Nate struggled as he tried to speak in front of the inner guards. Seeing this scene, one of the guards spoke to another and said: “Give him a bowl of water.” Without hesitation, the guard fetched a bowl of water.

After quenching his thirst, Nate struggled to stand up and said: “Quickly report this to the clan. Ica plains is under a large scale infestation. We're requesting for high level magicians to deal with this.”

As soon as the guards heard what Nate said, they all became pale. They hurriedly went towards the castle while helping Nate to walk.

A person such as Nate was not eligible to enter the fort without an official pass. Usually, he can only go till the fort's inner gate and give the report to the guards. It was the duty of the guards to evaluate if the news were important or not.

After letting Nate sit, the guard who was helping Nate to walk asked: “How come there's a sudden severe pest infestation?”

Although tired, knowing that this inner city guard was a junior of one of the Purcell branch clan, he still answered immediately and said: ”I do not know either. This morning, the supervisor of the village rushed to my relaystation and reported that there was a massive infestation happening. A large portion of the wheat fields had already been infested. .”

The warrior guarding the inner city gates, Tat, was a junior of a branch of the Purcell clan. Due to his grandfather being an elder, he was placed as an inner city guard in Fort Benniu. Being a junior of the branch clan, it was their duty to serve as guards while they were still young and inexperienced.

Tat then asked Nate and said: “When did you notice the infestation?” He asked the question again to ensure that the report was valid, as the Purcell clan really gives a high importance on the matters related to the Ica plains.

Honestly responding, Nate said: “Yesterday, everything was normal. But when morning comes, a large number of fat bugs were observed over a large area in the wheat fields. I immediately ran here to report the problem after receiving the news.”

Tat frowned, as junior of a branch clan, he was more knowledgeable than Nate. He felt that this was an unusual occurrence but he has not thought that it might be artificially induced. He has not heard of anyone who can use insects to attack in the continent. It was common knowledge that the low level of intelligence of insects made them impossible to be controlled or trained.

Furthermore, these kind of insects doesn't have any battle efficiency, so normally, no one would use them. After all, in the Ark continent, strength was everything.

Because of those reasons, Tat didn't had any reason to believe it wasn't a natural occurrence.

Pest problems occur several times a year in the Ark continent. This was also true of other natural calamities such as flood and drought.

Just then, a guard who was asked to inform the elders ran back to Nate and said: “Follow me quickly, the elders wants to see you.”

Nate was startled and quickly stood up. Although he was not a powerful practitioner, he was still, after all, a level four warrior. After resting for quite a bit, he had regained some of his strength and immediately stood up to meet the elders. Remember, people from the Ark continent were a lot stronger than the people on Earth.

Tat and the messenger brought Nate inside the castle. Upon entering, Nate saw a lot of warriors training in a large martial arts field. There was a hall in the martial field wherein most the affairs within the fort were being handled. This includes the affairs related to the fort's wall, as well as the living conditions of the warriors.

The two guards along with Nate hurriedly went to the front of the hall where they were greeted by a steward. The steward smiled and said: “Hurry, the elders are waiting inside.” Having led Nate to the hall, the guards did not go inside. The rules of the Purcell clan specified that guard warriors doesn't have the qualification to enter the halls.

Tat immediately turned around and returned to his own residence inside the castle. Since he was a junior of the branch clan, he has a higher status than the common guards.

After returning to his room, Tat immediately wrote a letter addressed to his grandfather. Although his grandfather was an elder, he was not here in Fort Benniu. He was in the city of Casa. Tat wanted to tell the news he had received immediately to his grandfather.

After writing, he rolled the letter and placed a wax seal. Then he took out his wind falcon, which his father gave to him, and sealed the letter in a small iron pipe. He cautiously looked around first before letting the falcon flew.

Meanwhile, after hearing Nate's report, the Purcell clan responded quickly. They organized a pest control army composed of five magicians and an army of a hundred cavalry. They then immediately went towards the reported area in the Ica plains.

***

Zhao and Green didn't knew of these developments. They had been inside the space after deliberately hiding their presence. They feared that they would be found out if they didn't.

They slept till the afternoon. After eating the food Meirin prepared for lunch, they went to the living room. Zhao opened the screen and observed the situation outside.

Though they were not near the wheat fields, they were still able to see what was happening within a radius of five hundred meters.

However, they were shocked with what they saw. The wheat field appearing in the screen was no longer how it was last night. The field that was fully green and vibrant was no longer present.

They didn't saw any good wheat plants, instead, what they all saw was a field full of culms. The field was covered with withered wheat plants.

Seeing this situation unfold, they could not help but hold their breath. Even though they expected a large scale damage, they didn't expect that it would be this fast and severe. All good wheat crops had been infested, others had withered. Unexpectedly, it only took a night to have this scale of damage.

Both Zhao and Green recovered after a moment of shock. Green looked at the screen and muttered: “This is horrible, I never expected that these little insects can cause this damage, this time, the Purcell clan would really be in trouble.”

Zhao looked pale-faced, nodded and said: “I have never thought that these insects could be this fierce. It seems this time, the production of grains from the Ica plains would be reduced greatly.” Zhao turned around and said: “Meg, tell Ann, starting tomorrow, stop the processing of the oil fruits. Instead, focus on corn processing. Although we did this to give some trouble to the Purcell clan, I don't intend to starve the commoners and slaves within the Purcell Duchy.”

Green nodded in agreement and said: “The more processed food produced, the better. This time, the grain production in the Ica plains would really affect the market so much. Even if the Purcell clan has the ability to cope up with this, the increase in the prices of food commodities would affect the commoners and the slaves. But if we introduce our processed corn as an alternative, grain prices would be stable, which is a good thing.”

Sighing, Zhao said: “This time, if it were not for Purcell clan's provocation, I would not be so heartless. Since we attacked the Ica plains, the slaves living here in the plain would greatly suffer.”

Green coldly responded: “If we didn't do this, the Purcell clan's attention would be directed to us. They will surely send someone to deal with us.”

Zhao sighed and looked at the screen. Green knew Zhao was kindhearted, thus he didn't urge him to do more. Since Zhao was still young, in Green's opinion, being able to do this was already remarkable.

While they were observing and discussing, the sky slowly turned dark, but Zhao patiently waited inside the space. He knew that making a move right now, when there where many pest control teams scattered, will cause them to be found out.

At around nine o'clock, it was already completely dark. Thus, Zhao and Green decided to go out of the space. They saw a light coming from a torch a few distance away. It seems like the slaves were still doing pest control. Fortunately, the place they exited to were in the woods, further, there were no one near them.

After observing for some time, they found out the slaves were still busy killing pests, thus they slowly walked out of the woods.

With a heavy heart, Zhao looked into the distance and decided to proceed and continue casting pests. Just like last night, he used the same options upon using his skill "Cast Pest".

Thinking about their capacity to control the situation, they only infested a total of seven thousand hectares. This way, the slaves won't be affected so much by this disaster.

Notes:

-I would like to thank all those who commented, specially to those who are pointing out errors on the releases. I really appreciate it and would continue to do my best to improve the quality of the releases.

- Culms - stems of a grass of sedge. (wiktionary)

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