Chapter 52 - Right Answer
Green turned to look at Meirin, and after getting a positive response from her, he had a look of excitement. "That's great. As long as we can get through this crisis, we can then start sending the magic radishes to the Markey Company. What do you want to do now, Master?"
"Grandma Meirin, Grandpa Green, you'll go out the hole behind the hut while I monitor the undead from here. Today, we must grab as many as we can."
Green and Meirin nodded, then turned and walked out, while Zhao paid attention to the undead.
In the next five days, the slaves were practicing their reading and writing, while Zhao and the rest were catching the undead spirit beasts.
In these five days, they used Zhao's suggestion of aggro, and they managed to catch about a thousand undead. Once these undead entered the space, the green soul fire where their eyes were supposed to be turned red, and then Zhao threw them into his barn.
Also, in this five day period, thanks to his four acres of land, he was able to harvest eight batches of corn, while also harvesting a lot of oil fruit. Now that he had about a dozen batches of stored corn, Zhao thought that he should try planting something else.
But now wasn't have the time to think about that because there were spirit beasts outside. After a lapse of five days, the undead spirit beasts had almost all disappeared after getting caught and converted.
This allowed Green to feel at ease. He had some worry that it was because they were here that the undead spirit beasts came out of the carrion swamp. But now that the undead were gone, and no more were rushing out of the swamp, he was relieved by this good news.
Once the undead spirit beasts have receded, Zhao and everyone else immediately left the space. But once they were out, all of them had a frown on their faces when they saw the horrendous destruction of the castle. Although the main building didn't suffer that much damage, all the supplies had been battered and destroyed, making the castle look more ragged.
Looking at the dilapidated castle, Zhao's heart felt uncomfortable. Although the castle was plain and simple, it was still home.
The screen had allowed them to see what was happening outside, but now that they were actually here, the destruction looked more intense. Blockhead couldn't resist punching a wall until blood flowed down from his fist.
Contrary to that, Green was very calm. These past few days he had been out of the space doing the aggroing, so he was clear on the situation of the castle.
Meirin also saw the filthy state of the castle. "Well, let's gather up anything that the spirit beasts touched and get them out of the castle. I'm afraid that they could be toxic. Once we get everything out, I will use water to rinse out the castle."
Green frowned. "But now the moat water is green and it seems to be toxic. If we use that water to clean the castle, then it might just infect it instead."
Meirin also frowned, then she turned to Zhao. "Master, should we go look at the moat?"
Zhao also wanted to see it. He wanted to check if his spatial water's detoxification ability could be a solution to the moat water's poison.
Green apparently thought of this as well. "Master, do you think you can detoxify the water in the moat?"
"We'll go take a look first. Meg, you will arrange for everyone to throw out everything in the castle. Everyone has drunk the spatial water, so I don't think that they would be poisoned if they touch anything."
Meg agreed, then organized the slaves to clean up.
Accompanied by Green and Meirin, Zhao walked straight towards the moat. The three looked at the moat. It was really like Green said; the moat water indeed released a queer green light. Not only did it scare them, it also made them feel puzzled. Although the water was flowing, the green color didn't dissipate.
Meirin wrinkled her brow as she looked at the moat water. "The water is flowing, but evidently it still contains a lot of toxins. I think that the problem could be from the underground lake."
Zhao nodded. "Grandma Meirin, take out a little water. I want the space to analyze it and test how strong the toxicity of the water is."
Meirin waved her hands, and a bubble of water floated up. Zhao immediately put it in his spatial farm.
The spatial voice sounded in Zhao's head. [Purification of toxic compounds in the contaminated water is possible]
Zhao could now rest assured. "Grandpa Green, Grandma Meirin, let's go to the underground lake. If we want to use the spatial water to remove the water's poison, then we better start at the source."
Meirin and Green were also relieved. To be honest, they were afraid that the spatial water would have trouble removing the poison. Although they believed that flowing water would eventually take out the poison, this would require a very long period of time, which would impact their clan's development.
Just as they were about to head to the mountain, Zhao suddenly stopped, standing motionless while staring at something.
Meirin and Green were both puzzled, so they followed where Zhao's eyes were looking. It was just an area of black soil, nothing unusual in the Black Waste. Green was confused, not knowing why Zhao was staring at it. Meirin also had some difficulty figuring out why he froze, but when she finally understood, her face suddenly went white.
That area of black soil was where Zhao first did his land improvement. Now the color of that piece of land was no different from the rest of the Black Waste.
Meirin's voice quavered. "Master, could it be?"
Zhao nodded, his face pale. If it was really the case in which that land changed back to the original black soil, then his land improvement had failed.
Green didn't understand what was wrong with the two, but looking at their faces, he knew that something bad had happened. He walked behind Zhao as they went towards that piece of land.
Once Zhao stood in front of it, he squatted down and carefully looked over the land, then he dug his hand into the ground and brought up some dirt. He breathed a long sigh of relief.
It turned out that this land didn't completely change back to its originally appearance. Maybe those undead spirit beasts had just brought the black soil over and covered this piece of land so that nothing would grow. His land improvement wasn't a failure.
Meirin also grabbed a handful of soil and carefully looked at it. She still made an ugly face.
Green looked at the two with puzzlement, not knowing why they were closely staring at the black soil. He also crouched down and grabbed some of it with his hand. He soon discovered the improvements in this soil. Startled, he excitedly faced Zhao. "Master, what is this?"
Zhao took a deep breath and explained. "It is because of my space. Using the spatial earth and water, I was able to improve the soil in this piece of land so we could grow things here. But for some reason the spirit beasts brought this black soil from elsewhere and covered up the improved land."
Before Green could say anything, Meirin spoke up. "No, Master, I don't think that this black soil was brought here from elsewhere, but rather the surface of this land has been infected by the spirit beast's toxins, turning it back into black soil. If the spirit beasts really did bring the black soil here, it would definitely not be so uniform. Look around, this entire mu of land changed color."
Zhao took a moment to carefully look over the land and found that what Meirin said was true. The black color was very uniform. This was too unreasonable. The only explanation was that the improved land wasn't covered, it was contaminated.
No one on the Continent knew why the Black Waste had become like this. But when Zhao saw the polluted water, and now looking at this piece of land, he naturally thought that it was polluted by the spirit beasts. Unfortunately, they found the right answer.
Translator Notes: The last few paragraphs were confusing. The land retains signs of improvement, but at the same time it has been contaminated. My question is can anything still be grown on it or not?
Translator Notes #2: This chapter was MTLed by Trung and edited by Kinokey. Please leave a comment if you've spotted anything that looks wrong.