Iron Harvest: When Farming Becomes Conquest

Chapter 56 - 56 25 Agata

?56: Chapter 25: Agata 56: Chapter 25: Agata Roman was initially planning to heat some water for the slaves to wash and change clothes.

However, Sige Town was too impoverished to provide clothes for two hundred people.

The farmers here also planted flax, but their yield was only enough to patch their own tattered garments.

A linen outfit was worth about 1 copper coin, with clothes and pants costing 2 copper coins in total, and for all the slaves, it would be 4 gold coins.

Of course, if they only bought linen fabric and made clothes themselves, it would be much cheaper, but it couldn’t be done quickly.

Roman had to postpone this matter for the time being.

After all, he found them unbearable to look at and would sooner or later deal with them.

Now, the important thing was to cover these thatched roofs.

Roman and Aaron Green worked together, pressing the bundled thatch into place, finally completing the last step.

Looking at the fully formed building, Roman couldn’t help but feel a strong sense of accomplishment.

These livestock would have an immeasurable great impact on the future of Sige Town.

More than a month had passed since sowing, and the verdant wheat seedlings had long since sprouted from the soil, stretching out in endless green waves.

This dense planting method filled Balrog with both excitement and fear.

He felt this land must be mad, or he was mad, as such lush green seedlings could grow from the soil.

Perhaps it was a demon’s curse or a miracle from the All Gods.

Rows upon rows, column after column, ditch after ditch, ridge after ridge, all were vibrant-growing wheat seedlings, like weeds and pasture grasses; the quantity was unsettling, far more dense than before.

He calculated from a tuft of seedlings and shockingly found that almost every wheat seed Roman planted had sprouted!

This discovery almost made him faint; common sense was shattered, and he feared that this land was cursed, which made him consult Roman several times.

Roman also went and checked, finding the seedlings growing lushly and in good condition, thus applying a topdressing.

An additional sixty to seventy pounds of fertilizer per acre were added since the tillering rate of spring wheat was low but there was still a chance for it to tiller—one wheat seed could produce two ears of wheat.

Therefore, the more nutrients, the better.

To ensure efficient use, topdressing was applied in trenches.

Using wooden farming tools, a deep trench was plowed between the rows of seedlings, and humus fertilizer was spread inside, then covered with soil.

This ensured that most nutrients were absorbed by the wheat roots.

This step was quite simple.

There were 100 workers overseeing the farmland, with each managing an average of 20 acres, and even so, it took nearly ten days.

Intensive cultivation isn’t about working people to death but utilizing more scientific and logical planting methods.

Therefore, compared to road construction and mining, the workload on the farmland wasn’t heavy; they even had the energy to continue composting, although efficiency was low, they accumulated over a dozen tons of fertilizer over several days.

However, due to topdressing, all fermented fertilizer was consumed.

Before the summer harvest, they needed to accumulate more fertilizer, and the newly added livestock would plow a great deal of land.

The biggest issue now was the lack of iron; both mining and plowing required a large quantity of iron tools.

Roman found an iron mine, but the difficulty of mining it, as with an open salt mine, was high, so mining iron temporarily wasn’t feasible; mining and smelting iron couldn’t be done without hundreds of people.

For now, they had to rely on purchasing finished iron ingots from outside.

He mentioned this to Morry, who promised to bring a considerable number of iron ingots on his next visit to Sige Town.

Iron doesn’t take up cargo space; he didn’t bring it last time because acquiring iron ingots is challenging and not always available; he needs to prearrange with some iron-producing lords.

As long as there was steel and livestock.

The additional labor would be put to corresponding use.

Currently, the slaves were unaware of this.

While Roman was roofing with thatch, they were wolfing down their meals.

Roman wasn’t planning to assign work to the slaves immediately, instead letting them rest for three days until their bodies recovered somewhat before giving them various tasks.

These slaves had been drifting about, tumultuous in their travels, long having empty bellies.

The slave traders and Daken wouldn’t have fed them well, only giving low-grade bread, worthless grain, and vegetable leaves.

Even so, just maintaining basic survival required at least four to five copper coins for rations every day.

Keeping a slave for a year or two means they practically have no resale value; the cost to keep them is equivalent to their worth.

This is why slave traders are eager to sell them off.

Every extra day of feeding means increased sunk cost, and in the end, they won’t make money, but even lose it.

Therefore, today’s meal was rare and luxurious for this group of slaves.

