Lord: Starting with Biological Modification

Chapter 84: Chapter 80: Citizenship Redemption Act

「Three days later.」

The morning light shone upon the desk in the Lord’s Mansion office.

Velin was drafting "The Bader Dung Beetle Dung Conversion Procedure."

A sudden knock at the door drew his gaze from the paper to the entrance.

Granted permission to enter, old Walker came in, his face clouded with an expression of frustration and helplessness.

"My lord," old Walker said, leaning on his cane and rubbing its head with a calloused palm. "There’s... a bit of a problem with the new batch of serfs."

Old Walker sighed and spread his hands in a helpless gesture, his murky eyes full of distress. "It’s about clearing the land... They don’t cause trouble, and they don’t resist. It’s just..." He couldn’t find the right word, adding lamely, "Something’s just not right."

Velin placed his quill back in its inkwell and stood up.

"Show me."

The group passed through the bustling town center and headed toward the vast stretches of wasteland to the west.

Although the settlers had been enthusiastically clearing the land for some time, the hundred-odd people had only managed to prepare about five or six hundred acres. As far as the eye could see, vast expanses of gray-black saline soil remained.

Along the way, the "old-timers" of Newly Town—whether they were the original pioneers or the villagers from Gray Mist Village—displayed an astonishing vitality.

In small groups, they shouldered their tools, loudly discussing the day’s tasks and the allocation of merit points. Though sweat soaked their clothes, a fire burned in every eye.

But as the group crossed a temporary boundary marked by wooden stakes, the fervent atmosphere instantly chilled.

This was the reclamation area assigned to the new serfs.

More than a thousand newcomers were scattered across the vast fields, forming a stark contrast to the fervent scene on the other side.

It wasn’t that they weren’t working—everyone held a tool, slowly swinging a hoe, bending to pull weeds, or struggling to move large rocks.

Every one of them who saw Velin’s party approached knelt respectfully and obediently in greeting.

But the pace of their work was excruciatingly slow.

A swing of a hoe would only scrape away a shallow layer of topsoil.

A hand reaching for a weed would pause in the air longer than it spent working.

They were like a troupe of soulless marionettes, merely going through the motions of "work."

A young man with a wooden plaque reading "Technician" pinned to his chest hurried over. He was one of the first front-line managers Velin had promoted.

He first bowed respectfully to Velin, then pointed toward the lifeless fields, his face a mask of barely suppressed fury.

"My lord, they’re just going through the motions! We’ve patiently taught them how to use the new tools and told them that the more land they reclaim, the more bread they’ll receive. But they just won’t listen!"

The young man gritted his teeth, as if he had come to a decision.

"If you ask me, we should do what the nobles of old did and take a whip to them! A few sound lashings will straighten them out!"

The others nearby, their faces grim, nodded in agreement, clearly in favor of this most direct approach.

Velin, however, shook his head, his gaze settling on the indignant young man.

"You want to use the whip? Fine. Who’s going to wield it?"

The young man faltered. "The garrison, of course... or we could find a few trustworthy men."

"Very good," Velin nodded, then continued, "And the overseers, do they not need to eat? Where does their bread come from?"

"From the serfs’ output, of course!" the young man replied without hesitation.

"Right now, they can barely clear a patch of land in a day. Are you sure that once they start producing grain, there will be anything left after you deduct the overseers’ rations?" Velin’s voice was dangerously cold.

"How many people can one overseer manage? Ten? Twenty? For eleven hundred people, how many overseers would you need? And who watches this team of overseers to make sure they aren’t slacking off, skimming from the top, or lying to me about the yield? Old Walker, you tell me: in the end, will that army of overseers answer to me, or to their own stomachs?"

Old Walker’s face grew taut, and cold sweat broke out on his forehead. He was beginning to understand the terrifying logic in Velin’s words: an endless cycle of "supervision."

"Besides, it’s one thing to flog a couple of slackers, but right now, nearly everyone is just working slowly. Are you going to beat them all? These serfs are my property. If they’re injured, who will work? If they get sick, won’t it cost money to treat them?"

He sighed softly, letting his words sink in.

"This is the fundamental contradiction of serfdom. It appears to strip the serfs of all their wealth, but the administrative cost required to maintain that exploitation ultimately consumes all the output."

"This is also why the number of serfs is decreasing, in the Haidi Duchy—and it is a wealthy duchy—and even in other inland regions. Astute lords have discovered that a freeman working for himself can clear ten acres of land, while a serf under the whip can barely manage one in a day. The freed-up population can be put to work in handicrafts, creating even greater value."

Everyone present, including old Walker, was stunned into silence by this unheard-of line of reasoning.

The cost of overseers? Damage to property? Surplus population for artisanship?

They had never considered oppression and governance from such a perspective.

Velin looked at the group of numbed serfs, his expression unreadable.

"Newly Town has more land than people right now. I don’t need to squeeze every last grain from the serfs. I can only earn more when they have money to spend."

Velin’s gaze swept over one vacant expression after another. "What they lack right now is any hope for tomorrow."

He turned to old Walker and gave his order. "Gather all the serfs. We’re holding a meeting in the square tomorrow morning."

...

Meanwhile, beside the dung beetle pits, Ola Stonebeard was mechanically shoveling the black, peculiar-smelling droppings with a wooden spade.

His humiliation had long ago been replaced by numbness, which in turn was giving way to a new confusion.

He looked up into the distance. On one side were the "old-timers" of Newly Town, clearing land as if possessed, all for something called "merit points." They wouldn’t rest until the sky was pitch black each day.

On the other, his own former serfs were shuffling through the fields like the walking dead, indifferent to everything.

Ola couldn’t understand.

It was the same lord, the same land.

So why was there such a world of difference between the serfs and the freemen?

He, Ola Stonebeard, admitted to himself that while he might have been arrogant with other lords, he had never been cruel to his own people.

Even though he could barely save a coin himself, he would still give aid to serfs on the verge of freezing to death in the winter.

And yet, he had never seen that sort of genuine vitality on the face of a single one of his serfs.

’Did I really lose to those bugs, or was it something else?’

The question took deep root in his mind.

「Night fell.」

Velin returned to the Lord’s Mansion. Instead of resting, he unrolled a fresh sheet of parchment.

Neither the chirping of insects outside his window nor the distant bustle of the town could distract him.

He dipped his quill in ink and, at the top of the parchment, wrote a line of text.

The script was strong and sure, each letter imbued with the power of an order refined over millennia in another world.

"The Newly Town Citizenship Redemption Act."