Chapter 219

‘What’s wrong with these people?!’?Siegfried was mortified, and he felt like dying.

Oh my god..

Engraving his face on a gold coin was something, but beating someone up for stepping on a gold coin was too much. Not only that, the one who got beaten up suddenly taking responsibility for stepping on Siegfried’s face was a totally bizarre thing.

However, Siegfried wasn’t aware of public sentiment.

In short, this was how his people felt toward him.

Siegfried was completely clueless about his people’s feelings for him, but the loyalty and admiration of the people for him were already at its peak.

It would look strange to others as to why they were willing to go to such lengths just to exalt Siegfried, but it would make sense if they Proatine’s situation before Siegfried became its king.

The previous lord, Verbon, was a greedy ruler who completely exploited the people of Proatine. He gave them just enough food and water not to perish, and he even offered ten people every month to the Vampire Lord.

However, everything changed the day Siegfried cut Verbon’s head off and became the ruler of these lands. He actively subjugated the monsters, arrested corrupt administrators, subjugated the northern barbarians, secured trade alliances with the Nordic Tribe and Stone Island that greatly flourished the kingdom’s economy, established the Renoma Kingdom as a proxy state, and many other things.

However, his biggest achievement was the subjugation of the Vampire Lord.

The accomplishments that Siegfried unintentionally racked up completely turned around the lives of the people who had only been living in fear while consuming only potatoes, dirty water, and stale bread.

Nobody in the Proatine Kingdom was worried about being sacrificed as an offering to the Vampire Lord, and the economic boom the kingdom was experiencing made sure that nobody would go hungry anymore.

The rising star of the Proatine Kingdom, Gringore, was also working tirelessly to bring in foreign currencies through tourism to fund the various social programs of the kingdom, which greatly improved the lives of non-productive classes—mainly artists and painters.

Therefore, the people of Proatine truly adored and revered Siegfried.

Their reverence and adoration for their king didn’t stem from being ruled by an iron fist, like most dictatorships. They sincerely revered and adored him from the depths of their hearts and accepted him as their one and only king.

‘Ahhh! Stop it! It’s embarrassing! Don’t do this to me!’?

Meanwhile, Siegfried felt his fingers and toes curl from cringing too hard at the love his people were showering him.

***

Siegfried headed to the agriculture and woodcutting sectors of the kingdom after confirming?the people’s love for him, but..

“Oink! Oink!”

“Neiiiiigh!”

“Mooooo!”

“Baaaaah!”

“Cluck! Cluck, cluck, cluck!”

“Quack! Quack! Quack! Quack!”

The farm animals started crying in the order of pigs, horses, cows, sheep, chickens, and ducks.

They were so noisy that Siegfried had to cover his ears.

“Did something happen here?” he asked the farm keeper.

“Why yes!”

“What happened?”

“The animals suddenly went crazy and started mating, even though their mating season hasn’t arrived yet!”

“Huh..? The sounds they're making are mating noises?”

“It’s not only here, you know? It’s like there’s a disease spreading throughout the entire kingdom that’s making the animals go into heat! We tried to separate them in their pens, but they would break it down and go mate with each other!”

“Hmm..”

“I mean, it’s great since the livestock in our kingdom will explosively increase in a few months, but—ah,?this is a problem..”

Siegfried immediately realized what was going on with the animals after he heard the explanation. ‘It’s probably because of my passive skill—Great King’s Blessed Lands, isn’t it?’

It was the only explanation for this bizarre phenomenon.

‘The price of meat will go down if there are more animals, which would improve the masses’ diet. I guess we can sell the rest to bring in some much-needed cash.. then what’s the first thing I have to do..?’?

He deliberated for nearly an hour before finally coming up with a plan.

‘I need to create more pastures and ranches to accommodate all of the animals and set?up meat?processing facilities to speed up the butchering process. Hmm, we can also process the sheep wool and duck feathers into products, right? I guess that’s another thing we need..’

Siegfried knew exactly what he had to do to help the livestock industry, and he immediately opened Notepad?in his interface to write down his plans.

***

The sound of steel clashing against steel reverberated in the Nordic Tribe’s Black Island while Siegfried was busy managing his kingdom’s internal affairs..

Clang! Clang! Clang!

It was a sword and an ax clashing against each other, but then..

Thud!

There was a dull thud as someone fell to the ground.

Whiiish.. Thud!

The ax spun in an arc in the air and landed on the ground.

“O-Oh my god..!”

The man on the ground was none other than the King of the Nordic Tribe, Lionbreath.

Lionbreath looked at the person who defeated him in shock and asked, “J-Just how much stronger do you have to become to be satisfied..?”

They replied, “No, not yet. I have to become stronger faster.. Father.”

“Ha.. just how much more will satisfy you..?”

“Master.”

“..!”

“I will reach that realm no matter what, and I will do it as soon as possible,” Ingrid replied.

“My daughter.. Do you really have to be so obsessed with power? I know our tribe is obsessed with strength, but your obsession is on a different level now..”

Lionbreath was starting to get scared of his daughter in recent days, and the reason was that his daughter was growing stronger at a frightening speed. Right now, he could no longer beat his daughter.

At this rate, the Nordic Tribe would eventually produce its own Master!

.

“My daughter..”

“Yes, Father?”

“How did you become so strong all of a sudden? I know you had the talent with the sword, but your growth is quite abnormal.”

“Father, have you ever loved someone with all of your heart and being?” Ingrid asked in response.

Lionbreath felt a shiver down his spine upon meeting Ingrid’s burning gaze.

