NOVEL WEB I Somehow Got Tasked With Managing A Realm – Chapter 47
I stared at my screen with a slight smile on my face.
For the first time in the history of my realm, my priest and Oracle had met face to face!
Sure, it was also the first time that such an event was even possible, but I figured it was still worth a small celebration.
"What do you think, Mr. Flippers? Should we do something to celebrate?" I asked the penguin in my lap.
"...Squawk."
"Fine~," I sighed, "You're right. I did say that I needed to start saving my resource points more, didn't I?"
I had been spending resource points like crazy between setting up my islands, performing small fish-floating ceremonies to build faith, and dealing with the whole incident that happened at my Oracle's old village. Spending more on a celebration was both pretty unneeded and not a great use of resources considering how everyone present already had full belief in me.
While I could do something small like making fish fly, I decided to simply toss the idea. Those performances hardly cost me anything to do, but as there was no telling when I'd get more, I needed to start being stingy with my resource points.
"Squawk!"
"Huh? Oh yeah, look at that- they're looking at your statue!"
"Squawk~"
We decided to listen to their conversation.
"Cagnis en fud pern? Fu tine unn cok?"
"Su oy boni!"
The penguin tilted his head up at the girl's words that came through the screen and stretched his tiny flippers.
Look at him... acting all smug because the girl called him cute.
I couldn't help but smile at the sight.
"Well, she isn't wrong. You are a cute little penguin!"
"... Squawk," the penguin immediately stopped his stretching and hopped off my lap.
"Oi- what do you mean it's gross when I say it!? That's not fair!"
Sadly, the penguin ignored my protests as he retreated back into his ice palace.
"Whatever... I have another cute thing to keep me company anyway," I muttered as I pulled up a picture of a certain elf girl on my phone.
Julia...hopefully things are going better for you this time around.
There were just over 10 years remaining in the realms before the start of the next battle phase. Of course, not all of the rulers would be like Levon who attacked the second the portals opened, but there was still a chance that her Oracle would be fighting soon.
Ten years.
I could feel my heartbeat speed up as I thought about how soon it was. Such an interval would pass in less than 15 minutes if I set my realm to match the speed of time of my domain.
Yet as I looked at the state of my realm, it was easy to tell that I was not even close to being ready myself.
A sigh escaped my lips as I put my phone away- replacing it with my notebook instead.
My Oracle was a child, the force that I instructed my priest to set up was still in its infancy, and nearly none of the major preparations that I planned for had even gotten started yet. Sure, I was predicting Ferguson to attack later in the battle phase, but if I was wrong about that judgment and he rushed in, things would not go so well as they were now.
Ten years.
It repeated in my mind once more.
It was both a short time and a long time depending on how one looked at it.
After my numerous gambles and close calls both when first creating my realm and in my previous battle phase, I resolved myself to play things a bit safer from now on.
Although I did wait until fairly late to select my Oracle, I made sure that there would be just enough time to finish my preparations before the start of the battle phase. In order words, despite the situation seeming pretty dire, such a thing was not really the case.
I glanced down at my notebook where I had jotted down a list of goals to meet before the 10 years were up.
- Have Rynn develop into a proper Oracle
- Get equipment ready in time for the battle phase
- Establish a camp in the gap between the northern mountain ranges
Oracles do age very slowly, but their mind's development does not change.
Ten years was still ten years. Rynn would still probably look like a young teenager at the start of the battle phase, yet he would hopefully mature a ton mentally in that time.
A major reason why I sent him to the plateau was for just that. Rynn had no parents, and now no siblings. With only a girl the same age as him by his side, my Oracle had no one older than himself to look up to for guidance. I wanted my priest to step into this role for him.
My priest was pretty young himself at roughly 20 years of age, yet I was confident that he would be someone that Rynn could look up to.
Guide him well, baby Angru.
I crossed my first preparation note off my list with hopeful expectations.
The second goal was by far the easiest of the three. Ten years was easily enough time to make the thousands of spears and javelins that my army would need to fend off Ferguson's invasion. I had asked baby Angru to start ramping up their production upon Rynn's arrival to the plateau, so I could also cross this off my list, as well.
