Civic Official Kerken raised his head from the muddy ground, shook off the black mud from his hands, and said through gritted teeth.
He could not tolerate it; how could a humble task like farming be assigned to him, a proud Custodian?
How could his hands, forged by the Emperor's sacred genetic alchemy, be used to grasp seedlings, throw mud, or wield a hoe?
No, his hands were only meant to hold spears, paper and pens, and shields.
Such a lowly job as farming should be done by lowly mortals—
"Crack!!!"
The whip's whistle suddenly rang out, like thunder.
Generally speaking, how could a mere whip harm a Custodian like Kerken?
And the whip had only cracked in mid-air, not even touching Kerken's body.
Yet, a strange pain surged through Kerken's body, then his foot slipped, and he fell heavily into the paddy field, his face colliding with the black mud.
[Item Name: Heaven's Punishment Whip]
[Origin: 22nd Century Earth — Future Department Store]
[Production Time: 275.M3]
[Function: Appears as a small animal trainer's whip. When the user sees someone nearby doing something bad, they only need to flick this whip in the air, and the person doing the bad thing will receive a corresponding punishment. The more severe the bad deed, the greater the punishment.]
"Civic Official Kerken's Bad Deeds: Disrespect for labor, discrimination against farmers."
"Punishment: Falling in the mud, falling very painfully."
A very useful whip, it makes my Custodian black slaves spin.
Alexander flicked the whip in his hand and sighed.
This item was originally prepared by him to deal with Erebus, the primary instigator of galactic destiny who, according to the Emperor's prophecy, would stir up the galaxy in the near future.
As long as someone near Alexander did something bad and Alexander saw it, he only needed to crack the whip, and the person doing the bad deed would be punished themselves.
After all, who else in this world could do more bad deeds than Erebus?
But after exchanging for it, Alexander found this whip unexpectedly useful.
Because this whip's definition of 'doing bad deeds' was very simple. Actions like wasting food, disrespecting labor, and insulting others would also be defined as bad deeds and would receive a certain degree of punishment.
Especially when Alexander decided to have the Custodians farm, he found this thing incredibly useful.
"Custodians!"
"Is it solid now or not solid?!"
"Are you farming or not farming?!"
"Say it, say you are going to farm!"
Civic Official Kerken gritted his teeth, veins popping out on his face.
"I am the Emperor's perfect creation! The Emperor did not create these hands of mine for farming—"
"Crack!" Another whip sound came.
Civic Official Kerken, who had not yet gotten up, fell heavily again into the muddy ground he despised and found dirty.
This Custodian, who had just been promoted to Civic Official and was handed over to Alexander by Trajan Valoris to farm in the underground palace, looked up with resentment.
He looked at Alexander with a hateful gaze, which made Alexander's eyebrows raise slightly.
Nobita, standing behind Alexander, took a small step forward, standing behind Alexander and looking down at Kerken.
Kerken instinctively met that gaze, then he couldn't help but shiver.
Whether it was an illusion or not, Civic Official Kerken seemed to feel the Emperor's gaze in Nobita's eyes.
It was only for a moment, almost making Kerken doubt if it was his own illusion.
However, even if it was an illusion, Nobita's appearance made the Custodians present hold their breath slightly.
They had all witnessed the abilities of this Saint Doraemon, the Greater Daemon, at the Lion's Gate.
One bullet killed Skarbrand and crippled Blood God Khorne.
"My duty is not farming; my duty is to guard the Emperor!" Kerken still said stubbornly.
Then he closed his eyes, waiting for the whip to crack, waiting for the pain to come.
But the sound of the whip did not ring out; instead, only Alexander's voice was heard.
"Guard the Emperor? The Emperor's body does not need your protection."
"But humanity needs it, the countless living beings of Terra need it."
"The Emperor is humanity, and humanity is the Emperor; the two have always been one."
"Protecting humanity, feeding humanity, satisfying humanity's hunger, that is guarding the Emperor, that is what guarding the Emperor means!"
Alexander's words made the Custodians slightly dazed for a moment, but soon the sound of the whip broke the surrounding silence.
"Go work!" Alexander shouted in high gothic.
The Custodians all lowered their heads, picked up the seedlings from the ground, and began to cultivate.
Even Civic Official Kerken, his face flushed with a hint of resentment, joined the farming work.
Although Kerken had spoken harshly just now, it had to be said that these Custodians were still excellent creations of the Emperor, and they farmed both quickly and well.
Alexander played with the Heaven's Punishment Whip in his hand, nodding in admiration.
Indeed, these Custodians should come here to farm for him.
Currently, the three main tasks on Terra were: governance, resources, and reconquest.
The duty of governance was naturally entrusted to Roboute Guilliman. He was appointed Regent by the Emperor and was leading the surviving Terran bureaucrats to manage governmental affairs, also accumulating strength to prepare for reconquest beyond Terra.
