Once upon a time there was a greedy snake.

Chapter 63 After Eating Too Much

The story begins on the day Akakage passed away.

On his deathbed, Akakage asked an old acquaintance, the deserter, to protect his people—a task that, while a little troublesome for the deserter, wasn't too difficult.

Even if these so-called clansmen were once royalty, it doesn't matter.

Simply because he is no longer the deserter he once was.

He has become a man of the mountains, found his own path, and at this moment, he is far more powerful than all the magicians combined. There is already a qualitative difference between those who have the Way and those who do not.

"So this shouldn't be a big deal."

Although he complained about how troublesome the matter was after being entrusted by Akakage, at that time he thought it was just a trivial matter.

After all, these magicians, who were once high and mighty in his eyes, were no longer worth mentioning to him, who had already comprehended the Dao.

"I never imagined that you, who were once so high and mighty, would stoop so low as to need to survive in this way."

That's what he was thinking at the time.

With this in mind, he kept a close eye on the Ignivas people down the mountain, watching some of them head south and those who didn't leave continue to live on this land. In the meantime, he would occasionally intervene behind the scenes, giving them a helping hand when they were about to meet their end, and dealing with those deadly situations in advance.

This behavior seemed quite novel to him, much like herding livestock on a ranch when he was a child. As a shepherd, the saber-toothed tiger and mammoth grew up under his watchful eye.

"When that serpent... the Ancestor of the Dao, was he looking at us, did he also have this thought in mind?"

He once thought that way.

But soon he realized that these Ignivas were not saber-toothed tigers or mammoths.

At least saber-toothed tigers and mammoths, no matter how stupid they are, would not actively seek death.

He would never see the Ignivas who left this land, and as for the Ignivas who remained... well, it's a long story.

Initially, when these Ignivas were struggling to manage the ranch, seeing that these former royalty didn't know how to do their work, he secretly released a few breeding stock into their ranch—those mammoths were created by people in the mountains who specialized in breeding. Their meat quality might only be average, but their breeding ability was quite astonishing.

Even mages who don't know much about manual labor can feed these mammoths; given their enormous size, they at least won't starve.

He thought well.

Even at the beginning, everything seemed fine. The Ignivas avoided starvation and even started eating meat again. But after they had meat, their first priority was not to survive, but to immediately fight the giants.

After a major battle, several ranches that had just resumed production were completely destroyed, and the mammoths, as resources fought over by both sides, were devoured clean.

The situation of the Ignivas did not improve; instead, it worsened, to the point of near extinction.

"No, this?" The result of his actions puzzled him greatly, and, refusing to believe in superstition, he began his attempt once again.

This time, he offered planting techniques that neither the Ignivas nor the giants possessed—although they certainly had done things like burying seeds in the soil, it was clearly not comparable to true cultivation.

From reclaiming land to using manure to improve soil quality, and then to specific planting and cultivation methods, those in the mountains who are interested in cultivating fruits and vegetables have gradually begun to figure out a relatively complete process.

Although the serpent god's excrement could not be given to these Ignivas people, after trying it several times, the people in the mountains discovered that human excrement had a similar effect—of course, compared to the improvement that the serpent god's excrement brought to the land, human excrement was far inferior, but it was still better than nothing.

Thus, after receiving this technology, the Ignivas people living at the foot of the mountain were finally able to escape the brink of extinction once again.

Seeing that these Ignivas wouldn't starve, he felt a little relieved, having been observing them from the shadows. At that time, he thought the matter wouldn't be complicated, just a simple favor. After that, he went about his own business, since he had his own path to follow and couldn't keep an eye on these Ignivas every day.

However, in the short time he was away, something unexpected happened to the Ignivas.

When he finished his work, he discovered that the Ignivas were starving to death again, and the plantation had been destroyed once more. This time, it wasn't even because of the giants—after solving the food crisis, the Ignivas had broken out into a civil war on their own. The reason was that some people were working hard, while others didn't want to work.

"Can this also start a fight?"

Although he could understand the reasons why these Ignivas were fighting, in his eyes, these Ignivas had only just recovered from the crisis of their genocide, and after only a few days of good times, they were already fighting amongst themselves. He simply couldn't understand what these people were thinking.

This kind of thing has happened countless times.

Each time, he saved the Ignivas from extinction, and each time, the Ignivas managed to bring about their own demise—like a saber-toothed tiger in a pasture starting to tirelessly bang its head against a tree, or a tall mammoth suddenly grabbing and gnawing on poisonous grass.

Even the most foolish animal wouldn't do such a thing; this behavior of rushing headlong towards death can no longer be explained by normal logic.

But through repeated cycles, he gradually discovered the pattern.

“Every single time, it’s after I’ve eaten my fill.”

"I always look for death after I've eaten my fill."

"Even if people in the mountains are well-fed, they won't deliberately seek death, because they all know what they should do. But these people don't know what they should do, so no matter how much we help them, it's meaningless."

"What they lack has never been a way to survive, but rather their own way of life."

At that moment, a realization dawned on him.

"No wonder that Dao Ancestor specifically reminded us to find our own Dao..."

Recalling the serpent god's teachings, he felt as if he had found a solution to the problem.

(End of this chapter)