Foreign Land Reclamation By a Vegetable-growing Skeleton

The Minotaur Aunt had always wanted to taste that so she started asking around about what butter was…

Although mushrooms did not taste good, adding them to clay could help to stave off hunger without bloating the stomach. Before the arrival of eternal night, the Minotaur Aunt would always dig some mushrooms, mix it with clay to make clay cakes, paired with half the amount of the usual grains, it was enough to feel full.

By saving half the grains, surviving through the Eternal Night became simpler. As a child, the Minotaur aunt never understood why a month-long darkness was labelled as Eternal Night – not until she experienced hunger for the first time. Then she understood.

In the darkness of hunger, every second felt like an eternity.

From then on, the Minotaur aunt’s favorite pastime became cooking. Her second favorite pastime – matchmaking.

As she was gathering mushrooms, the Minotaur aunt unknowingly drew closer to the Land of Deathly Silence. Suddenly, the sky turned dark without any warnings, multicolored rays of light fell from above, dyeing the sky in a rainbow of colors. The Eternal Night had arrived.

Along with the advent of Eternal Night, the earth began to tremble slightly. Suddenly, a pale hand-bone pierced through the soil and touched the Minotaur aunt’s hoof.

“Ah!” She gave a startled jump. With a strong kick, she flung away the hand-bone and jumped back a few steps.

However, when she saw what was kicked away clearly, she was not scared anymore. Padding her chest, she said: “You scared me to death, can’t you give a warning before coming out?!”

A gray skeleton missing one hand came out of the ground. Hearing the Minotaur aunt’s complaint, it turned its hollow eye sockets her way and opened and closed its jaw a few times.

“Over there.” The Minotaur aunt casually pointed at the hand bone that she had kicked away. She didn’t know if it understood it or not.

The grey skeleton managed to get up using one hand, walked towards its hand bone, picked it up, attached it, then stood in place looking lost.

Not far away, another skeleton was stuck halfway out of the ground – either buried too tightly or due to some other reason. It was struggling and struggling to free the rest of the body from the soil.

The Minotaur aunt quickly walked over, and enthusiastically said: “Here, let me help.”

She placed hands under the skeleton’s ribs and gave a strong pull.

While the upper body was pulled out, the lower body remained in the ground. With a crack, the skeleton split into two.

The half skeleton propped itself up, gave a dazed look at the lower half still buried in the ground, then turned to look at the Minotaur aunt.

The Minotaur aunt was very embarrassed and apologized, “Sorry, sorry…” she apologized while stepping back a few steps. After creating a distance, she turned around and ran away.

The skeleton’s lower jaw moved in silent accusation. Eventually, it crawled over and started to excavate the ground to dig out its lower body.

As the Minotaur aunt ran, hands skeletons erupted from the earth one after another. A legion of ashen skeletal frames emerged from the ground, creating a white carpet stretching out to the horizon.

The Land of Deathly Silence, empty just a few minutes ago, was quickly filled with skeletal zombies.

Seeing such a sight, the Minotaur aunt was thunderstruck and started to run faster. As soon as she ran into the town, she began to beat the stone drum fervently: “It’s here, it’s here! The eternal night is here, and the Undead Tide is upon us. Come and see!”

The villagers, who had been waiting for this day, quickly grabbed their stools or climbed to their rooftops to witness this spectacular and dazzling scene.

For the living creatures on the east side of Central Mountain Range, the undead were an unavoidable part of life. Instead of living in dread and fear, they found it easier to live happily and enjoy the experience. After all, the undead didn’t kill.

The undead creatures had no desires or needs, and there were a limited number of intelligent high-level undead, so they didn’t consume much. They possessed infinite labor power and could be easily satisfied, so they had no need to oppress the living.

To put it inappropriately, the living creatures on the east side of the Central Mountain Range were more like free-range pets. No one oppressed a group of pets, and some would even occasionally feed them.

And here they come. Six Corpse Witch Horses, their eyes aglow with red light and hooves ablaze with blue fire, race forward, pulling a large carriage from the Land of Deathly Silence.

