The first problem appeared even before the first hoe touched the ground.
Raka had gathered around forty people at the edge of the Ferros Plains since morning a mix of all the races in Kraval, selected by a simple criterion: whoever was willing to come. There was no coercion. No threats. Just a brief announcement Pak Doru delivered last night that the irrigation project would begin tomorrow, and anyone who joined would get an extra lunch portion.
Extra lunch portions turned out to be a fairly universal argument across all races.
But as soon as they gathered in the same place, the problem Raka had anticipated immediately surfaced.
Two Elves stood at the far left of the group, as far as possible from the three Beastmen at the far right. Between them, a group of Humans and Dwarves filled the middle but even among Humans and Dwarves themselves, there was an invisible distance that felt as solid as a wall.
Forty people. One location. And not a single one willing to start talking to someone outside their own race.
This isn't a construction project, Raka thought. This is a social experiment.
"Alright," he said in a voice loud enough to be heard by everyone, but not excessive. "Before we begin, there's one thing you need to know."
All heads turned.
"In this project, there's no Elf work, Dwarf work, Beastmen work, or Human work." He paused briefly. "There's excavation work, channeling work, soil loosening, and measurement work. You'll be divided based on the work not based on race. If anyone has a problem with that, you're free to go home now and no one will hold it against you."
Silence.
No one left.
"Good."
He divided them into four teams based on the type of work, deliberately mixing the racial composition in each team. Channel excavation team: two Dwarves, one Beastman, two Humans. Soil loosening team: three Humans, one Elf, one Beastman. Measurement and bamboo channel installation team: two Elves, two Dwarves, one Human. Material distribution team: the most evenly mixed.
Elyra stood beside Raka, observing the division with a judging expression. "You deliberately put Elves and Beastmen in the same teams."
"In two different teams," Raka corrected. "Soil loosening and measurement. Not the same team."
"But you still didn't completely separate them."
"If they're completely separated, they won't learn to work together. If they're too heavily mixed in one team and conflict happens, that team could collapse." Raka watched the teams begin moving to their positions. "Dosage. Like medicine too little is ineffective, too much is dangerous."
Elyra was silent for a moment. "You treat social integration like a chemical experiment."
"Do you have a better approach?"
She didn't answer. But she didn't argue either.
The first two hours went better than Raka expected though he had already factored friction into his calculations.
The excavation team worked efficiently because physical labor didn't require much verbal communication. The Dwarves dug with precise mining techniques, the Beastman carried and discarded soil with a speed that made even the Dwarves glance in admiration though none admitted it openly and the Humans filled the gaps between them in an organic way.
The measurement team also ran relatively smoothly because Elyra who apparently decided on her own to join that team without being asked led in a way that left little room for debate. She measured angles and slopes with an accuracy that left even the most skeptical Dwarf without arguments.
The problem came from the soil loosening team.
Specifically, from an Elf named Varek a young man whose expression suggested he disliked nearly every aspect of his existence in Kraval and a cat-type Beastman named Mira whose ears had already perked up the moment she saw who was on her team.
Raka heard them from twenty meters away.
"You're holding the tool wrong."
"I don't need lessons from an Elf."
"You'll damage the topsoil if"
"My hands know what they're doing"
"Clearly not, because"
Raka arrived before the third sentence finished.
He didn't stop them with a shout. He simply stood between them at just the right distance not too close to feel threatening, not too far to seem unserious and waited.
They both stopped. Looked at him.
"Varek," Raka said. "Show the correct way."
The Elf blinked. "Excuse me?"
"You said Mira is holding the tool wrong. Show the correct way." Raka stepped back, giving space. "I want to see too."
Varek looked unprepared for that response. He had prepared arguments for confrontation, not demonstration. But with Raka and now several people from other teams watching, he had no choice but to take the tool and demonstrate his technique.
His movements were efficient the angle of entry into the soil exactly thirty degrees, minimal wrist rotation but producing maximum loosening. Elves were known for their intuitive connection to soil and plants, and it showed clearly in how Varek handled the tool as if the ground beneath him was something to be respected, not conquered.
"Mira," Raka said afterward. "Try."
Mira looked at him with lingering irritation. But she took the tool and imitated Varek's movements not perfectly, but clearly better than before.
"Better," Varek said before he could stop himself.
Mira looked at him with an expression unsure whether to be offended or not.
Raka had already turned away before the situation could escalate. "Continue."
Behind him, he heard awkward silence. Then the sound of tools working again.
