Chapter 699 — The Unshakable "Tenant"

For a moment the warden simply could not think of how to respond to that impeccable answer. He could only watch as the infuriating druid slowly walked back to his bunk, lay down little by little like an animal preparing to hibernate, and pulled the blanket over himself little by little, ignoring everyone present in a way that set one's teeth on edge.

"You are wasting the Empire's money!" Maximilian finally could not help shouting. "Listen here—when I get back I'm reporting this to the Public Order Bureau and the Administrative Hall. This loophole will be closed soon enough. You can't sponge off this place forever!"

Bad's voice drifted up from the bunk: "I trust in your diligence, sir. But before that, I just want a good sleep."

In the end Maximilian left in exasperation, just as he had the previous two times.

The heavy alloy gate crept shut bit by bit to the sound of the machinery, and the containment section fell quiet once more. Even the slurred mumbling of the drunk in the neighboring cell gradually faded, and Badwindel, lying on his bunk, opened his eyes for a glance, then slowly closed them again.

For all these years, this was the only place where he could sleep in peace.

Maximilian finished his patrol of the entire prison and returned to his office in a state of considerable irritation.

As a man who had started out as a knight's apprentice, joined the first generation of the Cecil Combat Corps, lived through every territorial defense war and the Southern Region Unification War, and had long since grown accustomed to the basic environment in which "every ordinary person is doing their utmost," he simply could not understand why any superhuman would willingly sink to such a state.

A few minutes later, the warden picked up pen and paper from his desk and bent over to begin writing a report.

If nothing else, he had to find some way to get that Badwindel out of his cell—otherwise, at the rate the fellow was digging in, he would likely end up staying in this prison longer than Maximilian, its warden!

...

"This is the latest report Norris sent from the Holy Spirit Plain, Ancestor. Please review it."

In Xuanyao City, inside Gaosong's study, Heidi placed a thick report on the desk and briefly summarized its contents.

"The investigators sent by the Ministry of Agriculture and the 'Holy Spirit Plain Reconstruction Temporary Office' have entered the southern part of the Fertile Woodland and carried out a rough survey and assessment of the towns and farmlands along the way. The working group believes the most severely contaminated areas lie farther north, likely around Giantstone City and Sorenberg. Of the areas discovered so far, more than fifty percent of the farmland can be recultivated within a year. Norris also stressed in particular that these recultivable lands are not only lightly contaminated, but thanks to the burning of vegetation and the period of rest, may even be more fertile next year."

"This is rare good news," Gao Yang said, his brows smoothing out. "The crystal contamination was stopped in the nick of time. Crystal dust and the plague that comes with it haven't had time to seep too deeply into the soil, so the land can be farmed again straight away, and that should resolve most of next year's grain shortage."

"The key issue now is the collapse of infrastructure - towns, roads, water sources," Hedy nodded. "Every one of the original settlements was in the areas hardest hit by the crystal giants, and they took concentrated artillery bombardment and were burned to the ground. The infrastructure is utterly destroyed. If we rely on the Civil Affairs Office alone to organize teams for reconstruction and then bring the population back, it will be far too slow, and the cost will be enormous - we may not even make it in time to put those fields that haven't been completely abandoned back under the plow."

Gao Yang rubbed his chin and said thoughtfully, "...That is indeed a problem. The Holy Spirit Plain is simply too vast. Even just the eastern part alone is nearly half the size of the Southern Region..."

"Norris has put forward a proposal about this."

"Oh?" Gao Yang raised an eyebrow. "What proposal?"

Hedy took a moment to gather her words. "In the areas where the contamination was relatively light, Norris encountered many refugees who had come back - people who had once fled the contaminated zones, drifted beyond our control, and then, hearing the war was over, wanted to return to their homelands. From questioning them, and from rough estimates in the southern and western parts of the plain and at the eastern mountain pass, these people may make up about a tenth of the original population of the eastern plain. That's more than we imagined."

Gao Yang blinked.

After a disaster, large numbers of displaced refugees wandering the Holy Spirit Plain - this was something Gao Cen had predicted from the very beginning. The "Cecil Order" was indeed efficient and rigorous, capable of effectively managing the population and aiding refugees, but only on the premise that an effective administrative apparatus had been established at great cost. And the Holy Spirit Plain was not the Southern Region after all. Relying on the limited resettlement teams and the relief capacity of a temporary civil affairs office, meticulous management was impossible, and this would inevitably produce a great tide of drifters.

A tenth...

The number was staggering. The once-prosperous eastern Holy Spirit Plain was now truly nine houses out of ten standing empty.

But at least one house was not empty.

"These wandering refugees need to be resettled, and their drifting unorganized through the contaminated zones is extremely dangerous. Norris suggests we form a 'Joint Reconstruction Corps' - led by the Supreme Civil Affairs Office, with the New Recruit Construction Corps and the official pioneer teams at its core, setting up several reconstruction units, and then through various channels attracting, gathering, and recruiting those refugees. We would also encourage those who wish to return home, who have already settled temporarily elsewhere, to join the teams and come back to rebuild their homelands...

"The refugees need only the most basic means of survival, and we can give them not only that, but also construction tools and guidance. Driven by the prospect of returning home and receiving land, there should be many who respond. Apply the experience gained from building New Cecil, add a batch of young clerks and civil affairs recruits who need to be tempered, and with the Construction Corps as the core, the Reconstruction Corps will be large enough to wrest more of the land back from the weeds and the jackals before it is completely ruined."

"Wrest the land back from the weeds and the jackals... that could serve as a fine slogan," Gao Yan nodded. Beyond being satisfied with these proposals, he was even more gratified by the growth over the years of civil officials like Norris. "Is that all of Norris's plan?"

Hedy nodded. "Yes."

"Then let me add this: after the Reconstruction Corps has rebuilt the towns and social order, it can put down roots on the spot and establish civil affairs offices, while simultaneously building transportation, communications, and commerce into a network."

The eastern Holy Spirit Plain was now a blank sheet of paper, and Gao Yang intended to cover it directly with the complete Cecil Order. When that wasteland was rebuilt, the fertile eastern Holy Spirit Plain would become a "new land" just like the Southern Region - and this new land would stretch from Boulder Fortress south to north, connecting directly to the old royal capital of Saint Sunil, and also to the Northern Region, and to the Eastern Region...

The wasteland that had once been burned to ashes would, in the end, put forth new shoots. And the flesh and blood reborn after the rot has fallen away would be healthier and stronger than before.