…

All the slaves ate with an extremely pitiful demeanor.

They were too hungry, and during this time, they hadn’t had a proper meal.

Agata was no exception.

She followed the slave trader into the Black Iron Kingdom, leaving Wandong half a month ago.

In this foreign land, her and her compatriots’ white hair seemed somewhat out of place.

The Wandong people predominantly have white hair.

As a pure-blooded Wandong, Agata’s hair scarcely held any other color, pure as the ice and snow of the Northern Land.

But ice and snow cannot sustain people.

The Wandong struggled to survive across that vast, harsh land for hundreds, if not thousands of years.

Their bodies and souls, birthed and raised, were pinned to that bitterly cold place.

“The Wandong people cannot escape the Northern Land,” so the saying goes.

Only the Guardian God can resist the blizzards from the Extreme North Icefield and counter the Wind Snow God’s curse.

The first Winter King was once of the Guardian God’s kin, claiming the title of the Northern Land’s Guardian, but later lost the Divine Power.

The current Winter King finds himself powerless over the Kingdom’s vast land.

His commands couldn’t reach beyond his own domain.

The powerful Dukes of Wandong turned a blind eye to the Winter King, and much of the land turned into a chaotic scene of warlord control with Nobles everywhere.

They fought and warred, seemingly with endless battles.

The deity controlling the blizzard must have had too much love and affection for that ancient land, leading to laying down some terrible curse!

Only the Frost Tribe can endure this divine favor.

This tribe claims descent from ancient giants, born tall and fierce.

In those ancient times, too hard to detail in words, real giants already vanished.

The giant’s descendants once combated some inhuman entity on the far north icefield, but later migrated south, and it’s been over a hundred years.

That ancient tribe lived a very closed and wild life during their migration, with traditions distinctly different from humans.

They believe the Northern Land has a soul, a will, and they worship some ancient gigantic entities, viewing them as guardians of their tribe.

In the eyes of the Church worshiping All Gods, they are regarded as pagans, and heretics.

A war broke out less than a month ago.

Agata still remembers the situation at that time.

A troop of fifty Black-armored Knights, riding armored horses, swept through her village like a storm.

The village priest claimed they were Demon Hunting Knights from the Church Court, coming to the Northern Land to specifically combat evil demons.

The Church has been spreading its faith in the Northern Land for over two hundred years, but the Church Knights had never ventured this cold land deeply.

Now, that had changed.

Fifty Demon Hunting Knights charged towards the Frost Tribe, led by a Silver-armored, Gold-sword Knight.

What should have been an easy demon hunt met with a fierce resistance.

The Frost People were not powerless.

This ancient and mysterious tribe was tougher than anyone imagined and staged a small-scale war against the Church Knights with their flesh and blood.

A witch named Shasta descended from the sky, almost killing the dazzling Dawn Knight on the chaotic battlefield.

The Demon Hunting Knights’ campaign, the Frost People’s retaliation, and the witch’s engagement.

That war directly dismantled the entire camp, and it’s said the land there remains frozen to this day.

She only heard rumors; she didn’t understand the situation, but her village was affected.

To meet the supply needs of the Demon Hunting Knights, the village priest announced an extra Demon Hunting Tax.

So, families barely holding on completely collapsed.

All their planted and stored grain were seized by the Church’s people.

Her husband begged desperately, but was struck down, clutching her hand tightly with bleeding eyes in his dying moments.

“Agata, Agata, take our child…
Flee, seek out Wandong’s Guardian God…
Escape from this land…”
…

The Winter King lost the Guardian God’s power.

Only by fleeing, only by finding a new Guardian God, do the Wandong people stand a chance.

Yet they were penniless, a lone journey across that vast frozen land was impossible.

She and the remaining villagers had no choice but to sell themselves to the slave traders, following their caravan, arriving at the Black Iron Kingdom.

She only heard before that the Black Iron Land was a Kingdom established personally by the Conqueror a hundred and fifty years ago.

It’s now the most prosperous and powerful Kingdom across the entire land.

Having arrived at this land, perhaps they wouldn’t starve to death, perhaps they could survive.

But she felt utterly lost about how to survive.

The farthest she had ever been from home was working in the Lord’s manor.

Now, she must survive with her newborn child in this distant foreign land.

During this time, she prayed day and night to the All Gods of the Northern Land.

She fervently wished that the noble Lord who bought them would be kind and magnanimous, able to accommodate her and her child.

Will such prayers be answered?