Chapter 1401: Yggdrasil's Memories
Chapter 1401: Yggdrasil's Memories
"Ehhh explain more?" Jin said as he tried to catch his breath. The Maqi he released was more than he had anticipated. In the meantime, the other Demon Rats slowly regained their composure and they tried to pick things up in this sheer white instance.
Shu seeing how his master was panting heavily had decided to transfer some mana to him so that Jin could regulate his system while Kraft walked towards the magical treant. "Ah, can't you just take it from the System? Do you really have to go through my memories?" Shu knew what Kraft was capable of and did not wish to be his specimen.
"The System will be filtering your memories and will try to make sense of it. I want the raw ones. Sometimes there are emotions packed into it and having to take a look in would definitely give a better perspective than what the System would give us." Before he even finished his sentence, Kraft had already placed his hand into it.
Not to mention, he was 'kind' enough to keep Jin in the loop by grabbing his shoulders and commencing the transfer. That meant Kraft was not only taking memories from Shu but also giving Jin the magical treant's memories so that he did not have to bother explaining everything to him.
When the memories flashed through Jin, it was heavily coded with flashes of the Yggdrasil's past. In the days it was just a tree sapling and subsequently being devoured by the world itself due to a major earthquake, causing the planet to have regenerative abilities. This allowed the Farming World to have its unique abilities.
Yggdrasil is now the mythic equivalent of Gaia, the Motherly Earth spirit that quietly watches the world. Under her watch, there was nothing significant among the species that ruled the land. Occasional wars would break out throughout the ages but it was largely peaceful during her reign.
But everything changed when the Demon Rats appeared. They quickly changed the rules of engagement and slaughtered anything and everyone they could find, disrupting the scales of balance that had been preserved for the longest time ever. While surely there would be an influx of lifestream due to the death of creatures, Yggdrasil needed to ensure that the lifestream could reproduce life back to the world as well.
However, the cycle was disrupted when the Demon Rats began to plunder the lifestream energies from the roots of the world and used them for their experiment and to improve their own technology. Initially, Yggdrasil thought it would merely be a minute intervention, but the Demon Rats got clever and greedy, taking huge portions of it.
The Rats might not have known it since they were vastly manipulating the lifestream energies in the Northern Region but this had caused huge changes to the environment in the other regions. It was most noticeable in the Southern Region where the land was already harsh on their inhabitants to be even crazier to survive in.
This prompted monsters like the Zerg Queen to have difficulty finding food although the humans living in the area just acted as the catalyst to make the situation worse. The Western and Eastern Regions were also seeing their crops growing at a slower pace. Also, their agricultural advisors noticed that at the rate the crops were maturing, they might have to either devote more land to farmers or tighten the food supply by introducing more taxes. Their stock would dwindle to the point that starvation might be a prevalent issue and they do not have an idea how to deal with it especially when all the appointed Scholars had disappeared.
That was why when Weslie returned to the Western Region and greeted the Queen, she was well missed and many advisors to the Queen asked for the scholar's advice. One of the main concerns was indeed the food situation in the Western Region. Thus, by participating in the fight against the Demon Rats, the Queen of the West hoped that Weslie would have one less issue on her mind and she would be able to aid them with this unknown mystery.
And while this was somewhat cruel, sending troops for the war against the Demon Rats would also alleviate the problem of the food supply. Besides getting gold which the Queen would not question how her Scholar was able to amass that much amount, soldiers would be taken care of.
Guaranteed meals during the course of this battle might be a short term solution but this would allow the Western Kingdom to breathe a little on their resources even if it was just mere weeks of fighting. ((Author's note: Time travelled faster in the Farming World than in the real world and most of the time's perspective had been written in lieu of Jin's world. I do not wish to retcon too much with regards to timing.))
And to put it bluntly, War would no doubt incur losses and while that loss might be devastating to families in the Western Kingdom, it was one of the few ways to dampen the seriousness of the food situation.
As for the Eastern Kingdom, the nobles were hoarding the food supplies and the peasants were all suffering. There was no effort being done to aid the commoners while the King and his wealthy subjects continued to enjoy their food luxuriously without care for life. Gold might not have been on the ground for ages but he still had informants who served the Jacks, his group of Robin Hood Werejackals. It was also one of the reasons he did not really wish to ask for help from the nobles since to them, there was nothing to gain from it other than to flex their military might.
But the Dark Templar organisation had numerous nobles under its wing, and since they were already under the System's influence, it was easy to move a few thousand troops for the war. In return, the System and Gold were able to give reason to feed the families of those troops. Upon hearing that there was food on the table, many who were able, pledge their sword arm for the battle against the Demon Rats as well.
No doubt the news went to the King and the other nobles but they honestly did not care about the situation of the Northern Region and lived in their ignorant bliss.
With all this information flowing through Jin and Kraft, they could see how the Farming World started to crumble down with the intrusion of the Demon Rats. However, it was evident that Jin's intervention in both the Northern and Southern regions had indirectly helped Yggdrasil to regain some energy. However, that extra help was quickly depleted when the Demon Rats furiously produced new equipment.
It was only in the past few days when the Demon Rats were struck in their Undercity that Yggdrasil had managed to recover a little better. In the meantime, as embarrassing as it was, the System finally was able to get the pattern of the energy signature and it was indeed Yggdrasil acting as the 'Spirits of the Land' aiding it to fight the war against this rat menace.
With a plea from the world, Jin decided that it was better to get this over and done with as soon as possible while reaffirming his resolve to eradicate the rest of the Demon Rats (that were not his.)