The Valley of the Anvil, once a place of tense anticipation, was now a vast, open-air processing center for the spoils of an entire kingdom's military ambition. The scale of our victory was difficult to comprehend. We had not just defeated an army; we had consumed it. The valley floor was a sea of captured arms, armor, and supplies, and in its center was a huddled, terrified mass of nearly four thousand prisoners of war.
The grim task of accounting for our own losses came first. We had lost thirty-two warriors from across the Confederacy—a price that felt both immense and miraculously small. Each was given the rites of their people before being honored with a place on Oakhaven's growing monument. Their sacrifice had purchased our future.
Dealing with the prisoners was the most immediate challenge. My 'Lord's Mercy' doctrine, applied to a dozen raiders, was one thing. Applying it to four thousand soldiers of a hostile kingdom was a logistical and social problem of an entirely different magnitude.
"We cannot feed this many mouths," Kael argued in our first battlefield council, his voice strained. "We must take their armor and weapons and send them back into the desert. Let their King deal with them."
"And let them be re-armed and sent against us again in a year?" Borin countered, ever the pragmatist. "No. We cannot let this army reform. But we cannot guard four thousand prisoners either."
This was the nexus of the problem. My gaze swept over the huddled mass of defeated men. They were not the proud legionaries of a few days ago. They were beaten, demoralized, and, most importantly, they were skilled. Among them were blacksmiths, carpenters, stonemasons, leatherworkers, and engineers—the very skills a budding nation desperately needed. They were not a liability; they were the single greatest resource we had ever acquired.
"We will not release them," I declared, my decision firm. "And we will not simply imprison them. We will put them to work. Oakhaven is about to experience a population explosion. We will build a new city for a new people."
I laid out the framework. The prisoners would be marched to Oakhaven under guard. They would be housed in a massive, temporary encampment outside the city walls. They would be the labor force for the great expansion to come. They would build their own barracks, their own cookhouses. They would dig new irrigation canals and quarry the stone for new walls. And, as before, any man who worked hard and swore a true oath to the Confederacy would have a path to citizenship. We were not just taking prisoners; we were undertaking the largest recruitment drive in this world's history.
As I formulated this audacious plan, the system, which had been processing the data from our monumental victory, finally delivered its verdict.
[PRIMARY QUEST SUB-QUEST 1: 'SURVIVE THE ROYAL RETALIATION' - COMPLETE.][ANALYSIS: Overwhelming strategic and military victory. Enemy invasion force annihilated. Enemy logistical capabilities crippled. The Kingdom of Aerthos is no longer an immediate military threat.][REWARD: +40 SYSTEM POINTS. Technology branch 'Nationhood' unlocked.][NEW TECHNOLOGY PACKET AVAILABLE: CIVIC GOVERNANCE & ADMINISTRATION.][Cost: 20 System Points.][Description: Provides advanced knowledge of bureaucratic structures, legal systems, public works management, census-taking, tax codification, and the administration of a multi-settlement state. Unlocks 'Administrator' and 'Magistrate' unit designations.]
Forty System Points. An ocean of potential. The reward was so vast it was almost disorienting. And the new technology packet was the exact tool I needed to manage the chaotic, explosive growth I was about to unleash. Without hesitation, I purchased it.
The knowledge that flooded my mind was the most complex yet. It was the science of society itself, the intricate, interlocking gears of how a large population organizes, functions, and thrives. I saw flowcharts of bureaucracy, diagrams of supply chains, the architecture of a legal system with appellate courts and civil law. The piecemeal decrees I had been making were about to be replaced by a true, integrated system of governance.
The march back to Oakhaven was a spectacle of surreal power. At the head of the column was our victorious army, clad in the finest armor of the kingdom. Behind them marched four thousand unarmed prisoners, a river of defeated men. And bringing up the rear was a train of hundreds of wagons, laden with enough food, iron, and equipment to fund a nation.
When our people saw the scale of it, they did not just cheer. They fell to their knees in silent, reverent awe. They had trusted me when I promised them water. They had followed me when I promised them victory. Now, I had brought them the vanquished army of a kingdom and the wealth of an empire. In their eyes, I was no longer just a lord or a leader. I was the Prophet of the Wastes, the Architect of the Impossible. And the city they had built was no longer just their home. It was the capital of the world.