The duty of resources belonged to Alexander. Alexander had to produce enough food and water to feed Terra's current billions of people in a short time, so that humanity's homeworld would not starve itself.
And the duty of reconquest naturally belonged to Sanguinius. He led the Astartes and Astra Militarum into the hive cities of Terra, reclaiming the uncontrolled areas and presenting his form to the mortals to rekindle their faith.
Regarding the Custodians' arrangement, Guilliman initially hoped for some Custodians to enter the governmental and command systems.
He wanted the Custodians' exceptional minds to handle some governmental activities or serve in military positions—but Alexander reminded Guilliman: the Custodians of today are not the same as those from ten thousand years ago.
This raised some vigilance in Guilliman, and he secretly had Ultramarines equipped with Blind Spot Stars infiltrate among the Custodians to understand their current situation.
The results greatly surprised Guilliman.
For ten thousand years, the Custodians had been confined to the Imperial Palace, and many of their strategic awareness and thinking abilities had become dull. Many also held an inexplicable sense of superiority over mortals and Astartes, even beginning to discriminate against them.
This made Guilliman feel particularly abstract.
The purpose of governance was to manage the vast majority of mortals and a small number of Astartes. How could Custodians in this state join in governance?
As for Sanguinius' reconquest team, Sanguinius explicitly stated that he did not need those golden-shining guards. Who would protect whom on a real battlefield?
Instead of giving him Custodians, he'd rather have more Imperial Fists; the hive cities needed people to do grunt work!
Suddenly, the Custodians fell to a point where no one wanted them, but Alexander discovered their shining point.
Come farm!
His Holiday Agriculture Set needed people.
Terra's population was too large. Supplying food to the entire population of Terra using the Gourmet Tablecloth would consume a massive amount of money.
But the Holiday Agriculture Set only required harshly whipping the Custodians.
As for ideological issues? Disdain for mortals and Astartes?
It doesn't matter, just whip them hard enough.
As long as the whip is fast enough, no problem is a problem.
"Hey! Don't crush those bugs! Catch them whole!"
Alexander watched as the Custodians crushed the bugs that emerged from the ground and hurriedly stopped them.
This was a feature of the Holiday Agriculture Set. To allow users to truly experience farming, these fast-growing rice plants would automatically generate pests like grasshoppers and locusts, completely defying physics and biology.
But even these pests were extremely valuable.
"Catch them, try to catch them whole. These are all protein! They're also delicious when caught whole and roasted."
These Custodians had simply been cooped up in the Imperial Palace for too long.
Alexander knew that roasted insects in the hive city were considered excellent delicacies and could provide good protein.
As this batch of insects was caught by the Custodians with their extraordinary physical abilities, the rice matured at an incredibly fast pace.
This was an abnormally fast maturation rate for crops, and the time within this underground palace had been adjusted by Alexander using the Mad Clock.
The time required for rice to mature and be harvested, from the outside perspective, was only a few seconds.
Outside the underground palace gate, Roboute Guilliman passed by, carrying governmental scrolls found deep within the Imperial Palace. He couldn't help but look into the underground palace gate.
From his perspective, the Custodians were working at an extremely fast pace, and the rice piled up like mountains in the blink of an eye.
In an instant, Roboute Guilliman looked at the diligently working Custodians and couldn't help but show an envious expression.
To be able to cast aside those tedious duties and toil diligently in the fields, how enviable it was.
"The other day, my sister, who lives in the Nippon hive city, sent me a tin can."
"Inside the tin can was a pile of white powder. Thank the Emperor, I thought it was corpse starch and ate it all."
"Then my sister came today, and she told me the tin can contained our mother's ashes."
"This really infuriated me!"
"That was our common mother. How could she eat all the meat herself and only leave the ashes for me?!"
A weak, listless laugh echoed around them; hunger did not allow them to laugh too loudly.
But Ranval looked at the people lying on the street, telling jokes, with only envy in his eyes.
He envied the person telling the joke who could still eat their mother's ashes, envied these people who still had enough strength to laugh out loud.
His mother had also starved to death, but her body was quickly snatched and shared after she died. Ranval didn't even get a single bone to gnaw on.
Hungry. So hungry. God-Emperor, please don't punish me with hunger. Ranval thought, head bowed.
Ranval, mustering a bit of strength, glanced around, then lowered his head again, trying not to attract attention as he quietly began to pray.
He prayed to a deity who had recently become popular in the hive city, preached by the Sisters, a god completely different from the Emperor's faith.
"Saint Doraemon above. I am Ranval from Sector 22 of the Lower Nest of the New South Wales hive city. Please grant me a little food."
Ranval's voice was very, very soft, so soft that he himself doubted if he could hear it.
