Night of the Soulless Heathens – 465



#466. Northern Qi and the Overlord 1

Azadin’s food warehouses were moved to various places around the world and were strictly managed there.

They managed supplies flexibly by preparing enough for the city’s residents to use and when expeditions or large-scale transport were needed they emptied nearby places first and brought in from far away to fill up little by little.

It’s easier said than done but in order for goods to move smoothly it was necessary to have a close real-time grasp of the granary inventory in every city.

But Azadin did it.

There was a huge waste of administrative power accordingly but in fact such a waste of administrative power was necessary for Azadin.

It was because there was a need to provide jobs to administrators writers and intellectuals.

Although most of the refugees were ordinary people who made a living from farming there were also educated people among them including lawyers scholars patent attorneys and writers.

To simply force these people into physical labor is no different from asking them to die.

So Azadin gave them jobs even though he used a lot of administrative power and thanks to this an organic and flexible supply system was established and there was a major reorganization of the administrative system.

That is why it was possible to distribute resources evenly in this large country without any shortages.

But this soon became Azadin’s weakness.

Azadin’s territory where he sought to save everyone and rescue everyone was full of weaknesses.

In particular there have been several attacks on Azadin’s supply system warehouse so far.

Even if it weren’t for the spies of the Northern Qi there were various malcontents and even cultists who held a grudge against Azadin.

Many have attempted to attack Azadin’s warehouse but sabotage operations that burn warehouses in rear areas outside the combat zone usually fail.

No matter how many elite agents you deploy a warehouse is not a place that can be easily destroyed.

But on the day the black sun rose and an ominous solar eclipse occurred there was sudden movement in the Rescue Knights.

It was the rise of the fallen knights of the Wisdom Order who had been cowering and the Nether cultists who had been hiding among the common people.

Although the Order of Courage and the Order of Mercy managed to stop them and eventually repel them there was enormous damage to both warehouses and lives.

Attacks particularly those focused on warehouses resulted in massive food losses.

In addition starting from this day not only the Rescue Knights but also other places simultaneously attacked the food warehouses of the Nether Cultists causing large and small casualties and a large amount of material loss causing enormous material damage to the Azadin army.

*********

Garasan who had joined the existing administrative officials and the new staff of the Azadin Army calculated the losses in the Rescue Knights Command and reported to Azadin.

“We estimate that there will be a loss of grain fish dried meat etc. worth between five thousand and ten thousand seok.”

“From five thousand seok to ten thousand seok? Chitai uses the unit called seok.”

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Other countries use the bushel but here they use the stone.

“Haha because they use primitive units like bushels everyone suffers even with such a rich land. Oh and Assander also uses stone. A stone is slightly less than the amount that a man can eat in a year. It is also more than enough for a woman to eat so it is convenient to think of it as a year’s worth of food for one person. It is a very useful unit.”

Garasan answered like that.

“At that rate a bushel is enough for one person to eat for two months.”

Other officials grumbled.

“I managed to push through with a stone even though I was like a rolling stone. But if I go south again there will be a fight over weights and measures. Should I sort it out?”

“Haha. Isn’t organizing weights and measures including scales the very essence of a king?”

Garasan’s words meant that if Azadin wanted to overhaul the weights and measures he had to conquer the entire continent of Hybris.

He was said to be a scholar of the Cheongryu faction but Azadin liked the fact that he could say whatever he wanted to say even in front of the king.

“Even if it’s a weight and measure does that mean that the food that 10000 people can eat for a year was burned in this incident? Even if you gathered 10000 seok in one place and set it on fire it would be difficult to burn it all at once.”

Azadin had such doubts. Even if they burned down a warehouse containing ten thousand seoks of grain it would be difficult to burn it all down so easily.

There must have been some grain that the fire couldn’t burn but does that mean it really burned everything?

However Garasan submitted a document with additional information about him.

“There are 29 warehouses that have burned down not just one. There were attacks from all directions including Arangi Banreung Chadra and Sandokar and we were able to stop some of them which limited the damage to this extent. This attack was truly malicious and I believe that it could not have happened without someone who was well-controlled behind it.”

If the Nether Cultists or cultists had attacked indiscriminately such a precise attack would not have been possible.

The Nether’s reapers are so vast and alien that the world humans inhabit is like a grain of rice held in a pair of tweezers with words etched into it.

It is easy to destroy everything but difficult to properly operate and recognize and to make such precise destruction possible people had to be involved.

“One thousand seok. Considering the size of the country it’s not really that much.”

“At a time like this it is as precious as gold. It is human life itself. Even with Your Majesty’s management policy….”

