Chapter 39 — The Dark Mountains

Of course, for all his inward grumbling, Gao Yang knew there was no helping the way this world had turned out.

Civilization follows its own laws, yet it is also full of uncertainty. Sometimes a single explosive technological breakthrough is enough to vault an entire civilization up a rank; but more often—especially where feudal ignorance holds overwhelming sway—civilization can remain frozen and sluggish for centuries on end.

In a world where supernatural power exists, where class divisions are rigid beyond all reason, and which has already passed through one great cataclysm, the situation could only be worse.

The presence of superhuman power gave this world many conveniences far ahead of their time, but at the same time it shackled the progress of civilization. It allowed those at the top to live lives of extreme comfort and ease with hardly any effort, and to establish absolute dominion over the vast majority of "ordinary folk" who had no power at all. And because "magical talent" was itself rare and unpredictable, this power could hardly serve as an engine of social development—it could not benefit the masses of this world. The occasional lucky few who awakened a magical gift merely became a new aristocracy; they would not, and could not, change the fate of the many.

Superhuman power did not belong to "ordinary folk"—this was a rule taken as a matter of course.

For this very reason, social progress had become extremely slow. On one hand, the common people, who made up the bulk of the population, were utterly powerless to change anything; on the other, the upper class, enjoying the conveniences of superhuman power, saw no need for society to advance. In fact, even the commoners saw no need for it—they had only to pray that one day they might awaken a magical gift.

In a world where Ice Arrows existed, who would ever think to invent refrigerators and air conditioners?

Yet an Ice Arrow would always remain an Ice Arrow. It could not let everyone enjoy ice cream in summer, nor could it let physicians preserve serum and vaccines at any time and any place.

At least in this present age, such was the case.

This was surely wrong, and Gao Yang knew it well. Superhuman power should not be a drag on civilization, and this place should not be trapped in the Middle Ages forever. So-called magic was, at bottom, merely a way of using energy; its flexible and convenient nature ought to have been an engine of rapid development, not a fetter. But none of this could be solved right now.

He explained to Hedy and Rebecca in greater detail why it was necessary to compile these records, and what to watch out for when making the tables. Of course, given that they had never tallied anything of the sort, and that uneducated commoners could very likely not even state their own family names and ages clearly, he relaxed the requirements for the tables, asking them only to record the artisans' information; for the rest of the commoners, a simple list of names would do for now.

Everything else could be perfected after the new territory was established.

No one had ever taken such a census of commoners, because to this world's noble class, commoners were nearly worthless—scarcely even fit to serve as cannon fodder on the battlefield. Their only function was to produce grain and serve as free labor. No one recognized the importance of "people," so naturally no one recognized the necessity of registering population records.

To his relief, Rebecca—muddle-headed about everything else—caught on at once in this one respect. She quickly grasped Gao Yang's meaning and happily led her people off to sort the records.

Recalling that she had earlier issued a decree allowing serfs to become free citizens through military service, it seemed this "unfit" young lord was not entirely without merit.

This child—with proper training, she might even be tricked into managing personnel (not really).

Fortunately, there were fewer than nine hundred people to tally, and after settling in at Tamsin Town, Philip had already made a rough record of the survivors. With Hedy's help, Rebecca soon had the materials Gao Yang requested in order.

Once he had the records, Gao Yang decided to split the group in two and set out for their "new home."

One group would be the advance party, led personally by him, Rebecca, and Hedy. It would include half the soldiers under Knight Byron along with the militia, the necessary artisans, and a hundred laborers. The advance party would establish a temporary camp at the destination, scout out water sources and the like, and take precautions against wild beast attacks in the area.

The majority of the commoners would follow afterward under Philip's escort.

It would be unwise to charge straight into a wasteland with more than eight hundred people. Although these eight hundred were mostly not the old, the weak, the sick, or the disabled (such people had not made it out), it was still safer for the commoners, who lacked fighting strength, to trail behind the advance party.

To open up a wasteland, no amount of preparation ever feels sufficient—but one must always take the first step. After making plans and arrangements as thorough as possible, Gao Yang and his advance party finally left Tamsin Town and set off southeast toward the Dark Mountains.

They followed a tributary of the Whitewater River, advancing along the relatively flat riverbank. The knight and the lord led the way at the front, soldiers guarded the flanks, and the skilled artisans with their various supplies and tools were kept protected in the center of the column.

Hedy, riding her horse, glanced back at the not-so-large procession and suddenly sighed with feeling. "It seems we've become pioneers too..."

"We are pioneers," Gao Yang said, looking at her with a smile.

Hedy blinked. "I meant that Great Opening seven hundred years ago..."

Gao Yang shrugged. "Wasn't that still me?"

Hedy: "...Fair enough."

"Have a little confidence," Gao Yang said, looking at this lady who seemed somewhat anxious about the future. "Every step into the unknown is a great expedition—whether it was the Second Opening seven hundred years ago, or the First Opening of ancient legend, or what we are about to do now, in essence they are all equally great. We won't just build a new home—perhaps we'll build a new age."

Hedy stared at Gao Yang somewhat blankly, then nodded. She did not quite understand what he meant by "a new age," but since the ancestor who was a legendary hero had said so, it must surely be something both great and glorious.

Beside them, Amber clapped her hands briskly. The thief girl's thinking was simple enough: Gao Yang was the boss now, so whatever the boss said was right—whether she understood it or not, clapping along could never be wrong...

The closer they came to the Dark Mountains, the more desolate the scenery grew. The power of human civilization showed signs of steady decline across this southern land.

Back when the great tide of settlement had not yet ebbed, the descendants of the first generation of pioneer knights had driven small settlements into this wild land with sword and flame, and plotted to push their territory anew toward the Gondor Waste. But as the aftershocks of the magic tide surged again and again, as the dark, primal forces at the frontier of civilization eroded again and again, the constantly breeding monsters and the steadily worsening natural environment made these settlements impossible to sustain. Then the Fogmoon civil war erupted, the southern powers were reshuffled, and the last few pioneer villages barely clinging to this land were wiped out along with it.

To this day, the resurgent wild forces had swallowed every trace of civilization from those years. Among the ruined, decaying settlements and the primeval forests, only beasts and monsters remained.