Chương 109

Rudra didn't speed up. He just kept walking at a completely normal, relaxed pace toward the wagon.

"Hey! Stop right there!" one of the armored guards shouted, drawing his sword. Rudra didn't stop. He casually gripped the Staff of the Fire Lord with both hands. The heavy blue haze of Staff Energy thickened around his shoulders, humming in the dry desert air. The guard lunged. Rudra didn't even look at him. He just dropped his hips and swung the staff in a short, brutal arc. CRACK. The heavy bone staff caught the guard right in the chest.

The man flew backward, crashing through a wooden stall and landing in a heap of broken boards. He didn't get back up. The other nine guards froze. They looked at their unconscious friend, then at the dense blue energy rolling off Rudra's coat. They didn't say a word. They just dropped their weapons and ran for their lives. The fat Administrator dropped his apple.

"W-Wait! Do you know who I am? I am the official representative of—" Rudra didn't let him finish. He stepped up to the wagon and brought the blunt end of his staff down directly on the Administrator's head. Thwack. The fat man's health bar instantly emptied. He collapsed into the dirt and turned into a pile of grey ash. The starving citizens in the plaza gasped. They scrambled backward, terrified that this new, violent stranger was going to attack them next. Rudra ignored them.

He walked over to the wagon and picked the crates of hoarded apples and dried meat and placed it in the ground. Then, he reached into his inventory. THUD. The Protean Crafting Cauldron hit the sand. Rudra tapped it. The heavy metal instantly unfolded, shifting into a massive outdoor kitchen with multiple boiling vats and flat-iron grills. Rudra tied a white apron over his black trench coat. He pulled hundreds of pounds of leftover monster meat and wild mountain onions out of his inventory.

"Line up!" Rudra yelled over the crackling fires.

"Lunch is ready!" The people of Reidan didn't hesitate for long. The smell of roasted fat and spices was too strong. They lined up by the thousands. Rudra cooked. He didn't sleep. He didn't take breaks. For three straight days and nights, he stood over the blistering heat of the grills in the middle of the desert, chopping meat and stirring massive pots of stew. Whenever his stamina dipped, he just ate a piece of his own food and kept moving.

Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation. By the third evening, he scraped the bottom of the final pot. Rudra dropped his wooden spatula. He collapsed backward into the sand, panting heavily. His arms were totally numb. [You have pushed your culinary limits through sheer repetition!] [Advanced Cooking has reached Level 5!] Rudra swiped the notification away and looked at the plaza.

The 20, 000 citizens of Reidan were sitting in the streets, looking full and healthy. The severe malnutrition debuffs were completely gone. But Rudra knew it was just a band-aid.

"I'm out of groceries," Rudra muttered, sitting up and dusting the sand off his coat.

"If we leave, they'll just starve again." Piaro walked over. The Great Swordsman handed Rudra a canteen of water.

"You cannot feed a city forever, Duke Rudra," Piaro said calmly.

"They are too weak to fight the desert monsters. When the food runs out, Reidan will die."

"Not if they grow their own food," Rudra replied, taking a drink. He pointed toward the river flowing just outside the city walls.

"The soil over there is still good. They just need to farm."

"They lack the strength to plow the hardened earth," Piaro pointed out.

"That's where you come in," Rudra grinned. Piaro blinked.

"Me?"

"Yeah. I need you to teach them how to farm." The Great Swordsman stared at Rudra in total confusion.

"I am a soldier. A commander of knights. I have spent my entire life learning how to protect the innocent and destroy my enemies. I do not know how to grow a potato."

"It's just hitting the dirt instead of people," Rudra shrugged. He walked over to a ruined market stall, grabbed a rusty iron hoe, and tossed it to Piaro.

"Just give it a try. Consider it physical training." Piaro looked at the rusty hoe in his hands. He looked highly skeptical, but he considered it another part of physical training. The next morning, Piaro stood by the riverbank. A crowd of weak, nervous citizens watched him. They had a few bags of leftover wheat seeds, but the ground was baked hard by the desert sun. Piaro gripped the hoe. He raised it over his head and brought it down. BAM! The iron hoe smashed into the dirt.

Piaro's massive physical strength effortlessly ripped a deep, perfect trench into the hardened earth. He took another step and swung again. He fell into a rhythm. He treated the farm work exactly like his sword training. He controlled his breathing. He perfected his posture. He used his hips to drive the hoe into the soil, minimizing wasted movement. In less than an hour, Piaro had single-handedly plowed an entire acre of land. The citizens stared in awe.

They quickly ran behind him, dropping seeds into the fresh trenches and covering them with wet soil from the river. Piaro wiped the sweat from his brow. He stood quietly, resting his hands on the wooden handle. He watched the citizens carefully watering the seeds. A strange, unfamiliar feeling settled in Piaro's chest. For his entire life, his hands had only known the feeling of ending lives. He had cut down thousands of enemies. He had lived for revenge and war.

But standing here in the dirt, creating the foundation for new life, the heavy, lingering darkness in his mind simply vanished. He felt a profound, deeply satisfying peace. He gripped the hoe tighter, a gentle smile breaking across his scarred face. He had finally glimpsed a completely new path forward just like when he had held the sword for the first time. Rudra watched from the city walls. Kratos was sitting by his boots, happily chewing on a stick.

"Looks like he found a new hobby," Rudra laughed. Rudra turned his back to the river. Piaro had the city handled. The citizens would be self-sufficient soon. Now, it was time for Rudra to get back to his own grind. He was Level 270, and he needed to hit Level 300 to lock in his Pioneer rewards before his level reset"Alright, Kratos," Rudra said, gripping his bone staff. The blue haze of Staff Energy flared to life.

"Let's go find some giant desert worms."