Steel, Explosives, and Spellcasters

Winters made a gesture—his left thumb pressing down on his ring finger, showing it to Colonel Moritz.

His gesture was the standard spellcasting hand sign used by the Alliance spellcasters.

Moritz stopped his movement, his brow furrowing even tighter.

Winters had stopped using hand signs for spellcasting, since he fought using only two spells and saw no need for gestures; he was now pursuing speed and explosive power.

Colonel Moritz had even less need for hand signs in his spellcasting, as he fought using only one spell.

Perhaps it was precisely this slight advantage in speed that had just saved Winters.

However, he was now uncertain whether the other party was indeed a spellcaster.

Seeing through Winters' thoughts, Moritz spoke gravely, "Don't fuss over it; if you killed him, you killed him. You did right—if error must be made, better to kill wrongly than give him a chance."

General Adams was doomed not to receive Captain Montaigne's reply.

Perhaps the absence of a reply was a clear response in itself.

In a civil war, there's not only a complete absence of warmth but also a cruelty that exceeds outright combat between enemies and allies.

Major Ronald's warnings were quickly confirmed by Winters.

...

...

Even though the flames had reached the edges of their boots, there were still things that needed to be done one by one.

The top priority at the moment was dealing with the refugee camp.

On the day following the delivery of the legion headquarters' documents, all the refugees outside the city had finally been screened, registered, and based on their region of origin, placed in sixteen small camps.

Carrying a thick registry, Bard suddenly asked Winters and the others, "Do you know what the 'Domesday Book' is?"

Religious matters had always been a blind spot in Winters' knowledge.

But even the others didn't know what the 'Domesday Book' was, finding the title quite scary just to hear.

"About 500 years ago, a king ordered a comprehensive survey of all the estates, tools, livestock, and population across the nation, measuring the area of all grasslands, pastures, farmland, forests, and ponds and estimating their value," Bard said slowly.

"The final results were compiled into a book, which came to be known as the 'Domesday Book.' Its real name was actually 'The Land Tax Survey,' but it got its name because the king's surveyors were as stern as the Last Judgment, hence people called it the 'Domesday Book.'"

Bard spoke earnestly, and Tang Juan and Andre pricked up their ears to listen closely.

"Guess how many years the nobles used a 'Domesday Book' for?" Bard asked again.

"A hundred years?" Andre ventured.

"No, it was 500 years. The Empire is still using the 'Domesday Book' to this day," Bard said, his rough fingers caressing the thick spine of the registry: "This is our 'Domesday Book.'"

The massive effort of the census revealed that the total number of refugees outside the city of Revodan was 22,173.

Among them, there were 6,873 males over the age of sixteen, making up 31%;

8,869 females over the age of sixteen, comprising 40%;

and 6,431 children under the age of sixteen, accounting for 29%.

This one book represented 22,173 mouths waiting to be fed, 22,173 famished stomachs.

But it also represented 22,173 pairs of hands capable of labor.

The key was how to get them back into production.

"The population census is complete," Winters announced proudly and excitedly, slapping a small knife on the table. "Next, we distribute farmland to them!"

"Distribute land?" Bard closed the book, his eyes cold and firm: "No, not a single acre of land will be given away!"