Foreign Land Reclamation By a Vegetable-growing Skeleton

Even if they knew Brooks was bringing the Giant Dragon to defend Naeli, there was nothing Ange and the others could do but wait, until the dragons arrived.

Ange, bored, popped his head out again to look at the sky. Throughout the day, at least ten batches of flying knights had flown over the oasis. However, nobody had singled out this oasis, teeming with weeds and little trees, for serious attention, especially given the presence of a skeleton which seemed to have been decomposing there for quite some time.

The later the batches of knights, the looser their formations and the faster their speed, as if growing ever more impatient.

By evening, the sound of hoof beats reached Ange’s ears. Turning his head, he saw a luxurious carriage making its way over a sand dune towards them, seemingly unfazed by the sand. The hooves of the horses raised sand and made noise, but the wheels of the carriage did not sink in or even stir up the dust.

Clearly, some kind of magic had been applied to the wheels of the carriage.

Ange didn’t recognize any of the carriages except for the one bearing the Rose Emblem.

As the carriage crossed the dune, the guards around the carriage spotted the oasis and pointed towards it excitedly. After a bit of discussion, they all turned the carriages towards the oasis.

“Kvada, what are the chances! Quick, we need to hide deeper,” Negris, whose light was projected onto Ange, was at a loss of words.

Ange nudged deeper into the sand with great force and soon he had burrowed into the depths of the sand.

Ange had laboring on this oasis overnight. As digging such a large hole was not feasible, he had collected the sand and made a mound on top of the dragon’s body, then sprinkled grass seeds on it and stimulated their growth.

The life cycle of these wild plants was quite short, allowing them to grow thick and produce copious amounts of seeds. Ange collected these seeds, piled damp sand on top of the grass again, raised the pile another meter, and then scattered more seeds to stimulate growth.

After repeating this process layer upon layer, four times in all, the dragon’s body was buried under four to five meters of soil. Since each layer was full of wild seeds and their root systems, it was as if four layers of grass mat had tightly covered the dragon’s body, solidifying the sand and gravel into a lump. Even digging it up wouldn’t be easy.

Using the dragon’s body to fill up the hollow between two sand dunes had almost leveled the depression, leaving a slight protrusion.

Ange lay on the edge of these grass mats, also scattering seeds around the perimeter of the oasis to prevent its border from looking too neat and thus conspicuous.

Of course, Ange would not have been so meticulous without the tutoring of Anthony. The former Dark Knight Emperor was the true master of stealth. While Negris was proficient in the theoretical knowledge, he often overlooked various details in actual practice.

The security detail of the caravan arrived at the oasis first. A wizard cast a Detection Magic spell to inspect the oasis, but couldn’t see anything due to the thick layer of grass mats.

Several guards came over, using their Longswords to blindly stab into the ground. After a few stabs, which brought up fresh grass roots and sap, they quickly lost interest and stopped. They understood that no one could hide in a pile of fresh weeds to launch an attack. They changed their poking to slicing, quickly removing the surface weeds and clearing a flat space.

“It’s all weeds underneath, and there are thick roots. Let’s camp here to avoid being buried by the sand dunes at night,” reported a guard. They quickly received approval.

The four luxurious carriages were unhitched from their horses and pulled onto the cleared grassland. The carriages were positioned in opposite pairs, with some distance between each pair, and a switch was activated on each carriage.

The booming sounds of magical power reverberated as thick ropes hurled from the carriages, connecting them together. At the same time, four spikes emerged from the bottom of each carriage, plunging into the sand to secure the carriages in place.

Along these thick ropes, tambours were drawn towards the center, concealing the area surrounded by the four carriages, including the cleared ground, which was also covered with thick carpets.

The guards took several iron pipes from the practically empty carriages. They connected the two thickest pipes and carried them into the middle of the tent, propping it up from the center.

Suddenly, the slightly sagging center of the tent became high, lowering the four sides into a proper tent. The remaining iron poles were driven into the midpoint of the four sides to reinforce the tent.

Where the tent cloth joined, there were adhesive strips. By pressing two together, they stuck to each other, ready to be ripped apart the next day for packing the tent.

Then, the wizard took out more than a dozen iron rods from a box. One end of each rod was sharp and the other end held a sphere, which contained intricate Magic Elements.

As the wizard walked around, he placed these iron rods in the corresponding spots and pulled out the velvet strips blocking the Magic Elements. Once unblocked, the Magic Elements could sense any abnormal waves of magic or elements and would shriek to alert them. They functioned effectively as Magic Sentries.

After all this was done, three beautiful maids came down from another luxurious carriage carrying comfortable bedding such as clean, magical goose-down warm quilts, pillows filled with divine wood seeds, and mat cushions with silence boundaries, etc.

After the maids finished setting up, the final luxurious carriage opened. A carpet was laid out, extending right up to the entrance of the tent so that Iron Leyce could step into the tent without setting foot on the sand. Anyone witnessing this luxury would have thought a young noble was on a vacation trip.

But Iron Leyce was in no mood to enjoy these luxuries. He didn’t even get down from the carriage, focusing instead on the documents in his hand and occasionally operating a Magic Communicator in front of him.