Chapter 221: This Is That Near-Unique Advantage of Humanity
The main person who consistently complained about the Maid Squad being understaffed was Vivian, with Morgan being the secondary voice.
Morgan only mentioned it occasionally, but Vivian brought it up frequently.
That's why, upon seeing the state of these Oni Kind, Noah began to entertain such thoughts.
Neither Ibaraki nor Shuten had any objections to this. In fact, Shuten found it quite amusing. With both of them in agreement, the rest of the Oni Kind followed Noah's lead and left together.
As for the construction of the Great Mountain Castle here, Noah did not halt the work.
After all, it remained to be seen whether these Oni Kind could actually serve as maids. Moreover, even if the Oni Kind did not return, the Great Mountain Castle could still be renovated for his future visits to Japan, to be used and maintained by the Oni Kind who had become maids.
Thus, there was no need to stop construction.
Furthermore, Noah currently faced no shortage of labor.
Tasks such as construction and mining were assigned to the Fairies.
Although Morgan had not yet released the three commanders of the Fairy Knights, a portion of the other Fairies were already able to come out and work.
With the editing function of the World Tree, these Fairies—originally possessing an extremely pure yet chaotic sense of good and evil—had their personalities specifically tailored by Noah and Morgan.
Beyond this, however, Noah did not impose excessive demands on them.
He did not treat them as tools to be enslaved but simply established job categories for the Fairies.
These categories were determined after classifying them through the World Tree's editing function. In other words, Fairies responsible for construction would inherently enjoy construction work, while those assigned to mining would genuinely love mining.
To prevent issues after the construction period ended, Noah instructed Morgan not to edit them too rigidly.
Moreover, in the laws for Fairies jointly developed by him and Morgan, it was stipulated that if a Fairy no longer wished to engage in its current work, it could apply to the World Tree for transformation, thereby changing its Fairy type and taking on other tasks.
The laws also outlined promotion pathways for each type of work assigned to the Fairies.
In short, Noah and Morgan placed great emphasis on this matter and finalized all necessary arrangements.
This initiative was proposed by Noah.
With this framework in place, the newly born Fairies demonstrated remarkable work efficiency.
They were naturally adept at using Magecraft, and due to their superior utilization of life force, even after the World Tree's modifications—which stopped them from consuming things they shouldn't—their physical capabilities remained exceptional.
This resulted in their work performance far surpassing that of humans in many tasks.
Noah did not rigidly mandate that Fairies must take up labor, yet over ninety-nine percent of them still chose to work.
After all, they excelled at it, and productivity was always in demand. Thus, even with the freedom to choose, most newly born Fairies opted for these roles.
The ripple effect of this was that humans also underwent certain changes after the Fairies began working.
These Fairies far surpass humans in both Magecraft and physical abilities. In areas like craftsmanship, humans possess their own wisdom, but compared to these Fairies, their design capabilities are abundant, while their practical execution falls short.
However, the situation shifts when it comes to agriculture and cuisine.
Humans hold an almost overwhelming advantage over Fairies in farming and culinary arts. Although Fairies are also a race skilled in cultivating plants, they rely on infusing life force to nurture them. This method works well for cultivating rare or nearly extinct species within the Fairy Forest, but it is impractical for large-scale grain farming, where relying entirely on life force is unsustainable.
This is where humans excel.
Human agriculture has a long history. After moving away from large-scale craftsmanship, coupled with Noah's deliberate promotion of culinary culture, humans underwent multiple innovations in crop cultivation and continuous evolution in their food culture following the Fairies' full-scale engagement in craftsmanship.
Noah imposed no restrictions on the Fairies regarding their work, and he placed even fewer limitations on humans. Thus, when these specialized Fairies first emerged, humans shifted en masse to agriculture. Morgan, Mary, and Scáthach approached Noah multiple times to discuss this, but he rejected their proposals each time, urging them to wait.
The facts ultimately proved Noah right.
Unlike the Fairies, who focused primarily on what they excelled at, within a few months, specialized human teams applied to engage in other professions, humbly learning, organizing, and summarizing the Fairies' techniques.
Although humans still lagged behind Fairies in Magecraft, Noah saw the nascent beginnings of technology in them. Moreover, after observing the impact of the Fairies' integration into the nation, many humans who had initially turned to agriculture began to engage in commerce, stabilizing the situation.
It is true that humans are inferior to Fairies in both Magecraft and physical abilities. Yet, even with the considerable freedom Noah granted them, the Fairies showed no intention of establishing academies to learn from other races, instead focusing on reinforcing their existing strengths on a large scale.
In contrast, after simple observations, humans applied to establish various academies. Through commerce, they revitalized society while continuing to excel in their traditional strengths of agriculture and cuisine.
Unable to match the Fairies in productivity, humans strategically focused on artistic expression and refined craftsmanship.
After Noah integrated the Fairies into the territory, making them the second-largest race under his rule, humans experienced several months of quiet before undergoing their first wave of ideological renewal. They overhauled their racial strategies, and the situation stabilized.
Throughout this process, Noah only suppressed the seeds of vicious competition and, leveraging the period of ideological renewal when humans shifted to agriculture, launched a large-scale crackdown on land consolidation issues. He directly revised the relevant laws, meticulously improved the regional official system, and redistributed both resources and responsibilities.
After the first wave of ideological reform on the human side concluded, Noah had largely stabilized the domestic situation.
By leveraging the inherent nature of ideological reform—which naturally eliminates many outdated elements—he skillfully concealed a round of large-scale, iron-fisted reforms.
Every aspect eliminated by the ideological reform was utilized, with policies adjusted to manage those phased out.
Morgan and the others found Noah's approach remarkably clever—while it appeared turbulent on the surface, in reality, there was no turmoil at all. This contradiction, along with the subtle policy adjustments, broadened their perspectives significantly.
However, it was they who filled in the details.
Noah had always excelled at setting the overall direction, but when it came to handling details, although he was gradually gaining experience, his execution of many strategies remained somewhat unrefined.
This was where Morgan and Scáthach stepped in to apply their expertise.
Over the next month, Noah convened two roundtable meetings. After fully stabilizing the entire territory, he also incorporated the entire eastern region into his domain.
While completely taking over the lands left vacant after Great Qin's departure, he intensified the efforts led by Attila to suppress the surrounding tribes.
Using the newly integrated tribes as a buffer zone, he fully leveraged Rome's remarkable adaptability to digest the gains and impacts of the war.
During this period, Noah delved deeper into the study of the Third Magic and made targeted preparations accordingly.
Then, with about ten days left before the start of the third volume's simulation, Altera, whom Noah had previously sent to search for the asteroid belt, returned.
"Noah, I've found the asteroid belt you were looking for."