Shurado 2
It seems like no player is without flaws. Even I still know almost nothing about magic.
Both Sesaisa and Mihun have extremely biased knowledge. And that includes Wahando, the genius of political systems and total war.
That was what I felt while thoroughly inspecting Wahando's world before introducing factory-style intensive agriculture.
Why don't these guys have farms?
They do have ranches. They release their meat-shelled snails into the wasteland and raise them there.
But from my perspective, that could be called grazing at best. It wasn't animal husbandry. What kind of livestock farming is that? It's just letting beasts loose and hoping for the best.
Yet their world had laws and institutions so thorough they bordered on the realm of magic, and still there were no systematic guidelines for agriculture or animal husbandry.
Sure, things like this existed:
"The land from here to there shall be designated as a snail ranch. The snails produced in this region shall be raised to a certain size, then slaughtered for their meat while their shells are reused. Failure to comply will result in punishment of this severity."
But any research into "how to raise these snails efficiently" was completely absent.
I wasn't sure if this had once existed in Wahando's world and he simply didn't know about it, or if it had never existed at all.
One thing was certain, though. Wahando was almost completely ignorant when it came to agronomy. The same went for forestry, fisheries, animal science—pretty much any mechanism for producing biological resources.
If he had those concepts, he wouldn't be resorting to makeshift food production by raising livestock and vegetable patches inside his cities.
He didn't understand why livestock housing should be separated from living quarters. And his food production was so inadequate that he had to create makeshift ecosystems within urban areas.
If we could just fix that pathetic agricultural output, I estimated Wahando's food production could increase three to five times.
"Huh? Then does that mean you know everything about agronomy, forestry, fisheries, animal science, and so on, Lord Biin?"
"No. Even I didn't study every single one of those fields."
"Huh?"
Still, I'd probably be better than Wahando. Surface-level knowledge, sure. But at least I'd learned it at a general education level. In my search for reasons to despise ecology and civilization as a whole, I'd naturally picked up knowledge in those areas too.
"Even so, you won't be able to provide perfect consulting."
"I'll make up for the gaps with practical experience."
"Huh? What practical experience?"
What else? Games, obviously.
In my opinion, the reason gamers were summoned to this "game" was because they'd already operated worlds multiple times, even if only in the form of games.
So while the experts from various fields only knew their own narrow specialties, gamers—though lacking in raw knowledge—were veterans of the "game" itself.
The main plans I'd tried in games. The most efficient food resource production methods used to attack opponents.
I would attempt those. It was like how, in games, if there's a counter B to strategy A, even if the player who mains A has never played B, they still know exactly how to crush A with it.
Since I'd only researched ways to ruin food production as my main plan, I could simply transplant the food production strategies that opposing players had been using all along into Wahando's Shurado.
"That's a rather convincing line of logic. So what exactly are you going to do?"
Systematic agronomy and animal husbandry ultimately lead to factory farming.
You grow the same crops in massive quantities, cram livestock into tight spaces, and solve vulnerabilities like pests and diseases with .
"But with technology that's only just barely left the ancient era, won't that be difficult?"
Correct. That's why we needed the help of magic here.
But this bastard Wahando hadn't learned any magic related to plants or animals.
So what should we do? Use the magic of this world.
The administrative power that came from his insane stat was precisely that magic.
In the end, the starting point of agriculture was manpower...! We would simply pour in an enormous amount of labor to cultivate.
"Wow... Huh? But wouldn't that be even harder to call ancient? It sounds easier, actually?"
"Ah... It doesn't work as well as you'd think."
"Huh?"
In other words... When looking at pre-modern agricultural production problems on a large scale, there were many issues with the farming techniques themselves—soil fertility depletion, salinization of land, natural disasters, and so on.
But a problem that carried nearly equal weight was "administrative power."
In short, no matter how much the central government encouraged agriculture, or how hard the farmers worked to produce massive yields, if the middle class siphoned it off, or if the administration couldn't collect taxes properly, or if there were holes in tax revenue in any way, it all fell apart.
"Ah~ But in Lord Wahando's world, there aren't those kinds of problems?"
"Exactly. I didn't realize it was possible to have this high. The farmers and mid-level administrators in this world probably don't embezzle. If something is produced, it should convert directly into productive capacity."
And when it came to agriculture here, it was simple. These guys could only eat meat, right? So there was only one thing we would grow for agriculture.
"What is it?"
"Livestock feed."
Ninety percent of the soybeans grown on Earth were cultivated to feed livestock.
The same went for corn. An enormous amount was grown for animal feed.
On top of that, pasture grass for livestock. Oats. Rapeseed, turnips, and so on. Things that humans either couldn't eat, tasted like absolute garbage, or made you wonder why humans would bother eating them in the first place. Those were surprisingly perfect as livestock feed.
Wahando had created a makeshift ecosystem in his cities and was feeding those herbivores he called "grass pigs"... but it would be hard for them to grow big and strong on that grass alone.
Just as he'd said, the crops were too difficult to digest, so instead of developing muscle and fat, the pigs were growing enormous internal organs.
These hermit crabs seemed to process and eat the organs somehow, but it was obvious they didn't prefer them as ingredients.
"It may seem minor, but a three-to-fivefold increase in agricultural output—meaning a three-to-fivefold increase in population—is definitely worth attempting."
