Chapter 156 - In The Deep Sea (2/2)

Several reports regarding the population and the territory’s expansion of new residential areas were placed on the desk. Gawain sat down at his desk and began his daily work.

With the inherent appeal that an ancient hero had and Gawain’s factual prestige from protecting his people and leading by example, the measures that he promulgated were executed very quickly on this land. Even acts — like planning town roads, constructing waterways before building houses, prohibiting the relieving of oneself on the streets, and more — that were difficult to advance in this setting and also difficult to explain to the residents had received very good implementation. It seemed like people didn’t really care about the objectives of such acts (even though Gawain had dispatched people to continuously explain and publicize the significance of every policy); instead, it seemed like, as long as it was something that the feudal lord said, it would definitely be right.

But Gawain knew that the execution efficiency brought by such blind faith could not be relied on for long. It would inevitably be repeatedly expended through the process of promulgating one policy after another, one law after another. To sustain such an efficiency, there were only two ways.

First, as far as possible, let the new policies and laws engender beneficial results that could be seen with the naked eye. At the least, make the people believe that the improvement in livelihood was driven by those policies and laws. This way, they would be willing to follow the new laws.

Second, advance education. Let the whole populace understand deliberation and distinction; let them be able to truly understand what the feudal lord was saying and in this premise, still continue to support the laws and rules of the territory.

The second could, on top of maintaining the current execution efficiency, also greatly raise the efficiency of every job in the territory.

But… where would they find the teachers? Especially in Gawain’s plan, to carry out Beyonder-knowledge education for the entire populace, such teachers would be even more difficult to find.

The average person who could read and count could perhaps be hired using money, but those who truly possessed knowledge, who could carry out relatively high-end education, were very difficult to find. It was unlikely that they would be willing to patiently explain what were runes and calculations to a group of noisy ‘lowly peasants’; even paying money wouldn’t work.

Perhaps he should inquire from Jenni; she might know some Beyonders in the upper class who were extremely down and out… With the spirit that poverty gave rise to the desire for change, those starving Mages should be easier to buy over…

……

Meanwhile, in the open sea extremely far in the east of the continent, the storm was gradually breaking up.

The wild and turbulent water elements returned back to the atmosphere and ocean. Nearly all the energy accumulated in the atmosphere had splashed onto the island earlier, blowing the entire island into pieces. And now, that remaining energy was stabilizing together with the water elements, slowly returning to the arms of nature.

The blood of heretic cult believers painted the sea red; the metallic scent attracted the predators of the ocean, yet those predators only lingered apprehensively on the periphery of these waters, not daring at all to draw near to this place that was still emitting a dangerous aura.

The Sons of the Storm were ultimately unable to withstand the true storm. Before the natural calamity raised up by the army of sea demons, they did their best to resist for a very, very long time. But ultimately, they were still forced to give up this ‘miracle area’.

With the lives of close to a third of their believers as the price, they forcefully pushed a way out in the raging ocean and escaped this place.

Now this island was back in the sea demons’ hands once more.

There were still many huge and frightening hideous monsters roaming the sea surface. Those bodies covered with carapaces and spurs and filled with the glow of magical power looked intimidating, but soon, these giant beasts sank into the water. Moments later, some female figures surfaced.

They had beautiful faces, elegant and well-proportioned bodies, as well as eyes filled with intelligence and spirituality like humankind’s. However, minute scale-like structures could vaguely be seen covering their cheeks and arms. These scales weren’t scary; instead, it brought an unusual, alluring aesthetic. And in the process of stirring the seawater, the lower halves of these females would occasionally rise out of the water surface ——but they were long tails resembling water snakes or the rear half of fishes.

Some even had tentacles with sucking discs like octopuses.

These intelligent beings in the water stared at the island left behind after the heretic cult believers evacuated, but they weren’t interested at all in those so-called sacred articles and altars that the heretic cult believers had risked their lives to defend to the last.

A sea demon with long sky-blue colored hair gazed in the direction of the island, while another sea demon surfaced, swimming towards this leader with long sky-blue hair. “Those deranged humans have escaped, General Vanessa.”

The sea demon called General Vanessa frowned. “Truly baffling living beings. I remember they weren’t this crazy a few hundred years ago. Why is there no way of even communicating now…?”

“It’s probably because they are unable to live in the sea, and it’s so oppressive living on land that their brains have been damaged.”

“Forget it, it’s not important.” The sea demon general shook her head. “Since those mad humans have run away, we can continue working.”

“Then…” An eager expression appeared on the young sea demon soldier’s face. “We’ll go down and continue digging the squid?”

The sea demon general laughed and nodded hard. “Mm, continue digging the squid.”

“Continue digging the squid!” “Dig the squid!” “Big squid!”

The sea demons’ cheers merged into one. Following that, water foams appeared as they swung their water snake, fish, or octopus-like tails and rushed to the bottom of the sea, continuing the work that they’d long planned to carry out in these waters——

Go to the deep sea, to the seabed, to continue digging the ‘big squid’ that had died down there for unknown reasons, whose fragments of its body covered the entire seabed and were endless no matter how much they dug…