“Maybe one day, we’ll be able to build a Stop Slope Town, and I, Qiu Dao, can even become a Town Mayor, hahaha!”
Afterwards, Qiu Dao naturally continued to count the Sweetfruit.
Edgar frowned slightly.
This wasteland was called Stop Slope by the Refugees. It was the human activity site closest to the Giant Oak Forest nearby.
The meaning was obvious—once you reached here, you had to stop and turn back.
Any further in, and you’d really be keeping company with Monsters.
Usually, it was those who were desperate, who couldn’t even afford to rent the cheapest outer land of Nari Town, that would choose to come to this wasteland outside Nari Town’s territory to cultivate.
And then, pushed out by the Refugees of the wasteland, they’d end up wandering all the way to the most dangerous part of this wasteland.
The land of Stop Slope had no taxes, but also no protection.
Although the Town Guards were lazy and rarely patrolled, having them or not was a completely different matter!
Here,
Refugees could only rely on luck and experience to avoid Monsters that occasionally wandered out of the dense forest.
They also had to find chances to clear the wasteland and plant food.
Life was tough and filled with fear.
Usually, even if people ended up here, there shouldn’t be more than twenty.
So many people gathering together was practically a food box attracting Monsters out of the forest!
Thinking of Leaf Zhi’s warning before he left, to pay attention to big events outside the forest as much as possible, Edgar originally wanted to drop the topic, but brought it up again.
“Why did the number of Refugees increase?”
Though he thought there was still a long time before they could build Sweetwater Town and explore further, by then, both the incident and its consequences might already be long over.
But he was only responsible for his tasks.
It was a convenient matter anyway—no harm in asking.
A glint flashed quickly in Qiu Dao’s eyes, then vanished.
He chuckled as he counted Sweetfruit, his tone mixed with self-mockery and helplessness.
“What other reason could there be? The number of Refugees isn’t decided by me, nor by the Refugees themselves. It depends on what the Town Mayor does!”
“Who would choose to risk their lives on the wasteland if they could live in the town?”
Then, as if talking to himself, he began telling the latest joke from Nari Town.
First, the Town Mayor’s youngest daughter’s pet dog died.
The Town Mayor was deeply moved.
To make the townspeople realize the importance of the low-intelligence beasts around them and not regret after losing them, he announced that all livestock in town would be subject to extra taxes!
He called it:
‘Money can’t replace feelings, but it can make you appreciate their importance even more.’
Heavens have mercy!
How could the townsfolk afford pets?
The animals they owned were cows, horses, sheep… livestock used for transportation and labor!
Farmers depended on them all year round to produce milk, pull mills, give birth… Only then could they get through the winter.
They were the lifeblood of a family!
Who would dare not value them?
Who could afford not to?
Obviously, a Tax on Livestock was already collected during trade. Now, they even imposed a temporary Care Tax!
With the usual feed costs for livestock, it was pushing people to the brink of ruin!
Then,
The Town Mayor suddenly decided to celebrate his fifty-two and a half birthday and demanded that all townsfolk attend and share his joy.
How was this sharing joy?
It was clearly for birthday gifts!
Townsfolk who couldn’t afford it, or whose gifts weren’t ‘sincere’ enough, had their residential taxes raised for having ‘disloyalty’ after the birthday.
Those who couldn’t bear the burden were emptied of their possessions and driven out of Nari Town.
And these were just the two most ordinary recent events under the Town Mayor’s rule.
With endless taxes, how could the number of Refugees not increase?
“Recently, he even ordered all farm owners to fully utilize all contracted wasteland.”
“Start cultivating as soon as possible, and try to harvest another crop before winter comes!”
Qiu Dao’s smile turned sarcastic, his tone tinged with ridicule and sorrow.
“Hahaha! Did he forget that those wastelands became so because the farm owners, to please him, once used them as Magical Fields to grow precious Magic Herbs?”
“Land not on a magic node, tormented for a year, yields almost nothing and ends up drained of nutrients!”
“If you don’t let it recover, how can anything grow?”
“But not only does he pretend not to know, he also demands that these wastelands, like normal land, accept his newly increased sixty percent tax!”
Qiu Dao’s tone grew colder as he spoke.
Edgar listened quietly to it all.
When Qiu Dao finished, he nodded lightly, with a sigh in his voice.
“I hope you can overcome these hardships soon.”
“Since the Sweetfruit count matches, the transaction is complete, so I’ll be leaving now.”
With that, he turned to leave.
Qiu Dao’s expression froze.
Seeing that Edgar truly had no other intentions and left cleanly, he finally panicked!
Qiu Dao hurriedly dropped the basket in his hand, leaped up, and blocked Edgar’s path.
“Wait! Aren’t you curious about why?”
There was urgency and hope in his voice.
Edgar stopped at the sound, his gaze calm and emotionless.
As if the trace of pity in his earlier tone had been Qiu Dao’s illusion.
“Early this spring, a section of the Giant Oak Forest collapsed, and many Monster corpses drifted out along the Wolinde River, turning the water black.”
“It’s a sign of high-level Monsters dying and the impending outbreak of a Monster Tide. Unless something unexpected happens, this winter will be a hard one.”
“Everything happening in Nari Town is preparation for the Monster Tide, isn’t it?”
There was a strong hierarchy among Monsters.
A single high-level Monster often ruled an area of the Giant Oak Forest.
Now that a high-level Monster was dead, nothing would happen at first.
But when food ran low in winter, these leaderless Monsters would run out of the forest.
Edgar folded his arms, speaking of Nari Town’s situation as if telling a story.
“Nari Town, as the Yoan Kingdom town closest to the Giant Oak Forest, is doomed to be swallowed by the forest sooner or later.”
“It’s long been in a semi-abandoned, semi-autonomous state.”
“Unfortunately, the Nali Town Mayor, Abel, is a fool who only knows pleasure!”
“He barely maintains his wealth by relying on Adventurers traveling to and from the Giant Oak Forest.”
“He doesn’t care about management or Town Guard training. Nari Town isn’t strong enough to withstand a Monster Tide!”
“Every time a Monster Tide arrives, they can only barely survive with aid from the King’s City, right?”
Edgar had only been in the Yoan Kingdom for a short while.
He owed knowing this much to Leaf Zhi’s occasional rambling.
He’d said that corrupt Nari Town, and the small-scale Monster Tides caused by Monster conflicts, were best suited for players to practice.
Qiu Dao gave a bitter smile, his mood heavy as if a stone pressed on his chest.
“That’s right. This year, the Town Mayor also requested aid from the King’s City as usual, and the King’s City sent two Bright Church priests as expected.”
“But not long ago, something happened to them on the way… Anyway, their bodies are already being transported back to the King’s City.”
The Yoan Kingdom wouldn’t abandon a piece of land lightly.
So, Abel easily used his connections to request aid from the King’s City.
But at the same time, the Yoan Kingdom wouldn’t care much about a small town doomed to fall.
Once the support was gone, there would be no replacement…