Lord: Starting with Biological Modification

This November in the Gray Sea Marsh was quite different from previous years.

In years past, the people of the Gray Swamp would be busy trapping rats and wild rabbits to smoke the last batch of game, preparing for the long, cold winter.

But this year, aside from children playing with them, no one paid any mind to the plump sparrows in town.

A sparrow, a stalk of black rye in its beak, fluttered down onto a branch, the weight of it shaking loose a flurry of withered yellow leaves.

The leaves spiraled down onto the white stone-paved road, where a sanitation worker was sweeping trash to the side of a shop’s main entrance.

The door was pushed open by three unfamiliar faces, letting in a gust of cool autumn wind.

Hearing the sound, Tumo looked up and grinned. "Welcome to ’Brothers, Boars, and Beer’!"

A sallow and gaunt middle-aged man looked at Tumo. "Boss, I hear your mashed potatoes are the best in town?"

"Of course! My mashed potatoes are made from ’Sea Salt Potatoes’ grown in the newly reclaimed salt fields of the Lord’s Mansion farm. They have a natural savory flavor. Then we top it with cracklings from a freshly hunted wild boar. I guarantee you’ll never forget the taste!"

"Er... I’ll have one to try, then." The man touched the token at his waist, hesitating slightly.

Tumo saw his predicament and directly ladled out three large mugs of ale from a barrel.

"You must be new here, right? This round’s on me. It’s not easy for anyone out on the road."

Hearing this, the old stonemason at the next table, Barue, raised his mug in a toast. "You’ve come to the right place, brothers. Under Lord Velin, as long as you’re willing to work, you won’t go hungry."

"Lord Velin... is he really as good as the rumors say?" one of his young companions couldn’t help but ask.

"Good?" The old hunter, Harvey, snorted from his corner seat. "It’s not a question of ’good.’ It’s a question of whether you’ve seen the world or not."

He stood up, walked over to the outsiders, and pulled out a hard card.

"See this? A citizen ID! I’m now an official citizen of Newly Town!"

The outsiders’ eyes went wide.

They had traveled a thousand leagues to this swamp precisely for this legendary "identification card."

"Alright, Harvey, stop showing off," Tumo teased with a laugh. "Weren’t you the one who just moved here from the next village six months ago?"

"How is that the same?" Harvey retorted stubbornly. "I’m now a registered Hunter in town. Just by turning in the required quota of game each month, I can earn a steady stream of merit points."

"It’s not like before, where the lion’s share of anything good I caught had to be handed over to the old lord, and the rest would get fleeced by the crooked merchants in town!"

The atmosphere in the tavern grew even more boisterous.

A few locals began chiming in one after another, telling the outsiders about life in Newly Town.

"Merit points are way more useful than Copper Leaves!" shouted the blacksmith’s apprentice, Xiao Wei, raising his mug. "I can earn three merit points a day at the workshop now. The Lord’s Mansion even provides high-quality coke. The plowshares I forge can be used in the swamp for two months without needing repairs!"

"Isn’t that over ninety Copper Leaves?" The outsiders gasped.

Tumo came over with a large, steaming platter of mashed potatoes and explained, "Xiao Wei is a junior craftsman, so he earns more. For ordinary folks like us, working on the farm, we can earn one or two merit points a day, with two meals provided."

"The key is, there are no taxes!" Harvey added. "In the old days, you were taxed on your harvest, taxed on your pelts, and if you married a pretty wife, the old lord might even take a fancy to her! But now? However much you work, the merit points are all yours!"

A man who looked like a farmer chimed in as well. "It’s not just that! When you farm elsewhere, don’t you have to pay for your own tools and draft animals? If they break, you have to beg someone to fix them! Here, all the efficient new farm tools and those ’Worker Ants’ that are as sturdy as small hills—they all belong to the Lord’s Mansion! We just have to show up for work on time!"

"I’m telling you, what I earn in a year now is more than what I had left over in a good harvest year before, after all expenses!"

A chorus of agreement echoed through the tavern.

