Foreign Land Reclamation By a Vegetable-growing Skeleton

Fertilizer?! Ange reacted, turning his head to look at Negris.

“Yes, volcanic ash, fertilizer, and volcanic rock. Porous and loose, with excellent water permeability. Mixed with soil, it prevents clods from forming,” Negris explained.

The thing Ange disliked the most now was soil clodding, which could lead to the loss of fertility quotient. The fertility of a piece of land was enough to support several cycles of crops, but the problem of clodding was hard to solve unless deep ploughing was used to turn the underlying soil onto the surface.

In the Temple of Rest, Ange would do just that. After all, with only three thousand acres of land, who knew how many times it had undergone crop rotation over more than a thousand years.

But tending to the vast tracts of land in the wilderness, Ange was determined not to expend the effort of flipping the soil before it all became clods.

“Demon Valley.” Ange pointed in a certain direction and addressed Lightning.

Demon Valley was the furthest dwelling place from the world transfer station. It was actually quite populated with several thousand people, but in the past, most creatures couldn’t be counted as ‘people’ but as beasts of burden.

In the past, this place was the location of the resurrection altar—the River of the Dead. The siren presided over the ceremony, managed by demons, which was probably why this place became known as Demon Valley.

As for why a siren was overseeing the Undead’s resurrection altar? Well, that’s a long story. The main reason was an ancient Necromancer who had a siren as a pet while he was alive, and after his death, the siren had remained loyal to him.

In order to distract the siren from constantly wanting to bear him a child, the Necromancer applied all his acquired knowledge to creating a resurrection altar best suited for her to use her residual energy.

Because sirens have a powerful mental charm, they are particularly suitable to preside over the resurrection altar, which became a convention. From then on, the resurrection altars were presided over by sirens.

Of course, a Necromancer could also preside over the ceremony, and the success rate wouldn’t be much lower. However, who could question the designator of the inventor?

In the beginning, this altar could only turn living humans into Witches or Undead. Later, the creator found it boring to be a Mage and adjusted the resurrection altar to reincarnate himself into a Dark Knight, becoming the first man-made Undead creature—the Dark Knight Emperor Piero.

The inventor was indeed obstinate in his way.

When the world transfer station was shut down and the Resting Wind began to blow, the resurrection altar slowly fell into ruin. Ultimately, even the cave that housed it was blocked.

Without the resurrection altar, without the world transfer station, sirens had no value. They eventually fell into slavery, the Lava Demon, Flame Demon, and other powerful combat demons dominated Demon Valley, turning all other species into slaves.

Due to its unique geographical location, it could cultivate two seasons a year. Demon Valley had a high grain output, not only enough to support the slaves, but also surplus for export.

The population of Ice City was most notable, with seventy to eighty thousand people. They had an ample population base to maintain their species from deteriorating. The beings in Witch City mainly intermarried with Ice City’s.

Demon Valley was a rather closed circle. After hundreds of years of breeding, the demon leaders found that the ratio of congenital deformities and mental retardation in slave newborns was increasing. They had to take some measures to save the situation.

When Ange and his party arrived, Demon Valley was in chaos. Fires had begun to ignite in some areas, but no one was trying to put them out, probably because they were too poor to have anything flammable to burn.

People were arguing and quarrelling with each other, trying to decide what to do next.

Even after the death of the three leaders, Demon Valley did not succumb to chaos and continued to operate within the established norms. After all, the least useful in a stable power structure is actually the leader, it does not matter much if they exist or not, only pioneering power structures need strong leaders.

But any force could not lack backbone, otherwise, it would soon be in chaos. Yesterday, all the demons were all slaughtered by angels, wiping out the middle management personnel of Demon Valley.

Humans, who could only exist as slaves within a thousand years, had no management skills at all, so chaos was inevitable.

Some suggested staying in Demon Valley, where there was water, land, and food, to continue farming and living as before.

Some suggested pledging allegiance to Ice City, where they believed was a world for humans and they could retrieve their dignity. They would not wish to return as slaves, would they?

Others advised going to Witch City, where species were equal and wouldn’t care about their previous slave status, or scorn their stupidity, at least they wouldn’t be more stupid than the Minotaur.

No one could convince anyone else. Those who wished to stay in Demon Valley didn’t want many people to leave. If too many people left, they would no longer be able to cultivate the terraces here. The terraces built on the Great Rift were more dangerous to cultivate with fewer people.

Those who wished to leave deemed that the terraces were too dangerous. Continuing to cultivate was equivalent to sending them to their deaths. Now, with no slave masters or noble emperors, no one could oppress anyone else.

“Who are you to say who is oppressing who? Who are you calling a slave master? Say it again!”

“Try it, you are just aspiring to be a slave master, you want to oppress people, you are—ouch!”

A brawl broke out, and it lasted for quite a while without anyone dying, as most slaves were responsible for farming and had no professional fighting skills.

Upon his arrival, this chaotic scene was what Ange saw.

Before coming here, Negris had worried about potential dangers in this place. If there were city defense crossbows like in Ice City, they would have to avoid them.

But what he saw now was nothing more than a marketplace.

Without any hesitation, they rode their beasts directly into the valley. Everywhere they went, people were dumbfounded and silenced: it…was…a bit crowded…

Regardless of the overcrowding, the lineup was indeed intimidating. During the journey, Ange had treated the angel’s skeletal wings, making it appear even more terrifying.

A skeleton topped with angel wings, especially when only yesterday a single angel had slaughtered the demons in the valley, could not but make people see the situation askew.

“Did they kill the winged man and reduce him to a skeleton?” “Who are they? So powerful. Isn’t that horse the most powerful?” “Is that a dragon? The wise Bronze Dragon? It’s so small, smaller than the Demon Cocoon, maybe it was born premature?”

As everyone was speculating, Negris suddenly flew up and roared, “Who knows where the resurrection altar is!”

Immediately, the former slaves kneeled on the ground following Negris’s question.

“Uh, it’s just a question to ask for directions; no need for such a big ceremony, right?” Negris was also startled, he murmured to himself.

How could he have expected that with Ange’s arrival and his intimidating entourage, it would break the subtle balance of Demon Valley at that moment? With these seemingly directionless former slaves, as if having found support, they started to act according to their past habits.

“Bronze Dragon Lord, I have heard a bit about the altar’s legend. Please follow me..”