Gou is a dark elf in Warhammer

"I have a question..."

When Darrowland spoke, his tone was cautious and tentative. His gaze was still on the location on the map that Darkus had pointed to, but that wasn't what he wanted to ask about.

Darkus raised his head slightly, chin up, gesturing for Darrowland to elaborate on his confusion. The gesture was subtle, like a "go ahead and ask" or a "I'm waiting" urging.

"Why here?" Darrowland's finger hovered above the map, but didn't fall. He wasn't asking about the specific point, but rather the outline that Darkus had just drawn with his hand.

That realm he tried to understand, but could never quite internalize.

“You’ve got it wrong,” Darkus replied, his tone calm, as if he were correcting a trivial typo.

Darrow's brow furrowed even more.

He made a mistake?

What's wrong?

His gaze shifted from Dakos's face back to the map, then back again. Confusion piled up, like an unsolvable equation.

Dakos gave a dry laugh, a short laugh that carried a sense of helplessness, as if to say, "I know what you're thinking, but you're wrong."

"It is... the vast ocean, the Eseli River, the crater, and the border of the province of Iris."

As he spoke, he traced outlines on the map with his hand. His fingers began at the coastline of the vast ocean, moved westward along the Eseli River, touched the foot of the crater, then turned south, drawing an arc along the border of the province of Iris, finally returning to the vast ocean. The line was not a regular rectangle, not a square, not any shape that Darrowland could find in a geometry textbook.

It is irregular, natural, and meanders along the course of mountains and rivers, but its area is ridiculously large.

Darrowland became dazed.

His gaze followed Darkus's finger along the line, then stopped, motionless. He understood Darkus's words; each word was standard Elsalin, clearly pronounced, grammatically correct, and without any obscure terms. But put together… he felt his mind was like a machine crammed with too many gears, each one turning, but unable to mesh properly.

Kelisses was even more so; his mouth was so wide open that an egg could have been stuffed inside. His eyes were wide open, and the trace drawn by his finger on the map was reflected in his pupils.

He could read maps, and he understood what the line Darius drew meant. It wasn't a piece of land, not a district, not a ruin.

That's half of Kosquieu!

“This…” After a moment, Darrow finally managed to squeeze out a word, his voice hoarse, as if something was stuck in his throat.

"Is it hard to understand?" Darkus asked casually, his tone devoid of sarcasm or condescension, simply conveying the nonchalant "I assumed you would understand" attitude.

Indeed, it's somewhat difficult to understand.

The Eseli River lies east of Anirene, originating in a crater and eventually flowing into White Beach Bay. To some extent, the Eseli River separates Kosquieu; this side is the coast, and the other is inland. If one could call the north side the Hebei River, and the south side…

too big.

It was far beyond D'Arrown's comprehension.

It was so big that his mind refused to accept it, so big that even after calculating it repeatedly in his mind, he still felt that something was wrong.

This is related to the population size of the Kingdom of Kosqui.

The Kosqui people were few in number; the entire kingdom's population combined was roughly equivalent to that of Lorthern. They were scattered across a few coastal cities, while vast swathes of inland land were almost uninhabited.

It's not that I don't want to live there, it's that there's no need.

With few people and plenty of land, it's enough to just occupy a small plot. Who would want to go to those wastelands where there aren't even roads?

This is like having tens of thousands of people responsible for cultivating nearly 100 million acres of land. There is simply no need for so much land; it's impossible to cultivate it all.

The farmers in Kosquieu are too busy with their existing farmland to care about the forested wastelands inland. Those lands belong to no one because they have no value.

In some respects, Kosqui is similar to a mountainous southeastern coastal province. If you turn Ausuan upside down, then Tal Iris in the middle is that huge commercial city, and Lorthen in the south is the capital region.

Unlike that mountainous province, Kosquieu consists of plains and hills, but due to the harsh weather and sparse population, these lands have become forests.

It's not a mountain, it's a tree.

It's not that there's no land, it's that nobody goes there.

While Kosqui is the heart of Marselan, not all Kosqui people have any connection to the sea. What about those who live inland, far from the salty sea breeze? How do they survive?

agriculture!