But just then, his nose suddenly caught a scent he had never smelled before.
Ranval had never smelled this scent before.
But his body, the ancient memories in his genes, kept reminding him that this was the smell of food.
This made him a little surprised, a little bewildered, and a little at a loss.
In Ranval's memory, the smell of food should have been a monotonous, sticky, waxy scent.
But this scent, which subtly brushed his nose, was like the smell of starch cooking, faintly mixed with the scent of earth and water, like a requiem.
This smell reminded Ranval of a time when he was responsible for transporting goods to the Upper hive's spaceport. That day, he was very lucky; the legendary sun was in the sky, casting light on Ranval that was brighter than the brightest promethium lamp.
The light was hot and dazzling, making Ranval's skin hurt a little, but he felt very good.
That smell made Ranval feel the same way, as if experiences he had never felt before, deep within the genes of his flesh and blood, were being awakened.
Saliva suddenly secreted in his originally dry mouth, and an uncontrollable urge drove his body to look in the direction from which the fragrance was coming.
It was the church, the small church belonging to Chaplain Tzepech, which had been abandoned for half a month.
A few days ago, a group of Battle Sisters came here. They burned down the entire church with fire and then built a new church on top of it.
Ranval was suddenly filled with intense envy, envying these Battle Sisters who could enjoy food.
This must be because they paid more to the God-Emperor, right? So they could enjoy more food.
But just then, a commotion, noise, and chaos erupted in the street.
Ranval saw Battle Sisters pushing jars full of a milky white food out of the church.
Then the Battle Sisters seemed to say something. Ranval heard it, but his mind was still in a daze.
But his body had already moved. By the time Ranval reacted, he was already holding a bowl in his hands.
The bowl contained milky white thick porridge, with white particles floating in it, emitting a strange fragrance.
A Battle Sister took two or three roasted insects from a nearby iron rack and placed them on the thick porridge, motioning for Ranval to start eating.
Ranval cried, only barely squeezing out a few tears from his dry eyes.
He even forgot how he ate those rare foods.
He only remembered the smooth thick porridge sliding down his esophagus into his stomach, the fragrance like sunlight filling his nasal cavity, and the sweet, salty, and faintly bitter taste of the roasted insects when they broke in his mouth.
Was this eating?
Ranval's feelings told him it was.
But Ranval's memories told him it wasn't.
How could eating be like this?
He clearly remembered the feeling of eating corpse starch: a texture like beeswax mixed with lime powder, the first bite would stick firmly to his palate, the second bite would scrape his throat painfully, then the faint bitterness of preservatives, and finally the monotonous and bland taste of the corpse starch itself.
He had never felt joy in eating; this was the first time.
The Battle Sister, in Ranval's bewildered gaze, served him another full bowl of thick porridge, with two or three roasted insects on top.
"Wh-why..." Ranval didn't know why he asked such a question.
But the Battle Sister just looked at Ranval calmly, then spoke to him with piety:
"Because the God-Emperor and Saint Doraemon love humanity."
"Saint Doraemon redeems all living beings with miracles."
"He pulled the salute gun, and then a mini sun flew into the sky."
"He opened the bottle cap, and then instant clouds and rain poured down."
"He spread out the carpet, and on the carpet was fertile soil, from which rice seedlings and insects grew."
"He cracked the whip, and the Custodian Guards in the fields began to labor, and rice grew like mountains."
"He said: 'Oh, people, I grant you grain; if there is not enough, then pray.'"
"He said: 'Whoever prays to Him will be answered, and whatever is lacking will be replenished; just crack the whip faster and louder, and the rice will grow on its own.'"
The Battle Sister's words made Ranval tremble all over.
As a Terran, Ranval knew perfectly well what the Custodian Guards were.
The porridge in his hand, this food called rice, was actually grown by the Custodian Guards.
The Emperor's guards, the perfect creations made by the Emperor, each from the purest noble families' genes—the Custodian Guards.
Fear arose in Ranval's heart, and for a moment, he endured his hunger, not daring to drink the rice porridge in his hand.
"No need to fear, everything is the arrangement of the Emperor and Saint Doraemon."
The Battle Sister's voice suddenly rose, saying in a voice that everyone present could hear:
"The infinitely wise Saint Doraemon observed the skulls of the Custodian Guards with his eyes."
"He discovered that the Custodian Guards' skulls naturally have three cracks."
"According to phrenology, this indicates that the Emperor created the Custodian Guards to farm by nature."
"All of this is the will of the Emperor and Saint Doraemon!"
As the words fell, as if displaying a holy relic, the Battle Sister took out what looked like an ordinary faucet.
There was nothing connected to the back of the faucet, but the Battle Sister held it close to the iron buckets where the porridge had been distributed.
