CHAPTER 449: CHAPTER 327: COMPETING FOR A POSITION

"Hey, Siris, you won’t be too delighted to think clearly, right?" said Pro, making a joke when he saw Siris standing there in a daze.

Siris snapped back to reality, quickly bowed to Pro, and gratefully said, "Village chief, thank you for your help!"

He felt he was just an ordinary member among the hundreds of Segestica refugees; without Pro’s recommendation, how could the divine descendant leader of the Nix Tribe have known about him.

"This has little to do with me. It’s mainly because you performed well, so those officials from various departments who come to the village for inspections from time to time naturally wrote your name down, allowing the chief officers above to notice you.

Hurry to the main house, don’t keep the soldiers waiting long! Don’t worry about your land, I’ll arrange for others to help your wife tend to it. After you get to Ophelia, as long as you work well for the tribe, you will definitely be valued!" Pro reassured him while encouraging him.

"I’ll remember, thank you village chief!" Siris hid his gratitude for Pro in his heart and walked quickly towards the village.

Very soon, the news that "Siris was chosen by the Nix Leader, promoted to the main camp to be an official" spread among all the villagers, and everyone, while envious, worked with more vigor.

Siris followed the soldiers to the West Village gate of Ophelia. This time, he entered the inner village without obstruction.

Over the past ten years, Siris had come to the West Village many times, but this time was different from before—the place was too chaotic: people were constantly pouring out of the residences, forming groups of hundreds under the command of the Nix soldiers, blocking the entire alleyway, and then noisily heading out of the village...

In any alley, Siris had to push his way through the crowd with some effort to pass.

In his time among the Nix people, Siris found them to be organized in their work and orderly in managing the village, completely different from the style of the Segestica Tribal leaders and clan leaders, so what was going on with this chaos in the village now?

Siris asked the soldier, but the soldier didn’t know, he was only responsible for delivering commands and leading people.

Soon, they came to a large courtyard near the main house of the West Village, where people were constantly coming and going.

"What is this place?" Siris asked.

"Foreign Auxiliary Civilian Management Bureau." The soldier replied simply and then hurried inside.

This is where I’m going to be working... Siris instinctively surveyed the surroundings, vaguely remembering that this courtyard seemed to be the residence of a tribal leader whom Andres trusted, and his wandering gaze finally settled on a wooden plaque hanging above the courtyard gate, on which were carved those magical words...

"What are you standing around for? Hurry up and follow!" The soldier urged him.

Seeing that the soldier was already far ahead, Siris quickly stepped over the threshold to catch up.

The people he encountered along the way were all in a hurry, none stopped, nor did anyone curiously scrutinize him as a newcomer.

The soldier led him to a large wooden house.

The doors to the wooden house were wide open, and just as someone was exiting, the soldier went inside.

Inside, apart from wooden racks, there were rows of tables. The wooden racks were all against the walls, with books stacked upon them. The wooden tables were lined up side by side from one end of the wall to the other. Behind each table sat a person, all holding pens and writing something, with two of them being children...

While Siris was still looking around, the soldier had already arrived at the central wooden table, saluted, and said, "Ordered to bring Siris from Village No. 21!"

Seated behind the wooden table was a middle-aged man who took the previously issued transfer order that Siris handed over, carefully checked the scrawled signature of Pro, then looked at Siris and seriously asked, "You are Siris?"

"I am!" Siris nodded earnestly.

Only then did the middle-aged man say to the soldier, "Thank you for your hard work!" After expressing his thanks, he handed the soldier a "Task Completed" receipt.

The soldier took the receipt and turned to leave.

The middle-aged man said to Siris, "I am Cseni, the chief officer of the Nix Tribe’s Foreign Auxiliary Civilian Management Bureau. The Foreign Auxiliary Civilian Management Bureau is a newly established department of the tribe, jointly governed by the Agricultural Department, Public Works Department, and Military Department. It’s responsible for governing all the foreign auxiliaries within the tribe, and now the foreign auxiliaries have exceeded 20,000!—"

The middle-aged man sighed: "We have too few personnel here, while there are so many foreign auxiliaries to manage and so much work to be done, so we had no choice but to request more subordinates from the leader.

