Seravelle Continent, Wrath Domain, Northwest Territory, October 21, 2026

  The northwestern territory was empty no more.

  Two weeks of continuous work had changed the nd considerably. Thousands of tents stretched across a full kilometer of the river-mountain corridor in organized rows, with nes kept clear between them for movement and supply. Watchtowers stood at intervals along the perimeter, each one manned in rotating shifts, with kill-traps and arm systems filling the gaps between them.

  The low ring of sieging logs that had served as the initial barrier was being repced section by section with a crude stone-and-mortar wall, the bor moving at a pace Ashen hadn't expected when he first divided the men.

  Inside the perimeter, three granaries stood completed, with a fourth still under construction. Storage buildings for processed meat sat beside them, with cold storage dug into the hillside where the mountain's rock kept the temperature low. A well had been sunk near the camp's center, and a second one was being bored closer to the river.

  Outside the perimeter was where most of the activity was concentrated.

  A stretch of cleared nd roughly two thousand hectares in size had been prepared along the river's edge, the ground leveled and divided into parcels with irrigation channels cut to carry water from the river through the plots. Five thousand men had spent the better part of ten days on the channel work alone. Another hundred, hand-picked by Ashen for their basic purification Thema, had been put to work on the river water itself. They weren't enough for a major treatment, but enough to reduce the reliance on boiling and make the water viable for rge-scale irrigation without risking the crop yield.

  The well near the field served as a backup and supplementary source.

  Everything was ready.

  …Everything except the nd itself, which was what the woman currently kneeling in the soil was working on.

  ?

  Seraphine had arrived a week earlier than she'd promised.

  She hadn't announced it in advance. She simply appeared at the camp's eastern checkpoint one morning with a retinue of nuns and an unreasonable quantity of livestock. Ashen had been informed mid-patrol and arrived to find her already asking for directions to the prepared farmnd.

  Since her arrival, she had spent seven days and seven nights with her hands in the soil.

  She had slept in short intervals and eaten when her nuns pushed food into her hands with persistence since they had long learned that their Saintess's definition of "taking a break" required enforcement. But her waking hours went to the nd, and the nd had changed for it. The grey, compacted earth of the cleared field was darkening section by section, the color changing toward something that actually looked like it could sustain life.

  On the morning of the eighth day since her arrival, Seraphine straightened up as she watched the st of the earth's st section purify.

  She flexed her fingers, brushed the soil from her palms, and checked the state of her mana reserves out of habit. She was utterly depleted, but she felt fine… maybe because this state had become her new "fine". Her back ached from the sustained posture. She ignored it and looked out across the field.

  "Done…"

  It was as she registered this that she felt the familiar fre from her Inner Resonance skill registering a spike of desire from somewhere behind her, specific enough in quality that she didn't need to turn around to know whose it was.

  She turned around anyway.

  Ashen was walking toward her across the cleared ground with his hands in his coat pockets and that rexed expression that had become his default in the two weeks since they'd arrived. She returned a bright smile of her own, and the moment she did, she felt his desire to bend her over and have his way with her almost materialize from its intensity.

  Her cheeks flushed red, but she did her best to control herself so as not to willingly bend on her own in response to his desires.

  Her nuns, who had developed an instinct for these moments, quietly excused themselves.

  "How many times do I have to tell you to take a break?" He didn't greet her so much as open with a compint, though the tone was more tired than sharp. "Do I really have to tie you up myself to get you to sleep?"

  Seraphine licked her lips unconsciously at the mention of being tied up. 'That tone he said it with… are you actually tempting me or threatening me…?'

  "Really… Sera. I never knew you were such a workaholic." By the time she snapped out of her scandalous wet dreams, he was already upon her with his hand cradling her cheek, his thumb rubbing away a smudge if dirft from her chin.

  "I'm finally useful for something," she said, a bit sheepishly as she enjoyed his caress, which only made her appear cuter to his eyes. "I got overly enthusiastic."

  "You're always useful." He said it pinly.

  "...Your situation doesn't leave room for leisure. Why are you the rexed one when it's your nd?" She kept her voice light, but she meant it. He was the one facing a four-month food window.

  "I'm not rexed." He shook his head. "It's just a matter of priorities."

  His smile turned soft. "Your health is more important to me than all of this combined. It's as simple as that… so don't colpse on me. Take care of yourself, at least for my sake if not your own."

  "..."

  'How unfair… Don't you know that I'm doing this because you are more important than my own health?'

  She thought so, but she could only mumble an affirmation in the end.

  "...Okay."

  Ashen looked at her sudden reproachful look and simply ruffed her hair, "So… is this the st of it?"

  "Yep. My skill even stepped into Skilled Mastery from constantly using it on such a big nd."

  Then she blinked the skill to his face, not unlike a proud girl showing off to her father after getting full marks on her exams, "Here, look! Great, right?"

