Rebirth of the 8th-Circle Mage - Chapter 346: New Beginning (2)

Henry’s magic left everyone speechless, but it only lasted for a few seconds.

Masila quickly came back to her senses and asked Henry, “Uhm, Archmage? It’s quite bold of me to ask, considering the extraordinary power you’ve just displayed, but if you can do something like this, do we really need to take part in farming?”

She had a point. If Henry could produce vegetables without any water or soil, it would make no sense for so many people to engage in farming.

Instead of giving her a straightforward answer, Henry offered her the corn he had produced.

“Try this.”

Masila took the corn and bit off a couple of fresh kernels with her front teeth. She chewed on them for a second and then frowned.

“What is this…?”

“Yes, just as you’ve noticed, it’s not good. Despite their rapid growth, crops grown with magic lack flavor. They also lack essential nutrients for some reason.”

“Then doesn’t that mean magic is useless for farming?” challenged Masila.

“You may think so, but no, it’s not completely useless. There has been research going on at the Magical Spire, and the results show that the crops just have to be planted in the ground to ensure that they’ll have flavor and the necessary nutrients. We plant them the conventional way and then use magic to speed up the growth.”

“So that’s why you brought up farming…!”

“Yes, exactly.”

Crops couldn’t be called crops if they didn’t come with the flavor and nutrients they were supposed to have. In fact, if they didn’t have either one of them, they were nothing more than fresh waste.

However, after Henry explained his plan, everyone nodded as they finally understood his intentions.

He continued, “The Sages and Archmages are doing their best to find a way to turn the blind believers back to normal. So apart from them, every other wizard will take part in farming. I want to remind everyone that our top priority is making sure that no one starves.”

“I think this it’s a fantastic idea. Food won’t be an issue as long as we have wizards helping us.”

“I’m going to focus on growing barley. That way I can make all the alcohol I want.”

As they finally saw the light at the end of the tunnel when it came to the food crisis, everyone was excited and talked about the crops they were personally going to grow.

However, Vulcanus, who had hitherto been listening in silence, had something to add.

“Henry, while your plan sounds promising, there’s a critical part you’re missing.”

“A critical part I’m missing?”

“Yes, although it may seem trivial to you, the land of Monsieur is a lot smaller than you think. Most of the crops that are grown around here are specialty crops, like tobacco leaves.”

“Hmm… And I suppose we won’t have enough arable land even if we remove all the specialty crops, right?”

“I doubt it. No matter how efficiently we use the land, there’s only so much we can get out of such a small plot of land. That’s my opinion at least.”

“Hmm, I see.”

Henry couldn’t help but frown at this unexpected obstacle. The last thing he had thought he had to worry about was the efficiency of farming. He couldn’t believe they would be hindered by a lack of arable land despite having the manpower and necessary tools to farm.

McDowell, who had been listening intently to them, proposed a solution.

“Then we have no choice but to fight again.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, isn’t it obvious? If we don’t have enough arable land, that just means we have to get more. What do you think us swordsmen would do anyway? We can drive away the blind believers to get more land.”

McDowell’s reasoning and solution were pretty straightforward. If they didn’t have enough land, they just needed to acquire more. But in order to do so, they had to confront the blind believers, which naturally meant they might be forced to kill them.

Thinking about the potential casualties, Henry found himself caught in a dilemma—he would have to go against his pledge to avoid unnecessary bloodshed.

Henry bit his lip as he pondered.

‘All in all, we need land where there aren’t any blind believers.’

However, it seemed impossible to achieve that because the blind believers were essentially everywhere. Of course, there were places like Shahatra and St. Hall that the blind believers hadn’t taken over, but those weren’t a good fit either.

Being a desert, Shahatra was obviously unsuitable for farming, and St. Hall was the smallest city on the continent, and it had no arable land whatsoever.

Henry could make St. Hall arable by destroying it, but he thought it would be absurd to even consider that just for the sake of farming.

As Henry wrestled with the problem, Iselan offered a suggestion in a calm, hushed tone.

“Henry, you need empty land for farming, right?”

“Yes.”

“Then how about the Demonic Beast Forest?”

“Sorry…?”

“I was thinking about what you said, and the Demonic Beast Forest came to mind. There aren’t any of Arthus’ followers there, and the place is as empty as it can be. I don’t think there’s any other place like the Demonic Beast Forest at the moment.”

“Well, that’s certainly true, but…”

Henry furrowed his brow as he thought harder about the issue at hand. After a few moments, he realized that Iselan made a good argument. However, he also realized that the air in Demonic Beast Forest was filled with toxins, which naturally made agriculture impossible.

Just as Henry was about to say that the forest wasn’t a good fit, he made eye contact with the Saint and suddenly got an idea.

“Wait, there might just be a way…”

“Yes?”

“Saint, would you accompany me for a moment?”

“Right now?”

“It’ll be quick.”

With that, Henry asked the others to wait as he grabbed Irenae’s hand and disappeared. After a little while, the two came back, and Henry had a smile on his face.

“It’s settled.”

“What is?”

“Monsieur’s new farmland will be the Demonic Beast Forest. I believe the Saint’s purification abilities will allow us to use the forest for agriculture.”

Everyone in the room erupted in surprise and admiration at his words. In the heat of the moment, they had completely forgotten about the Saint’s purification abilities.

Henry had remembered that the priests from the Church of Peace had purification abilities, so he had put the Saint’s abilities to the test right away. He had teleported with her to the Fifth District, and fortunately enough, she had managed to purify the air just as Henry had expected.

