"Bigger," Kael said, pointing. "No, bigger than that. The one that looks like a small house."
The knight he addressed, a man named Jorun with arms like tree trunks, just nodded. He walked over to a boulder that, back on Earth, would have required a crane and a specialized crew. Jorun braced himself, let out a grunt that was more effort than sound, and simply lifted it. He carried it over to the designated spot by the creek bed as if he were carrying a large sack of potatoes.
Kael watched, a part of his mind still reeling. It just wasn't right. The physics of it, the sheer violation of biomechanics, was staggering. His AI was running silent calculations in the background of his thoughts, trying to reconcile the energy output with the man's muscle mass. The only possible explanation was the one he was still getting used to: magic. Or whatever passed for it here. Life Aura, his father had called it. A background energy that could be channeled to augment physical reality.
AI, are you getting any of this? he thought.
The response was a familiar, sterile stream of data in his head. Unable to quantify the energy source. Observable results defy known principles of thermodynamics and biomechanics. Suggest direct observation of subject's 'Life Seed' for further analysis.
Right. I'll just ask him to hold still while I perform an invasive magical autopsy. Great idea. Kael mentally rolled his eyes. For now, he'd just have to accept it. People here were strong. Incredibly, absurdly strong. It was a resource, and he was going to use it.
"Alright, that's the base layer," Kael called out, his voice cutting through the crisp, cold air. "Now we need the smaller rocks. Fill the gaps. Pack it tight."
He had sketched out the design in the dirt with a stick. A multi-layered filtration system, just like the ones they taught in survival courses back home. A large containment basin made of the biggest rocks, followed by layers of smaller rocks, gravel, sand, and then a thick layer of charcoal. Water from the creek would be diverted in, forced to trickle through the layers, and come out the other side. Simple. Elegant. And on Earth, a project that would have taken a week with heavy machinery.
Here, with a handful of knights and a few listless villagers, it was taking a couple of hours.
He watched them work. The knights were efficient, following his orders without question. Their new lord had identified a problem and proposed a solution. It was their duty to see it done. The villagers, on the other hand, moved with a slowness that had nothing to do with a lack of strength. They hauled bags of sand and shoveled charcoal with a dull, practiced emptiness in their eyes. There was no hope there, no excitement that things might get better. Just the weary compliance of people who had been kicked so many times they no longer bothered to flinch.
It was unsettling. He was trying to save them, and they looked at him like he was just another master with a strange new chore.
By midday, the structure was complete. It was a crude, hulking thing of stone and earth, a semi-circular wall built against the rocky bank of the creek with a small, wooden spout at the bottom. Kael had them divert a small channel of water to flow into the top.
Then, everyone waited. The water soaked into the top layer of sand, disappearing from sight. For a minute, nothing happened. Kael felt a flicker of anxiety. Did he miscalculate the flow rate? Was the medium too dense?
A knight cleared his throat. "My lord… is it supposed to do that?"
"It's working," Kael said, his voice more confident than he felt. "It has to pass through all the layers."
And then, it came. A slow, hesitant drip from the wooden spout. Drip. Drip. Drip. It fell into a clean wooden bucket they had placed underneath. Then the drips became a trickle, and the trickle became a steady, clear stream.
Kael let out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding. He walked over and dipped a finger into the bucket. It was cold, clean. He produced two small wooden cups he'd procured from the manor kitchen, filling one from the bucket. Then he walked to the bank and filled the other straight from the creek.
"AI, scan both samples. Compare and contrast," he commanded silently.
The information flowed into his mind, overlaid on his vision like a heads-up display. Two columns of data, side by side.
Sample A (Creek): High concentrations of lead, mercury. Parasitic Microorganism present, count estimated at 3,400 per unit. Trace presence of unknown Blighting Agent.
Sample B (Filtered): Lead concentration reduced by 81%. Mercury concentration reduced by 79%. Parasitic Microorganism count estimated at 270 per unit. Trace presence of Blighting Agent remains unchanged.