But Kosquie's agriculture is a different story.

When talking about agriculture, one cannot ignore glass greenhouses.

The climate in Kosquirt poses a severe challenge to farmers; the raging winds can destroy almost any crop—not just potentially, but certainly.

You plant a field of wheat, wait for it to sprout tender green seedlings, and then overnight, the wind comes and the seedlings are gone. All that's left is bare earth and the uprooted remains.

Thus, the farmers of Kosquie were forced to combine magic with earthly skills in order to protect their plants from the harsh weather. The few remaining open fields in the region relied on rows of windbreaks and barriers, carefully designed with angles, heights, and densities meticulously calculated, so that even the most resilient plants would need shelter from the fiercest storms.

Without that shroud, there is nothing.

In stark contrast to these mundane methods are the glass greenhouses. They are Asur's masterpieces, bright buildings made almost entirely of glass, which, in the sunlight, resemble giant jewels set in the gray earth.

Internally, it uses magic to maintain a constant temperature and humidity: locking in the heat of the sun and insulating against cold winds and rain.

Outside, the wind howls; inside, spring is in full bloom.

Outside, there is a gray sky and a gray sea; inside, there are emerald green leaves and vibrant flowers.

Despite being built with fragile materials, glass greenhouses must be strong enough. To reinforce their structure, they are designed in a dome shape, a shape that distributes the impact of wind across the entire surface, rather than leaving one spot to bear the brunt.

The spells of Aksha's Wind and Hys's Wind can precisely regulate heat and light, allowing plants to grow in the most suitable environment; while the magic of the Wind of the God of the Forest can make the greenhouse frame impervious to storms, and even if the wind outside is strong enough to uproot trees, the greenhouse will only tremble slightly.

However, this has a drawback: it is very costly.

It's not just high, it's ridiculously high.

The price of a single pane of glass is equivalent to ten bags of wheat; the cost of building a greenhouse is enough to buy a villa with a garden in Lorthorn. The greater the temperature difference between the inside and outside of the greenhouse, the stronger the magic required.

There are resident monks in the large greenhouse who monitor the incantations that maintain the structure every hour.

Therefore, although glass greenhouses can grow almost any crop, they are usually rare varieties rather than field crops like wheat.

No one would spend the cost of a palace to grow wheat, nor would anyone hire a great mage to oversee a greenhouse of vegetables. Thus, the exotic fruits, vegetables, and herbs produced in the greenhouse added a unique charm to Kosquie's cuisine, with flavors unavailable in other kingdoms and ingredients only seen at the most extravagant banquets, but also at a high cost.

So expensive that only nobles could afford it, and so expensive that most Kosquières had to save for a long time to taste the delicacies grown on their own land.

Besides agriculture, Kosquieu also engages in animal husbandry. (Introduced in Chapter 925)

Livestock farming must be maintained, and it should be made as accessible to the general public as possible, so that it can be included on ordinary people's tables. In other words, it should be expanded while maintaining its current status. And to expand, agriculture is indispensable.

As for glass greenhouses, there is no need to expand them beyond what is already in place.

Because surveying is a huge project, and surveying is not just surveying. After the spiritual vein nodes in the eastern outer ring of Ausuan are re-optimized and adjusted, and after the drifting islands lose their defensive function, the Slans will fill in the missing lateral incisor.

Thus, a new granary was about to appear.

Darius's finger remained on the map, slowly moving along the outline he had drawn. His movements were slow, as if he were measuring something, or confirming something. Darrowland's gaze followed that finger, from the vast ocean to the Eseri River, from the crater to the border of Iris, circling again and again.

His mind was still racing with those numbers: population, land, costs, profits. Every single number was telling him: impossible.

But Darkus's expression told him: perhaps. A sea breeze blew from the direction of the cliff, making a corner of the map rustle. Renn reached out and pressed it down, his movement very gentle, as if afraid of disturbing something.

Kylisses finally closed his mouth, but his eyes remained wide open, his gaze fixed on the line on the map. He didn't know what that line meant, but he knew that from this day forward, the map of the province of Kosquieu would be redrawn.