  [4. Abilities]

  4.2 Path Skills: —Katharsis(Skilled-)

  ==============================Katharsis

  A direct act of purification cast through mana. Decre something "corrupted" by the standards held (an object, a parcel of nd, a tainted emotion, or a pool of mana). Katharsis then reconfigures that thing's soul-patterns to conform to the user's definition of "pure," stripping filth, rot, or malignant resonance and reordering the underlying essence so it no longer carries the marked corruption.

  User-defined purity: The skill follows the caster's standard of "pure." The clearer and narrower the definition, the cleaner the result. Vague intent yields imperfect or unstable purification.

  Fuel: Each use consumes a portion of the caster's longing. If none exists, the caster risks damaging their soul. Larger targets require proportionally more fuel.

  Risk: Overuse dulls the caster's capacity for longing and erosive desire. Temporary numbness to passion; repeated extreme purges risk hardening the user into permanent ascetic coldness.

  Note: Katharsis alters soul-patterns but does not rewrite core identity or free will; it cannot force voluntary belief or love where none exists.==============================

  Ashen's eyes didn't stay on her new mastery for too long, instead they lingered on the fuel of her ability.

  'Longing, huh… keeping this up for such a long time and still being able to smile so purely… I wonder how she could manage it.'

  He didn't know how much the skill required of her 'longing' for the nd's purification, but he figured that after such an extended use, any other person would be utterly indifferent to it, let alone still wanting to go at it with such fervor.

  But a Saintess's desires seemed to be endless when it came to the wellbeing of others, even if the recipient was a owernerless nd in the middle of nowhere.

  'No… not ownerless… It's mine now.' Ashen then realised, "Maybe it's also why she could muster this endless longing for it… because it's mine.'

  His gaze toward her became even more doting, 'And she keeps thinking that she is useless… how ridiculous.'

  He didn't try to word the gratitude he was feeling. Words would never be enough.

  …Instead, he gave her what she seemed to want right now.

  "Good job," he said. "Good job." He patted her head twice, and then a third time. "Who's a hardworking girl?"

  "Hehehe~"

  ?

  With the nd ready, Ashen decided to move in earnest.

  He converted a significant portion of the army into mandatory agrarian bor and restructured how they were compensated.

  Up to this point, he'd been paying them from his remaining merit to keep morale stable and prevent anyone from raising the reasonable objection that he was working twenty thousand men for free in an uninhabited wastend. It had kept the peace, but fifteen thousand merit points against twenty thousand saries was a rate he couldn't sustain indefinitely.

  The farmnd changed the calcution. Instead of paying in merit, he shifted to paying in food, drawing from both the stored supplies and the projected yield once the crops came in. The men would keep their stomachs full while he kept his treasury intact. A win-win for everyone.

  The arrangement required no renegotiation because the men cared about eating, not about the form of payment.

  Whatever yield exceeded their compensation would go directly into his stores as territory revenue. The same logic applied to the meat from his hunted prey, though he was careful not to attempt taxing what his soldiers brought in themselves. That would have been a different kind of argument.

  The livestock Seraphine had brought served as the actual foundation for his meat and dairy economy.

  She had not arrived empty-handed. Along with her retinue, she had brought over a thousand head of tamed Seravellian livestock… like hircuses, the local variant of goats, which were broadly simir to Esperrian breeds except rger and considerably more aggressive in temperament.

  Sheep and cattle had come alongside them, all of them ranking at Gorefiend tier. Under different circumstances, a thousand-plus Gorefiend-css animals moving in a group would have caused immediate arm. Fortunately, as tamed livestock, they were merely impressive and difficult to manage.

  Seraphine had also brought enough feed to sustain them until the nd produced sufficient grazing.

  The animals belonged to Ashen outright. As lord, the milk, wool, and eventual meat went directly into his stores to be sold, rationed, or used for rewards as he saw fit. The hircus wool in particur would be worth something as the season moved toward winter. It was a luxury for most commoners and potentially a necessity once the temperatures dropped.

  ?

  Another week went by.

  The seeded fields sat under their newly purified soil, and Ashen checked them each morning alongside Seraphine. They had done everything within their control, and now, only waiting was left.

  The deep brown color of the earth had changed enough to give him a reason to hope anyhow.

  …And his hope was answered on the eighth day when the first germination appeared.

  By the tenth day, it had spread enough to remove any doubt about whether Seraphine's skill had done what it was supposed to do.

  Only then did he sigh in relief as he felt a weight ease from his shoulders. But he knew he couldn't rex just yet, because germination was still several steps away from harvest, and food was only one aspect of the whole.

  On the fourteenth day after pnting, a dust cloud appeared on the road from the direction of the Ashbastion.

  Ashen was on the wall when one of the tower guards called it out.

  'About time you showed up, love…'

  …A certain treasured dy had finally arrived.

  ? ? ?