Have Rynn develop into a proper OracleGet equipment ready in time for the battle phase- Establish a camp in the gap between the northern mountain ranges
I took a look at the last major preparation goal left on my list: creating a camp in the gap between the two mountain ranges near the invader buffer zone.
Unlike my battle against Levon where Uunga acted alone, I would be sending a whole army to fight Ferguson. Such a large force would require an equally large amount of supplies and space- there was no way I could just have them camping while they waited for the ogres to show up.
Given the uncertainty of the invasion timing, an entire generation could pass before Ferguson launched his attack. I needed to make the camp into a space where my humans could live reasonably well or I'd run the risk of mass desertion.
By the nature of it, this would be the most difficult goal to achieve. Not only was the location on the opposite end of my continent, but it was also located in an extremely underdeveloped region.
With the mountain ranges squeezing the moisture out of the air as clouds went over the area, the valley was home to little rain. Trees were scarcer in the area because of this and even the chicken population was much smaller than in other areas of my realm. It would be pretty difficult to station a large force there for long periods of time.
Luckily, the melting snow from the mountain peaks did create a lake in the valley, which I preemptively stocked with phytoplankton and fish a while back. I hoped that the fish would be enough to supplement my army's diet, but it was likely that I would need to make two separate camps- one in the valley and the other further south.
It would take Ferguson's army at least a month and a half at an absolute minimum to trudge through the snow and reach the first passageway through the mountains. That would be just enough time for those stationed at the southern base to move north.
I'm getting ahead of myself.
There was something major that I needed to deal with before I could even think about making the camps. The difficulty in making the camps themselves paled in comparison to the struggle of actually getting my army there.
This freaking river...
I let out a groan as I looked at the massive barrier of water splitting my continent in two.
I made that thing to protect my realm from invaders, but it's been more of a hindrance to me than to them.
With the path created by a landslide that Uunga used to cross the river being washed away long ago, the two halves of my continent had been completely isolated for nearly 1,000 years. This was causing me many problems outside of the one I was currently dealing with, though finding a way to get my army across was the most pressing of them.
My humans could sail across the river, but boats haven't been invented yet.
There was no way for me to teach them either without getting in serious trouble with the Academy.
Honestly, I highly doubted my humans would suddenly discover how to make boats within the next 10 years, so that route was pretty much eliminated.
Is building across it the only way left?
Obviously, there was no way my humans would be able to construct some sort of massive bridge. Their technology was still many years behind what they would need for such a feat.
But maybe a path is possible?
Due to the somewhat flat nature of the continent, although the river was extremely wide, it was not very deep; on average it was only around 10ft. Of course, this was an average- the river reached depths of nearly 100ft in some areas and less than 6ft in others. The area where the landslide occurred was one of the shallowest of these sections.
It would be pretty crude... but it is definitely possible for my humans to make a path across the river there.
Making such a path would undoubtedly take both a lot of effort and time- both things that I would rather be devoted to my other two preparation goals.
I need my humans to stay focused on making weapons and training for the fight, so I guess I'll give them the time to do that.
With nothing more to do until the time came to give them the river crossing order, I advanced the time in my domain.
.
..
...
This should be about right.
I slowed down my domain's time to match that of my realm.
Six years had passed in my realm in what seemed like the blink of an eye. With humans' full efforts being on making weapons and training, there was no real need to slow down time to communicate. Of course, there were still a handful of times when I checked in with baby Angru to see their progress, but these were few and far between.
It felt pretty nice to skip some time. They should have a pretty good stockpile of weapons at this point, especially with Rynn helping them out.
Based on one of my conversations with my priest, Rynn had been focusing relentlessly on making javelin and spear tips. This was something that he excelled at even prior to becoming an Oracle, but with the increased strength that came with divinity, shaping the stone had become child's play.
I guess I should check in on them, though.
It took little effort to find my priest and Oracle who were sitting by a fire in my capital's center. As usual, Rynn's childhood friend Ayla joined the two; such an event was a nightly occasion for the group.
Wow... I had a feeling that it would be like this, but seeing him next to Ayla really feels weird.
