Antikythera stepped out of Nazarick at the start of dawn. The review for the events which had transpired across Nazarick in the st 48 hours had been extensive, reaching as far as the cleaning schedules of the homunculus maids within the 12th Floor. Naturally, Asuka's work was also part of the review. She had submitted several reports since she started, and Albedo had read all of them.

  As the guardian of the floor to which Asuka belonged, it was up to Antikythera to confirm the progress reported by her. She had stated that the breeding of the amphibians had gone well and that some of the second-generation tadpoles had begun to hatch. These ones were more magically inclined, according to her.

  Like Albedo said, the adults—or the first generation, to be more precise—had been relocated out of the breeding pool and tossed into a processing pnt to be turned into fertilizer for the pnts to encourage further growth. With slightly magical fertilizer, they should begin to mutate, and unlike animals, pnts actually adapt to environmental changes themselves—no need for offspring.

  And better yet, a pnt can be cloned by pnting its branch, so all it takes to introduce magical pnts in an area is to get one magical pnt of various species and then start pruning their branches to pnt them elsewhere. No matter how small, as long as the pnt has magical properties, it gets cloned.

  Agricultural methods had been used by Asuka to encourage the growth of magical flora around the swamp, and they had shown results, however little. Antikythera could feel the magic in the air even without subjecting it to an ecological scan. It was faint still but better than where they had started.

  More reports about Asuka's methodology came from Albedo, and the succubus had stated that Asuka had started breeding a species of earthworm which she fed nothing but the organs of the first-generation secondary consumer breeding candidates. Those had a sliver of accumuted magic so far, but Asuka saw a future where they grew into fully magical decomposers that turned litter into mana-filled fertilizer in a natural manner.

  Antikythera found the group of earthworms and confirmed it. He wrote it down and moved on to the next progress Asuka reported to have made. Just like this, he slowly went around the swamp, confirming everything that had been reported to Albedo.

  The sun was up when he finished, but the good news was that Asuka hadn't lied once to the guardian overseer.

  He gave the written confirmation to Sakai, who would deliver it to the overseer in his stead. Antikythera knew that his job didn't stop here, however, and he was well aware that two more days from now, he would have to do the same thing.

  Antikythera needed results when that time came, and so he quickly headed back to Ninya's vilge to get back to his experiment on figuring out the limits of the girl's talent. So far, Ninya had shown that she could "copy" a spell, but Antikythera had confirmed it to be the side effect of her natural affinity for weaving mana.

  His spell [Replicate] came from the Sorcerer css, and Ninya had a high likelihood of being that exact same archetype. She didn't have the [Replicate] spell just yet, but she had the potential to nurture it into her arsenal.

  The vilge was still asleep at this time, and Ninya was most likely in the same state. Antikythera did not wish to disturb her for fear of corrupting the data he could gather down the line. In pce of his experiment, Antikythera found himself observing the vilgers.

  Upon recording their behavioral patterns, he decided that organics had a strange schedule. Humans especially did not use their bodies to their fullest before resting. Instead, they worked for a small amount of time, and when they felt the smallest bits of exhaustion, they began to slow down, and eventually, they stopped entirely. This hindered their efficiency by a lot, and despite living in a world of magic, the humans never sought to fix this problem.

  Why couldn't they have workers who constantly worked and were then healed at the end of their routine? Wasn't it more efficient that way? Why did humans take breaks instead of working all the time? And if they were looking for leisure, wouldn't it be better for them to have a group of perpetual workers who would always gather resources at maximum efficiency so that they no longer needed to worry about cutting their rexation short due to a ck of supply?

  At some point in Antikythera's musings, Yuri Alpha had come out of her office and begun introducing herself to the vilgers. By now, only children were asleep, and every single adult or working-age vilger was out in the fields, either pnting or harvesting crops.

  Antikythera chose to go along with Yuri Alpha during her introductions, seeing as the head maid had started to get overwhelmed. A more intimidating presence should suffice in putting the overeager vilgers back in line.

  The vilgers began to disperse way before Antikythera arrived on the scene. The moment they had spotted him in their field of vision, they quickly corrected themselves and put some distance between their mob and Yuri Alpha, who herself was watching the Automaton get close with unreadable silence.

  "Yuri, are you having trouble?" The Automaton's head swept over the gathered vilgers. "Are they mobbing you?"

  "I am fine, Lord Antikythera," the maid responded. She gave the vilgers a look over. "I was merely testing how I would fare upon being attacked by a rge group without my gauntlets."

  "And how did it go?" Antikythera did not know what Yuri was thinking when she decided to use a group of humans to test her strength compared to the locals of this world, but he also somewhat understood why she did it. "We will have to interact with all of them starting from now. It is best that your test gained satisfactory results, no?"

  "I learned that I have no problems dealing with them, Lord Antikythera." Yuri Alpha confirmed what the Automaton already suspected. No mere human would be able to contest with the head of the Pleiades. The test was ultimately futile, but it was good to let Yuri Alpha personally confirm the locals' general strength.

  "Well then, now that you all have seen your new baron, I do believe introductions are in order." Antikythera gestured toward Yuri Alpha with both arms. "This is Yuri Alpha. She will be giving you all instructions on how you will pnt the White Stalks, so ensure that you follow her commands. It is in your best interest that you do so."

  When the vilgers nodded in understanding, Antikythera pointed at the distant fields. "Good. You will all now start with harvesting all of those, bring them to us, and after that, we will assign you all into worker groups. Each group will be given a unique type of pnting method. Follow them to the best of your ability."