Finally, Darrow gave a bitter smile. That smile contained so much: helplessness, shock, self-mockery, and a hint of relief—"I should have known better." His mouth opened and closed repeatedly, like a fish pulled ashore, wanting to say something, but finding that every word was insufficient. In the end, he uttered not a single word.

It was Dacros who uttered that word for D'Auroran.

"pattern?"

"pattern!"

Darrow's voice seemed to be squeezed out of his chest, carrying a sense of sudden realization, "Yes, that's it," as well as a bittersweet feeling of "You make it sound so easy."

“This place is responsible for connecting the inner and outer rings.” Dakous ignored Darrowan and continued planning, pointing to Tal Weil on the map as he spoke. His finger landed on the location of that inland city, a place overlooked by many, nestled at the foot of a crater, renowned for its Hossian scholarship. Under Dakous’s finger, it was no longer the edge of Kosquieu, but the heart of a vast network.

After saying that, he thought of a question and looked up at Darrowland.

Do you have any idea what a railway is?

“Yes!” Darrowland answered crisply. “After the meeting with Tal Iris, I saw… toys? models?”

Darkus was taken aback for a moment, then his mind raced and he quickly realized what Darrowland was talking about.

He remembered that just before the start of King's Landing in Ulthuan, Belial-Aegir and Azsarian departed from Naggaroth and returned to Ulthuan. Before their departure, the two, who were more like brothers, carried a lot of luggage, containing food, drinks, cigarettes, daily necessities, toys, and display items. He had even helped prepare many of these things.

Among them was a model railway, complete with rails, locomotive, and carriages. Though small, it was fully functional, powered by a spring, and could run on the laid tracks. It was only brought along as an "exhibit," but little did I know that Darrowland had seen it before and remembered it.

Dakos nodded. Some things are enough to have seen.

“Tal Vil will become the hub of eastern Ausuan.” He continued drawing on the map, his finger extending from Tal Vil indefinitely. “Trains from the provinces of Ithaan and Safre will pass through the Gale of Sorrow, traversing the crater, and entering the province of Kosqui. Trains departing from Tal Vil will pass through Tal Corelli, Anileen, and Elicia, entering the province of Charis, and even reaching the province of Nagaris. And towards Ithaan, it will connect with the eastern outer ring road starting from Lorthen.”

His fingers drew lines on the map, like veins, like roots, like a net unfolding. Those lines crossed mountains, crossed rivers, and stretched along the coastline, connecting isolated names together.

Tal Wel, Tal Corelli, Anirrain, Elicia, and Lorthern—these cities are no longer isolated islands, but pieces on a giant chessboard, linked together by the same railroad.

“A massive plan,” Darrowland’s voice trembled slightly, “but Ausuan needs a railway.”

He spoke with great certainty about the second half of the sentence.

It's not "maybe need", it's "need".

Although he had only seen models and never the real thing, he had already seen how those railway tracks transformed wastelands into towns, towns into cities, and cities into interconnected nodes.

He knew what the railway meant.

“Reclaim this area, establish agricultural and pastoral communities, and set up satellite cities.” Dakous’s finger moved back to the area circled by the dotted circle. “Anirene, Tal Corelli, and Tal Weir will develop into a cluster of cities.”

His finger moved back and forth between the three place names, as if connecting three stars. Anirrain was the capital, Tal Corelli was the shipbuilding center, and Tal Weir was the railway hub; three cities, three functions, three forces, all intertwined.

As these plans progressed, cities such as Longyan, Zhangzhou, Xiamen, and Quanzhou gradually took shape. The names of those distant yet vivid cities on the west coast of the Taiwan Strait, which he remembered as distant yet vibrant, seemed like echoes from another world, landing on this unfamiliar land and finding a new home.

“A massive plan…” Darrowland exclaimed again.

This time, his voice was even lower than before, as if he were talking to himself.

"I prefer...making it to just describing it?" Darkus said in a comical tone. "You may not know, but I also have another title: Senior Pastry Chef."

