Surviving The Fourth Calamity

Hill’s wariness of Baal’s treasure puzzled many.

But the slightly clever ones knew that no matter how wealthy one might be, they’d never abandon a substantial gain at hand if there wasn’t danger involved.

Now, each individual had to choose between rationality and greed.

Hill discovered several merchants who promptly unloaded their goods at Hill’s general store and took up residence at the inn, even sending for their families in Deepwater City.

In Toril, merchants held high status, but they could only live among their peers, not with nobles or High-level Professionals, and certainly not simply by virtue of their wealth.

While accustomed to pulling strings, merchants often found themselves decimated when calamity struck.

Especially in disasters related to wealth, they were in the hardest-hit areas.

But most merchants couldn’t make such decisive calls; abandoning their route and finding it again was too difficult.

Starting from scratch was never as easy as it sounded.

Bowing and scraping, living in desperation, or acting despicably were steps most merchants had to take, and many would rather not walk that path again.

Hill stood on the terrace, observing the various slices of life, simply told the few Dragon People waiting for the Silvermoon Dragon Queen to better return and close the border; if they needed to shop during this period, they should only come to Hill’s place or deal with other continents.

These Dragon People, who had followed the Golden and Silver Dragons for many years, were no fools. They too could control the pursuit of wealth in their blood and quickly understood why Hill had placed the Dragon Queen’s family in the maze.

The Dragon People swiftly decided to close the border of The North, refusing all external visitors.

After a few chaotic days, Agleya Town slowly got back on track, and the residents who chose to stay didn’t dare touch any gold and silver jewelry as per Hill’s will, even if they had to watch passers-by pick up huge gemstones by the shoreline.

Even Tyr’s followers did the same, though reluctantly, they were not willing to leave the Silver Shield Knights, and most retained their sensibility, not wanting to embarrass Tyr in front of another deity due to greed.

However, some of the newly settled residents could not resist their desire for gold and silver jewelry.

With these treasures, they could procure a substantial property in the safe alleys of Deepwater City.

They trusted Neverwinter, the ’City of Radiance,’ which they claimed would never fall, although they could only afford to live in the slum areas, which were now unsafe.

They completely ignored the merchants staying in Hill’s Inn, not realizing that the accommodations these merchants had were far superior to what they could afford.

But as is typical, people always find excuses for their greed.

Hill understood and had no intention of keeping anyone against their will.

In the end, he simply added these people to a blacklist, forbidding them from lodging again and spread the word that his town would no longer accept settlement requests from outsiders.

The residential area of Agleya Town would not be expanding any further.

Lynn had already arrived, and there was no need for Hill to invite more problems.

Once everything had settled, Hill made his appearance once again.

In the northwest corner of the town, behind the Harpist’s residence, on the beach, he constructed a harbor capable of accommodating twenty large ships.

Of course, during the foundational construction, Hill himself did not lift a finger but instead hired Gulanba, who was still masquerading as the Earth element lord, the God of Earth Elementals.

Hill had long discovered that whenever the Giants ran atop the Maze Formation, these huge Earth Elementals shook below.

Hill’s Maze Formation was not just on the surface; there was also a thirty-meter-deep layer underground, initially designed to prevent any captives from digging tunnels but inadvertently turned into a playground for the Earth Elementals.

Gulanba, aware of his blown cover, worked diligently, constructing a spacious and sturdy harbor with the help of his subordinates.

The best harbors in The North could not match its firmness, for it was practically growing directly from the ley lines, a natural harbor.

Then they returned to continue playing in the maze.

The rest was easy, such modifications didn’t require much effort from Hill.

He first applied a special metal coating over the rough stone docks to prevent slipping, decay, and most importantly, frost, for the winds and snows of The North could destroy any solid stone without proper precaution.

Hill couldn’t replace the entire harbor with Obsidian, he was mindful of that.

Finally, Hill used some modified Endless Vines as a buffer zone, enabling ships of any size to dock without any damage.

Endless Vines were a type of bright green, leafless plants, made up of countless intertwined stems and blue flowers with a diameter of 1.3 centimeters. These flowers were responsible for the vine’s nutrient intake, absorbing moisture and air from the atmosphere and utilizing photosynthesis to create nutrients at an exceedingly rapid rate.

Under the right conditions, this plant could grow at a rate of 0.28 cubic meters per minute, then cover all surfaces, forming a 3-meter thick mass of plant material.

