'Oh boy...Yansa must be the type of person you pursue over anything else. Hopefully, I am wrong.'
[Adrian, don't judge people too early. Let him do the job first. If it isn't satisfactory to you, then replace him]
Aries's voice resonated in his head after so long, reprimanding him as always.
'You're right. That's rude of me.' He agreed with her thoughts. Anyway, here's a list of council leadership:
Chief: Adrian Brine.
Vice-chief: Tombas.
- Department of Food Management: Sani.
- Department of Education: Anna.
- Department of Material Resources: Len.
- Department of Military: Yansa.
His attention returned to the meeting.
Adrian didn't arrange this meeting for a simple meet and greet. His initial purpose is to discuss the future of the dunirrs and share his visions.
"Alright!" Adrian clapped his hand to gather everyone's attention. "Since I already learned about you, let us begin our meeting today. As you already know, we manage to tame some goshawks and use them as transportation like humans do with horses. I did a short adventure to the surrounding area the other day. And I want to share the results."
Adrian then proceeds by telling the members his findings when he scouted the area. Surely, they were surprised. Then, he asked for their opinion, "So, what do you guys think about it? Should we make contact with them?"
"Sounds dangerous to me since we don't even know about their motive." Tombas expressed his opinion.
He totally rejected it as it'll invite unwanted attention. Later, they may betray Adrianopolis to save their own skin.
"Did they have any special or unique natural resources around them, Chief?" Len asked. If so, it may be worth it to trade with them and gain resources unavailable to them.
"No," Adrian denied it, "Everything seems like a normal crude village like you used to have."
"Then, it is not worth establishing contact. We should avoid revealing ourselves for now. And their number exceeds us." Yansa shook his head.
"Yeah~ Let's not take a risk and go for the smaller one," said Anna. "The chief said they only had 2,900 dunirrs and had a farm as well. We can obtain more seeds and force them to live near us instead. What'd you say, Yansa?"
Yansa massaged his chin, "Hm...How far are they from us, Chief?"
Adrian took out the very precise map that he drew in his spare time and put it on the round table.
"This is us..." He pointed to the city location with his finger, "...and this is them. The distance is..."
[16.1 kilometres]
"...around 16 kilometres. We can reach there in a second by flying."
"That's easy then. I'm sure they're willing too. Surviving with such a pitiful number only increases the chance of their total annihilation. But, do we even have enough birds to transport them?"
"That's what I want to talk about, Yansa."
Yansa straightened his back, "I'm all ears, Chief."
"We only have five at present. We require more goshawks and form our own air force. Due to our size, travelling by foot to a distant place is very dangerous. So, we need to search for more birds and tame them. Under normal circumstances, dunirrs won't travel far from their settlement. However, Tombas mentions to me that you guys were almost in a near-destruction situation."
"Yes, Chief. That was a close one. Thankfully, we dodged it." Yansa solemnly said.
"We couldn't afford to be put into such a predicament again, Yansa. We need to constantly look out for danger. I want you to cooperate with Haja and find them. The military will increase the total number to 20 goshawks. Once they're fully trained and equipped, we will visit that small village."
"Leave it to me, Chief," Yansa replied enthusiastically. Without a doubt, he too wants to experience flying.
Adrian shifts the topic from the military to food.
"Sani, I wish to turn our hunter-gatherer society into an agricultural society. To do so, we need to grow our own food. I've done it by planting rice near the river. My plan is to use rice as our staple food. But, I am sure that the quantity produced won't be enough. So, we need to expand and open new farmland. Any idea suggestions on how we can accomplish that?"
All eyes unconsciously glance at Sani, Head Department of Food Management. He himself is aware of this. So, he submerged himself in his own thoughts.
"I think we have no problem clearing out some land. There is a lot of flat land around us. Aside from large trees, we can easily uproot vegetation with earth magic. The problem is animals, seeds and water." Sani lists out a few problems regarding the plan.
Adrian chuckle, "That's not a problem. We can build an irrigation system and divert the water from the river to an inland area then flow it back into the river. Depending on where we plan to open the land, I'd say we have the capability to make it a reality. As for animals, didn't we plan to domesticate the birds? The military can set up patrol routes every day. Regarding seeds...Well, we have that one village to visit."
"Amazing! Did you think of all this beforehand?" Sani's mouth is full of praise.
Adrian scoffed, "Well, yeah. Who isn't prepared for a meeting? Anyway, just ask me if you have any questions later on. I'll be involved in this project as well."
Tombas already has briefed them about each of the department's basic duties so he doesn't have to waste his time touching that topic.
The next in turn is Material Resources, "Len, since I arrived here, I see most weapons are made from stones or bones. Did you never find iron?"
"Unfortunately, not. We don't have access to iron ore. Iron ore is precious to dunirrs. The iron weapons we have are all made from scraps we retrieved from the equipment human left behind."
"Urgh, that's hard to accept. Our weapon would be more deadly with iron though. From now, prioritize using iron ore for hunting weapons except arrowheads. I don't know when the situation would stay like this."
"Understood, Chief."
"I can dedicate a small portion of the air force to search for iron-made human equipment once they're established." Yansa chimes in.
"Nice idea, Yansa. I guess that solves the problem temporarily for material resources. Lastly, education. Sigh...We'll have a long discussion about this topic."
"Fufufu~ I don't mind, Chief. Let's spend all day long talking with each other. I'm curious about your otherworldly knowledge." Anna looks at him akin to a predator targeting its prey.
Adrian sweats profusely thinking about the time they'll work together for a long time.
[This old hag...]
Aries couldn't help but felt a little threatened.
Tombas apologize, "I'm sorry, chief. When it comes to knowledge, she becomes like this. It's at a level of obsession. Regrettably, there's no cure for her disease."
"What did you just say..." Anna menacingly glares at Tombas.
Seeing she was about to beat her brother once again, Adrian wanted to ask Yansa to intervene. To his despair, Yansa voluntarily offered himself to be a referee.
'I hope this first meeting ends well.'