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HELIO SCANS
[Translator - Hestia]
[Proofreader - Kaya]
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Chapter 49: The Food Offensive
Nova, the treasurer of House Cron, processes hundreds of documents every single day.
For an average person, this workload would be mind-breaking. But for Nova, possibly due to the blessings she’d received, it wasn’t just manageable—she actually ENJOYED it.
As she reviewed hundreds of reports and financial statements, the flow of money and resources formed a clear mental image in her mind—like a living map made of numbers and trends.
But at some point, that smooth current of information began to grow... distorted.
It started off as a faint static—so minor at first that she nearly ignored it.
But as time passed, the noise sharpened, gained clarity—until it became too loud to dismiss.
And the source of that dissonance?
The grain reserve levels in the Dreihart territory.
Nova noticed that, little by little, the stockpiled food in Dreihart was decreasing. Subtly, but steadily.
Sensing that something was wrong, she chose NOT to follow the others to Lord Zeras’ invitation—instead, she made her way straight to Dreihart.
And what she found there left her stunned.
“Form a line! I said form a line! No pushing!”
Just like what she’d seen back in the Cron territory, an overwhelming number of freedmen were migrating into Dreihart.
But that wasn’t the only problem.
“Four silver per sack of wheat?!”
The price of wheat in Dreihart had suddenly jumped to four silver—double the previous rate.
Even considering the large influx of immigrants, that price made no sense. It was irrational, borderline exploitative.
Digging deeper to trace the root cause, Nova began her investigation. And soon, a name came up.
“So the Klaus family is behind all of this.”
“Yes, Lady Nova. That’s correct.”
To the east of Dreihart lies the Klaus territory—and recently, its actions had grown increasingly suspicious.
First, Klaus had started allowing freedmen to leave their land far too easily.
Life in Klaus had been hard, and once people realized they could resettle in Dreihart with little resistance, waves of them poured across the border. Dreihart’s population surged overnight.
Then, another anomaly—
Klaus began reducing their wheat exports bit by bit.
That alone would be suspicious—but what truly set off alarms was what they did next.
They BROKE their existing grain supply contracts, willingly paying the penalty fees... just to hoard the wheat they had already agreed to sell.
And that was when Nova finally pieced it together.
“This is a food offensive.”
“Yes, my lord. The Klaus family is deliberately launching a food-based assault on Dreihart.”
In a world like this—one without modern logistics and transport systems—food is more than just a necessity. It’s POWER. It’s CONTROL.
And in that regard, Dreihart was extremely vulnerable.
There were powerful dragonkin warriors and rare materials harvested from monsters—even exotic spices—but none of that mattered when what they lacked most was food.
Even though Cron had expanded its farmland enough to feed Dreihart, transporting that food had always been a major issue. Until now, Dreihart had depended heavily on the eastern territories—especially Klaus—for its grain supply.
“There’s something I don’t understand.”
“What is it, Lord Hart?”
Nova asked.
“Even if Dreihart is under a food offensive, couldn’t we just transport food from Cron? Don’t you think Klaus would have considered that?”
Hart wasn’t wrong.
If I were just Calyx Cron, relying only on HIS memories, I probably would’ve agreed and brushed it off as mere paranoia.
But I had memories from my previous life.
“…The desert floods.”
“So you knew too, my Lord.”
I simply nodded at Nova’s words.
I remembered it from playing Dreihart.
Every five to ten years, Dreihart was struck by massive floods—unpredictable, violent torrents rising suddenly in the middle of the desert. These floods could last for one or two months and came with relentless storms, strong enough to make sailing impossible.
The real problem was where these floods occurred: southeast of Dreihart, exactly in the region between Dreihart and Cron.
When the desert floods hit, all routes between Cron and Dreihart were completely cut off.
It’s said that a human can survive up to two months without food—but that’s just a biological theory.
In reality, an ordinary person goes mad with hunger within two weeks and starts doing ANYTHING to survive.
And now Dreihart was more crowded than ever, its population swollen by the flood of freefolk sent over from Klaus.
A sudden population surge, a natural disaster, a collapsing food supply—and no help coming from anywhere…
From that point on, Klaus could do whatever it wanted.
They could storm in under any made-up pretext, or “negotiate” with a starving Dreihart. Whether by conquest or coercion, the city would be theirs for the taking.
And for the first time in a long while, I felt true rage.
