Nateaser: Reborn As My Love Interest

Elder - Ch. 98

The sight of the golden fields soothed my soul.

Wheat in endless rows put me at ease in ways I never imagined, and made me forget all the tiredness and pain I went through to achieve this. I looked at the hundreds of corpses harvesting the grains meant to feed the living, and it filled me with irony. It felt nothing short of poetic how the dead worked tirelessly to provide the people of Sanctuary with life force.

"Such is the circle of life," I noted to myself. Things went well, but I felt tired. "I shouldn't complain when I became the Elder advisor to solve all kinds of problems."

The weather graced me with just enough rain so the crops grew strong, and now they dried out properly for the harvest. Considering how Alexandra recently returned, and people called her the Goddess of Luck, it felt like a miracle that my plan worked out too. Or maybe I gave her too much credit. The girl I faced in battle seemed neither strong nor lucky.

I did not want to rely on such a thing as luck, whether she bent it for or against me, but I realized how underprepared I was as my plan advanced. I lacked the right spell at the beginning, and if I managed to get rid of Lambert the way I wanted, I would have been in serious trouble. If I made the mistake of becoming arrogant, these errors could easily cost my life.

"But fate was on my side," I mumbled, looking into the distance. "I refuse to call it luck."

By the time that coward gathered enough guts to escape, I learned his tricks, and while it took a tremendous effort to finish growing wheat, my mana lasted long enough. I didn't leave that to chance, it was all thanks to my efforts.

The winter slowly closed in on us, meaning the sun appeared later in the sky. But even if the days became shorter, my minions kept up their work and repeated the same movements brandishing hundreds of scythes.

I developed a new appreciation for farming. The people couldn't comprehend how difficult it was to bring food to their tables. Lambert did well to learn about these spells instead of useless combat magic when we fought no wars. Most wizards looked for easy and flashy moves instead of useful ones. The boy was a coward but a serviceable one.

"Humans want everything for free... Now that the Lesser Races don't serve them, they'd rather starve to death than work for their lives." I talked to myself while some corpses started gathering the wheat stalks. "Maybe I should ditch Sanctuary instead and keep these guys alive."

By the time the sun's warm beams caressed the bottom of the soft, endlessly rolling hills, they nearly finished with the immediate area of the manor house. When they reached beyond the first treeline and the stragglers gathered all the hay, I expected Stern's men to take over and start making flour.

That was beyond the capabilities of the undead. My scheme could advance into the next stage once they baked the first batch of bread, and I already saw my glorious entrance to the slums if I closed my eyes.

"You all served me well, the least annoying underlings I ever commanded." I praised them with a smile. It was a shame they couldn't talk or even hear.

The corpses needed two or three more days of good weather to finish their job. After that, I planned to sacrifice them in front of Sanctuary to show off my power to the masses. I regretted destroying them, but keeping them alive all winter seemed too bothersome.

I wanted to drain some of their life force because my wrinkles deepened again from cultivating the lands. But it seemed more important to impress the people, and I couldn't risk revealing my necromancer ways. Even if I did everything to save them, the masses were easily frightened and too dumb to know their interests.

"That sly fox was right, and I was worried they would stab me in the back," I remembered our last discussion about the failed raid and showing my weaknesses to awaken sympathy in the people. "They missed their only opportunity to strike while I recovered."