Chapter 73: The First Round Table Conference

In the early morning, within the restricted area of the upper camp, Victor toyed with an exquisite short sword. The blade was two fingers wide and two feet long, its rare bluish-white edge thin, sharp, and chilling to the touch.

Victor twirled the sword in a flourish and brought it down with a swift chop. A sharp, blue gleam sliced through the sturdy hemlock table, effortlessly severing one of its corners.

“A fine sword,” Victor nodded in praise. He flicked the blade with his finger, producing a crisp, lingering hum.

“Bousso, this mithril short sword is exceptionally sharp. Does it have any other special qualities?” Victor asked the man standing nearby.

“My lord, mithril is as soft as clay. When formed into a sphere, no matter how much pressure is applied, it will always return to its original shape. That’s why a mithril short sword is sharper, tougher, and more flexible than ordinary blades—it won’t break or snap, and even if it’s bent out of shape, it will recover on its own,” Bousso replied.

This is even more impressive than memory metal! Victor thought with glee.

“How long would it take you to forge a mithril short sword like this?” he asked, beaming.

“My lord, this one was crafted entirely by hand—a tedious process that takes twenty days, and because of the large amount of mithril used, its quality only reaches the third tier. If I use a medium forge, it would take eight days to make a second-tier blade, and mithril consumption would drop by forty percent. With a large forge, I could make a first-tier blade in three days, using sixty percent less mithril,” Bousso explained.

Victor nodded. “You shall have your forge. For now, resume sugar production.”

“As you command, my lord.” Bousso bowed and withdrew.

After Bousso left, Victor picked up two small sacks of flour from the ground, took the short sword, and made his way toward the cave.

At the element extraction table in the Alchemy Tower, Victor connected with the tower spirit in his mind. “King, let’s conduct an experiment today. Here is a mithril short sword forged by Bousso—tell me, how much capital, or let’s say fortune, can you extract from it?”

He placed the sword on the stone platform.

“My lord, the extractable funds in this short sword do not amount to even a single gold sol,” reported the tower spirit after a short pause.

“Not even one gold sol? Come now, if I sold this blade to a noble, it would fetch at least three hundred gold sols, maybe more!” Victor retorted, slightly exasperated.

“My lord, it truly does not yield even one gold coin’s worth,” the King confirmed.

“Fine then. Here—this is a pound of flour my men bought from Blackcastle, and this is flour offered to me by the villagers of Lake Plain. Compare the value of the two,” Victor said, tossing both sacks onto the extraction table.

“My lord, though neither reaches the value of a gold sol, the flour from Lake Plain is worth twice as much as the flour you purchased,” the King replied.

“Interesting. So things given to me for free are more valuable than things I buy?” Victor’s eyes gleamed as he questioned the tower spirit.

“My lord, I cannot discern the logic within. Regarding the exchange laws of the Alchemy Tower, I have no information to provide.”

“Naturally. A coachman need not know how to build a carriage, and the Empire of Alchemy had no reason to program the secrets of the tower into its spirit.”

“My lord, was this experiment intended to unveil the secrets of the tower’s laws?” the King inquired.

“No! The laws of creation are far beyond my grasp. I simply confirmed one thing: extracting wealth from others’ pockets will help me grow far faster!” Victor replied with a smile.

Just then, a melodious bell rang outside the restricted area, reminding Victor that it was time for the meeting.

—

When Victor entered the meeting room, Nelson, Lilia, Linda, and the six village headmen were already assembled.

“Be seated,” Victor said, taking his place at the vast round table and beckoning his subordinates to join him.

Though Victor had signaled that everyone could sit, the six headmen hesitated before the round table. In the past, when summoned by Victor, they had always stood.

Nelson, however, plopped himself down carelessly—until he saw Linda signaling frantically with her eyes. Perplexed, but trusting his wife’s judgment, he stood up again.

“Go on, sit down. Don’t you use round tables in the small canteen too?” Victor asked, somewhat puzzled.

“My lord, those seated at the canteen’s round tables are members of the work-points system, so we eat together without issue. But your status is exalted—we cannot break with tradition,” Maureen stepped forward to explain.

“I understand, but you must also recognize that you are now my vassals, and I am your liege lord.” Victor stood, speaking with solemn gravity. “Perhaps you don’t yet know the duties of a vassal. Allow me to explain them today. First—respect. As vassals, you are responsible for upholding my dignity and authority, accompanying me at formal occasions, and defending my honor and reputation.