Six years had passed since the last time that I really got a good look at the group. Despite being the same age, Ayla, who was now nearing 18 years old, looked the part, while Rynn looked to just be starting puberty.
There are still four years before the start of the battle phase, so hopefully Rynn can grow up a bit more before then.
Putting those thoughts aside, I decided to finally issue the order to build the river pathway.
Hmmm... wait a second. I've never tried talking to both of them at the same time... is that even possible?
Usually, when I tried to communicate with either my priest or Oracle, I clicked on their respective icon on my monitor. I had just naturally assumed that it was a one-at-a-time situation, but when I tried clicking both of them, it seemed to work seamlessly.
"Hello!"
I watched my priest and Oracle both flinch at my sudden words on the screen and struggled to hold back my laughter.
That never gets old...
"The creator of the world!"
"... Is it really you?"
I received two contrasting replies- excitement from my priest and disbelief from my Oracle.
"The creator of the world is talking!?" Ayla jumped up after seeing their reactions.
"Yep, it is me. Tell the girl I said 'hi', baby Angru."
As I was only able to directly communicate with those two, I needed my priest to echo my sentiments for me.
"The creator of the world says hi, Ayla," the priest diligently delivered my words.
Ayla smiled brightly and looked up to the sky, "Hi~!"
That's adorable. It looks like she got that whole sky thing from Rynn-
"Creator of the world, what is the reason for you reaching out?" the priest asked, interrupting my thoughts.
"Ah- right. Before I answer that, what is the progress like for everything I tasked you with?"
The priest wore a proud expression on his face.
"We have roughly 2,500 bundles of javelins and 1,500 bundles of spears stored inside of the temple."
Four thousand bundles... I had them wrap them in groups of 10, so that's forty thousand weapons!
"Wow! You guys did an amazing job!"
It was honest praise. Crafting such a large stockpile of weapons in just six years was extremely impressive.
"We could not have done it without Rynn," my priest acknowledged, "He alone made half of those."
"Half... HE MADE TWENTY THOUSAND OF THEM!?"
I glanced at my Oracle on the screen in shock as he looked at the ground with a reddened face.
My priest smiled at his reaction and added, "He has been making eight per day ever since he arrived."
Eight per day...
It was hard to believe that someone who hated my guts not too long ago was doing so much work on my behalf.
"... You've worked hard. I'm proud of you, Rynn."
Despite him trying to hide it, I could see a faint smile on my Oracle's face at my words.
"Thank you. I-I only carved the tips, though. The other men handled the shafts."
"Don't discredit yourself. You did amazing, Rynn," I paused, "I remember seeing you carving them back at your village. I couldn't believe you were able to make four per day back then, but you've somehow doubled it!"
"It is thanks to the power that you gave me," Rynn sheepishly admitted, "The rocks here being easy to shape also helps."
"Well, that doesn't make what you did any less impressive. Speaking of the power that I gave you, you'll need to put it to use on your next task."
"What do you need us to do?" the priest asked curiously.
"It'll only be a few more years until it becomes possible for the next invasion to happen. Before then, I need you guys to set up a camp closer to where they will invade from. Sadly, there is a massive river to the west that you'll need to find a way to cross to get there. I'll guide you all to the point where such a feat is possible, but just because it is possible, making a pathway across it will not be easy by any means. I know that you can do it, though."
I could see Rynn's grip tighten when I mentioned the invasion.
"It is really happening..."
The priest seemed to fall into thought at my words.
"The river... from what I have heard, it is so wide that you can not even see across it. Is crossing it really possible?"
"It is," I affirmed resolutely, "You two will need to figure out how to, though. By the way, how is the army looking, baby Angru?"
"We have three thousand men near the temple that can be mobilized at any time. There are another fifteen thousand committed elsewhere on the plateau and thousands more outside of it."
"Perfect- you guys did great. Rynn, take one thousand men with you to help out. Would you be okay with heading west a week from now?"
My Oracle nodded, "Yes. That is fine."
"Great! Cross the mighty river that divides my realm in two. The future of my realm depends on you."
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Map of Jacob's Realm:
