SLV Chapter 6: Stockpile Grain, Bide Your Time!
April 12
"I'm sorry, Master, Milya woke up late..."
Just as Lin En was about to head back outside, he heard a rustling from behind him then Milya's voice followed, clearly carrying a slight tremor.
He turned around to find her clothes in mild disarray.
She had obviously scrambled out of bed in a hurry. One side of her robe's collar was pulled high, covering her collarbone, while the other had slipped down to her chest.
"Good timing. You're up. Come outside with me and help collect source stones."
"Collect... source stones?"
Before she even had the chance to marvel at Lin En's kindness again, that he had not said a single word of reproach about a slave sleeping in, the statement left her thoroughly confused.
Something as precious as source stones... how could anyone just find them lying around?
Lin En had no reservations about letting her know. With the slave rune in place, he could be absolutely certain that Milya would keep this secret for him.
He was still desperately thirsty, so he kept his words to a minimum, said nothing more, and pushed the door open.
Milya followed him out, wearing an expression of complete bewilderment.
Once outside, Lin En first scanned their surroundings.
Satisfied that there was no sign of Ruleh or anyone else, aside from a desert wolf in the far distance, he pointed toward a section of the scattered remains and addressed Milya.
"Milya, you take this area. Pick out any source stones you find inside the bones."
"Source stones inside the bones?"
A look of confusion crossed Milya's face, followed by a worried glance at the skeletal remains, and then at Lin En's expression.
How could there be source stones inside bones?
And if there weren't any, what then? Would her master punish her?
Watching Lin En's back as he moved away, Milya walked over to the nearest pile of skeletal remains with her heart in her throat.
She crouched down, bracing herself for a difficult search, but to her amazement, a deep blue source stone was simply sitting there, resting quietly among the bones.
"There really is a source stone!"
Milya stared at it in disbelief, picked it up, and hurried off to check the next pile.
Very soon, she found herself staring with the same wide-eyed wonder at another heap of remains.
Again, a single source stone lay there, half-buried in the sand.
"It must be Master's kindness that moved the Oasis God! This is surely the Oasis God's blessing!"
Milya's imagination filled in the rest on its own, and she found herself thinking of the epics she had once heard from wandering bards.
"The Oasis God has always watched over many great sovereigns. And now... the Oasis God has begun to watch over my kind Master too..."
When she glanced back at Lin En, the gratitude in her eyes had gained something new alongside it, a faint thread of reverence and hope.
"Will Master... become a great sovereign one day too?"
…
At that moment, the future great sovereign was throwing bones at a desert wolf.
"Get out of here! Go on!"
Lin En picked up a rib bone from one of the skeletons and hurled it hard toward the distant shape.
He had been keeping a vigilant watch on their surroundings to make sure no one was around.
No people had shown up, but a desert wolf that had been lurking at a distance had been creeping steadily closer.
He hadn't expected the creature to be so brazen. It had actually wandered up to sniff at the remains inside the oasis.
These skeleton bones had been buried under the sand for who knew how long before clawing their way out. There wasn't a scrap of meat left on them.
He truly couldn't imagine what the animal found worth smelling.
To keep himself safe, Lin En decided to drive it off. What he hadn't expected was his throw landing with pinpoint accuracy, striking the wolf square on the head.
"Awooo~"
The wolf let out a pitiful whimper and limped away as fast as it could manage.
Only then did Lin En notice the animal was hobbling, and that there were no pups in sight.
"A lame she-wolf."
He guessed it had probably been driven out of its pack because of the injury. Making it through a single night on its own was already something of a miracle.
Once the lame wolf had vanished from sight, Lin En relaxed and turned back to searching the last few piles of remains.
At last, he found one more.
"Source stone number seventeen!"
Lin En bent down, picked up the final stone, and let the smile rise to his face.
A total of 137 skeleton remains had yielded a full seventeen source stones.
A tremendous haul!
He gave the coarse linen bag in his hand a shake. The stones clinked and rang against one another in a clear, bright sound.
Just yesterday, that same bag had held only six source stones.
Now it held more than double that.
He glanced over toward Milya and saw her walking between the piles of remains, her robe bundled up in front of her to hold the stones she had gathered.
Her chopstick-thin legs were spread apart for balance as she made her way to the next heap, looking like the effort was taking everything she had.
The area he had assigned her was smaller than his own, but Lin En estimated it would still yield at least ten stones.
A single night's work, and their total haul might reach at least twenty-seven.
If tomorrow's night brought a similar yield, that would be more than enough to repair the remaining two sand spirit arrow tower ruins on his oasis.
Three sand spirit arrow towers would give him a formidable level of defense, enough to match a normal oasis's standard.
Against an ordinary blood moon, with care and preparation, that would be manageable and even if fewer than ten source stones were left after that, it would still be enough to meaningfully improve his daily life, bringing him up to the comfortable standard that well-settled slaveowners enjoyed.
Warm and decently made blankets to keep out the cold, proper clothes, and enough food to satisfy a real appetite.
He could even have the wooden shack repaired and made to look like something respectable.
All of it was cheap, of course, at least for a slaveowner with an oasis.
For the middle-tier freemen, that was a different story entirely.
From the memories he had inherited, the original owner's father had once said that the great majority of middle-class freemen earned no more than thirty-three source stones in an entire year.
In truth, most freemen still conducted trade through barter, and many might go their whole lives without ever handling a source stone but the temptation of sudden wealth flickered through Lin En's mind and was gone just as quickly.
He thought about how the original owner's father had died, and how this oasis had been reduced to ruins.
It had been a blood moon night not long ago, when the skeletons had come in extraordinary numbers.
That blood moon was what had sent him plummeting from the son of a barely respectable slaveowner all the way down to a destitute slaveowner on the verge of being wiped out entirely.
So what about this coming blood moon?
The probability was small, but it could turn out to be just as abnormal as the last one.
He couldn't afford to gamble on it. He had to go all out and prepare for every possibility.
Stay cautious in comfort, and never let himself be caught off guard in a ditch.
To be safe, he needed to push harder and unlock the fifty-point settlement reward as soon as possible.
And he would keep living up to his title of Thrifty Slaveowner, spending every source stone where it counted most.
Besides, this boundless savage desert held dangers far beyond the skeletons that clawed up from the ground at night, or whatever other undead lurked out there.
There were also people like his neighbor Zalimu, watching him with hungry eyes.
As long as one lived among others in society, people would always be the greater threat and this was an ignorant, backward, brutal age on top of that!
A slave society where living people could be used as tools and kept like livestock.
This world never failed to fill Lin En with a deep, restless unease.
If he ever wanted to be rid of that unease and live in peace of mind, there was only one path.
Accumulate strength in secret.
And then... blow this world apart!
Stockpile grain, bide your time.
Work quietly, and then give everyone else in this world a little tiny surprise.
He was still turning over his next course of action after securing survival and basic provisions when Milya walked over, her face lit with a joy that came straight from the heart.
"Master... these are source stones! So many source stones!"
She seemed genuinely overjoyed on her master's behalf, that he had been granted so many source stones under the protection of the Oasis God.
"Well done, Milya."
Lin En looked her way and glanced at the stones bundled in her robe, and his own eyes brightened at once.
There were more than he had expected.
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