Garasan joined Azadin’s army and received the documents from his predecessors modified them into the Chitai style and shared them with the Chitai scholars.

The scholars of Chitai were deeply impressed by Azadin’s management policy.

Azadin’s efforts to gather all of the nation’s capabilities to feed the people were fully recorded in this document.

The numbers in the data are simple numbers that do not flow with blood but what they tell us is how hot Azadin’s blood is and his passion.

“Burning precious food at this time. Even though it is called sabotage it is crossing the line. Since you violated the gentleman’s agreement I will definitely retaliate accordingly…”

Azadin clicked his tongue.

The one most suspicious at the moment is none other than the Northern Cohen Lion.

If not the continent of Whibris is so large that it is difficult to even maintain one country.

In the Fimbulbert situation only two people were fighting for hegemony over the entire continent: the Northern Emperor Cohen Lioneo and the Southern Overlord Azadin.

But this time I don’t feel like it was his doing.

“Cohen Lionaire got rid of his master in order to accept the prophecy that he would become the flower of chivalry. He also wanted to plant his own power in the Knights of Salvation but in any case he is a man with strong self-esteem. He is a man who wants to become a legendary hero a great saint king or even an emperor or something more. Of course such a man can launch a food offensive that starves the people. I will be the one who loses face because of this food offensive. However being so deeply involved in Nether magic will inevitably tarnish his reputation.”

“That’s a wise decision. By the way the same rumor is currently circulating in our cities.”

“What rumor?”

“There are rumors that Your Majesty will now conscript a large number of troops and send them out on a suicide mission.”

“….”

It was a very good way to handle it for Azadin.

Ten thousand seok of food are empty?

Then just kill that many people. In any case Azadin’s army has plenty of battlefields to deploy troops to.

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If we deploy a lot of troops to the Btuma front and relieve the burden on the elite soldiers just a little that many refugees will die which will reduce the demand for food.

Besides isn’t it an honorable battlefield to fight the non-human enemies the Nagas to recover Btuma?

“Yeah. So that rumor spread like wildfire?”

“Yes. Someone must have planted it intentionally.”

Even if Azadin were to conscript to narrow his mouth there are only a limited number of people who could do so blatantly and spread it across the entire country at the same time.

“It definitely seems like it was done by spies from the Northern Qi.”

“I’m embarrassed.”

Jibek and Niselda who had been listening lowered their heads.

Their mission was to crack down on internal counterintelligence spies.

Unlike the times when we were struggling due to a lack of talent we now have the support of the Etar bloodline of the Merciful Order of the Knights Templar so our counterintelligence capabilities are not lacking but we have been hit with both sabotage operations and civil affairs operations which is a huge loss of face.

“So what are you going to do? It is true that there is a food shortage but there are rumors going around among the people.”

“But they will still conscript. If they don’t conscript how are they going to get rations? They are not starving and are not turning into bandits because they are being given rations under the pretext of being soldiers.”

Azadin also took a firm stance against someone’s civil affairs operation.

“And I don’t intentionally throw people out to die. There’s no way I’d fight like that. I’m doing my best on any front so if I were to be scared by this kind of sabotage and change my attitude it would only prove that they’re right.”

“That’s a great decision. But then there’s the real problem of food shortages. How are you going to deal with that?”

“We have to tear down the Northern Qi.”

“yes?”

Everyone was taken aback by Azadin’s sudden remark.

*********

The news that Azadin was retreating from Chitai after suffering heavy losses from attacks by Nether monsters and cultists was rather disconcerting news for the Northern Qi.

Why wouldn’t we be happy that our enemies are in danger?

However the Northern Emperor intuitively felt that there was a new force behind this that he did not know about.

First of all it wasn’t him who burned down Azaddin’s army’s food warehouse.

It was not his doing that King Sebalhan of Chitai was corrupted by the Nether.

But to anyone who sees it what’s happening now seems to be his doing.

Although it passed without much discussion among the people the Kingdom of Karasar immediately began to have doubts about the assassination of their king.

‘And that’s what I did. Damn it. How did things get so messed up?’

Karasar and Tarasar gradually distance themselves from the Northern Qi.

They are in dire need of support from the Northern Qi since they have no food reserves but that is all. They do not want to get closer to the Northern Qi any further.

The sudden transformation of Sebalhan from Chitai into a Nether monster may have temporarily defeated Azadin’s army but it ultimately resulted in a loss for the clones.

I’m also worried that the food warehouse in Azadin’s territory was attacked and burned down by Nether cultists this time.

If Azadin considers this to be the work of the Northern Qi then who knows what Azadin might do.

Now that the gentleman’s agreement has been broken the other side may send spies to Assander to carry out sabotage operations.