No handshakes. No dramatic reconciliation. Just two beings from different races continuing the same work in a way that was slightly less hostile than before.
Enough for now, Raka thought.
Lunch was brought by Pak Doru and several people who weren't part of the project bread and vegetable soup that wasn't special but was hot and filling.
What interested Raka wasn't the food.
What interested him was where people sat.
At the start of the morning, the division was clear each race in its own group. But now, after four hours working in mixed teams, those boundaries had blurred slightly. The excavation team sat together Dwarves, Beastmen, and Humans in one group that wasn't homogeneous but no longer completely separated. They didn't talk much. But they sat within the same radius and no one moved away.
Progress, Raka noted. Small. But real.
Elyra sat beside him not because there was no other place, but simply because she did. She ate efficiently and spoke little, which Raka considered one of her most appreciable qualities.
"Varek," Raka said without turning.
"What about him?"
"His background in Silverwood what is it?"
Elyra paused. "A botanist. One of the best of his generation before" A slight pause. "Before he publicly questioned the kingdom's land-use policies in front of the council. Exiled here six months ago."
"So he's an expert in soil and plants."
"Yes."
"Tomorrow he moves to the measurement and agricultural planning team." Raka took his bread. "Work more suited to his expertise."
Elyra looked at him. "You'll move people based on skill, not based on what they choose themselves?"
"I'll offer the move. Not force it." He chewed his bread, whose texture was less than satisfying. "But yes the right person in the right position. Not the least problematic person in the least important position."
Elyra was silent for a moment.
"In Silverwood," she finally said in a softer tone than usual, "a person's position is determined by race, clan, and seniority. Skill comes fourth, if you're lucky."
"And the result?"
"A country very good at preserving tradition and very bad at solving new problems." Elyra looked over the Ferros Plains, which already looked different from that morning rows of shallow channels cutting through its hard soil, the first signs that this land was being prepared for something. "That's why I questioned that massacre decree. Not because I didn't know it violated royal law. But because I knew it wouldn't solve the border problem only move it."
Raka looked at her briefly.
"An expensive decision."
"Yes." Elyra took her cup. "But one I couldn't avoid."
They ate in silence for a while. A different silence from their first no longer filled with mutual judgment, but more like two people beginning to grow accustomed to each other's presence without needing to fill it with words.
"Elyra."
"What."
"Thank you for coming today."
A brief silence.
"Don't make a habit of thanking people for things they should be doing anyway." But her tone wasn't as sharp as her words.
Raka almost almost smiled.
By evening, as the sun lowered and its light stretched across the Ferros Plains, the first day's project ended with results exceeding Raka's minimum target.
Thirty meters of the main irrigation channel had been dug. The first twenty meters were already lined with bamboo. And the entire eastern section of the Ferros Plains had been loosened not perfectly, but enough for the initial planting stage next week.
Raka stood at the end of the completed channel, looking at the result.
"Aegis."
"Yes, Host."
"First mission progress?"
║ AEGIS MISSION UPDATE 1
╠═══════════════════════════════╣
║ "Give Them a Reason to Stay"
║ Progress:
║ ✅ Agricultural project started
║ ✅ 4 races involved in the same project (Humans, Elves, Dwarves, Beastmen)
║ STATUS: COMPLETED
║ Reward received:
║ ★ Knowledge: Irrigation Techniques &
║ Large-Scale Land Management
║ ★ 500 CivPoints
║ Total CP: 800
New knowledge flowed in as usual like remembering something long forgotten.
Gravity-based irrigation systems. Water management for large-scale land. Crop rotation that maximizes soil recovery. Rapid composting techniques from available organic materials.
Everything neatly arranged itself in his mind, ready to be used.
"Aegis," Raka called again.
"Yes."
"800 CivPoints now. Enough for a Regional Scan?"
"Enough. Does Host wish to use it now?"
Raka considered. A Regional Scan would provide a detailed map of Kraval along with resource analysis extremely valuable information. But 800 CP was all his savings.
"Hold it. Save it for a more urgent situation."
"Understood."
He turned back toward the settlement, following the flow of people returning home with steps that differed from the morning not dramatically happier, but carrying something slightly lighter than before.
Seran was waiting in front of the hut.
Not sitting. Standing at a corner that allowed him to see two directions of the road at once without looking like he was on guard. The stance of someone who never truly felt safe anywhere and had made peace with that fact.
"Report," Raka said before Seran could speak.
