Chapter 26
Chapter 26
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 26
Chapter Title: From Primitive Era Chieftain to Space Age Emperor
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Lines of enemies were dragged into our tribe's city, bound hand and foot.
The tribesmen, having heard the news of victory from afar, had all gathered. The followers of the Spirit Church shouted cheers before prostrating themselves flat on the ground.
I sat atop the platform in the central plaza.
The platform had been built by stacking layers of bricks fired in the kiln.
White Flame and Wise Flower stood to my left and right, while below them lined up the executives like Black Stone, Red Rock, Eagle's Eye, Quick Hand, Slow Foot, Black Bear, and others.
The warriors set up their round shields, encircling the prisoners in a ring.
With the shields packed tightly around them, the prisoners couldn't even think of lifting their heads.
It wasn't just because they were terrified of our tactics.
Straight roads, stone-lined drainage ditches, workshops, and more.
Having seen a planned city for the first time, they seemed to view me and our tribe as beings from another dimension altogether.
I pointed to the man at the front of the binding rope.
His side hair was matted together, and his crown protruded, making the name Bushy Head fit perfectly without any awkwardness.
"Bushy Head. Are you next in rank after the war chief?"
"Y-Yes."
"How much food does your tribe have?"
"We can hold out for about two months."
Mostly fruits, edible plant roots, and meat, he said.
Among them, the meat was at a level we couldn't eat, but to accommodate as many people as possible, we could just feed it to the tribe we were absorbing this time.
Black Stone spoke up.
"We need to cull those we take into the tribe."
"Black Stone is right. It's unavoidable."
I agreed with that.
With winter approaching, even if we fished nonstop, there were limits to the aquatic resources, and feeding all those people would be impossible.
This was the best we could do.
"We'll build wagons to transport the food. Once the wagons are ready, we'll cull the Brown Guys and absorb them."
"Woo-ah!"
There were some slightly disappointed reactions, but it couldn't be helped.
Black Stone and the staff immediately checked the food warehouse and underground storage, estimating we could feed about two thousand through the winter.
Agricultural society had begun, but without fertilizer and with everyone new to farming, the results were still amateurish.
Having planted unimproved wild wheat and barley, this harvest was fortunate enough.
Culling the tribe.
We had no intention of bringing the elderly or infirm at all.
They would all die in the fields, but given the era, there was no helping it.
The Brown Guys showed no particular reaction to that either.
For them too, when absorbing tribes to grow their population, cutting out the weak was standard procedure.
As soon as the sun rose, the city awoke from sleep.
Everyone had their assigned roles, so they bustled about preparing to start the day.
There was a separate team managing the prisoners captured yesterday.
Twenty warriors had been selected, and the new recruits would build houses in the area where the outer walls were to be installed.
The Brown Guys, completely overwhelmed in strength, obeyed meekly.
They considered it fortunate just to be alive in that spot.
Rebellion?
Rising up against us, armed with cutting-edge(?) weapons, would be suicidal, and the warriors would rush in and tear them apart on the spot.
Fortunately, in this land ruled by the logic of strength, a defeated tribe didn't find it shameful to be absorbed by another.
On the contrary, it improved survival odds, so if you were determined to grow your tribe, endless expansion was possible.
The only limit was insufficient food in this foraging era.
"Hoo."
Stepping outside, it was quite chilly.
Mornings and evenings now felt no different from winter.
Having lived in this world for over a year, I had a rough sense of when the ground would freeze solid.
We needed to build wagons and raid the Brown Guys' village before it got colder.
I called over Eagle's Eye, who was heading out on reconnaissance.
"Did you find it, Chieftain!"
"While scouting, look for traces of the woolly rhinos too."
"Woolly rhinos?"
"If we have meat, we can take in more people."
"Chieftain, didn't we give up on that?"
"We should at least try. You know we have the ability to hunt woolly rhinos. Unless it's the elderly, population growth is always helpful."
"Got it!"
In truth, old primitives were like living encyclopedias.