‘If the purification worked on the Fifth District, it’s safe to assume it’ll work on the districts before that as well. Even if it doesn’t work as well in the Fourth District, there’ll still be enough farmland. The area from the Ninth to the Fifth District is several times the size of Monsieur. If the priests put in the effort, we could easily solve our farmland problem.’

Henry praised Iselan’s insight, but Iselan merely shrugged and said, “You can show your gratitude by allowing me to take some skilled cooks on my way back to the fortress.”

As expected of a commander that cared about his men. Henry smiled and concluded the conversation.

“Well then, since it seems like we have our plans set, we can get to work now. We’ll hold off on declaring the new nation until the food crisis is solved. Saint, would you accompany Commander Iselan to Caliburn Fortress while I make a quick stop at the Snow Spire?”

“Yes, of course.”

Henry had made the ultimate decision to postpone the restructuring of the military and the declaration of a new nation until the food crisis was taken care of. And before he left, he reminded everyone of their plans and what each individual was responsible for.

“I hope everything is clear now. I’ll get going then.”

With that, he was off to the Snow Spire.

***

Inside the vast laboratory of the Snow Spire, the air was filled with the scent of human blood. The school heads could see their own blank expressions reflected in the blood puddles on the floor. They all gathered and went up to the person strapped to the table, squirming and moaning in pain.

– Ahh….

The person was a young man, moaning and drooling all over himself. His pained groans were lifeless, as though he was nothing more than a stuffed doll. He raised his head slightly, but that was as much as he could move, given that he was strapped very tightly to the table.

– Gaaah…

His moaning grew even weaker as though he was losing his last ounce of strength. Lore could see his reflection in the poor man’s eyes. He was among the wizards conducting this experiment.

“Let’s begin,” Lore said in a heavy, somber tone.

With Lore leading, the magic spiral underneath the young man’s feet glowed. The light coming from it intensified, drawing in more energy as it traveled to the center. The young man, who was hanging limply from the upright table, began to convulse violently.

– KIAAA! KWAAA!

He was in excruciating pain, screaming as though he were a demonic beast being burned to death. But no matter how much he struggled, it was impossible for a mere human being to break free of a binding spell. As the ordeal went on, his futile attempts to break free grew increasingly more desperate, his wrists bruising and bleeding.

The poor man’s face also turned purple, and then…

– KIAAAAAA!

He let out an eerily shrill scream that sounded as though someone was clawing at a chalkboard. However, as unnerving as it was, the wizards had no intention of stopping. But then…

Squelch!

The young man’s head exploded.

“…”

And just like that, the young man died without knowing why. The gruesome remains of his head had splattered on everyone in the laboratory. Blood was spurting from his neck, trickling down his torso and eventually adding onto the blood on the floor.

The laboratory whiffed of a nasty, acrid scent of blood, but no one in the room frowned. Instead, they merely sighed, each wizard feeling different emotions.

Lore shook his head and said in a rather calm voice, “The forty-eighth trial, aimed at restoring the sanity of the blind believers, has failed.”

They had almost gone through fifty humans at this point. At first, Lore had been sympathetic toward the subjects because he viewed them as humans, just like him, but as they kept experimenting, they had become nothing more than guinea pigs to him.

A vice school head swiftly documented the results Lore had announced. He reacted similarly to Lore, not showing any emotion toward the subject.

“Let’s clean up before we proceed with the forty-ninth trial.”

“Yes, sir.”

Then, one of the school heads snapped his fingers, causing all the blood in the laboratory to gather into a cube and instantly harden. With another snap of his fingers, the school head threw the cube of blood into the pile in the corner.

Just like with the blood, the wizards had to dispose of the bodies because they no longer had any use for them.

Lore nodded slightly before incinerating the headless corpse.

Crackle-!

The smell of burning flesh momentarily filled the laboratory as the fresh corpse caught on fire. Lore couldn’t help frowning at the acrid smell and quickly got rid of it.

‘We have to find a way… Fast.’

Lore had started this project right after he had persuaded the two wizards specializing in anthropology to help them. However, they had gone through forty-eight subjects in what felt like the blink of an eye.

Fortunately, but also unfortunately, they still had almost fifty blind believers left in the basement of the Snow Spire. The underground prison could only hold up to one hundred people at a time.

The constant experiments had made Lore emotionally numb. He knew that this was a dangerous sign, and every time he felt that way, he forced himself to feel sad.

‘This sure is unpleasant to do.’

It was unexpectedly hard to cope with being desensitized to pain and suffering, but with Henry absent, Lore had to act as a spiritual leader for the other wizards. Thus, every time he felt like he was going to break down, he reminded himself of his responsibilities and duties.

Once the cleanup was done, Stan said, “Bring in the next subject.”

“Yes, sir.”

At that, one of the vice school heads used magic to summon another blind believer from the dungeon. However, the wizards couldn’t help frowning as they laid eyes on their new test subject.

– Kiaaa…

This one was moaning just like the previous test subject, but it was a child that didn’t look older than seven.

Someone in the room gagged at the sight of the child drooling with hazy eyes. It wasn’t because she saw it was a child, but because she knew what would happen to them.

Humania, the vice school head of the school of biology, broke down in tears and threw up. Seeing her like this, Lore asked the others to take her outside.

She stepped out with the help of a few wizards. She was still in the corridor outside the laboratory when the child’s shrill scream echoed from within.

Humania threw up again, thinking of the gruesome way in which the child would soon die.