Seran followed him inside. Raka lit an oil lamp just one, enough to see each other and sat.
Seran didn't sit. He stood near the door, back against the wall.
"North border," Seran began in the same efficient tone as yesterday. "Old footprints two weeks, maybe three. Twelve pairs. Heavy boots, uniform stride. Military."
Raka listened without interrupting.
"They didn't go far. Stopped at the tree line about two hundred meters from the settlement, observed, then left northwest."
"Valdrun," Raka said.
"Most likely. Boot patterns like that are common for the Empire's regular forces." Seran paused. "That's the old one. The new one two days ago, before you arrived, one person. Not military. Lighter steps, irregular but efficient movement. Observed from three different points before leaving."
"Civilian spy."
"Or a very paranoid trader. Less likely."
Raka nodded slowly. "So even before I arrived, someone was already watching Kraval."
"Yes."
"And now, with a water source and agricultural project underway that information has definitely been sent wherever that spy works."
Seran didn't answer because the answer was obvious.
Raka looked at the wooden sheet on his table. His notes from two nights ago number four, the one he feared most.
Two months, Aegis said. Optimistic estimate.
But if a spy was already present before he arrived and had seen the changes in these three days the time might be shorter.
"Seran," Raka said. "Can you recruit four more people for your network? They don't have to be from your group any race you trust."
"Trust is too big a word." Seran frowned slightly. "But there are some who can be relied on for this kind of work."
"Reliable enough."
"How long?"
"This week."
Seran looked at him for a few seconds. "Possible."
"One condition no one can know they're working for this network except fellow members and me. Not Pak Doru, not Brom, not Elyra."
"You don't trust them?"
"I trust them. But information spread too widely is information that leaks easily, even without bad intentions." Raka looked at him directly. "You understand this better than anyone."
Seran was silent for a moment. Then nodded a small but definite motion.
"Anything else?" Raka asked.
"One thing." Seran hesitated slightly which itself indicated that what he was about to say was important enough to make someone like him hesitate. "A demon. Lyssa is her name. Half-blood, no clan."
"I heard her name from Pak Doru."
"She's tried three times to enter the small armory on the south side of the settlement. Not stealing just observing. At night."
Raka frowned. "Small armory that's Pak Doru's tool shed, some of which can be used as weapons?"
"Yes. But she never went inside. Just observed from outside, then left."
"Motivation?"
"Unknown." Seran paused. "But the way she moves at night no one noticed except me."
Raka processed this for a few seconds. A half-blood demon with no clan. Observing weapons but not stealing. Moving at night with enough skill to remain undetected by anyone except a Beastman with senses like Seran's.
Someone afraid but unwilling to appear afraid, he concluded. Assessing the situation before deciding whether this place is safe.
"Leave her be," Raka said.
Seran looked at him. "Leave her?"
"Don't approach, don't follow, don't disturb. Give her space." Raka picked up his charcoal and began writing again. "But if she approaches on her own, inform me."
"…Understood."
Seran moved toward the door.
"Seran."
The Beastman stopped.
"Good work today."
Seran didn't respond. But his ears a pair of wolf ears that had been constantly moving all day, reading the surroundings for one second, stopped moving.
Then he left.
Raka wrote until deep into the night.
An improved irrigation plan enhanced with Aegis's new knowledge. A three-week planting schedule. Material specifications to reinforce bamboo channels into something more durable. Estimated first harvest yield and how much population it could support.
At the bottom of the last sheet, he wrote one line different from all the calculations above it:
Kraval has less time than Aegis estimated.
He stared at the sentence.
Then added one more line:
But enough. It has to be enough.
Outside, among the darkened tents, a figure stood in the shadows.
Not Seran.
Her skin was darker, her eyes catching starlight differently not like a predator like Seran, but like someone long accustomed to living in places that did not want her presence.
Lyssa Morvaine stared at the oil lamp still burning in the new ruler's hut.
She had been observing for the past three days.
She had seen how the Human freed the Beastmen's chains without asking for anything in return. Seen how he shared plans with an Elf who clearly disliked him. Seen how four races worked on the same land today without anyone dying.
Lyssa had lived long enough and hard enough not to easily trust things that seemed good.
But she had also lived long enough to know the difference between someone pretending to be good and someone who simply didn't have enough time to pretend at all.
The Human seemed like the latter.
She pulled her cloak tighter and turned into the darkness.
But tomorrow, perhaps, she would step a little closer than usual.
Perhaps.