In the shocked gazes of Ranval and the other citizens, the Battle Sister gently turned on the faucet.
Water, clean, almost completely transparent water, gushed out of the faucet out of thin air.
Shock spread among the people, and Ranval felt his eyes welling up with tears.
It was water, it was water, it was clean water that only nobles, overseers, and wealthy merchants were worthy of drinking.
For a time, prayers, praises, and gratitude to Saint Doraemon resounded ceaselessly.
"What a simple miracle." High Sister Magda stood on top of the hive city's tall tower, looking down at the hive city from which prayers and praises were constantly pouring forth.
The mountains of rice flowed into every corner of the hive city, and the tools called 'All-Purpose Faucets' would also bring almost infinite water sources.
The entire hive city came alive, completely dependent on the miracles created by Saint Doraemon.
However, this miracle seemed a bit too simple compared to the miracle High Sister Magda had witnessed in the Netherworld Star System, where a C'tan was swallowed into a pocket on his belly.
"This is the greatest miracle, to let the devout people live, to let the devout people eat their fill, that is the greatest and most sacred miracle."
Great Canoness Morven Vahl clenched her hand, mimicking Saint Doraemon's round hand raised at a forty-five-degree angle, offering a devout prayer to Saint Doraemon:
"Such a miracle is far more sacred and worthy of gratitude than pseudo-miracles like the Cherubim made to imitate infant corpses."
High Sister Magda felt guilty and bowed to Great Canoness Morven Vahl in apology.
But at the same time, a faint bitter smile also involuntarily crossed High Sister Magda's lips.
She hadn't expected the Adeptus Ministorum's Cherubim to be so worthless in the eyes of this newly appointed Great Canoness.
The Adeptus Ministorum had originally chosen the young Morven Vahl to be the new Great Canoness, hoping she would be naive and foolish, easy to use for show and easy to manipulate.
But in the end, the Adeptus Ministorum only got a warrior with an unyielding will, unmanipulated by anyone, who only acted according to her faith.
This was a good thing for the Battle Sister Sisterhood, but a complete disaster for the Adeptus Ministorum.
The Battle Sisters were one of the few military forces the Adeptus Ministorum could control, but now the Great Canoness didn't heed the Adeptus Ministorum's authority.
High Sister Magda vaguely sensed that a storm of power was quietly brewing.
"My Lord." High Sister Magda softly asked, "Should we let the Saint Girl and Lord Saint Doraemon reunite?"
"After all, the Saint Girl was originally entrusted to the Sisterhood by Saint Doraemon for care."
Morven Vahl's face twitched slightly.
She seemed to recall many painful, tedious, and unpleasant tasks.
"Too many reports." Morven Vahl mumbled softly.
"Hmm?" High Sister Magda blinked in confusion.
"According to Lord Guilliman's regulations, matters that are directly reported to Saint Doraemon and the two Primarchs, and actions that require Lord Saint Doraemon to visit the monastery, must be filled out with thirteen necessity reports and twenty-two planning reports, and only after Lord Guilliman confirms them with the Truth and Falsehood Divination Machine can they be submitted to the three-giant small meeting of the two Primarchs and Saint Doraemon."
"This is to ensure Saint Doraemon's safety, to ensure that there is no corruption, and also to ensure the correctness of the action."
Morven Vahl said with extreme pain.
The Saint Girl's existence was a secret; within the Sisterhood, only a small number knew the specific situation. Outside the Sisterhood, even the Pope of the Saint Church did not fully know the Saint Girl's location and specific identity.
To keep it secret, Morven Vahl could only fill out these reports herself.
Although somewhat sacrilegious, Morven Vahl, looking at the mountains of planning reports, still couldn't help but curse out loud at the regulations specified by Lord Guilliman.
Terra, Imperial Palace Inner Palace, Custodian Guard Training Ground in the Sanctum Sanctorum.
Alexander's will resided in Nobita's body, holding a Denkōmaru shrouded in bloody mist, constantly clashing with Sanguinius.
The Primarch and the Greater Daemon of Doraemon, Sanguinius and Sharpshooter.Big G, the Spear of Accomplishment and the lightless Denkōmaru.
Teardrop-shaped spearhead and the dull Denkōmaru sparked with electricity.
The Spear of Accomplishment pressed directly towards Nobita's face, which wore glasses.
But Nobita's glasses merely glinted, and with exquisite memory, he wielded the toy short sword in his hand, stubbornly blocking Sanguinius' almost certain hit.
This made the surrounding Astartes and Custodian Guards involuntarily exclaim in admiration.
Their sword and spear were thus stalemated in mid-air, turning into a contest of strength.
However, a slight smile crossed the lips of Nobita, controlled by Alexander.
"Who do you think is the Primarch most like the Emperor?" He suddenly asked Sanguinius.