The village elder quickly rushes up to greet them, calling out loudly: “Oh, is it the Great Sage? May your soul be undisturbed.”

The carriage stops in front of the village elder. Out steps a majestic elder mage, with white hair and a long beard, wearing a robe and carrying a magic wand. He removes his hat in response:

“May you also be in good health, erm, body health I mean. Let me think, this is Bridgehead Town, right? Are you the 21st Camo? From the time I met your ancestors till now, it has been 21 generations. How’s your health? When are you going to pass away?”

“Great Sage, aren’t you just persuading me to die early? That’s not a good blessing.” complained the 21st-generation Camo Village Chief.

“What’s wrong with dying early? Just look at your body, your bones are osteoporotic.” The Great Sage patted Camo Village Chief’s shoulder with distaste.

Then he asked, “So? How was the harvest these past few months? Do you have enough to eat?”

Camo Village Chief quickly answered: “Thanks to your blessings, the harvest was good, we have enough to eat, we should be able to get through this eternal night.”

“That’s good, that’s good. I’ll ease up on you then. I don’t know if the other villages have had a harvest. A single grain of surplus would save a life. Since you have enough grain, I’ll leave you some extra salt. It’s getting harder and harder to mine salt, so there will be less and less salt in the future. Conserve it.” The Great Sage said with a mix of happiness and helplessness.

“Oh, there’s less salt? What should we do?” Camo Village Chief seemed a little lost. But when the Great Sage took out the bag of salt, he took it smoothly without any hesitation.

Every year, when the eternal night comes, the Great Sage rides in his chariot to provide relief to everyone. If a village has a poor harvest, the Great Sage will leave some grain. If a village has enough grain, he will leave some extra salt.

Compared to grain, salt is more precious. Because while grain can be grown, salt can only be obtained from the Great Sage or smuggled in by the Undead traders from the west.

The consequences of a salt shortage are severe. Hearing that there was less salt, Camo Village Chief was instantly alarmed. But apart from the alarm, there was nothing he could do. If it was something even the Great Sage couldn’t handle, then there was no way he could do anything.

You can’t dig for salt yourself. If the Skeleton Zombies couldn’t mine salt, then humans definitely couldn’t either.

“Alright, is there anything else you need help with here? If not, I’ll move on to the next village.” The Great Sage asked.

“Oh yes, yes. The water well we mentioned last eternal night, we have gathered the materials. Would you please help us dig a well? Then we won’t have to wait for the water level to rise during the eternal night to get water.”

“Digging a well? Sigh, it’s not particularly useful. The water table is shallow. You’ll have water for the first month; for the next two months, you’ll still lack water. In the end, you still have to store water. Okay, where are the materials?”

Although he grumbled about the futility of it, the Great Sage still went to where the materials were piled up, waved his Magic Wand a few times, and a mound of earth quickly rose from the ground, rising non-stop.

After it rose to a height of more than ten metres, the mound tilted to one side, forming a deep vertical hole to reveal the water table.

The Great Sage waved his Magic Wand again, the materials float up on their own, as if an invisible hand was holding them – Hand of the Mage.

The floating materials went into the well, rapidly providing support for the well walls to prevent them from collapsing.

“Alright, let me repeat, the well isn’t going to help much, you still need to store water regularly. Don’t end up dying of thirst when you run out of water.” The Great Sage admonished.

“Yes, yes. I know it’s not much use. We mainly want to extend the water storage time. During the eternal night, everyone rushed to the river to get water, it’s too dangerous. With the well, it would be much safer to get water from there.” said Camo Village Chief.

“Fair enough. Alright, I’m leaving then. May you pass away soon.” Without looking back, the Great Sage waved and headed for his carriage.

Camo Village Chief was annoyed, and said: “Goodbye, may your soul be disturbed.”

Just as the Great Sage was about to board his carriage, a horn-like sound echoed from the direction of the Land of Deathly Silence: woo

The Great Sage paused, looking in that direction, he muttered to himself: “Eh, why is the skeleton here?”