Iron Harvest: When Farming Becomes Conquest

78: Chapter 12: The Second Recruitment 78: Chapter 12: The Second Recruitment Roman found it very simple to feed the slaves.

However, waste of resources and labor was something he could not tolerate.

After acquiring this batch of slaves, Sige Town now had about two thousand five hundred people.

During this period, Sige Town had only nine newborns, and the population growth rate was dismal.

Although Roman had expressed his intent to buy slaves to every merchant ship passing through Sige Town.

So far, those small caravans had not delivered many slaves to him, only one to five scattered individuals.

Currently, he still had to rely on Daken’s connections.

Although Morry could also handle the slave business, he was currently acquiring oxen and draft horses.

The last batch of slaves brought by Daken, Roman temporarily selected ten relatively reliable slave stewards to manage themselves, as long as there were no major issues.

The lack of grassroots managers made Roman frustrated.

The stewards in Sige Town did not show qualities of improvement.

Or rather, they were still using medieval feudal thinking to govern that group of idiots.

Arrogant and stingy!

If he and Seth weren’t keeping a close eye, the meals arranged for the laborers would have been eaten up by these guys.

The stewards responsible for the bakery and mill were always thinking about how to mix sawdust, sand, and stones into the black bread, playing mind games with Seth over this.

Roman was so angry that he nearly chopped off their heads.

Earlier, when Roman was reforging the iron plow, the agricultural tool steward also opposed it.

Had it not been for Roman, deep plowing would have been impossible.

The cattle keeper was always thinking about how to give his cows a rest.

When building roads, due to not having enough cutting tools, Roman wanted the oxen to pull out trees together, yet he dared to oppose it!

A group of misers and penny-pinchers, typical landlord mentality!

Every day they thought about how to save resources from the teeth!

And they were cruelly exploiting labor!

Damn!

Do they think money is saved that way?

Don’t they know this only makes those ignorant peasants dumber?

If you don’t feed them well, where will they get the strength to work?

Relying on those two non-nutritious meals a day, where would the work efficiency come from!!

By the age of fifty, they would be worked to death!

Roman wasn’t joking.

Eating two meals a day, getting no nutritional supplements, and doing high-intensity manual labor was completely depleting their energy, each one looking emaciated — if they didn’t die, who would?

Working until fifty, and they’d have to die!

What a waste!

Give them more to eat, and let them work till seventy or eighty before they die!

He couldn’t bear it anymore!

Roman felt it was necessary to cultivate a new batch of grassroots managers.

Just like he replaced the original Guard Captain with Dota.

Only the Angel Envoys relieved Roman.

After Dota became Guard Captain, his relationship with Roman increased rapidly.

From the initial 10%, it had now reached 60%.

Though not as high as Green and Aaron’s 70% to 80%.

But still very impressive.

It’s worth mentioning that Seth’s relationship with him had now surpassed the 80% mark, nearing 90%.

Roman found that Angel Envoy named Tarma, whom he recruited in his sixth attempt.

An ordinary farmer.

The stats and skills couldn’t even compare to Matthew’s son, Balrog.

Roman didn’t give him significant responsibilities but let him be.

Even so, Tarma’s relationship with him gradually increased from the initial 10% to about 20%.

Due to limited current information.

Roman could only roughly equate Relationship as…

the loyalty of Angel Envoys to him, or maybe fondness, trust, intimacy, etc.

Probably because Roman improved their conditions, so Tarma’s trust in him increased.

This also reflected the Angel Envoys’ views of Roman.

And the source of Angel Envoys was Roman’s people.

In the past, after Roman conducted the initial recruitment, he didn’t continue.

Mainly because…

how many talents could appear in a small town with a population of two thousand?

Roman thought that Gwivelle was the one with the highest potential Star Level, followed by Four Stars Aaron and Three Stars Green.

The latter two were Conquest Knights he brought from the Duke Domain, not to be counted.

Having one Gwivelle appear in Sige Town was a blessing—Roman almost fought with Shasta for her—he only then realized she nearly took down a Sixth Rank Dawn Knight, and thinking about it now made his back shiver.

The cost of recruitment with original stones was over ten thousand.

According to the normal accumulation process, counting the milestone rewards from Breathing Story.

Roman should now have 9780 original stones!

However, because he dug up a piece of magic ore midway, after making Holy Salt out of it, a small portion of that magic ore remained, and Roman converted it into 800 original stones, making a total of 10580 original stones.

This amount was enough to let him recruit 68 Angel Envoys.

However, Sige Town’s pool was too shallow.

If the pool only contained One Star Angel Envoys, it wouldn’t help much, primarily because it had no cultivation value.

Currently, he had no extraordinary resources and no way to boost the skills and attributes of Angel Envoys.

These low-attribute Angel Envoys wouldn’t even be able to support a small-scale expedition.

The four hundred-plus slaves barely expanded the Recruitment Pool once.

Roman intended to launch the second recruitment attempt.

He didn’t do it right away but waited until all the slaves’ weakened bodies initially recovered.

Roman thought that maybe this would help in acquiring better talents.

Three days later, under his orders, this batch of slaves was gathered on the lawn of the Origin Manor.

He wanted to select some potential talents from these slaves, either for conscription or blacksmithing, and those with a firm will would be arranged as prospective managers.

Forty Guards tidied their postures, made them stand in an orderly line.

After waiting a few minutes.

A rectangular formation with 20 people side by side and 21 people front to back appeared before Roman.

Dota shouted: “No one is allowed to speak!

Stand properly!

Don’t move!”
Roman sat on a large chair, his posture extremely casual, sitting with legs apart, arms on the armrests, leaning sideways, gazing into the Void.

To outsiders, he appeared somewhat in a trance.

The slaves didn’t know what the Lord wanted them to do.

Undoubtedly, over these days, they had received great treatment.

They even had three meals a day, but with food in their bellies, they were left in suspense.

Today would most likely decide their future fate.

Many slaves secretly vowed, no matter what the Lord asked them to do, they would eagerly strive to do it, sparing no effort to ensure their future treatment.

…

Many days later, Roman conducted the second Angel Envoy recruitment.

The dim water pool twinkled with countless faint starlights.

Compared to the initial recruitment, the number of those starlights had increased.

Roman was unexpectedly nervous.

To know, these days he had been handling everything with ease.

He took a deep breath.

Unlike the first recruitment, where due to lack of resources he could only draw one card at a time.

This time, he boldly conducted a ten-draw straight away!

Whoosh!

Whoosh!

Whoosh!…

Ten faint starlights emerged from the water pool, surging upwards.

With momentum like a comet striking the moon, akin to a white rainbow cutting through the sun.

The first card floated in the void, pulsating with pure white radiance!

Thump!

Thump!

A young face, sincere in expression and honest in gaze, appeared on the card.

[Two-Star Luca (Potential Angel Envoy Code) Attack: E, Defense: E+, Speed: E-, Constitution: E+, Energy: E Talent: Resistance — Enhanced resistance Skill 1: Stable — Won’t easily lose balance]