“Second—counsel. As vassals, you are required to attend meetings I convene, to help me plan, advise me, and announce various decrees in my name throughout the fief.

“Third—assistance. When I declare war, you must answer my call, join my army, fight on the battlefield or provide logistical support. Should I be captured or taken hostage, you must contribute ransom to rescue me.”

Victor’s words left everyone present deeply stirred. This was his first formal declaration of their status as vassals and the revelation of their obligations—a sign that they were no longer mere farmers or mercenaries, but true men of rank.

“Today’s meeting is to have you fulfill your duty of counsel. I chose this round table so you could set aside differences of status and speak freely, offering advice and suggestions to aid my decisions,” Victor said with a smile.

This time, the village headmen took their seats first, each waiting eagerly for their lord to begin.

“Lilia, please brief us on the current state of the camp,” Victor signaled.

“Yes, my lord.” Lilia gave Victor a sweet smile and said crisply, “Our camp holds over a thousand people: 278 work-point subjects, 124 ordinary subjects, 113 guards, and roughly 500 freemen.

“We also have nine wagons, fourteen draft horses, and four oxen. We recently replenished our stores from Blackcastle with 100,000 pounds of flour (about 45 tons), 40,000 pounds of beans, 5,000 pounds of salt, and a small amount of linen. We’ve also stocked up 10,000 pounds of smoked pork (from twenty wild boars). In addition, the camp raises over 600 earth lizards, which lay more than 300 eggs a day, as well as a few yellow sheep and grouse.”

Victor calculated swiftly: this food would not last a thousand people even a month. The people of this world had hearty appetites, each requiring three to five pounds of food daily, with the guards eating even more. Nelson alone consumed over forty pounds a day, much like the oxen militiamen.

Victor sighed and turned to Maureen. “Tell me about the progress on construction and land clearing.”

Maureen rose and bowed. “My lord, we currently have two camps and one village under construction, with over a hundred houses and more than three hundred sheds. There’s one smithy and two mills, though neither is operational yet—only a carpenter’s workshop is up and running, and it can even make wagon wheels. Soon, we should be able to build our own wagons.”

Maureen was quite proud; he’d recently discovered an exceptionally skilled freeman carpenter, who turned out to be one of Victor’s alchemical auxiliaries, though Maureen didn’t know it.

“We’ve also cleared 2,400 acres of farmland, already sown with barley and black beans, which won’t be harvested until the Wind Season. There are also scattered vegetable plots—lentils, red cabbage, peas, and field beans. With gathered berries, wild celery, and mushrooms, we can basically meet the camp’s needs,” Maureen continued.

At this, one of the headmen hesitated, but Victor prompted him. “Bodie, do you have something to say?”

“My lord, I must tell you, we can no longer gather berries or wild vegetables around the camp, and even mushrooms are scarce. We have to go fifteen kilometers out to find earth yams,” Bodie, who was in charge of gathering, explained. “We’ve picked too often. These wild foods should be foraged periodically, but now...”

Victor nodded; he had long expected this.

“You all see the situation—we lack everything, especially food. Our current stores will last only a month. Tell me, based on a population of two thousand, how much land must we cultivate to keep the fief operating?” Victor looked to the six headmen.

The headmen whispered among themselves. After some discussion, Maureen stood and answered, “My lord, we need at least twenty thousand acres.”

“What? Did you say twenty thousand acres?” Victor could hardly believe his ears.

“My lord, we do need that much, and it must be fertile land. With the land we’re clearing now, it would take thirty thousand acres to support two thousand people,” another headman added.

“My lord, you may not know, but we farmers practice grassland rotation,” a third interjected. “That means we cultivate half the land and pasture the rest in turns. We gather the grass to the pens, where it’s mixed with manure and fermented to make fertilizer. So only half our fields are planted at any one time.

“We mainly grow barley, single-grain wheat, and double-grain wheat. In a good year, we harvest at most three times what we sow; with wheat, only double at best. Barley needs constant watching, but the wheats are bird-resistant, so we mostly grow those.”

Talking about farming, the men grew animated, eager to display their expertise.

