SLV Chapter 21: Isn't This the Same as Finding It for Free?!
April 22
The once lush and flourishing Zalimu oasis was now a scene of complete devastation.
Large sections of the sand wall had been demolished, leaving only scattered broken remnants.
The golden dry wheat that had covered the fertile ground had been trampled into the soil.
The earth around it had been soaked a deep red by the bodies of slaves lying scattered across every part of it but the building at the center of the oasis was still standing intact.
From the crest of a dune, Lin En sat astride the camel and looked down at the scene below.
Dead?
Or not?
With no time to think it over at length, Lin En decided the fastest answer was to simply test it.
If Zalimu was dead, his status as the oasis's master would be gone, and the Law Codes' hold over the oasis would dissolve completely.
Lin En would be free to walk in and claim everything of value but if Zalimu was still alive, setting foot inside the oasis boundary would bring the Law Codes' punishment down on him in an instant.
He dismounted at the oasis's edge.
Heart full of hope, he reached his hand directly into the oasis boundary.
One instant was all it took.
Agonizing pain tore through him.
It felt like being subjected to an electrical current, his entire body seizing with the force of it.
"Ugh..."
He bit down on the sound before it could escape. The last thing he needed was to alert Zalimu and Ruleh, who were almost certainly in the two-story wooden building at the oasis center.
He forced himself upright and drew several slow, deep breaths until the painful aftershock of the Law Codes' punishment faded.
This was his first true encounter with the Law Codes' power, and it was more terrifying than he had imagined.
Once his composure returned, Lin En looked toward the central building.
Alive. That was beyond question but barely alive?
Or perfectly fine?
Given the state of Zalimu's oasis, it certainly wasn't the latter.
Most likely the former.
Even so, waiting was not an option.
There was no telling when Zalimu might actually die and once the outer city magistrate's people arrived, it would already be too late.
He mounted the Bactrian camel again and kept the animal's pace as slow and quiet as possible.
Lin En made a full circuit around the edge of Zalimu's oasis.
"His oasis looks like this, and Zalimu is somehow still alive."
He felt a deep sense of disappointment. Why couldn't the man just die?
If he had, Lin En would already have an extra source energy obelisk to his name.
Forcibly upgrading the sand spirit arrow tower into a sniper tower had left his oasis one tower short.
The sniper tower's ability to clear ordinary undead was far inferior to a regular arrow tower.
Before the next blood moon, if he couldn't get a new source energy obelisk, the source energy bow he had just obtained could probably serve as a substitute in a pinch but the cost in source stones and personal concentration would multiply substantially. He wasn't confident he could sustain it.
He could in theory downgrade the sniper tower back to a regular arrow tower, simply by demolishing and rebuilding but doing so would mean all the source stones poured into building the sniper tower were effectively lost and then, just as that thought settled over him, something caught Lin En's eye.
Not far ahead...
A source energy obelisk.
Sitting less than ten paces from the oasis edge.
That close?
It was practically within arm's reach.
One look told him the story. After the sand spirit arrow tower was overwhelmed, the exposed obelisk had been swept outward by the retreating skeleton tide but those few paces, protected by the Law Codes, were as impassable to Lin En as a cliff face.
"Could there be other obelisks that the retreating skeleton tide pushed to the edge as well?"
"Or even out of the oasis entirely, onto open desert ground?"
Lin En spurred the Bactrian camel forward immediately.
Moving as fast as he could manage, he rode a full loop around Zalimu's oasis perimeter but luck did not strike twice. No other source energy obelisks could be found anywhere near the edge.
Let alone the scenario he had imagined, where one might have been carried out into the open desert where he could simply take it.
He came back to the obelisk sitting less than ten paces from the oasis boundary.
A bold idea formed in Lin En's mind.
Force his way in?
He had a full month before the next blood moon, and under ordinary circumstances getting a new source energy obelisk should be possible. But who knew how much it would cost? Three thousand source stones? Five thousand?
And the hidden costs were completely unpredictable.
What if the obelisk happened to be in the possession of some noblewoman, and getting purchase rights meant being squeezed ruthlessly for everything he had?
Compared to that unpredictable, potentially enormous price, the obelisk sitting within arm's reach looked to Lin En like a man who had gone three days without water in a desert, who turns around and finds himself face to face with the contents of Medya's chest wrap.
"No..."
The reckless idea had barely formed before Lin En caught himself.
"There is no way I could withstand the Law Codes' punishment."
"I'm clearly not thinking straight from exhaustion, and the desperation to get that obelisk nearly led me into something catastrophic."
He stepped back a few paces and let his calm and reason return.
He looked at the obelisk again, rubbing his chin, his expression settling into something detached.
"There's no way to force entry and take it myself."
"But something that comes from the wilderness wouldn't be subject to the Law Codes. Like an animal..."
