Chapter 2104: Recruiting
Chapter 2104: Recruiting
Even as the news of the sudden death of that particular Nalg Kingdom's officer became public, it surprisingly did not rife up any big sentiments from the Nalg prisoners. Besides, by the time the news had spread, Jin and the Star Fox Interrogators had finished almost everyone that they needed to interview.
So when the announcement came out officially, most people had been considered innocent. Not to mention, there was no way for other Celestial collaborators to escape, especially when Jin had conducted this within the Bamboo Fortress 'dungeon' and in Ress' isolated barrier as well. There was no way they could run unless they had the ability to summon a portal to the Celestial plane.
(which by itself is still a probability but it was way too low that it could happen.) In fact, most of them were not too surprised at all considering there had already been rumours floating around that this particular officer might have been doing deals with the Mong Empire.
It was just that nobody interfered since the officer had been rather generous in his compensation in keeping people's lips shut. And considering how everyone had come out of the room just fine except for him, they knew that Ress was looking for perpetrators or collaborators to the Celestials.
All that had gone in for the interview had been given an opportunity to expose people at a price despite being subjected to a brainwashing spell. Of course, they all swore an oath to only report this to the Ress counterparts.
Food and compensation were given upfront for the eventual information and the soldiers knew that they would take whatever it was available to them. Besides, they were not betraying their country of any sort since what Ress wanted was the annihilation of the Celestials.
Everyone on the battlefield had first hand seen how indiscriminate the Celestials had been and they did not care whether the humans were friends or foes. They killed everyone that was within their sights. This and the subtle oppression of the Mong Empire had given them the reasons needed to help Ress.
In fact, Jin had also given them the opportunity to live in Ress along with their families. Many who heard the stories and deeds that Ress had been doing for their citizens suddenly became a route out of their miserable lives.
However, Jin did warn them that the road that they would undertake was equally hard as well. It was no secret that most of the citizens were working harder than the rest. A different breed of citizens had been brought up because of Jin's reign.
Most who had decided to switch sides were not hesitant at all in the switch of allegiance as the compensation was doubled if they moved. In fact, many were happy that Ress was able to offer such a terrific deal for them to take after seeing the devastation the Rifle Mages could incur.
If they could easily turn the tide in a matter of minutes, and there was the minimum standard in terms of firepower from all of the Ress soldiers, the other kingdoms would not stand a chance at all.
However, the 'recruitment' officers had warned them repeatedly that they had to suffer quite a fair bit, even more than the recruits they were taking in because of the mindset that they had from the previous trainers. Still, most took the opportunity and verbally promised not to give any excuses.
This way, Jin managed to secure more manpower for his army while the Star Foxes worked their way to keep the promises that Jin had kept. With the help of artificers and mages, Jin was able to enchant one time scrolls with a timer to forcibly close the dungeon portals.
It was a tool to quickly bring the family members of those soldiers he had coerced with money to come in. This way, the family members would value add to the society as well as enable more manpower to be provided to the existing work.
As sad as it sounds, the children of Ress who were so used to living their life meaninglessly had been given tasks to ensure that their ...untapped work capacity was not wasted.
From counting bullets to other various manual work, Jin had made sure that the kids that had been brought back from the other kingdoms were being used to do such tasks as well. There was nothing the families who were taken into Ress were able to resist. (After all, to put it bluntly, they had been kidnapped by the Star Foxes into this place.
Their parents did explain to them eventually and they had to accept such a new reality.)
It was only in the eventual future that they realised their hard work paid off more than how they had lived in the previous kingdom. And many would not dare to return to such a lifestyle again.
This brought even more confidence to Jin that should he be able to conquer the other kingdoms and bring them to his knees, the conversion rate (with the help of some magic) would be sufficient to bring Ress the needed manpower for the fight against the Demons and Celestials.
Of course, that would be a major undertaking to do and it would be too resource intensive to do so. Hence, Jin had put that as the lowest priority while continuously improving the city's defences, offensive capabilities, and quality of life they were in.
This was especially so while waiting for the Star Foxes to conduct proper investigations into the Mong Empire while also learning how the other kingdoms were reeling in from their complete defeat (and defect) of soldiers.
However, Jin did not forget one thing. If the Celestials had been seen this early into the stages of the prophesied future, he could have been fighting against them earlier than expected. As much as the demons were their threat right now, there might be a chance that Jin was able to utilise the demons as part of his resources. (Not as if he was not using their dead bodies already as his materials)
But things got to speed up and thankfully from all the battles, the System that he possessed was 'generous' enough in its rewards for him to work faster and at a bigger scale.