Sword of Dawnbreaker

After some more tests, Gawain thought that no further verification would be needed.

Rebecca could not establish the link through the crystal.

He then asked Amber to try it, and the results were the same.

It seemed that besides himself, even if others were to make contact with the crystal, they would not be able to establish a link with the mysterious monitoring station high above. Then why did Gawain Cecil leave behind this crystal seven hundred years ago?

Gawain thought that there could only be two possible answers. Either Gawain Cecil, who lived seven hundred years ago, was special and had special ways to use these crystals, or… these crystals were not used by Gawain Cecil himself, but was left for his use seven hundred years later…

The second answer was particularly hair-raising.

“Lord Ancestor…” Rebecca looked at the ancestor before her anxiously. After fumbling through the test, even though she did not know the purpose of the test, she could clearly tell that she failed it, and she was afraid that she might have been a disappointment to her ancestor again. “Is it because I have no talent in this, so…”

“No, it’s not because of you. Amber tried it too just now, right?” Gawain suppressed the countless thoughts in his mind as he consoled the girl. “This crystal is not meant for the ordinary person to use. I just had a whim to let you test it. Oh yeah, tell me about the results of your reconnaissance out there.”

Upon the mention of this, Rebecca immediately lightened up. “Yes, I was going to tell you this just now! Lord Ancestor, did you already know that the land has been cleansed from the start? I went to the area where you pointed out and found that the land was unpolluted, and the terrain was open and level, and there is easy access to water. The farmers, who also came along, said that this is the most suitable land to be opened up…”

Gawain was not surprised by such an answer. He was certainly aware of the situation here.

At least a decade ago, the pollution in this area had already subsided. It was just that no one in the kingdom knew about it.

It was unclear when exactly the effects of the Dark Wave subsided within the Dark Range, but it was still a contaminated area a hundred years ago. A record left by Cecil Clan’s pioneers before it declined was proof of this. It was because of the pollution of Dark Wave at that time that the treasure house in the mountain was left intact to this day. Otherwise, the Moen family might have already retrieved those ancient assets. After Cecil Clan’s great decline and the end of Moen’s legacy, no one knew of the secret treasure in the mountain. And so the kingdom completely abandoned the southern borders that was so polluted and brought disasters every year. Thus no one knew about the effects subsiding.

After all, the “dirty wind” would still pass through the Dark Range regularly every year. Even if the pollution in the land had subsided, there were still toxic storms, so this was still not a good land to be developed.

Gawain could only confirm one thing: Based upon the aerial view in his mind, there was already no more pollution here since a decade ago.

The closest territory here was the Leslie Clan’s Tanzan Town. According to Anzu law, all noble clans on the southern border had the responsibility of monitoring Gondor’s polluted region, so Gawain surmised that Viscount Andrew should probably know something about the Dark Wave’s effect subsiding. But for this traditional noble who relied on mining and spending his days in comfort, this piece of land, which had temporarily stabilized, was still probably not worth investing in. In addition, the trend of pioneering had already cooled off in this era, so the viscount probably did not send anyone to check up on the situation here…

Gawain nodded and looked at Rebecca, “At present, the only confirmed safe areas are those that I have drawn out. The pollution in areas farther out should also have waned off, but we’ll have to do that when the main body arrives so we can carefully monitor the area. Stay put for the moment.”

The clear aerial view in his mind was an image from a decade ago. The polluted area should have shrunk further in this decade, but as to how much it shrunk exactly… Seeing as the satellite view had become a “magical power imaging view” which could not be adjusted, Gawain could not be sure about the extent of its shrinkage, thus he could only go with this plan.

As time passed, due to Herti’s efforts in promoting and the people adapting, the new work system had finally come to fruition. The workers were beginning to realize that working meant better rations, and the “smart alecs” who tried to cheat and evade their responsibilities learned that what was more painful than having a vegetable stew while watching others eat meat was to go hungry while they watched others have vegetable stew. From Gawain’s perspective, those clumsy tricks of playing the system were not very smart, and the punishment he formulated would not go soft on these people.

This concerned the future survival of everyone, so he could not be lenient with them.

With the new system taking effect, the construction of the outpost camp was being completed at an astonishing speed and preparations were made for the arrival of the incoming main party. According to Gawain’s plan, the fence around the camp was expanded hundreds of meters to the south and east respectively. A large area of open space was reserved for the incoming 700 people for their tents to be set up, the sheds for carpenters, stonemasons, blacksmiths, and also for storing materials. He also ordered the construction of a small temporary pier made of wood at the campsite facing the river bank, and a sawmill nearby to process the wood arriving down the stream from the forest logging site at the west side.