“T-That’s.. I have always sincerely loved my women.. You know that I have a very good relationship with your mothers, right? Hahaha..”

Lionbreath was a playboy with two official wives and seventeen concubines, and it was one of the responsibilities and duties he had as the Nordic Tribe’s king.

“No, you have never truly loved anyone, Father,” Ingrid shook her head.

“H-How can you say that?!” Lionbreath cried out, feeling wronged.

“You wouldn’t be so weak if you had truly fallen in love, Father.”

“What are you talking about, my daughter?”

“I will become strong. I will become a Master, and he will be mine no matter what!”

“W-Who?!”

“Even if I have to use force..” Ingrid muttered. A burning aura engulfed her as she walked away from Lionbreath and headed for her personal training room.

Shwook!

A piece of paper fell from her pocket while she was walking away.

“Hmm?” Lionbreath picked up the paper and..

“W-What is this?!”

He was stupefied by the words on the paper.

The paper had the face of a man drawn with the words..

[You will be mine no matter what, even if I have to use force. If you can’t be mine, then I’m going to destroy everything with my own hands.]

***

Shiver!

Siegfried suddenly felt a shiver down his spine.

‘Huh? What was that..? Did Chae Hyung-Seok place a curse on me or something?’?he wondered. He read an article that Chae Hyung-Seok was currently locked up in a psych war after suffering a mental breakdown.

Chae Hyung-Seok would recover, but he probably had to rest up for a very long time.

‘Yeah, curse me as much as you want since I cursed you a lot, too, but you have a lot of catching up to do since you have no idea how much I cursed you,’?Siegfried thought. He vowed to continue pestering Chae Hyung-Seok when he finally recovered.

***

Siegfried roamed all over the kingdom to make full use of his Great King’s Blessed Lands passive skill, and the result was extremely good.

Siegfried found a B-Grade mana stone mine, but that was not the end of it. He also found a nameless mountain at the edge of Preussen that had the key ingredient of various top-tier potions known as Alchemy Flower growing on it.

The Alchemy Flower was an extremely expensive and precious catalyst, and it was also a precious flower that fetched tons of gold just for their seedlings alone.

It was said that a kingdom would pour out almost all of its defense budget and deploy its military just to safeguard those flowers from outsiders if the news were to break out that an Alchemy Flower field was found in their territory.

The first thing Siegfried did after finding an entire mountain of them was to call the Great Wizard, Decimato, and task him with safely transporting the Alchemy Flowers to the castle.

He found many different resources aside from that, and Siegfried reckoned that he would soon be swimming in gold.

The next thing Siegfried did was to issue a command to Michele.

“We will see a sharp increase in our animal population, so please make arrangements accordingly. And make sure you start building slaughterhouses to process their meat products and a textile plant to process their feathers, hides, and wool.”

“Pardon me..? Why, all of a sudden, Your Majesty..?”

“Ah,?we will be exporting whatever is left, so please make sure to establish trade routes to other nations.”

“Your Majesty.. I have failed to understand what you meant by a sharp increase in our animal population and why you are asking me to establish all of those industries..”

“You should just do as I said when it comes to something like this, understood?”

“Yes, I understand, Your Majesty.”

Michele was extremely curious about Siegfried’s plans, but he didn’t probe any further and simply decided to do as he was told. After all, Siegfried was the king rather than him.

Then, the people working in the livestock industry were shocked at this news.

“How did His Majesty know?!”

“Oh!?He is indeed our Great King!”

“Who would have known that His Majesty would concern himself with these kinds of things?!”

They praised Siegfried’s name and started worshiping him. A bizarre practice started to circulate through the Proatine Kingdom when people started hanging up portraits of Siegfried in their living rooms.

Of course, Siegfried would have bitten his own tongue and convulsed to death out of embarrassment if he discovered what the people were doing..

***

The finale of the Great King’s Blessed Lands effects was none other than the kingdom’s technological advancement.

“Your Majesty! We have successfully developed a new cannon!”

“A new cannon?”

“The new cannon causes far greater destruction, faster reload speeds, and lesser recoil compared to the old one!”

“Really?”

“We can equip Sir Seung-Gu’s Iron Golems with those cannons! This will definitely boost our kingdom’s military strength!”

Siegfried was delighted by the Defense Secretary’s news.

“Shall we have a look?”

Siegfried wanted to witness the new cannon’s power with his own eyes, and he was soon guided to a rocky mountain west of Preussen.

“Prepare the cannons!”

“Preparing the cannons!”

“Prepare to fire!”

“Preparing to fire!”

“Three! Two! One! FIRE!” historical

“Fire!”

Ten cannons spat fire toward the rocky mountains.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

The destructive force of the new cannon was so unbelievable that it seemed comparable to the cannons used by the powerhouse kingdoms on the continent. On top of that, if these cannons were equipped on Seung-Gu’s Iron Golems, no words were necessary to describe how helpful these cannons would be in the future.

‘This is fucking awesome..’?Siegfried was extremely satisfied by the new cannons.

‘Yeah, my kingdom’s slowly starting to look like a real kingdom.. Just wait and see.. I’m going to show all those people who looked down on my kingdom just how powerful my kingdom has become.. Ha!’?he was extremely proud of the advancements his kingdom was making, and he vowed to further develop the kingdom and rub their achievements in the faces of the people who dared to call his kingdom weak.

***

Meanwhile, on the rocky mountains west of Preussen..

Flash!

A massive three-hundred-meter-long dragon opened its eyes.

“Who.. dares.. disturb.. my sleep?”