Chapter 1030: Disaster Rescue Camp
Qiu Yue spent the next few days placing camps similar to the ones they had set up for the New Adventurer's Town in its initial stages outside the ruins of the Southern Capital. The tactician did not have high hopes about this 'bluff' working effectively, yet the Red Panda Cultivator felt it was still worth a try. On the off-chance they could trick the Southerners to team up together with the monsters, they might actually gain even more powerful allies against the Demon Rats.
Jin then released all of the 'innocent' Southerners within his System into the camps. While they were crushed to see the destruction of their homes, the System had explained the reasoning behind the total annihilation of the capital.
It was not easy for the Southerners to swallow the truth but with the System controlling them to a certain degree, most of them accepted it unwillingly. Some were rather pleased that the entire capital was destroyed, since it meant they could create a new (and better) city.
Issues such as discrimination against the weak and the survival of the strongest had always been the ongoing theme within the city and for good reasons. It had been the only way to live and survive in this harsh environment against all the monster onslaughts. With Jin having taken control of them and their leaders, they requested their master to use his capabilities (and deep pockets) to help them with that project.
Yet first, they would have to defeat the Rat Demons, and that was the hard part.
It was only a matter of time until the other Southern Cities would send out scouting parties to investigate the source of the large explosion where the Southern Capital used to be. The camps had been set up to show off that the monsters were actually helping the Southerners and Jin needed the two groups to play nice with each other.
Theoretically, all of them were under the System's influence, so controlling them should be easy enough. However, forcing Jin's subjects to do something against their nature required a lot of focus (aka processing capabilities) on the System's part which could be used for more important issues.
In addition, Jin only had so much time on his hands to make sure that the free willed Southerners would agree to come together as a team before he would have to take care of other problems which just kept piling. In a somewhat drastic choice, Jin appointed a person which nobody had expected to lead the entire group.
Silver, cousin of Gold, as well as the current replacement leader of the Jacks by recommendation of the Scholar of the East himself.
Although Silver's understanding of the Southern Region was limited to a few pages of the history books, he had the werejackals under him who were previously mages under the Four Scholars, especially notable people like Yellow, Brown and Grey.
While they now understood the 'true' history for the feud between the Southerners and the Monsters residing in the Southern Region, Yellow and Brown had the capability to intervene in their culture because of the knowledge they once held.
Still, the Jacks were well versed in Jin's way of working things out and thus, with their expertise, they assisted the two groups and made sure that they are working alongside each other. Silver took charge of the matters related to the reconstruction of the Southern Capital as well, assigning manpower (and monster power) to various sites of the former capital, arranging them to prepare for transportation into the System's Recycler.
In the meantime, Yellow and Brown instructed some of the Southerners to go out and spread the propaganda messages as detailed by Jin's initial plan. All the mayors in the surrounding towns were initially sceptical regarding the content of the messages, even though they were mostly delivered by the same scouts that visited them frequently. But both the Werejackal Mages had another plan in mind.
On the third day after the disaster rescue base camp was set up, the first mayors of the arrived. They were promptly welcomed by none other than Saberteeth for an informal meeting in one of the nearest biggest Southern Town, Banning. To ensure the willingness of the Southern Leader Jin had allowed a certain Dungeon Security Director with the help of his new assistant, Nightingale to 'convince' the Southern Mage that it was all for the good of his people.
That meeting alone cleared many doubts and rumours for the mayors of the various towns, especially once Saberteeth presented them with a live Demon Rat they had captured and 'interrogated'. In reality, Kraft had merely brainwashed one of their captured Demon Rat with more… violent methods to make it more responsive to telling the 'truths' it had been fed during its session.
No doubt the mayors made a huge ruckus seeing that their capital turning into ruins but all that empty noises were not going to make much progress. So with all that evidence the mayors ultimately pledged their support, since they understood they had to come together to deal with the danger of more rats attacking them.
However, although the mayors were in favour of fighting against the Demon Rats, they were wary of the alliance between the monsters and the Southerners. The reformed Saberteeth had already warned Jin about the concerns any 'sane' Southerner would have, so with the help of Qiu Yue, they had come up with some contingency plans.
That was where Gold, the Scholar of the East, the Farmer of all Farmers, or the Garden Prince as Weslie had dubbed him. He joined the meeting and promised the mayors that if they pledged help, he would assist them in their agriculture aspects.
Even though the White Desert was not a suitable place to grow crops, it was nevertheless part of the Farming World and with the right fertilisers and seeds, the Southerners would be able to have a decent bounty from nature itself.
Naturally, he took the chance to introduce the secret organisation which was now aiding the reconstruction of the capital, stating that they would provide the necessary food supplies.
That brought a ton of relief to those mayors since they had actually been relying on the capital to feed their people. The little farming that their towns did, was barely enough to sustain themselves and would. Thus, they all followed their leader's example.
Saberteeth was known for being cunning and ruthless in his behaviour and his weird hobbies of collecting eggs for experiments, yet he was still a leader who had improved their situation. Thanks to his 'out of the norms' ways he had brought innovation to the Southerners after the mysterious disappearance of their Southern Scholar. When they had needed him the most, he had disappeared, but the mayors had witnessed Saberteeth pulling them out of the rug before so there was a certain level of trust for him.
Some even queried Gold why the Scholars did not approach or recommend him to be the next Southern Scholar when the old one had somewhat abandoned their duty. The only remark Gold could give them without revealing any details was that he would try his best to find out more about the old Southern Scholar.