Of course, the pier and sawmill currently only existed as a drawing. With a hundred men, manpower was really quite limited. Even with Herti’s magic to assist, it was a stretch for them to finish constructing the camp. In this moment, Gawain really wished that Rebecca was able to cast something beside fireballs…

Standing on the high ground by the river bank, Gawain looked at a large makeshift house being completed in the distance. That was one of the few houses in the camp that could be considered a “house”, and it was a very large building. The house, together with the large open space around it, would be used as temporary smithy. Although there were many smelted and forged metal ingots, it was difficult to use them in the construction of the camp. Most of them were Mithril, Adamantium, purple copper, and purple steel. Even if Gawain was that generous, he would not melt them to be used as nails, would he?

Surveying of the iron ore mine in the east was largely completed. Although it was not yet time to excavate the mine, it was still possible to retrieve some ores for inspection. Now that the first batch of ores had been dug out, when the blacksmiths finished setting up their furnace, the Cecil territory would then enter its Iron Age…

How worrying.

As he mulled over the impending Dark Wave and the mysterious monitoring station in the sky, then looked at this slowly developing camp, Gawain could not help but shake his head and sigh.

Amber, whose hand was shading her eyes as she was watching something, noticed Gawain’s behavior, frowned, and looked at him. “Why are you sighing? Can’t I take a break here?”

“Don’t always make me out to be such a bad guy.” Gawain looked at her helplessly. “When did I ever really exploit you?”

“It’s fun to argue with you!” Amber gave a bold face with conviction. “This is my first time seeing a noble that can argue with people yet not get angry. How fresh!”

Gawain tilted his head, ignoring her.

But Amber did not intend to give up. “Hey hey, I’m not finished yet. Why are you sighing?”

“It’s too slow.” Gawain shook his head. “It’s really too slow.”

Amber’s eyes widened. “You’re talking about how fast they’re working? You call this slow?!”

Then she gestured exaggeratedly with waving arms. “Do you have a heart! These people are the fastest working serfs and commoners I have ever seen in my life! Yesterday they took less than a day’s time to complete the additional fence wall, and today, they started to build the smithy. This speed is crazy, alright?”

Then she murmured, “When I saw you give them meat to eat and forbade whipping as punishment, I thought you were a good person…”

Gawain glanced at her. “I am a good person. I don’t blame these people for not doing their best. I’m not blind. I can see that they are not goofing off. But on the whole… It’s a fact that the construction of the camp is not fast enough to keep up with my plans.”

“Your plan is unrealistic.” Amber pouted and gave Gawain a skeptical look. “Speaking of which, I thought there was something off… You’ve looked a little weird these past two days, as though you have a lot on your mind. You even drew so many weird things on paper. This morning, the camp had just set up its boundaries, and you were even starting to consider building a barbican… Why are you so panicky for? ”

Gawain did not even look back at her. “I’m panicky about the end of the world, about the sky falling, about visitors from outer space, alright?”

“You just don’t want to admit it. Tch. But I can see. You are panicking.” Amber had her arms akimbo. “Let me think back to when this started… Ah, oh yeah, it was when the red spots appeared on the sun! Ever since then you’ve been ill at ease…”

Gawain was really a little surprised this time. He looked up and down Amber a few times. “Do you always watch me when you have nothing to do?”

“I’m not so idle.” Amber stood with arms akimbo. “But the problem is that you won’t be able to hide this from the others, okay? In fact, both of your great-granddaughters of the nth generation after you have also noticed this. It’s just that they don’t dare to ask you…”

Gawain was a little surprised. “Really? Is it that obvious?”

After a brief moment of stupefaction, he could not help but start to reflect on the recent change in his attitude and how he could make adjustments. Amber held her chin for a while and suddenly raised a question, “What did you mean by visitors from outer space?”

Gawain: “…”

Why was this punk’s response time as random as the Brownian motion? From her reaction just now, it seemed as though the word did not catch her attention…

Just then, a small figure suddenly appeared within Gawain’s field of sight. Betty, who wore a rough, plain dress, looked pensive as she ran towards them.

The little girl went up to Gawain, caught her breath, and batted her large eyes as she said impetuously, “Madam Herti asked you to go over.”

“What does she want?”

Betty thought for a moment. “I forgot!”

Gawain: “…”

At this moment, Amber suddenly noticed that Betty’s hands were empty, and she could not help but ask curiously, “Where’s your precious pan?”

Betty looked up and answered with a serious face, “Miss Rebecca said this is our new home. Since I’m home, I put the pan in the kitchen.”

When she was out with everyone, she was responsible for carrying cooking utensils, and when she was at home, she had to put things back in the kitchen. This was what Madam Hansen had taught her.

Gawain already knew why Herti was looking for him.

He had already seen the people appearing from the far west.

The second group of people… was finally here.