Chapter 171: Espionage Experts

Ping!

Rino was never happier to see that he made it on time. Turning in the soybeans and growing them in haste took a long time. Rino was exhausted from staying up for two days without sleep, just watching soybeans grow from seedlings into bushes that could be harvested from. He also learned that rabbits were addicted to them and will act crazy, like how goats loved their salt.

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Daily Quest #20 (complete)

Objective: Harvest new crops

1/1 Rice

1/1 Wheat

1/1 Corn

1/1 Soybean

Time Limit: 5 Days

Tutorial here.

Reward: Windmill & Water Wheel Blueprint

Claim your reward here.

Penalty: Deduct 24 hours of sleep upon failure and [Curse of Overtime] until quest is forcefully completed.

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Not standing on ceremony, Rino accepted his reward greedily. He was glad that the genesis fairies worked fast. It wasn't that they were capable of creating the eternal night enchantment quickly. It just happened that the Genesis Tree birthed many new fairies who helped out. That timing could not be more perfect.

Now that he had the schematics he needed for those two revolutionary engineering masterpieces, Rino decided to check in with the tanners.

According to Acht, who was busy delivering the full harvest with his other mates, they skinned a grand total of one-hundred and thirty-four killer rabbits. The horn of their leader rabbit was left intact even if the tanner were very tempted to use it. As promised, they left the skeletal structure untouched even though they dug up monster rabbit innards and brains to keep for future tanning uses.

The meat was expertly carved out and preserved with salt, creating monster rabbit jerkies that the trolls enjoyed immensely. Rino let them do whatever they wanted to celebrate surviving a tough harvesting order. Everyone worked hard, and he would have given them a day off to enjoy the hot springs if there was one in the area. Fortunately, they were satisfied with the barrel of Taro beer Kragami sent. Rabbit monster jerky went well with Taro beer, so nobody complained about the lack of hot springs even if they heard about it from Zerg and Rina.

While everyone else had the day of doing what they liked, Rino was here in the courtyard of his stone cottage staring at a hundred and thirty-four pairs of eyes. Converting those monster rabbit corpses into shadow soldiers took out more mana than he expected. He failed to account for how much mana he used to grow soybeans before he summoned them and regretted it when he summoned the souls back into the dead monster bunnies.

To put it vaguely, Rino was close to keeling from mana depletion. It was worse than teleporting twice in a day to Cypress County, and Rino couldn't understand why enslaving killer bunnies took more mana than enslaving the sabre tooth wolf and gargoyles.

Were there different classes of monsters? Perhaps that was why it took so much of Rino's mana.

On the bright side, he now had a hundred and thirty-four brilliant slaves to do his bidding. The first thing Rino wanted to test was their intelligence. Mutt wasn't very smart, but he evolved to learn human speech as Rino's power grew. He wondered if these killer bunnies were capable of speech after death.

"Can you speak?" he asked.

Surprising Rino a little, the horned killer rabbit who was the leader of the hopping clan replied through the soul bond that they could.

Unlike Mut, who only managed broken speech when he first gained his ability to communicate, the leader of the killer bunnies spoke with eloquence and manners. He reminded Rino a little of Sheila, and the similarity made Rino wonder if they made good warriors.

Talking to a group of very serious shadow rabbits felt a little like an interview with the royal guards. When Rino had to choose a squire as his retainer when he first became a baron, he received similar dull responses. Those who were well-versed in the sword tend to be rigid in their answers.

"What are you good at? I didn't revive you to destroy my soybean field. However, I could share future harvests from the soybean field if you are useful to me."

The answer that Rino received wasn't one he was expecting.

"Answering your majesty, my clan excels in espionage. Even a baby can escape pursuing enemies."

Spying? In times of war, this was a useful talent. However, Rino did not know why he would need over a hundred spies in times of peace. He just received the windmill and water wheel blueprints. He probably needed more labourers than spies, no matter how talented the spies were.

"Useless," Rino told them, shocking the rabbit monster leader. "Can you carry stone bricks?"

The rabbit leader looked at his furry paws and shook his head.

"Can you mine for ores?"

Again, the rabbit leader shook his head.

"Can you use magic?"

This time, the horned rabbit nodded. "Answering your majesty, we can use earth magic and now, dark magic."

Earth and dark magic… It was an interesting combination but very suitable for espionage. These rabbits have keen hearing and smell, so they could get into difficult places by burrowing and listen in on important information. They were really useful, but for now, Rino had no need for their unique talent.

Frustrated, he wondered if there was a better way to put those tiny paws to use in his kingdom building.

That's right! Rino still needed that!

"Can you make underground bunkers?"

Delighted that there was finally something he and his clan could do to assist the dark lord, the rabbit monster leader bowed his head.

"Please give us your order!"

Pleased that his storage situation could be resolved quickly, Rino retrieved the building plans to create an underground storage system for various things. He could use the mines, but they were very damp and did not have good ventilation. Storing things underground was better in the long run because fragile leather products will not be harmed by the sun and heat. The eternal night was only an enchantment to reduce the sun's effects. The dry and hot climate would still affect objects regardless of the enchantment.

Instead of taking up land space above for item storage, Rino forewent the idea of building a granary beside the barn. He wanted to expand the land for more animals, machinery productions and fields. All storage should go underground, and the best part about a city of undead was the lack of ventilation needs.

The underground bunker and storage design took Rino a long time to explain, but when he was finally down, the rabbit monster leader only answered with an assurance that he will complete the project without fail.

"Please give us ten days, your majesty. My clan and I will hollow the ground without fail. Burrowing is our speciality."

Unsurprised but also a little amused about what the earth gnomes would say to that statement, Rino wished them the best and promised them a sack full of soybeans upon successful completion.

Not one to dally, the horned rabbit issued orders, splitting his clan into teams without many words and assigned them areas to work on. The work distribution was so efficient that the courtyard was empty within a minute, with each excavation team hopping over to their assigned spots.

Those who needed to dig tunnels and entry points started working on those first, while those who had to wait for burrowing tunnels to be made assisted in teleporting dug up dirt to the dirt dumpsite.

Their teamwork was exemplary, and the communication buzz he felt from his soul bond assured him that they would perform well. Even if this was a spying mission, it was something the rabbit monsters could claim to be good at.

Now that things were progressing smoothly, the real issue was how Rino would continue putting their skills to good use. Finding a place for one spy was difficult enough. Finding a place for more than a hundred spies was hard. They could not live together with the rest of his town because Rino understood how spies had very strict personal conduct.

The monster bunny clan was very secretive. They could live underground for now, but Rino did not want them simply taking up space. They should be given a work fit for them.

After mulling over it for some time in his stone cottage on the bed, Rino knew what they could do. The travelling issues between Noir Province and Town Zera had always been on Rino's mind. Even after commissioning more sky palanquins to be built, it was still inconvenient because Rino had limited palanquin drivers.

However, if he tasked these espionage experts to dig a safe route reinforced with his magic and tied to the mana web array, they could create a private highway from Town Zera to Cypress County. It sounded ridiculous even to Rino, but the more he considered it, the more possible it became.

Kragami might scold him for doing such reckless things, but Rino would listen to his teacher's lectures later. It would be great if the townsfolk of Town Zera could travel freely and frequently to Noir Province. After all, building a fast teleportation network was easier than rediverting hot spring water across the dangerous jungles and over the mountain range.