These vines could only grow above the water’s surface at the harbor; once submerged, they stopped growing and did not harm the sea life below.

Originally, they could not survive in the atmosphere, but Hill circumvented this limitation with Puzzle Lock.

However, the well-informed harpists seemed to have been greatly frightened by those Endless Vines. At the first sign of their rapid growth, they were all in an uproar.

Indeed, these vines, which grew by absorbing magic power and sunlight, could easily destroy a magic ship, but Hill didn’t find them terrifying.

They were only growing on their own and had no intent to harm anyone actively; they were simply a maintenance-free buffer zone for the harbor.

The Endless Vines were immune to toxins and unaffected by negative energy, only sensitive to fire, acid, and electricity, and low temperatures might slow their growth.

However, any spell that halted or destroyed these plants only worked on the impacted areas; the undamaged parts would continue to grow normally.

What’s most important, even if you set them on fire, they wouldn’t die completely; a little water and they could grow back.

What excellent buffer material!

Moreover, they were absolutely harmless to living beings, and their leaves and flowers were even edible.

It’s just that ordinary people couldn’t control their growth rate. There’s nothing to worry about; Hill was a Nature Mage.

He could guarantee that these vines would never invade any magic ship.

The harpists were being a bit overly concerned. Don’t they also have elf members? Don’t they understand the control ability of nature system magicians or mages over plants?

Furthermore, for these vines, living in Hill’s territory was way more comfortable than on some decrepit ship. They even had to worry about someone wanting to steal them!

Hill’s puzzlement was met with relentless ridicule from Lynn.

If ordinary Nature Mages could really do what Hill did, they would have become the most powerful beings in the Toril World long ago.

If the Endless Vines were that easy to control, there wouldn’t have been so many fallen magic ships.

The head of the harpists’ subdivision visited Hill almost the next day. He needed to ensure that these vines wouldn’t appear elsewhere.

The only way for magic ships to rid themselves of these vines was to land on a planet with an atmosphere and let them wither in the air.

If Hill’s situation spread, captains of magic ships would all have to come to Agleya to commit suicide in front of Hill.

Hill had not anticipated his sudden inspiration would scare so many people.

He could only repeatedly assure them that the Endless Vines could survive in the air because of Hill’s Water Maze Lock; outside the range of the lock, they would automatically wither away.

Even now, two months later, Hill still felt a chill recalling the situation. If Neverwinter and Deepwater hadn’t been struck by the plague, he didn’t know how many people would have troubled him over these Endless Vines.

Autumn had arrived in The North, and as the leaves fell in a multicolored spectacle, the family of three hunkering down in the maze finally found the exit.

In truth, they had discovered several ways to leave the maze long ago, but the allure of mithril blinded the three dragons’ eyes. They turned a blind eye to the walls that could be opened and chose to detour the next time they passed by.

Moreover, there were other golden, silver, and bronze dragons in the maze.

Hill felt that Bahamut must have exerted great effort to control the urge to rush over and thrash him.

The dragons he dispatched to fetch the dragon eggs refused to leave once they arrived.

Fortunately, the eggs that were most likely to hatch soon wouldn’t do so for another five months.

The Nine-Faced Dragon God Eo might have been a bit too whimsical when creating these dragon eggs. It’s all up to these eggs’ luck; some of the unfortunate ones would have to stay inside their own shells for years.

Apart from the metal dragons that came in the first month who went straight into the maze without looking back, what came after were the Dragonborn created by Bahamut.

These tall and handsome warriors, although polite, still revealed a hint of Bahamut’s complaints.

These were forces he’d withdrawn from front-line positions against the Chromatic Dragon Queen. Only the particularly strong winged Dragonborn could fly; the lower-ranking ones could only glide and couldn’t transport dragon eggs.

Nevertheless, a Holy Knight Dragonborn specifically inquired about the construction method of the Maze Formation. Bahamut hoped to use a similar method to trap them in his Northern Wind Country before these little dragons grew up.

This was indeed very effective for the dragons, regardless of size.

Hill readily gave away the Array. These were never things that needed to be kept secret.

The strength of his Maze Formation lay in its elemental components: the trees.

And even if Bahamut learned how, what he would use to build the Maze Formation wouldn’t be trees but instead things native to the dragons themselves.

As Dead of Winter approached, Hill no longer added treasures to the maze, and the metal dragons left cheerfully.

Although there would be no more thunder in The North, other places would still experience storms.

Before the year ended, they still had places to go.