My Farming Domain Is Broken

Carlos did not rush through the gates just because they had opened.

The Lords behind him wanted to push forward, but Kaia stepped to Carlos’s left while Brann took the other side. Nessa looked over the crowd from behind them. The two Lizardmen stayed close to Cosmic without being told.

Nobody tried to get past them after that.

Carlos had learned that some people only understood boundaries when they could see that they could not cross them.

The white gates led into a road that had been covered in dust for centuries. Old buildings stood on both sides. Some had broken roofs. Others looked almost untouched, with glass windows still reflecting the pale sky above Aurelian Basin.

There were no houses close together like a normal town. It gave the feeling that this place had been made for work.

Large stone storehouses stood beside empty grain yards. A dried fountain sat in the middle of a square, and every wall around it had carvings of wheat, rivers, carts and people carrying sacks.

Carlos looked at the drawings for a while.

"This entire place was connected to farming," he said.

"Not only farming," Cosmic answered. He pointed toward a wide building with stone wheels beside it. "That looks like a mill. And those cart tracks go straight to the storehouses. People grew food outside, brought it here and distributed it through the roads."

"How do you know that?"

"I mean, you can tell by looking at the infrastructure."

Carlos nodded. The cultivation district was not a strange lucky path that appeared only because he owned an Agriculture Domain. It was one part of a whole region that had once kept people alive.

The road ended at a circular hall with a broken clock tower above it. The doors were already open.

Carlos focused on the inside, and creases formed between his eyebrows. Someone stood there.

Carlos made his way forward toward it and the closer he got, the more the silhouette of the person became clearer.

Until he finally saw her. She wore a dark green coat over plain leather armor. Two spear-carrying troops waited behind her near a long table covered with old papers. They were both injured enough that Carlos could see dried blood on their sleeves.

The woman was not looking at the new crowd coming toward the tower. She was reading a glowing panel over the table.

When Carlos walked closer, the system noticed him first.

--

[Verified Crop Keeper detected]

[Aurelian Regional Authority attendance: 2 of 5 functional roles]

--

The woman finally looked up. Her eyes went to Brann first, then Kaia and then Carlos.

"Crop Keeper means you are Carlos Goldwin. Welcome," she said.

Carlos did not like how quickly people learned his name now.

"And you are?"

"Nora Ashwell. Level 2 Weaver Domain Lord." She shut the panel. "My domain produces cloth, sacks, bedding and bandages. I restored a road marker near the eastern ridge when I got the opportunity. It gave me passage here before the summons reached everyone else."

Cosmic looked toward the table. "So you are the unknown claimant."

"Was that what the system called me?" Nora asked with a chuckle. "It might have wanted to create some suspense for everyone who had not reached here yet."

Carlos studied her properly. Her boots were covered in the same pale dust as the road outside, and one sleeve had been torn near the elbow. Whatever route she had taken to reach the settlement first, it had not been easy. Her spear troops looked tired too. One of them kept shifting weight away from an injured leg. Carlos was glad to see she was not a threat he needed to deal with. At least from the looks of it.

"How many markers did you restore?" Cosmic asked, bringing Nora’s gaze to him.

"One," Nora said. "And it nearly got both of them killed."

Her eyes moved toward the two troops behind her. The answer was simple, but it told Carlos enough.

’She did not get an army, which was what I was worried about. So at least one thing has gone well.’

"What did you find?" he asked.

Nora moved aside from the table.

"Enough to know none of us owns this place alone."

The papers on the table were too damaged to read, but the panel above them still worked.

--

[Aurelian Basin Regional Authority]

[Regional functions must be maintained by recognized operators]

[Crop Keeper: Active]

[Road Keeper: Active]

[Water Keeper: Inactive]

[Storehouse Keeper: Inactive]

[Settlement Authority: Inactive]

--

Carlos read the list twice.

"What happens if those roles stay inactive?" he asked.

"I do not know everything," Nora said. "But the road marker warned me that disconnected functions will continue to decay as they have all this time."

Mara entered the hall with her group behind her. She did not walk close to Carlos, but her eyes quickly moved over the panel.

Nora looked at her with a warm smile, but all she did was nod before going back to the panel.

She looked at the panel for a few minutes before speaking. "Glasswood had a Distribution Station we have not fixed yet. It may be connected to the Storehouse Keeper role."

"Maybe," Nora said. "But the records only recognize active operators, not guesses."

The other Lords started crowding around the doorway. Some tried to read the panel from behind taller people. Others whispered when they saw Carlos’s title listed first.

Carlos ignored them completely for a while as they tried to understand what was even going on.

He stepped forward, which brought many more eyes onto him, and clicked on the Crop Keeper title with curiosity.

Another panel opened for everyone to see.

--

[Crop Keeper Carlos Goldwin]

[The authority remains temporary]

[Complete one verified cultivation restoration to establish permanent regional recognition]

[Available reference record: Aurelian Crop Ledger]

[Access requires Crop Keeper confirmation]

--

Carlos stared at the last line and so did everyone else.

"Was he not permanent owner this whole time?"

"So someone else can take the crop area huh..."

Two guys whispered among themselves in the back, which made Carlos look at them with cold eyes. They noticed him and went silent in panic. Nobody was willing to speak their mind directly in front of Carlos.

And he was not going to waste his time either.

"Have you found any Crop Ledger lying around here, Nora?" Cosmic asked with a smile.

Before Nora could even answer, a narrow drawer opened beneath the long table.

Everyone moved forward to look at it, and Brann stomped his foot on the ground in annoyance at them getting this close. Many retreated after seeing that.

Carlos looked inside and saw a book wrapped in cracked brown leather. It was smaller than Carlos expected.

It looked like just a dirty old book, and Carlos reached for it.

The moment his fingers touched the cover, another panel appeared.

--

[Aurelian Crop Ledger: Damaged]

[Crop names and historical uses available]

[Cultivation conditions incomplete]

[Verification requires a qualified farmer]

--

Carlos became more careful while holding it after realizing that this was the real deal.

He looked at Cosmic, who had the same realization. Carlos could feel it.

Rowan was back at the cultivation district, and what the panel said made Carlos realize that Rowan, Elias and Boro were the keys to using it.

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