Primitive knowledge might seem worthless, but hunting methods, knowledge of all sorts of grasses, primitive healing techniques—proven ways passed down through generations.
The elderly were respected for that reason, yet in tribal culling, they were the first to go, a tragic fate.
More people meant more knowledge.
Yellow Hand was tasked with extracting and recording the knowledge from any elders brought into the tribe.
So, unless they were sick, it was better to bring most of them if possible.
I watched the reconnaissance team depart for a moment, then headed straight to the workshop.
The wheels could be taken from the carts, and the wagon itself didn't require any amazing technology.
Slow Foot, the overseer(?) of production, greeted me.
"Chieftain! We need to reinforce the hub of the wagon."
"Are the wheels keeps coming off?"
"Exactly. It'll roll for now, but it'll break soon. And the wheels' durability is an issue too."
"Hmm."
A wagon is basically a large cart hitched to a horse.
We had primitive stirrups already, so connecting the shafts and the horse collar wasn't hard.
The stirrup straps could bear considerable weight.
But since it would move faster than men pushing, strengthening the wheel hubs was key.
Bronze Age tech would solve everything, but...
We'd rushed the war tech tree, but metallurgy hadn't even started.
Finding surface copper mines was tough.
"We should layer thin bone plates over the wheel rims for reinforcement. And pack spare wheels."
We decided to reinforce the wheels at the workshop, while Slow Foot and I worked on the axles.
If the hubs burned out from friction, it'd be a disaster, so we repeatedly coated the oak axles with a lubricant mix of pine resin, oil, and ash.
Think of it as primitive machine oil— a step up from plain grease.
Adding the lubricant(?) and spinning the axle, it turned smoothly.
"Good."
The body was wide at the back and narrow at the front.
We brought over a horse and connected it to the body and horse collar.
To pull with the shoulders and support with the chest without straining the spine, the collar was essential.
The breeching on the haunches kept the wagon from pushing the horse downhill.
"Make the breeching a bit loose. Tighten it only on downhills."
"Got it!"
Primitive horses required delicate handling.
They were only recently trained to be ridden, and no one knew what trouble they'd cause under stress.
Until they got used to it, we had to minimize stress.
The brakes were extremely primitive.
Avoid using them unless desperate; they were that crude.
Wedges jammed between the wheels.
We made grooves under the driver's seat for two wedges and a hammer; on steep declines, hammer them in to stop the wheels.
No metal, so bone wedges.
By lunchtime, a simple but unprecedented item in this world was born.
Slow Foot sat in the driver's seat and gave it a test pull.
Clop-clop. Clop-clop.
The wagon moved slowly.
"Woo-ah! We can hunt so much more game!"
"Expedition raids will be a breeze too!"
The staff got excited.
That excitement spread instantly to the tribesmen.
In a world where moving heavy loads was hell, a self-propelled(?) wagon meant massive reductions in labor—easy to imagine.
The birth of the wagon was a transportation revolution.
A week later.
With ten wagons built, it was time to move out.
The scouts had scoured the area but found no woolly rhino traces.
Even one mammoth would eliminate winter worries, but such events didn't happen often.
We'd predicted plenty of food before, but this year we'd have to fish the river steadily and eat fish till we were sick of it.
We had no choice but to proceed with the culling.
The evening before departure.
It would take at least four or five days from here, so we were loading the wagons when Eagle's Eye returned from scouting, slightly excited.
"Chieftain! We found mammoths!"
"Really!?"
All eyes turned to Eagle's Eye.
Mammoth hunting would solve everything.
"But there's a problem. It's not a lone male—it's a woolly rhino herd."
"......"
Mammoths live in groups, like elephants.
A herd of those massive beasts charging?
The staff shook their heads, but I thought differently.
"It might be possible."
"How?"
"Don't we have cavalry? Think back to the strategy we used against the Brown Guys."
"Uh... yeah, maybe?"
Hunting a woolly rhino herd.
Not wiping out the whole group—just isolating and taking down one.