Don't Mess with That Dragon-Chapter 481 - 35 Annexation of Three Cities

Since the battle on the Gourd Hip Plain, Neutral City has domineeringly announced its existence and status with an incredibly strong military achievement.

People were shocked by this war, and even more in awe of that Neutral City, fearing the great power it possessed.

After that war, the army of Neutral City marched eastward, capturing the three cities closest to Neutral City, gaining control over vast tracts of land.

Although the scale of these three cities was about the size of a small town from Austin’s past life, resting points pieced together with houses, their combined size was not even as large as the area of Neutral City.

But although their management and construction couldn’t compare to Neutral City, they had no shortage of population and territory.

The facilities were simple, the houses within the city dilapidated, but the city defense system was not lacking, and as a gathering point for resource supply to survive in the wilderness, it naturally attracted a considerable population.

Relying on the town, there were also numerous villages where wandering refugees gathered together for protection on the surrounding land.

Due to the relationship between the population and the vast territory, digesting the three cities was not a simple and easy task; various political management systems inside, various commercial trades, monsters entrenched on the outskirts of the territory all needed to be organized before they could be absorbed.

Therefore, after sweeping through the three nearby cities, the military force of Neutral City stopped and did not take the opportunity to sweep through the remaining ten cities.

This has always been the tradition of the Dragon Nest Tribe’s expansion, advancing steadily, absorbing a place before moving on to expand.

Neutral City just annexed three neighboring cities and then halted its expansion,

which made the city lords and nobles of the other cities shudder with fear while feeling grateful in their hearts.

As the saying goes, it’s better for someone else to die than oneself; it’s not them being overrun after all. They had originally thought the other party would seize this opportunity to expand wildly and take down their cities as well, but unexpectedly they stopped here, allowing them to escape disaster.

Even the fifty thousand troops assembled by the Thirteen Cities, all perished in one battle.

Every city lord suffered heavy losses, not to mention that the elite private soldiers they had dispatched were completely wiped out, even the forcibly conscripted farmers from within the city did not return.

With their power greatly diminished, they didn’t think they could withstand the military force of Neutral City under such circumstances.

Therefore, after Neutral City swept through the nearby three cities and then paused, those city lord nobles were grateful and sent envoys to Neutral City to apologize and make connections.

At the same time, the reputation of Neutral City once again soared.

Powerful military force in this Barbaric Zone is a necessary condition for standing firm.

As such, more people flocked to Neutral City, voluntarily becoming residents of Neutral City, accepting military training and transformation by the Beastmen, to be allocated around the city for farming development.

The more the influx of people, the more prosperous the control range of Neutral City became.

And since it was situated on the outskirts of the deep Kawa Great Forest, with a wealth of Magic Mineral Resources rarely developed in the forest, much richer than those outer Border Great Wall lands that had been developed by countless others, it attracted a large number of adventurers and mercenaries.

At the same time, various medical drugs, sharp and hard weapons and armor produced by Neutral City made traveling merchants who came here to sell goods make massive profits.

Hence, the population attracted by Neutral City continued to grow.

Due to the neutral nature of Neutral City, many wandering Beastmen who couldn’t survive in the wild also turned to Neutral City.

In a short period of time, Neutral City rapidly developed at a tremendous speed.

...

Austin, who was in the center of the Dragon Nest Tribe, paid little attention to the development of the distant border’s Neutral City.

After developing the Secret Technique that instills knowledge into dreams, Austin hadn’t dealt with those miscellaneous affairs for a long time, instilling modern management knowledge systems into his subordinates’ minds; after some time to digest it, his subordinates would naturally handle those complex matters well.

The Dragon Nest Tribe was expanding rapidly, its strength swelling quickly in a few short years.

But Austin, as the leader of the Dragon Nest Tribe, had long since shrugged off all burdens of internal affairs of the tribe.

The one who initiated the establishment of the Neutral City on the outskirts of the Kawa Great Forest a dozen years ago was Gory, the vice-captain of a mercenary corps that came to slay dragons.

Over the past ten years, Gory had long been filled with loyalty to Austin.

With him as the main person in charge, leading the Dragon Nest Beastmen to establish frontier outposts, interacting with human forces, occupying a high position, was also a different kind of reward for his many years of hard work and dedication.

Gory, being born a commoner, harbored an immense desire for status and power.

During the battle on the Gourd Valley Plain, where fifty thousand troops were wiped out, the noble generals who participated in warfare for glory either perished under the bombardment on the battlefield or were directly captured.

In his youth, Gory was nothing but a mere commoner, who could be easily killed before noblemen.

The old soldier who taught him in the army had his credit stolen just because he didn’t have noble blood, and then became a wandering mercenary, often ridiculed by those so-called nobles with esteemed bloodlines.

When Torres and this group of generals born with noble blood were captured and presented before Gory, no one knew what was going on in Gory’s mind.

He merely gave a cold glance, paying no attention to the astonishment in Torres and others’ eyes towards the man behind Neutral City, and directly threw them into prison.

But that night, the usually disciplined Gory uncharacteristically drank a few more glasses of strong liquor.

Then, he devoted himself wholeheartedly to the development of Neutral City.

Repression, sweeping, division, development, integration, assimilation... Under a series of methods, the three cities were easily crushed and absorbed by Neutral City in a short time, beginning to gradually be integrated into the system of the Dragon Nest Tribe, rapidly developing.

Traveling merchants, adventurers, mercenaries, and numerous desperate refugees.

Neutral City became increasingly prosperous, ranking among the top even when looking at the entire outskirts of the Kawa Great Forest.

Moreover, unlike those cities along the Border Great Wall enjoying southbound refugee and population expansion benefits by heavily oppressing the lower tier, Neutral City’s rise truly relied on its own technology.

The development of Neutral City was in full swing,

Austin wasn’t much interested in the psychological journey of its steward, Gory, only occasionally learning in passing conversations that a war broke out at the frontier Pioneer City far on the border, and then they won.

With the scale and power of the Dragon Nest Tribe today, they could sweep through the entire Kawa Great Forest without regard for cost.

A war that occurred in the frontier Pioneer City on the outskirts of the Kawa Great Forest couldn’t attract his attention at all.

The sundry matters in the process of expansion were basically left to his Beastman Race subordinates; these mass-produced "pseudo-transmigrators" equipped with modern knowledge, even more professional in management development knowledge than true transmigrators, didn’t need Austin to personally deal with various issues.

At this moment, several guests who had crossed the towering ice mountain plateau in the northeast were preparing to visit Austin, the real ruler behind the scenes of the Dragon Nest Tribe.