Two days had passed since the representatives left Grimjaw Mountain to return to their own tribes.

Since the prisoners of war had now become important slaves—errr volunteers, Leone decided to make their stay as comfortable as possible.

It was impossible for him to rebuild the barracks with so many eyes watching. So, he settled with the next best thing.

And what was that?

It was none other than a housing project that could accommodate hundreds of people!

He built a several three-story houses near the river, spacious enough to make those who were living in them live comfortable lives.

It had its own kitchen for cooking, and since the river was nearby, they could gather water, and clean themselves as much as they could. They also had proper beds, which were better than their own beds back in their tribes.

There were a little over four hundred prisoners of war staying at Grimjaw Mountain. Of course, Leone planned to put them all to work. But he was very generous with their working shifts.

All of them were only put into two-hour shifts of thirty people, which wasn’t too taxing for them.

At first, these prisoners of war didn’t want to cooperate. Even after Ulric threatened to use torture against them they refused to budge, which surprised him.

However, when Leone took over, these tough men became obedient workers in the span of only an hour.

How did he do it?

It was really simple.

Those who refused to follow orders were all tied up and forced to smell Porkchop’s poop with their faces only inches away from it.

The sheer mental torture was enough to break even the toughest of warriors. In the end, they begged for Ulric to take them to the tunnels to start digging.

Of course, Kael was there to praise Leone for his amazing strategy. Gundar, on the other hand, didn’t know whether to laugh or cry at the young man’s absurd way of making people obey his orders.

With the threat of them being subjected to Porkchop’s poop if they slacked off on their work, the digging project progressed by leaps and bounds.

To make stone collection easier, Daedalus had placed deep pits where they could drop off the stones they had collected using wheelbarrows.

After Leone’s territory was upgraded to Rank 2, the Grimoire also unlocked a few of its special features, like designating collection sites.

With this, people could simply toss any resources they could gather, and it would automatically be stored in Daedalus’ pages. Gathering resources was now many times easier after Daedalus got his upgrade!

And last but not least, Leone also gave rewards to those who would accidentally unearth precious ores or metals as they dug through the mountain.

These volunteers were given much better food, as well as a small share of the resources they discovered during their digging.

Leone didn’t really know the specifics, but according to Daedalus, they were able to get plenty of raw materials like salt, iron, and rocks, as well as a few precious gems.

Truth be told, the young man was fine even if they only got rocks from digging. After all, rocks could be used to build things like their fortress on Grimjaw Mountain.

"Are there any more matters I should know about?" Leone asked his vassals during their regular nightly meeting. 𝕗𝕣𝐞𝐞𝘄𝐞𝚋𝚗𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗹.𝚌𝕠𝚖

"Our prisoners have finally adapted to their new work schedule," Ulric replied. "Some attempted to escape through the forest, but Blitz took care of them before they could get far."

"Well done, Blitz," Leone praised the squirrel, which proudly puffed up its chest in response.

*Squeak!*

"Yes. You did a great job!"

Frankly, there were zero chances for the prisoners to escape.

Even if Blitz wasn’t there, they couldn’t possibly avoid the forest that was still filled with traps.

Of course, Daedalus had removed the wooden spikes under the pitfall traps to ensure no one would die even if they were to fall in it.

"Our warriors are also putting a lot of effort in their training," Otto commented. "It seems that our recent victory has motivated them to train harder. Even the children are starting to get used to wielding the spear."

Leone nodded with satisfaction. The training would help his people raise their stats.

Although it would take him a while to clear his mission of having three hundred elite warriors, he wasn’t in a hurry to do so.

While the majority of the reports were good, there were also a few concerns that needed to be addressed as well.

"The Elders are very worried about the reaction of the Darkmane Tribe," Jason said. "They believe that if they really made a move against us, we would have no chance of winning."

"That’s why we’re building a tunnel to be used as an escape route," Leone replied calmly. "Daedalus’ latest terrain survey was also very helpful. He discovered a valley nestled between the Grimjaw Mountain Range.

"We can use that place to raise crops. With that, we now have one more source of food for our people. It’s also big enough to be used as an evacuation site just in case we need to abandon the fortress."

"I have assigned Castor and Pollux’s group to dig the path toward that valley, so only our people will know about it," Daedalus commented. "Maximus and our volunteers are still focusing on breaking through to the other side of the mountain range.

"I took a quick peek on the other side, and I saw a wide plain home to many monsters. No wonder people refer to it as the Uncharted Lands of the East. No one has done it before, but even if they get to the other side of the mountain range, dealing with the monsters would be an issue."

Leone smiled faintly. Given time, they would be able to break through to that location as well.

Flying over the mountain range was extremely hard because of the powerful gusts of wind that blew over the mountain.

Even Daedalus had to force itself to fly above the clouds in order to skip this obstacle.

"Still, having many options is a good thing." Kael smiled faintly. "This will also put everyone’s heart at ease, especially when we could finally head to the valley and cultivate the land to suit our needs."

Ulric, Jason, and Otto nodded in agreement.

The low-ranking tribes had tried cultivating their lands for crops, but their attempts hadn’t been that fruitful.

It was not due to lack of effort. The environment simply made it nearly impossible. Not to mention the threat that came once or twice every five years.

What was this threat?

It was none other than a Monster Stampede.

The Borderlands was famous for four things.

Monsters.

Barbarians.

The resting place of exiled nobles.

And Monster Stampedes.

The Monster Stampedes were so dangerous that even the southern-most border city of the Kingdom of Britannia, Ironvale City, had been destroyed a couple of times in the past.

This was one of the major factors that deterred the Kingdom from expanding into the Borderlands.

The Barbarians were already hard to deal with. But if you add Monster Stampedes to the list of problems, the King of Britannia concluded that the conquest of the Borderlands wasn’t really all that worth it.