Harpy (Part 2)

Sunny days ushered in across the southern plains after the rainy season passed.

It was already the beginning of summer. Spring was gradually fading away, and there was a certain hotness brewing in the air. The construction progress in the town of Athens wasn't delayed because of the weather. After the completion of the blacksmith shop, Murphy arranged for the residents of the town to plan the drainage channels for the entire town and dig ditches. This included the prototype of the Huancheng River and the design of future public toilets and baths.

The construction progress of the temple had temporarily entered a period of calm, as the population of the territory didn't meet the necessary requirements for expansion. For now, repairs were being done per the original schedule, and most of the wooden structures were being replaced with more magnificent slabs of marble!

In addition to this, the building that was undergoing the busiest construction was the shooting range.

As the horse barns didn't have many horses at the time being, Murphy hadn't yet invested in its construction. However, because of the appearance of the centaur's longbow, he had to change his plans and first establish the shooting range. For now, what the territory desperately needed was a group of archers to increase their lethality in long-ranged combat!

The construction of the low-level shooting range wasn't cumbersome. All that was needed was just to plan out a spacious area that gave the archers a practice field.

There was a lot of sand near the lower channels of the Nidoria River. The sediment was very fine and could be used for paving roads and other activities. The ground of the shooting range was paved with this mud and sand, and there were wooden fences around it, but no targets. The area of the shooting range was about 60,000 square meters. That was a space about 400 meters long and about 150 meters wide.

The shooting range was erected next to the military barracks in the town and regarded as one of the military barracks.

Murphy intended to concentrate all the buildings related to military training within this area, and then segregate it from the outside world.

Military bases were important areas, and outsiders weren't allowed to come close to them!

. . . . . . . . . . . .

The time was around nine o'clock in the morning.

The location was the middle of a deep old forest in the southern plains that was bordered by the Karazan Mountains. It was about fifty kilometers from Murphy's town!

The replica of the centaur's longbow wasn't successful, not because it was difficult to make but because the wood found near the town was substandard and failed to meet the stringent requirements for making a longbow!

In fact, the craftsman in town understood the techniques needed to craft the centaur's longbow at first sight. The longbow's production process wasn't difficult. The actual difficulty was the requirements its user had to meet. However, in spite of this, in the subsequent imitation process to craft the bow, the replicas produced didn't meet the standards! The problem lay in the wood that was required to make the centaur's longbow. It was very important that it was both hard and flexible. On earth, the best wood to make it from was yew, but the wood used to make the centaur's longbow was somewhat similar to oak. However, if one was to ask exactly what sort of wood it was, Murphy couldn't really tell.

In order to find an alternative wood to craft the centaur's longbow, Murphy had to devote himself to gathering information about wood from all the trees in the world that were near aboriginal populations in the ports. He then totaled the different types of wood that could be found near his territory and tried to find one that could be used to produce the longbow.

His hard work paid off!

After spending a full two days researching, Murphy finally learned from the mouths of an aboriginal mercenary who used to be a carpenter that there was a rare tree called "ebony" in the outskirts of the Karazan Mountains. The wood was firm yet flexible, and the elves used it to make bows and arrows on a large scale. However, it wasn't easy to find this kind of wood, because most of these ebony trees grew deep in the jungles, where it was a hot spot for fierce beasts and dangerous creatures.

And according to the legends, there were even some terrible man-eating plants near ebony trees!

The mercenary couldn't tell what it was exactly because he hadn't personally searched for the ebony trees himself. However, based on Murphy's estimations, it was probably a carnivorous plant similar to man-eating trees or man-eating flowers. The plant wasn't that dangerous. As long as one was careful, there wouldn't be any major problems.

Now that there was a clue, things would be easier to handle.

The family of elf sprites living near the Karazan Mountains had migrated long ago. Therefore, if the ebony trees hadn't been destroyed, they should have been near the elven gathering grounds near the Karazan Mountains. Based on Murphy's estimations and the natural habits of the elves, it was unlikely they would destroy the ebony trees. After all, an elf had the highest love for flowers, trees, and nature than any other race!

In the past two days, Murphy had a whim to assess the literate and knowledgeable citizens in the territory. Unexpectedly, he actually discovered a talented citizen among the townspeople.

Subsequently, the <Total War> auxiliary system hinted to Murphy that he could recruit the talent he had discovered as a follower.

This talent was young, about 25 years of age, and came from a merchant family. He had a very good talent for trading. After testing his abilities, Murphy, who had always been troubled by the lack of manpower around him, was about to promote him to a financial officer to help manage the territory's tax and trade data. With regard to this, Murphy couldn't help but rant that in these olden times, finding a person with excellent arithmetic and statistical skills wasn't an easy task!

After the appointment was issued, the statistics of followers listed in the auxiliary system became slightly different.

The following page showed the person appointed by Murphy, who was the finance officer, but before these words was something interesting.

"Qualified financial officer (This person has good business acumen. With his help, you can manage the territory more easily. Management +1, Income from trade increased +10%)"

He was qualified!

That was the key to the problem!

Murphy suddenly understood why the several previously appointed territory officials weren't included in the statistics listed in the auxiliary system. It was because of their abilities!

The capabilities of the previously appointed personnel didn't meet the requirements of the <Total War> auxiliary system, so they weren't worthy of being included in the list of followers.

A qualified financial officer!

Only qualified financial officers could increase his management abilities and truly assist him in managing the territory. As for those who weren't qualified, he could only go along with them and continue to use them.

With a qualified financial officer to handle affairs, Murphy was at once freed from the cumbersome affairs of territory management!

At long last, he didn't need to personally count the material budgets and inventory balances. Right then, all he needed to do was browse the statistical reports regularly submitted by the finance officers each day and then make the necessary arrangements after that.

It was because of this that Murphy now had the time to personally lead a team to the outskirts of the Karazan Mountains in search of the mysterious ebony wood.

General Rio Darley, along with Pulith, had gone to trade with the centaur tribes living in the Sharma Basin. In the territory, Murphy found zero people reassuring and reliable. Before a new general was discovered, he'd have to go in person.

To avoid the trouble and the bother, Murphy brought the cavalry from the General Guards with him.

In this way, if there was any danger, he could rely on the horse's speed to escape.

Now all he had to do was find the ebony first, and then find a way to transport the ebony back to the town.