The sallow-faced, middle-aged man hesitated for a long time before finally asking cautiously.

"Brothers... I... I just have one question, don’t get mad. The tools and livestock all belong to the Lord’s Mansion, and he still gives you so many merit points... what does Lord Velin get out of it? Isn’t... isn’t he losing a fortune? Where in the world would you find a lord willing to run a losing business like this?"

As soon as he said this, the boisterous atmosphere in the tavern faltered.

The locals looked at each other, the pride and smugness frozen on their faces.

They only knew they were living a good life they couldn’t have even dreamed of before, but they had never thought about this question in detail.

Old hunter Harvey opened his mouth, but found he couldn’t explain it beyond simply saying, "The Lord is just good."

For a moment, no one could answer.

Tumo polished a mug, taking it all in, but a different thought was forming in his mind.

’Ever since the power in my bloodline awakened, my mind has definitely become sharper than before. At the town’s night school, I learned basic mathematics and bookkeeping from the steward. I think I’m starting to get a vague idea. Lord Velin isn’t losing money, of course. I thought about my own tavern. When I buy a hundred pounds of potatoes at once, the price is much cheaper than buying one pound at a time. And not just that. If I have enough customers, making three plates of mashed potatoes in one pot is definitely cheaper and more efficient than making two separate batches. Isn’t it the same principle? The tools and livestock provided by the Lord’s Mansion are all uniformly maintained and rotated, making their utilization rate far higher than the farmers’ own small-scale efforts. More importantly, the Lord’s Mansion coordinates all the manpower, organizing them to work together and enabling them to cultivate and manage several times more land than before. So, even though the farmers are earning much more than before, Lord Velin is definitely earning more than all the neighboring lords combined. It’s just that I can’t explain this principle clearly to these people. Even I only have a vague feeling about it. It’s like a brilliant form of Alchemy, creating more wealth out of thin air.’

If Velin were here, he would surely be unable to resist adding—this is the charm of "economies of scale."

He finished wiping the last mug and looked up, just in time to see the middle-aged man take a bite of the mashed potatoes. The man’s eyes lit up. "This taste... it really is different."

Just then, the tavern door was pushed open again. A portly, well-dressed merchant strode in, shouting as soon as he entered.

"Tumo, my good man, I’ve got a question for you!"

Tumo hurried to greet him. "Well, if it isn’t Boss Wesley! What can I do for you?"

"This tavern of yours, how many merit points did it cost you to set it up?"

Tumo was taken aback. "Why do you ask? Are you thinking of opening a tavern yourself?"

"I might be." Wesley lowered his voice conspiratorially, yet loud enough for the surrounding tables to hear. "I’ve heard a little rumor... that our Grey Marsh Territory is about to undergo a massive change!"

His words instantly piqued everyone’s curiosity.

"I hear Lord Velin is about to launch some grand ’Two Towns, Eight Villages’ plan!" the merchant said mysteriously. "If this news is true, opening a shop in one of the new towns would be a golden opportunity! That’s why I’m here, to ask around and see how many merit points it might take to set up a business!"

BOOM! The entire tavern erupted in an uproar.

"Two Towns, Eight Villages? For real?"

"There’ll be new places to go?"

"My heavens, Lord Velin is truly..."

The outsiders were even more excited. The young man quickly asked, "Then... can we sign up too?"

"Of course you can!" A burly local laughed and clapped him on the shoulder. "Here, as long as you’re willing to work, nobody cares where you come from!"

Looking at the room full of eager customers, Tumo started to wonder about something himself.

He glanced at his son, Little Stone, playing in the corner, and began to calculate in his mind.

「Later that night, after all the customers had left, his wife Anna was clearing the tables.」

Tumo spoke up. "Anna, I heard from Wesley today that they’re going to build new towns in the territory."

Anna paused her work. "You heard about it too? Is it true?"

"It’s more or less certain." Tumo looked at his wife and said seriously, "I was thinking, for Little Stone’s future, maybe we should go check out the opportunities in the new towns? Perhaps... we could even open our tavern there."