A food offensive—this wasn’t some clever trick. It was a historically documented, brutal tactic.
One of the most devastating forms of warfare inflicted on civilians.
Korea’s “Byeongjahoran” (the Qing invasion of 1636) was a prime example. With no preparation, Joseon forces were surrounded by the Qing army at Namhansanseong and nearly starved to death. Countless soldiers DID die from hunger.
Some who survived the siege ended up dying afterward anyway—from Refeeding Syndrome, when starved bodies go into shock after suddenly absorbing too many nutrients at once.
To know someone was trying to pull that same despicable move on my territory made my blood boil.
“At least we found out ahead of time.”
Nova said gently.
“She’s right, my Lord. If we start preparing now, we can be fully stocked before the desert floods hit.”
They were trying to calm me down.
But this wasn’t something that could be solved by preparation alone.
Sure, if we started immediately stockpiling food from Cron, Klaus might decide it wasn’t worth it and back off for now.
But here’s the thing—when someone stabs you once and sees you didn’t bleed, they’ll come back to stab you again. And again.
That’s how retaliation between nations begins.
Even for minor slights, countries launch reprisals. And we’re talking about a food offensive—a tactic that could kill thousands of innocent people? Letting this slide? Not happening. Not for me.
“Preparation isn’t enough.”
“P-Pardon…?”
I stood up and looked out the window.
Outside, I saw the peaceful lives of countless citizens going about their day. I was sure Dreihart looked the same—its people living calmly, unaware.
To protect them, we had to show what happens when you mess with us.
“Summon Rikain. From this moment on, we treat this as war. We’ll prepare everything we have—every tool, every asset—and strike back.”
They all seemed stunned for a moment. Then, slowly, they nodded in agreement.
This was an age of chaos.
In a time when weakness meant death, we didn’t need to become slaughterers like Hadem—but we sure as hell weren’t going to be anyone’s punching bag either.
And just like that, we began preparations for our counterattack.
＊ ＊ ＊
At that moment, countless sacks of wheat were being hauled into Klaus' warehouses.
“Let’s go, move it! Faster!”
“Warehouse No. 5 is nearly full! Open up No. 6!”
The grain storage facilities were starting to fill with more wheat than they had ever seen before.
Normally, Klaus never stored more than enough to fill Warehouse 2 or 3. But now, they were mobilizing every available resource to hoard wheat.
They even refused to sell wheat they had already promised to deliver, paying penalties to back out of contracts. As a result, the warehouses were bursting at the seams with grain.
“Beric, how’s the preparation coming along?”
“Lord Royce, you've arrived.”
Beric, the steward in charge of operations, bowed as Lord Royce approached.
Royce looked over the mountain of wheat and couldn’t help but feel proud.
“Astonishing… Did we really produce this much ourselves?”
“Yes, my lord. All of this wheat was grown right here in the Klaus territory.”
Royce firmly believed that Klaus was the backbone of the East’s food supply—no matter what anyone said.
That belief was part of why he agreed to Beric’s plan in the first place.
How dare they ignore Klaus, the lifeline of the East?
Let them starve and see how that feels!
As the food offensive moved forward, and the idea of selling this hoarded wheat at tenfold—no, even hundreds of times the original price—grew closer to reality, Royce couldn’t suppress his grin.
If they managed to inflate the prices that high, Dreihart would never be able to afford it with the gold they had on hand.
That’s why Royce had already set his sights on something else as payment: Spice Plantations.
You might think, Who’d be foolish enough to hand over land that grows literal money? But once they were starving to death, their minds would surely change.
Following Royce’s orders, Beric not only continued hoarding wheat but also bought up grain originally meant for Dreihart. The food offensive was fully in motion.
And it wasn’t just about stockpiling food.
They also dispatched agents disguised as freefolk to Dreihart, quietly gathering intel on the situation from within.
Fortunately, the Cron family seemed completely unaware of the planned offensive. There were no signs that they were stockpiling grain themselves. Beric saw this as the perfect opportunity, and he doubled down on the preparations.
One full month passed.
Then, finally, the day arrived.
BOOOOM—!
SHAAAAA—!!
Without warning, torrential rain poured down on the dry desert.
Floodwaters surged, and in the blink of an eye, massive rivers carved through the sand. The raging waves blocked all access in and out.
The『Desert Flood』had begun.
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HELIO SCANS
[Translator - Hestia]
[Proofreader - Kaya]
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