Chapter 29

Xia Zuoyi deliberately gave the people of Trak Kingdom a few days to adjust and rest.

They had first been defeated and captured by the Anas Empire, endured the destruction of their kingdom, lost family and friends, then been taken to the empire and subjected to every humiliation, forced to bear the shameful brand of slavery...

Most of them had surely been devastated in both body and mind, becoming numb.

After that, the people of Trak Kingdom were sent to Gadayat.

Everything they had on them had been stripped away. Other than the clothes they wore and the shackles on their hands and feet, they had nothing else.

Thus, during this adjustment period, Xia Zuoyi sent soldiers to provide the people of Trak Kingdom with intact clothing, filling food, daily necessities, and other supplies free of charge.

Ferdinand gave Xia Zuoyi a detailed report of what had happened along the way after they brought back the people of Trak Kingdom.

Among other things, he mentioned that the wounds on the shoulders of some Trak Kingdom citizens, left by their brands, had yet to heal. This might leave them weak, feverish, and dazed.

After hearing this, Xia Zuoyi ordered the soldiers to pay close attention to that matter.

He had some existing plant remedies prepared at the Thorn Merchant Guild. Soldiers could bring severely ill people from Trak Kingdom there to exchange for medicine and receive treatment.

Ferdinand mentioned that he had used a portion of plant-based ointment and said, "That young person who developed a fever from the branding wound and nearly fainted should be a girl."

"She was probably disguised and concealed for safety, but her identity may also be suspicious."

"I have already ordered people to keep a closer watch. If anything unusual is discovered, it will be reported immediately."

Xia Zuoyi nodded to show that he understood.

Plant remedies and medicinal ointments were used in completely different ways. One was taken internally, while the other was applied externally.

People with injuries could naturally drink medicine as well, but applying ointment directly to a wound might have a more noticeable effect.

However, plant remedies could be stored in bottles, jars, or ordinary containers.

Plant ointment was more troublesome.

That had to do with the paper wrapped around the ointment.

On the Western Continent, there were currently two kinds of paper people could use.

One was parchment, which was expensive and slow and complicated to make.

It was also called skin paper, made by turning animal hides into paper.

From selecting materials to completion, the craft process was not only cumbersome but also time-consuming.

Therefore, a well-made, refined sheet of parchment was extremely expensive. Even estate owners without savings could not afford it.

But parchment was water-resistant, wear-resistant, soft and delicate, easy to fold or roll up for storage, and immensely popular among nobles.

Commoners and slaves naturally could neither afford nor touch parchment.

The second kind of paper was papyrus.

It was inexpensive and suitable for ordinary writing.

But in Xia Zuoyi's view, the process for making papyrus was not easy either. It was simply easier than preparing parchment.

Moreover, papyrus had obvious shortcomings. The paper was fragile and could easily break when turned, lacking toughness.

Xia Zuoyi had already made plant remedies capable of treating coughs and fevers.

Not long afterward,

he slowly developed plant ointment with the same medicinal effects.

Xia Zuoyi had once tried sandwiching the ointment between two sheets of papyrus, but the result clearly did not work.

So he wrapped the ointment in parchment and sent it as gifts to Judith, Gibran, Ferdinand, and Walker.

Such ointment could be given away as a gift, but it could not be sold as merchandise in the Thorn Merchant Guild.

Otherwise, the losses would definitely outweigh the profits.

He would lose money.

Because of that, Xia Zuoyi felt that it was time to display the miraculous Papermaking of the East.

Once the paper was made,

the Thorn Merchant Guild would have another source of income, and plant ointment could begin to be sold as well.

Xia Zuoyi opened the system interface to check his Reputation Value.

He was no longer as penniless as he had been in the beginning. His Reputation Value increased quickly, and to avoid disturbing the "people," he had muted the notification sound long ago.

Now, the Plot Deviation Value was three percent.

Xia Zuoyi did not pay much attention to it before looking away. Immediately afterward, he used his Reputation Value to exchange for books related to Papermaking.

At that moment, 098 poked its matchstick head out from the upper-left corner of the system interface, then slowly climbed down. When it reached the bottom edge of the interface, it accidentally landed hard on its backside.

098 got up and dusted itself off without caring. [Host, would you like to learn Papermaking?]

Xia Zuoyi said, "Yes. Since I want to carry out infrastructure development in every aspect, I need to become a versatile talent no matter what..."

The result of not working hard was death.

The matchstick figure clenched its tiny matchstick hands into fists. [Go, Host.]

Xia Zuoyi asked, "You weren't on the system interface just now. Where did you go?"

[098 entered the channel and connected with the Idiot System and the Pay-to-Win System to play games.]

