Chương 459: 453. Progress Check - II

There was no point in going back to the blueprint only to be interrupted after a few moments, so Kivamus stayed where he was and let himself rest a little longer. Yesterday, Feroy had left again for another round of rumor spreading in the north, this time with two other guards, one male and one female. All three had gone on horseback and each carried a hidden crossbow for defense. Feroy had also taken a small amount of coin, in silver and coppers, along with some losuvil powder to hand out where it might be useful.

That would help Tiranat gain a favorable reputation in the eyes of slaves and laborers who were dissatisfied with their lives and might be willing to move here if they saw a chance. As usual, the plan was for Feroy to stay out for around a week to ten days and then return with an update. He would continue that work for another month or two, taking different guards with him each time. After that, he would decide which of them were capable of doing the same work without his direct supervision.

Once that happened, several teams could be sent north at the same time to spread more rumors, while Feroy could stay here in the village to oversee them. Tiranat itself was isolated, and there were hardly any other human settlements within a couple of days' journey. But farther north, in what was actually the southern part of Reslinor, the land was crowded with farms, villages, scattered farmhouses, country villas, hunting lodges owned by rich nobles, and other such dwellings.

Nearly all those places had slaves working for them, and even the people who were technically free rarely had easy lives there, especially now with food prices still so high. From the rough estimates he and Duvas had made, there might easily be around a million slaves in southern Reslinor alone, not even counting the many more free laborers who still did not earn enough to feed their families properly.

That meant there was room for a great deal of rumor spreading now, and slave-liberating later, when Tiranat had enough strength for it. As the number of guards in the village grew, those two tasks would become some of Tiranat's main long-term efforts for attracting more people and growing its population. Kivamus also had another idea in his mind about the liberation squads, which would serve as a side benefit for Tiranat. Those squads would also serve as a start of a spying agency in the future.

Feroy was best equipped to lead it, and once the slave-liberation teams started going out and traveling to all of southern Reslinor, they would bring all kinds of rumors and news of the kingdom and abroad back to Tiranat.

It would take years until Feroy could train a few of those guards to trust them with some real spying—like finding out what was happening in the courts of the Count of Cinran, in that slave village of Zoricus, and even in the Ulriga Palace in the Duke's court—but again, what they were doing now would serve as a foundation for that in the future.

In fact, Levalas would probably be just as good as Feroy to lead that agency, but with Levalas' young age, his ability to change his appearance to fool anyone, and his experience of having lived right under the Count's nose for nearly two decades without Ebirtas having any idea of who he really was, meant that Levalas could also serve as one of the best field agents for that spying agency for a long time. Kivamus snorted.

Tiranat was not even a town at this point, and here he was thinking about building a spying agency... Still, even if it wasn't feasible now, the current direction of the village, as well as these liberation squads, certainly could become the base of such a spying organization.

With a possible war with Binpaaz looming in the future, as well as that mighty empire which cannot be named now starting to turn its attention to the eastern hemisphere, he would need all the information he could get in the coming years to make sure he and his village could continue to survive and even thrive. Closer to home, Hudan had already started sending groups of guards to protect the diggers working on the new road and canal in the east and to watch over the growing industrial area at the dam site.

Another small group went to patrol around the farms at night, while during the day the farms were watched by off-duty guards who sat in the shade near the tree line and kept an eye on things while also getting some rest. Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences. By now all the guards who had gone west on the counter raid had recovered fully, so hunting groups had started going out again to bring back fresh meat.

Each of those groups had two men and two women—the women carried crossbows and daggers; the men went with swords and spears. Five such groups had been sent out already, which meant the village should start getting a good amount of fresh meat again within a few days. Along with the guards sent to the encampment, that left only 38 trained guards in the village for now, not counting the eight already set aside for escorting Trevalo when he returned.

Of course the two groups of the six guards each sent to protect the diggers and the industrial area would come back at night, and that helped. So in practice there were around 50 guards available to protect the village. The 20 new guards Hudan had just recruited were on top of that, but they were still too inexperienced to trust on proper watch duty yet.

After another few weeks, though, the village should again have around 70 trained guards available most of the time, which would give it decent strength even while the hunting groups, merchant escorts, and encampment guards were away. Even so, the six men sent to the dam site still did not feel like enough to Kivamus. If the adzee pack roaming nearby these days reached that place, it could easily turn into a disaster.

And if some saboteur sent by Zoricus or Torhan found out about the industrial area, he could set it on fire during the night before the village had time to respond. Because of that, Kivamus was already thinking of ordering a palisade wall and at least one watchtower to be built there. That would take time, and a watchtower would mean posting guards there even at night, but that area was becoming far too important not to protect properly.

In fact, it might be wise to build some temporary housing there as well, just like they were making at the encampment. That way the guards stationed there would have somewhere to sleep. Later, once the workforce was available, he wanted to start a second work shift at the industrial area to increase production, and maybe even a third one later on.

That would only be possible once there was enough lighting and proper security there, but because that was the long-term plan, making small temporary housing there in advance made sense, especially since the sawmills already produced surplus timber these days. He stood up, stretching his hands for a moment. He had taken enough rest, and it seemed the majordomo was going to be late. No point in wasting any more time.

He needed to return back to the drawing board and continue working on the blueprint of the tenement block. That was the next building to be built after the current construction projects were completed, so he needed to finish the blueprints before that. He was still thinking through that when he finally saw Duvas entering the manor grounds, followed by Cedoron.

The burly blacksmith had several iron rods in his hands, and the gate guards immediately moved to stop him, but Hudan, who had been nearby talking to some other men, noticed Cedoron and signaled for the guards to let him through. Duvas saw Kivamus sitting in the shade and gestured toward him. Cedoron followed. Hudan's curiosity got the better of him, and he came along as well. Before long, the blacksmith was standing in front of Kivamus.

"Milord, the steel bars are ready," Cedoron reported, and handed one of them over. Kivamus stood up at once and took it.

"The bars we kept in the cementation furnace were longer," Cedoron said, "but as instructed, we cut them into shorter lengths. Then after binding them together, we heated them in a forge—the new forge at the dam site actually—and welded them. We repeated the process three or four times for each set, just like you said. And finally, we have some steel here." He looked pleased with himself, and reasonably so.

"I did some basic tests too," he added.

"It is certainly tougher than the wrought iron I usually work with. Forging it entirely by hand would have taken much longer, but the trip hammer makes it easy." Kivamus turned the first steel bar over in his hands and looked at it from both sides. He didn't have access to a scanning electron microscope, or even a simpler metallurgical microscope in this world, so it's not like he could compare the grain structure of steel to what he was used to back on earth.

But the steelmaking process had been followed carefully, and the blacksmith had already done some tests successfully. He grinned.

"It looks good!" Hudan took another bar from the bundle and turned it over in his own hand. In his huge grip it looked almost like a thick twig.

"How long to finish welding and forging all the bars from this first batch?" Kivamus asked.

"I put two boys on it," Cedoron replied.

"With the trip hammer helping us, I think we should be able to finish welding and forging all the bars by this evening." Kivamus's grin widened.

"Perfect. You know what to do next?"