"A desert animal!"
Following the thought just a little further, the light returned to Lin En's eyes.
Desert wolves. Fortune.
…
"Master! I, I discovered something!"
Milya looked up from where she had been scratching Fortune's belly, face breaking into a smile as Lin En returned, and she stood up to tell him.
At that exact moment, Fortune felt a large pair of hands close around the scruff of her neck.
She looked up at Lin En, thoroughly confused.
Without pausing even for a moment, Lin En turned and pulled the hemp rope he had tied to the sand spirit mechanism tower free.
"Tell me when I get back, Milya."
There was no time to spare. Who knew when Zalimu might step outside? If that happened, it would be too late for anything.
"All right... Master..."
He didn't notice how completely the expectation in Milya's eyes had vanished.
She watched his retreating back with a faint look of disappointment.
…
"Fortune, like this. Take this and put it around that thing over there. Understand?"
Lin En had fashioned the hemp rope into a loop and was explaining to Fortune.
Fortune tilted her head, looking as though she understood roughly half of it.
There were no animal trainers in this world, and Lin En felt the absence keenly.
If there had been, he would have paid any price to hire one.
A crash course for Fortune would have been invaluable right now but there was no time for that, so he would simply have to try.
He held the rope near Fortune's muzzle. She sniffed it first, then opened her jaws and took it.
She seemed to replay what Lin En had said in her mind, looking from the half-buried source energy obelisk in the distance, to Lin En, and back again then she stepped slowly forward into Zalimu's oasis.
The Law Codes had no effect whatsoever on a creature of the wilderness.
Fortune crossed into the oasis without the slightest resistance and came to stand right in front of the source energy obelisk.
"Loop it around. Like this."
Lin En kept his voice low and used both hands to gesture what he needed.
Fortune seemed to finally grasp it. Both ears stood straight up, and she began working the rope loop with her muzzle and front paw.
"Yes! That's it, Fortune!"
Lin En watched in disbelief as the obelisk, which he would have found extremely difficult to lasso himself, was handled by Fortune with apparent ease.
Without being prompted, Fortune clamped her jaws around the trailing end of the rope.
The half-buried source energy obelisk shifted.
Step by step, Fortune threw everything into it, all three legs and even her tail straining with the effort.
Until Lin En grabbed the rope end and pulled with everything he had.
The source energy obelisk came free and into his arms.
"Fortune, you're incredible!"
Trust Fortune for this.
Lin En rubbed Fortune's wolf head with enthusiastic hands.
He looked at the source energy obelisk in his arms. This thing represented not only a large number of source stones but survival itself and Fortune had made it happen far more easily than he had ever expected.
This was basically the same as finding it for free.
With this obelisk, his oasis now had four source energy obelisks in total.
Two of which were upgraded towers.
The oasis's productive capacity was still nearly zero but in terms of defensive power alone, it was fully comparable to the oases of major slaveowners in the outer city.
At that moment, Lin En's peripheral vision caught a flicker of movement at the wooden shack's door in the distance.
His heart lurched. He immediately pushed the celebration aside.
This was not the right place to celebrate anyway.
He swung back onto the Bactrian camel.
Fortune in his left hand, obelisk in his right, he rode hard and fast in the direction of his own oasis.
After Lin En had gone, the wooden door remained closed.
A round shape pressed against the gap, a pair of frightened small eyes peering cautiously outside.
"Father, the undead are gone."
Ruleh confirmed it for a long moment, then turned back to Zalimu behind him.
The inside of the shack was scattered with skeletal remains, and the slaves who had retreated into the building with them lay collapsed across the floor in every direction, their fates unclear.
Last night, Zalimu and Ruleh had scraped together every last bit of strength they had to keep themselves alive.
"Father... our oasis is ruined!"
"The wheat too, soaked through with those slaves' blood and ruined."
Ruleh had finally come back to himself enough to process what had happened, and he came to Zalimu's side with the full weight of grief in his voice.
Seeing his son like this, a formless anger rose in Zalimu's chest.
"Be quiet, Ruleh. Our oasis has not been completely destroyed!"
"Not as long as the three sand spirit arrow towers' source energy obelisks are still here!"
The moment the words left his mouth, something clicked in Zalimu's mind, and his eyes went round.
Lin En. That trader's bastard.
His oasis. The obelisks on his oasis.
Lin En, that worthless creature, was certainly dead by now.
Dead without question.
A trader's son, thinking he could stand equal to a slaveowner of noble blood like himself. This was the end he deserved.
A fierce gleam lit up in Zalimu's eyes, like a gambler who had lost everything including his wife and then found a fortune lying in the road.
He had to get to Lin En's oasis immediately and take those three source energy obelisks.
A kind of desperate hunger surged through Zalimu's chest.
With those three obelisks, every loss he had suffered in this blood moon could be recovered.
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