the potatoes by the light of the wind-blown night and loaded them onto carts.

Early the next morning, the drifter leader saw something he couldn't make sense of.