The problem was that attempting this would require large-scale farmland along with systemic changes, which meant I needed Wahando's permission.
I'd have to leave this to the clone of mine that was with Wahando's main body in my world.
For now, I had ideas, and there were things worth trying with forests and lakes too. Growing bean sprouts and mushrooms underground would be good.
───And so my consciousness shifted to stand before Wahando.
"Wahando. I've found a way to consult on your world."
"Goddammit. Is that so?"
His gestures were very different from a human's, but I could still read his irritation. It seemed he hadn't found a way to consult on my world.
"To be specific, I think we can increase food production by three to five times. But it will require quite large-scale work, so I've come to request permission."
Wahando was so enormously shocked by those words that he sucked his eyestalks back in, then swelled them out again hugely.
"Really? Three to five times the food? You say that's actually possible?"
"According to my calculations, yes. However, it will require quite a few changes, so I've come to ask for your approval. (Truth Verified)."
"I see... If it's truly possible, I have no objections, but I want to hear the principle behind it."
"......"
Fortunately, Wahando understood the concept of a deal.
"If you tell me the principle, I will in turn teach you a method to raise your score by more than thirty percent from its current level."
"What? How is that possible?"
Wahando was simply mimicking my tone.
"According to my calculations, it is possible. However, actually raising the score further will require quite a lot of work. (Truth Verified)."
"Hmm... Very well. Let us share our ideas with each other."
So I presented my idea first. The concept was actually simple. Plant enormous amounts of livestock feed crops and raise a lot of livestock. Same principle.
"The fact that I have no idea how to create this 'livestock feed plant' makes it a rather convincing idea."
"Did your world not have agronomy?"
"Of course it did. However, instead of focusing on increasing production, we pursued refining the system to save and use resources more efficiently... And I was not an agronomist."
I see. As expected, it wasn't that the concept didn't exist in his civilization.
"In that sense, the idea I will propose to you is about the same level. You'll probably think 'That's all?' when you hear it, but simply put, it's an increase in military power through reorganization of military structure and terrain rearrangement."
To summarize Wahando's words, the core issue was that while my world had abundant , the efficiency of converting that into military power was terribly low.
Even though I wasn't investing everything into the military like he did, if I wanted to overwhelm enemies with military force, the efficiency needed to be much higher. According to him, my current military organization, tactics, and grand strategy were all abysmal.
"Simply changing the order in which soldiers are deployed could greatly improve strategy. The same goes for terrain. In my opinion, your world doesn't seem to have any intention of defending against enemies."
That was because I'd only considered activating the ecosystem when creating it.
In that regard, Wahando demanded an enormous public works project to completely rearrange the positions of my world's terrain features.
But after listening to his explanation, I couldn't refuse. Even hearing his strategies and tactics in simple terms, if the opponent had sufficient offensive power, they could charge straight through the Syrup River from the plains all the way to the Nectar Lake, ultimately leading to the fall of my ecosystem's main base.
So far, it hadn't been breached simply because I was overwhelmingly stronger. If the opponent had enough firepower, I needed to consider the possibility of being breached in return.
"Very well, Wahando. I have plenty of divine power, so reshape my world however you wish. I will simply watch from the side and offer advice."
"I will also grant you permission to cultivate crops on a trial basis in several regions of my world and use my workers to produce sufficient food. Cultivate as much as you like."
It would be better to postpone adjusting my ecosystem's terrain for now. Tademoira seemed to be feeling some fear as Mugite's species gradually lost the ability to establish civilization.
It wouldn't be too late to change the terrain after recruiting Tademoira.
"Biin. What is that grass spirit?"
"Ah. It's a remnant creature from the last collision."
"Why haven't you killed it?"
"I'm trying to recruit it as a member of my ecosystem and put it to use. I've also converted the troops under its command into non-civilized intelligent beings."
"Hmm?"
Wahando listened to my explanation about the "Sugar Lumps" I'd created, then seemed to ponder for a moment.
"So intelligence can function in that manner as well."
"Well, yes. There are quite a lot of surprisingly intelligent animals. They just can't build civilizations because they lack deductive reasoning."
"Hmm..."
Wahando seemed to be contemplating something.
"Biin. Did you expect that without my help, your score would be 500,000 and your score would be 350,000?"
"Right? Proportionally speaking, if it's 500,000."
"Then at the next collision, I will raise your military score to over 1,000,000."
I thought my eyes were going to roll back in my head.
Weren't you saying thirty percent just now? Why the sudden jump to three hundred percent?
"After hearing your words, a rather good idea occurred to me. I thought that just because something couldn't form a civilization, it must be stupid. But if non-intelligent beings can possess such excellent intelligence, then the story changes. I will turn your soft Dessert Legion into an army second only to my Invincible Ironclad Frontline Army."
Your hermit crab army's name is the Invincible Ironclad Frontline Army? How is that name so lame...?
My angel was looking at me like I was crazy for some reason, but if he could really raise it above a million, then the story changed.
Since population has territorial limits, I'll increase your population by three times as well. If the formula is total score proportional to population, then 600,000 becomes 1.8 million—an increase of over 1.2 million. Sounds good?
Let's see who gets eaten more by the other.
"Wouldn't that be your next opponents?"
"Lord Biin's angel. Let's just stay quiet and watch. That's our job, isn't it?"