The leader and the chief officers of various departments, after discussion, believed that since the foreign auxiliaries are all Pannonians, it would be more convenient for Pannonians to manage them. Therefore, the most outstanding Segestica Reserve Tribe members were selected from each village to come here to help. There’s dozens of such people, and you are just one among them."

This middle-aged man, named Cseni, became serious, "We don’t need so many people here, so we will first conduct an assessment. After one month, the ten most capable and best-performing individuals will be retained, while the others will return to where they came from once the order was issued by the Political Affairs Hall summoning you, the assessment began, and you came relatively late among this group."

Siris wanted to argue, but Cseni shouted, "I don’t want to hear your explanations. If you want to stay here and become an official of the Nix Tribe, you need to use your actions in the coming month to prove your capability.

The foreign auxiliaries have been in the West Village for more than half a month. They must start working to be worthy of the food and supplies the tribe provides them each day. In one month, it will be the new year, and there is still a lot of farmland in the tribe left untilled. Your task is to lead a hundred foreign auxiliaries to till this land. If by the end of this month, the land tilled by your team is plentiful and well-cultivated, you will become a member of our Foreign Auxiliary Civilian Management Bureau! Understood?!"

"Understood." Siris nodded.

Cseni took a palm-sized wooden plaque from the rack behind him and handed it to Siris: "This is the waist tag for the Foreign Auxiliary Civilian Management Bureau. You can tie it to your waist, and you won’t be obstructed entering or leaving the village gate, our place here, or the residences of the foreign auxiliaries. You also won’t be stopped by patrols while wandering in the village."

Siris quickly took the waist tag, examining it closely in his hands. Although it was just an elliptically shaped piece of wood, smoothed down, it bore those magical words.

Siris gently rubbed the wooden plaque with his finger and then heard Cseni shout, "Nanix!"

"Here!" a young man beside him responded.

"Which residences are next?"

"To Residence No. 53, there are 33 people," the young man replied while flipping through the roster on the table, "Residence No. 54 has 32 people, and Residence No. 55 has 40 people, totaling 105 people."

"Okay, for this month, it will be your task, Sir...is—"

"Siris."

"For this month, you, Siris, will lead all the foreign auxiliaries from Residences 53, 54, and 55 to till the land." As soon as Cseni finished speaking, someone at another wooden table began to take notes.

"Nanix, take Siris now to these three residences, gather all the foreign auxiliaries there, then find someone from the Agricultural Department to take them to the lands that need cultivation, and let them familiarize themselves first."

"Yes."

Cseni looked at Siris again and said, "As long as you think it’s feasible, you can start letting those foreign auxiliaries till the land today. Just ask the Agricultural Department for farm tools. Return them to their respective residences by dusk, then come back here, and I will arrange food and lodging for you."

"Follow me." Nanix stood up and led Siris out of the room.

Seeing no one around, Siris asked quietly, "Nanix, are you a Segestica person?"

The young man hesitated, a bit unwilling, and replied, "...I used to be, but now I’m a Nix person!"

Siris didn’t give up and continued to ask, "Before, in my tribe, I saw a child named Feriris who came to register, also from Segestica—"

"He’s my good friend, we study together, but he’s not as good at it as I am," Nanix interrupted, though his tone was still a bit cold, Siris’s words seemed to have some effect, and he continued to remind, "You don’t need to worry. These foreign auxiliaries are relatively compliant, most of them won’t run away or riot, but they just don’t want to work.

Previously, the Administration Department used the methods of adjusting food or letting them meet with their families to make them comply. If you can motivate them to work more actively, you might be able to outdo the others."

When Siris was in the village, most of the tribesmen would seek his advice, so he more or less understood the reasons behind the compliance of those foreign auxiliaries and their reluctance to work: they didn’t want to leave their homeland, they were worried that wandering in foreign lands would make it difficult for their whole family to survive, yet they were also unwilling to surrender to the Nix, as they still held onto some persistence in their hearts, pinning hopes on the Panoni Alliance Army to defeat the Nix people, regain lost territories, allowing them to return home... In short, they were a group of people living in a contradictory manner.

But Siris was puzzled, "Aren’t these foreign auxiliaries living with their families?"

"How could they live together as families! If each family were living as a unit, where would there be enough houses here, of course, men and women are separated, young children stay with mothers, while older children are taken care of by the Cultivation Department’s subordinates and teachers..." Nanix said, recalling his life over the past year or so, and got a bit absent-minded.