With only five days to harvest the crops, Town Zera ramped up production, and everyone pitched in for the harvesting. There was no need for duty segregation for the first time as everyone saw it as part of their responsibility to assist with the harvest.
Either that or the promise of good food made from their harvest motivated everyone. Rino didn't know, but it wasn't important as long as they did what he needed them to do. Ownership of the territory's tasks was important. If they were going to be this cooperative, Rino would not need to assign anyone in charge. Taking the initiative was better than obedience when there were intellectuals in the ranks.
On the third day, Rino finally completed designing space for the windmill, waterwheel and granary. He also told the genesis fairies to strengthen the defence barrier around the town, especially underground. They carried out his orders discreetly.
"My king! Something terrible has happened in the soybean field!" Sheila reported through the soul bond, startling Rino so badly that he fell off his chair.
After getting up from the ground, Rino borrowed her eyes to look at the situation using their bond. What he saw both terrified him and thrilled him that Rino told her to do her best to detain all the criminals while he made haste, teleporting over.
Every capable warrior was called to the soybean field for a sacred mission of apprehending the criminals running amok and eating the soybeans meant for harvest. Nobody knew where they came from, but it was clear that this level of crop destruction meant that they would be in trouble trying to meet the quota of soybeans within the next few days.
Furry and cotton-tailed, these little criminals looked at their captors without remorse. They twitched their noses and thumped their feet in annoyance when the drows and trolls placed them in the temporary earth wall prison in the middle of the field without soybeans.
As more long-eared criminals were caught, the prison started to feel a little cramped, and they started trying to jump over the earth wall, much to everyone's dismay when three succeeded.
"How high do these walls have to be?" the farming fairy in charge asked as the earth gnomes continued raising the height of the walls until it was almost as tall as Rino's shoulder.
The rabbits were still doing their best to break from their prison by bouncing from wall sides to the other side to hop over their tall confines. Many failed and fell back into the fluffy group, but those that made it found themselves quickly caught by the ears and tossed back by vigilant drows.
Rino couldn't believe his eyes, and almost immediately, he was reminded of a song he heard farmers singing at a harvest festival as they threw squishy fruits at each other to celebrate a good fall.
Like a trance, Rino found himself humming to the tune from his childhood as an apprentice of the magician tower.
"After spring comes summer
After summer comes fall
In fall, if the harvest is not a bummer
The fruits we pick and share with y'all
After spring comes summer
In summer, we plough and sow
We ask for rain and good weather
To give us high yields and no woe
After summer comes fall
After fall comes winter
We work and throw a ball
For a good harvest year after year!"
The wild rabbits were finally caught and confined after twenty long minutes at dawn, and Sheila finally turned to Rino, who was lost in thoughts.
"My king, what should we do with these thieves? Should we slaughter them for pelt and leather?"
Counting the rabbits held in the earth prison was more difficult than Rino expected. In fact, it was the earth gnomes who discovered that the smart leporids were trying to escape by burrowing under the fields. These rabbits were a lot smarter than the ones they caught in captivity. Actually, they were also a lot bigger.
"Where did they come from?" Rino asked after he cast an area effect sleeping spell on the hyper hoppers.
Nobody knew where the breach in security was, but the Genesis fairies claimed that there were no new tunnels underground after they laid the fortified defence barrier. Rino decided to do some sleuthing alone but not before telling the shadow spectres to skin them properly. He still wanted the rabbit bone structures intact to revive this group of terrorists to his field.
There was no harm in employing more shadow slaves if they were this daring and resourceful when alive. Unfortunately for the leaping family, Rino liked their fur more than them. It was also the only suitable punishment for ravaging his soybean fields.
Not telling anyone where he was going, Rino summoned Mutt. There was only one place he knew where there were this many rabbits, but it was a distance away. Not to mention, these rabbits had sharper teeth that meant they ate more than just plants. They were bigger in size and had higher intelligence on top of their amazing physical abilities.
"Let's check the hole that the fairies made to let the earth gnomes in. Is it plugged yet?"
Mutt nodded and broke into a sprint. In no time at all, they arrived at the scene, and Rino got down. It wasn't difficult to see that this part of their border defence wasn't repaired. The hole was still here, and nobody remembered to patch it up, not even Rino.
Really, he couldn't be angry at his minions or blame them for not remembering when it slipped even his mind. What was done could not be undone. Rino only thanked his blessings that only monster rabbits broke through and destroyed his soybean field. No other animals were harmed, and nothing much was broken. The hole in the defence barrier wasn't big enough for bigger monsters to enter, and Rino was thankful for that.
As he fixed the hole at the border, Rino thought about those fluffy rabbit monsters. What kind of job could those intelligent rabbits do? There had to be over a hundred of them that broke through. Apart from the frightening numbers, Rino was interested in working efficiently in a group without conflict. The speed of infiltration to the destruction of his fields had to be less than an hour because Rino knew how diligent the drows were on their patrol rounds. Unlike Deezer, they remained extra vigilant, never cutting corners.
Fixing the hole in a jiffy, Rino climbed onto Mutt's back and told his loyal wolf to take him to that living cave he exited from in the fields near the jungle across the river where he last saw those killer bunnies.
Mutt ran quickly and sank further into the shadow under Rino's spacious cloak as the sun rose. The burn of sunlight on his exposed skull felt familiar, and Rino groaned as purple flames flooded his vision.
He hated daylight.
That reminded him how he still did not make an enchantment spell of the eternal night for Town Zera. He did something for Spudville and Noir Province to protect those hardworking undead from sunlight but forgot that he could do the same here. Work tended to make people forget the simplest things, and Rino quickly sent Sheila a message using his soul bond to relay what he said to the genesis fairies.
He wanted that eternal night enchantment within his territory to be done by the time he returned from his errand. The poor shadow spectres will not be able to finish skinning the hundred killer bunnies in the sunlight, and Rino needed their help asap for replating the ruined soybeans at night.
For now, Rino delegated the new tasks to his townsfolk. The earth gnomes would help repair the ruined fields while the trolls prepared to plough it for a new batch of soybeans to be sowed. They should salvage whatever they could with the fairies, but the true challenge came after that.
Rino needed to get back and cast an area-wide effect of nature magic until the soybeans were fully grown. It was going to be very time consuming, but only he was capable of it. In the meantime, they should quickly harvest the other crops and load them into the sky palanquin scheduled to arrive in Noir Province by tonight.
By doing so, Rino hoped that the newest batch of soybeans could be ready in two days. Missing a deadline when he was stacked with a GF credit inflation phase was terrible. Rino still had about one or two day-offs that he last claimed but did not consume. The gods must really be forcing his hand with the series of disasters in time with the system update. It did not matter if the killer rabbits ruined his harvest by coincidence. Rino would still blame everything on them.
After spending most of his day travelling, Rino came to the same living cave opening and saw how there were no rabbits where he last remembered. Indeed, these killer bunnies found their way from this place over to his humble village. Their choice of travelling was very similar to what the earth gnomes did when they infiltrated, and Rino was glad he asked the genesis fairies to step up on fortifying underground defences. It must have taken these menaces a while to figure out how to enter and once they did, there was no stopping them.
The return journey was gloomy, but the silver lining remained. Rino looked forward to the quality fur pelts they would be getting. Those killer bunnies would make lovely clothes for the earth gnomes and troll tribe. He finally had some materials to work with to reward his hardworking subordinates.
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