A day later, the couple arrived in Fargo. Or rather, to Limestone Valley.
They traveled with just the two of them this time, though they did task a couple of soldiers to go to the valley on a later date after the missions in other territories. They were set to switch with the pitiful Team B.
They used a fairly good pace so that their health wouldn't be affected to get there. However, Garan felt bad that Althea traveled with him through the forest when she could just teleport via the warehouse.
"No, I like it," she said with a smile, and she was not just comforting him. She pointed at a plant with oddly-shaped pinkish flowers.
"I haven't seen this one before," she told him. "It's been a long time since I encountered a new species."
She immediately went to the new plants to study them closer, putting on her handy gloves for safety (which made Garan nod in approval, feeling proud of her).
Anyway, although Limestone Valley wasn't extremely far way from Altera, the soil composition was different enough that she would have one or two new flaura to study.
She looked at the low-growing plant with clusters of pink and purple flowers. It formed dense mats of elliptical leaves. It was quite aromatic too.
She used her assessment skills to take a look. [Thymus (Lv2). Adds flavor.]
Xeno was not entirely running on tasteless food, they still do use aromatics. They just used it in a minimal capacity, which was such a pity. There would also be people who would experiment more and use more—particularly in towns and cities—but they would definitely not popularize the recipe and keep the knowledge for themselves.
Anyway, noting that it was safe to handle, she took out a few of her hundreds of pots in her large space, uprooted a few plants, and planted it to take back to the space for transport.
She also took out Tori as she took a few samples, studying its composition a bit more. All this while, Garan stood patiently by, prepared to deal with whatever threats came their way.
"It seems like there are limestones nearby even in this side," she said after a while, "Plants near Limestone deposits are alkaline and have high calcium content. This plant fits the bill."
She then wrote in her notebook that Thymus could also be used for digestive problems. They're not common afflictions with their improved physiques, but the components that could relieve stomach tension could be useful for others.
They then moved on about a few hundred meters West until Althea stopped again, head turning to a dense foliage with yellow pea-like flowers. She went closer and determined it was a legume of sorts.
[Trefoil (Lv1). Broats love this] Althea nodded and also took live samples back in her space. She studied it with Tori to determine that it had high protein content and palatability to grazing animals.
Then, finally, when they were within sights of the Limestone Valley walls, she found an evergreen shrub around half a meter tall, its leaves covered with fine hair. [Helian (Lv1). No known uses.]
The Helian was characterized colorful flowers with high drought tolerance. It also had an extensive root system, which was great for soil stabilization. It also had soft leaves that seemed nice to lay on…
This would be a great add on to her mountain areas to keep the soil stable and make wonderful picnic spots.
When Althea finally seemed satisfied with her finds, the couple headed to the walled areas. They were leisurely holding hands, walking towards the level 2 outer walls in order to observe it more from the outside.
She recalled the summary reports of the wars and all groups had no problem getting past the level 2 walls. This wasn't a surprise, but she only got a few thousand gold from Fargo. She wasn't willing to spend too much of Altera's funds on it.
However, considering level 2 walls couldn't even have sentries, she knew she wouldn't have much of a choice but to use her own funds.
"So… poor," she mumbled, looking at it with a pout.
Garan chuckled, patting her head. "I assume this is already well off," he said, thinking of the other Villages they encountered. "Not many people can be as smart as my wife."
This made Althea feel a bit better and she smiled. With a slightly better mood, the couple continued to survey the area with a critical eye.
If she upgraded this to level 3 fence, it would cost her around 4000 units each of wood and stone, as well as over 600 gold. Adding sentries outside would also cost a bit.
In Altera, when it expanded more, she would probably use the optimal distances because over-designing would be too expensive, even for her.
The cost of adding sentries to the outer walls alone was 2520 wood, 1260 units of stone, and another 630 units of gold.
As for the inner walls, there were existing sentries, albeit they were placed approximately 300 to 400 meters apart. Although this was the standard distance in the villages, it was easy for them to find loopholes.
Further, because of the scopes Altera had, they easily determined where the guards were, so they took them down with long-ranged weapons. Combined with the various distractions around the territory that they set, those sections became vulnerable very easily.
It was great when it was still Fargo who suffered due to this, but that can't happen now that it was her Limestone Valley at risk.
In the end, she decided she would just add another sentry in between. In fact, the optimal distance for sentries was 200 meters since the sentries could reach 100 meters each, she just felt safer adding them every 100 meters to feel more reassured.
This got her to spend a bit more money. She would also spend a lot building here, so the money she won from the war was very little compared to what she was planning on using it for.
The gold loot she counted was only the ones she got from Fargo himself, as she had to keep the ones she got from the slaves. This meant she only got—converting all the silver and copper—a little over 1000 gold.
Fargo should be ashamed to call himself a terrorist lord.