“My lord, we only get one harvest a year, which means we need even more fertile land. I suggest we clear ten thousand acres of purple cane and plant crops there,” one farmer proposed, quickly winning the approval of all the headmen.

Victor’s head ached from their clamor, but one thing was clear: the traditional self-sufficient model of a feudal lord was no longer viable for him.

In this world, crops yielded only one harvest per year, and the year itself was sixteen months long. With such low productivity, land became especially precious. It was for this reason that new fiefs ran at a deficit for their first two years, needing family support before they could function normally.

Originally, Sylvia had provided Victor with forty thousand gold sols—enough to see him through the lean years. But Victor had spent the money! Now he was a destitute lord—and a pioneering one at that!

Bousso had once told Victor of fifteen high-yield crops, but the farmers here had never even heard of them. Later, Bousso suggested a bold plan: create a mithril magic array. With such an array, one acre could yield four harvests a year, each abundant.

Yet when Victor learned that each array required ten pounds of mithril and had to be inscribed by an alchemist, he was left speechless.

In sum, Victor had but one option: a commercial path. He needed his tight-knit group to understand and embrace this idea.

“I will not cut down the purple cane forest!” Victor declared resolutely. “On Nelson’s last trip to Blackcastle, we sold our distilled purple cane spirit for twelve copper sols a cup, and three copper sols can buy a pound of flour. Do the math.

“And that’s the purchase price—at the tavern, purple cane spirit sells for thirty copper sols a cup!”

The headmen were astonished; none had expected their accidental brew to fetch such a price.

“My lord, then there’s no need for us to farm anymore! We can grow rich just by making purple cane spirit!” Lilia exclaimed in delight.

“It’s not that simple,” Victor said with a wry smile. “Purple cane spirit is indeed more valuable than grain, but not many in Blackcastle can afford it. In fact, most buyers are merchants who intend to cellar it—over the years, its price will only rise.

“The spirit can feed us all, but we still lack weapons, linen, sheepskin, dairy cows, salt—and all that requires money. Especially weapons: a single set of York-standard equipment costs eighty gold sols!

“So I’ve decided to speed up village construction, but not just farmsteads. I will establish villages specialized in ironworking—to forge weapons and tools; villages for linen production; villages for dairy cows. In short, we shall produce whatever we lack! Any objections?” Victor’s gaze bore into the headmen.

They were silent. After a while, Dean summoned his courage to ask, “My lord, if we don’t farm, what about the offerings? And the two-tenths share the subjects owe?”

Victor smiled; he had been waiting for this. “We’ll replace offerings with taxes.”

“Taxes?”

“Yes. You need not give me offerings. Instead, I’ll place orders with you. You’ll produce goods as ordered, I’ll pay you, and then you’ll pay tax to me—tentatively set at sixty percent. Don’t worry about lack of orders; I’ll have these goods sold, and I’ll buy grain at a fair price for the subjects. But there is one rule: all products must be sold to me, or I will reclaim the village!”

The headmen fell silent again, uneasy with this novel arrangement.

“My lord, what about our fiefs?” Maureen asked, bracing himself.

“Consolidate them in the farm villages. Hire workers to plant the fields. I’ll take half the surplus. The work-points system will not be abolished for ten years; the points you earn can still be exchanged for land and copper sols. You may also exchange them for purple cane forest, and I’ll purchase the cane you harvest at the market price,” Victor replied with confidence. To protect the fief’s purple cane resources, he had to bind everyone’s interests together—a long-term strategy.

At his words, the tension eased. Their craving for land ran deep, but they did not yet realize what future Victor was preparing for them.

“Then there’s no problem,” the headmen said, beaming.

“Good. Accelerate the conversion of freemen into subjects. Promote thirty per month; within a year, all villages must be completed. If there are no objections, get to work.”

“Yes, my lord!”

As everyone made to leave, Victor’s voice called them back.

“One more thing: this round table meeting will be held every six months. When I’m away, decisions will be made collectively by the round table members. And next time, raise your hand before you speak!”

This was the true purpose of Victor’s round table meetings: centralized power in his presence, democracy in his absence. Excellent, formidable! Just as they said King Arthur did in the dramas.

“Sylvia, weren’t you trying to tie me down? Here, let me hand you the rope—let’s see who ends up binding whom.”

With this thought, Victor resolved to make a trip to Blackcastle himself.