The tone was light and casual, as if joking, or as if stating a fact.

Darrowland had never heard of this title before, but he didn't need to. He could tell from Darkus's expression that it wasn't a joke.

Today, he smiled bitterly more times than he had in all of the past. This was all too vast and too transcendent. Dakos's plan and the emergence of the Weavers of Fate were tantamount to directly destroying the foundation of the aristocracy's rule. The land located in the middle of the three city clusters was being cultivated and would inevitably be distributed to the common people. This meant that the common people who were originally dependent on the aristocracy had changed from "people of a certain family" to "people with their own land."

As a nobleman of Kosquieu, Darrowland knew the common people's yearning for land. Making a living at sea was a last resort, a consequence of their circumstances. No one wanted to risk their life in the storms, no one wanted to spend most of their life on a swaying deck, and no one wanted to entrust their life to the capricious sea.

If there is land on the shore, who would be willing to board the boat?

He had asked himself this question countless times.

Every time, the answer is the same.

"The task for the province of Kosquière is very heavy."

Without waiting for Darrowland's response, Darkus continued. He pointed to the north and south ends of the map; Charis was to the north, and Iris to the south.

"We must not only supply some of the grain to Charis and Iris, but also conduct some exports."

He spoke calmly, as if assigning a routine task. But Darrowland knew this was no routine task. This was a plan to transform Kosquie from a "barren kingdom" into a "granary" that could rival Saffre.

Charis has little land but abundant forests. Compared to developing agriculture and animal husbandry, forestry is more practical, especially for industries that require high-quality timber, such as papermaking and furniture making. Iris also has little land, too much fog, and too little sunshine, making mushroom cultivation a better option than anything else.

Since that's the case, then let Kosquie take charge, taking advantage of the railway's convenience.

Darkus's actions and plans are often interconnected. He just mentioned giving Kosquie two shipbuilding quotas, but those are merely quotas, allowing him to open a shipyard. He didn't permit Kosquie to build large shipbuilding machinery on his own, let alone handle the entire process from iron ore to steel, or even the entire parts manufacturing process—that's out of the question.

In the future, the entire Elf Empire will have only two steel smelting zones.

One is located in the Anaheim region of Nagalos, and the other is in the province of Nagareth in Ulthuan. One is in a region, and the other is in Ulthuan itself.

His purpose in doing this was singular: the system couldn't function without anyone else.

Don't even think about separatism or anything like that.

Unless we're prepared to reverse course, are ordinary people living within the system willing to do so? Those who have just acquired land, those who have just transitioned from being "dependent" to being "autonomous," those who are experiencing for the first time what it feels like to own something—would they be willing to go back to the past?

Darrow shook his head inwardly.

will not.

He understands ordinary people too well.

Once you've tasted the sweetness, who would want to go back to the past?

However, the granaries are not absolute; the existence of the inner and outer ring railways allows Nagarris and Itaien to also supply food to the outer ring. And this is just the railway; shipping is not even included.

Kosquiat was not the only granary, but just one of them.

Each has its core industries, but also its weaknesses; none can function without the others. Charis lacks food, Kosquie lacks timber, and Iris lacks everything, but its ports and trade routes are irreplaceable.

Every province has its own strengths, and every province has its own unique characteristics that make it indispensable to others.

This is what Darkus wanted: not for one to rule over the other, but for everyone to be indispensable to the other.

Darrow's gaze fell on the map again. The lines, the dots, the places his finger had traced—they gradually changed in his eyes. He no longer saw isolated cities, but a taking shape, an interconnected whole. His lips twitched, as if he wanted to say something, but in the end, he only let out a long sigh.

There was a sigh in his voice, but also a sense of anticipation.

A sea breeze blew from the direction of the cliff, making a corner of the map rustle. Renn's fingers remained pressed there, steady. In the distance, sunlight slanted through gaps in the clouds, paving a golden path across the sea.

Darrowland didn't know where the road led, but he knew he was already standing at the starting point of that road.

After a while, once he had processed everything, he pointed his finger at a point on the map.

"And what about here?" (End of Chapter)