"...Who won?"

The matchstick figure answered calmly, [The Pay-to-Win System has never lost. 098 and the Idiot System have never won.]

Xia Zuoyi looked at the matchstick figure with rather complicated feelings. "Don't play games with the Pay-to-Win System again."

[Okay, Host.]

Xia Zuoyi paused, then added, "Also, spend less time with the Idiot System. Mm... it might be contagious."

Remember, you were a laid-back system.

The matchstick figure tilted its head, seemingly a little confused.

But it still obediently nodded in agreement. [Okay, Host.]

Xia Zuoyi had one more thing to read and study.

That afternoon, while he was in his study figuring out how to successfully produce paper, Toby's flustered voice rang out beyond the door, mixed with the cries of maids.

"Snowball, Coalball, you can't run around anymore! Stop..."

"Roar, roar!"

Clearly, the two little tigers had no intention of listening to Toby. They nimbly dodged left and right among the maids trying to stop them, dashing about at great speed.

Xia Zuoyi was somewhat puzzled.

Snowball and Coalball were far too attached to him.

So after lunch, he had Judith and Toby take the two little tigers outside to get some fresh air.

Why had they come back already?

Xia Zuoyi rose from his chair and walked to the door. Just as he opened it, two obviously dark, round bundles suddenly lunged at him.

Toby cried out, "My Lord Count!"

Xia Zuoyi rarely sat frozen in a daze as he fell to the floor.

The clean white clothes he wore were instantly smeared filthy by the two little tigers, who had already become little mudballs. Even his face was not spared, gaining two grayish marks at the corners of his mouth.

Snowball and Coalball seemed extremely excited. Their chubby little tails wagged without stopping, and mud spots not yet completely dry flew from their fur and scattered all over the floor.

Of course, they also splattered all over him.

"You can't press down on Lord Count."

Toby and the maids tried to pull Snowball and Coalball away, only to be frightened back by their bared teeth.

After recovering, Xia Zuoyi sighed helplessly. He grabbed one tiger ear in each hand and pulled them aside, then pushed himself up from the floor and asked, "What happened? Where is Judith?"

Toby scratched his head. "Steward Judith had something to do and left for a while. Then Snowball and Coalball knocked over the water bucket beside the vegetable patch, so... it's all my fault for not watching them properly."

Xia Zuoyi asked, "The vegetables weren't crushed, were they?"

Toby shook his head. "No, My Lord Count. The vegetables are fine."

Xia Zuoyi sighed in relief upon hearing that.

The vegetable patch contained the beets he had specifically ordered people to plant.

On the Western Continent, some regions grew sugarcane, but they were located in the farthest southwestern reaches.

Sugarcane had abundant, sweet juice and was the raw material for making white sugar.

However, it was unsuitable for planting in many other regions, its quantity was limited, and its production process was complicated, involving several stages such as pressing and stirring.

Before effective sugar-making machinery appeared, it required a large labor force, productivity was extremely low, and the amount of white sugar produced was even scarcer.

"Sugar is more expensive than gold."

"Sugar is white gold."

These two sayings were not baseless on the Western Continent.

For example,

there was no white sugar made from sugarcane in Xia Zuoyi's territory.

Even throughout all of Gadayat, perhaps only the old king could enjoy white sugar.

Xia Zuoyi had looked into it before.

White sugar was the most expensive commodity in the Nagabi Merchant Guild, and the country importing the most white sugar was the Saint Airo Empire.

People on the Western Continent used very few seasonings, not to mention spices. There was no need to speak of their dreadful cooking.

Here, white sugar did not exist as a seasoning, but as an expensive and rare commodity.

Sweetness was indispensable.

But when there was no white sugar, or when people could not afford to use it, the main substitutes for cooking meals and making desserts were honey and grape syrup.

Honey in particular was hugely popular in places where white sugar was scarce or could not even be found.

Some nobles even passed honey down as an inheritance.

As for commoners and slaves, even tasting a trace of sweetness was an extravagant fantasy.

Beets were an ordinary vegetable people could usually eat. They had a faint sweetness and were mainly used in sweet soups or cooked together with porridge.

Nobles believed that vegetables grown from the soil were lowly ingredients.

Moreover, most vegetables were eaten raw or boiled.

Thus, nobles were very resistant to them.

To avoid affecting their appetites, they would order chefs to chop vegetables in advance. By the time the vegetables were served, they were basically unrecognizable.

Beets could be used to make sugar and were another major source besides sugarcane.

But the people of the Western Continent had not yet discovered this.

The extraction process for beets was relatively simple. When sugarcane could not be considered, making sugar from beets was the best and only choice.

After thinking that over, Xia Zuoyi lowered his head and tugged Snowball and Coalball's ears twice more. He said quietly, "The bigger you get, the naughtier you become. If you cause trouble again, you won't get any meat."

The two little tigers seemed to understand. They whimpered miserably and sat on the ground.

When Judith returned, the little tigers were carried one by one into a large wooden tub that had already been filled with hot water for baths.

Living in an entirely new place, the people of Trak Kingdom would inevitably feel uncomfortable, even uneasy.

After all, everything around them was unfamiliar: an unfamiliar environment, unfamiliar people...

They were outsiders, captives, and slaves.

What Reinog and Yadai worried about was whether they would suffer discrimination, exclusion, and bullying here.

But it was indeed as the soldier who had escorted them into the city said—once they settled down, they would naturally understand.

Soldiers patrolled near where the people of Trak Kingdom lived at all times, responsible for guarding and monitoring them to prevent escape.

The leader was a knight named Dyna Prince.

On their first night in Komoy Fort, this knight had brought several soldiers to deliver clothing, food, necessities, and other supplies.

Reinog remembered him saying that this was Lord Count's arrangement.

Nothing happened on the second day.

On the third day,

Reinog discovered that the three of them seemed to have been watched.

People were always secretly circling around the house where they lived, keeping watch without drawing attention.

Reinog recognized those people.

The people watching them had once belonged to the son of a duke from Trak Kingdom.

That duke had secretly supported the second prince, who had wanted to contend for the position of crown prince. In the end, however, it was the second prince who had brought the people of the Anas Empire into Trak Kingdom.

The second prince was killed on the spot, while the duke immediately defected to the enemy.

Although the duke had not been killed with a sword, he later died painfully of illness while being taken to the Anas Empire.

Reinog had not expected the duke's son to be alive as well. It looked as though he had also gathered quite a few followers around him.

It had been said before that the people of Trak Kingdom were not completely united.

The distinctions between classes remained clear.

Those who had originally been commoners and slaves of Trak Kingdom gathered together.

Those who had originally been estate owners and nobles voluntarily split into two camps.

Most hated the second prince and gathered together, viewing him and his followers as criminals. The remaining small group could only cooperate with one another to survive.

Reinog had possessed the foresight to prepare for this.

He had brought Yadai and Sara with him, disguising themselves as commoners. In any case, nearly all the old nobles who could recognize him as an illegitimate son were already dead.

Unless necessary, Reinog had rarely gone to the royal palace before.

He had been quite happy to be a viscount, spending his days studying and tinkering with the tools he liked.

Yadai did not need to disguise himself. He had originally been a commoner.

Reinog had met Yadai through Yadai's alchemist teacher, and they could be considered childhood acquaintances.

As long as Sara's identity was not discovered...

But now, it seemed that someone had noticed.

The third day.

When the patrolling soldiers left this area, the duke's son suddenly barged into their quarters with several people.

Before Reinog and Yadai could react, they swiftly subdued them, then carefully examined Sara.

The duke's son suddenly laughed, smugness written all over his face. "So it really is Princess Sara. No wonder you looked so familiar. You were even willing to cut off your long hair and disguise yourself as a filthy little boy. Back in the mountains, I hardly dared believe it was you."

At the time, Ferdinand's actions of unlocking the shackles and tossing them ointment had drawn quite a few eyes.

But Reinog had thought that, with so many people and trees between them, the chances of being discovered were slim. He had not expected the duke's son to spot them by chance.

Someone beside him said, "Cori, hand over the princess!"

"Since this place is so generous with its supplies, we might as well use the princess to make a trade and get rid of our status as slaves."

"That's right, Cori. Laude is right. I don't want to be a slave anymore. Let's go see that young count and have him restore our noble status."

Reinog roared, "You dare?!"

He struggled with all his strength, only to be viciously kicked. His knee slammed into the ground with a bang.

Yadai glared at them furiously. "Cori Moya, your father was a criminal of the Trak Kingdom! Are you going to harm the royal bloodline that remains as well?!"

"The Creator God will surely punish you! All of you!"

At his words, Cori Moya's expression instantly turned icy. He walked over to Yadai and slapped him. "Becoming a slave is already the greatest humiliation and punishment to me."

"You're nothing but a lowly commoner. What right do you have to shout at me?!"

Sara had been gagged and tied up nearby. Her eyes anxiously sought help outside the house.

Because they lived so close to one another, even the slightest sound could draw people over.

Quite a few people from the Trak Kingdom were standing around the house now, but for the moment, Cori Moya's followers were keeping them outside.