It wasn't perfect. Dammit. The heavy metals were mostly gone, which was a huge win. That alone would stop the worst of the long-term poisoning. But the parasites… a 92% reduction was good, but not good enough. Even one could multiply inside a person. And the filter did nothing for the Blighting Agent, whatever it was. But that was a problem for the crops, not the people. Not directly, anyway.
There was one more step. An ancient, low-tech solution for a microscopic problem.
"Jorun, build me a fire," Kael ordered. "A big one."
While the knight got the fire roaring, Kael procured a small iron pot from the manor's neglected kitchen. He filled it with the filtered water and set it on the flames. He waited, watching the tiny bubbles form at the bottom, grow, and finally erupt into a rolling boil. He let it bubble for a good five minutes before carefully taking it off the fire to cool.
Once it was cool enough, he took another sample.
AI, scan again.
Sample C (Filtered & Boiled): Lead and mercury concentrations unchanged from Sample B. Parasitic Microorganism count: 0.
Kael almost smiled. Zero. A perfect, beautiful zero. That was it. That was the solution. It wasn't as elegant as a high-tech purification system from the 22nd century, but it would work. A two-step process: filter, then boil. It was manageable. It would save these people.
"Alright," Kael said, turning to the assembled knights and villagers. "The work here is done. Sir Jorun, have the men gather everyone. Every man, woman, and child in the village. Bring them to the front of the manor. I have an announcement."
The knight nodded crisply and relayed the order. The villagers who had helped just stood there, their expressions unchanged, before shuffling off to join the others being rounded up from their hovels.
A short while later, Kael stood on the dilapidated stone steps of his new home, looking down at the small crowd. There couldn't have been more than fifty of them. Fifty souls huddled together against the biting wind, their faces gaunt, their eyes empty. They stared up at him, not with anticipation, but with a profound, soul-crushing weariness.
He cleared his throat. The sound was small in the vast, grey emptiness of the valley.
"As you know, the water in the creek is making you sick," he began, his voice flat and direct. Science, not sentiment. "It contains poisons and tiny creatures that steal your strength. We have built a device to clean it."
He pointed toward the new structure by the creek. A few heads turned, but most did not.
"From this day forward, you will only get your water from that filter. Do you understand? No one is to drink directly from the creek again."
A few listless nods. A few blank stares.
"There is one more step," he continued, pressing on. "The filter removes the poison, but some of the creatures might still get through. To kill them, you must boil the water before you drink it. Every single time. You get the water from the filter, you put it in a pot, you make it boil. Then you let it cool. Only then is it safe to drink."
This time, he was met with a different reaction. It wasn't hostility or defiance. It was confusion. A woman in the front row, whose skin was the color of old parchment, tilted her head. Her lips moved, but no sound came out. Another man whispered to his neighbor, his brow furrowed.
Boil water? Why would they do that? Water was for putting out fires, not for making them.
Kael saw it in their eyes, in the collective, weird look they gave him. He was a noble. He was supposed to demand taxes, or work, or maybe even their daughters. He wasn't supposed to give them strange instructions about their drinking water. It didn't fit into the world they knew.
He felt a cold knot tighten in his stomach, a chill that had nothing to do with the wind. He had given them the solution, a clear, logical path to health. And they were looking at him like he'd just started speaking gibberish.
That's when he truly understood. These people hadn't just been exploited. They had been ground down. Generations of hardship, of being told they lived on cursed land, of watching their children sicken and die for no reason they could comprehend, had hollowed them out. They didn't have the energy left to hope, let alone to trust the bizarre commands of a new, young lord.
He couldn't force them. He couldn't stand over every hut and make sure every pot of water was boiled. If they didn't believe him, they would just go back to the creek. Because it was easier. Because it was what they had always done.
The filter would help. It removed most of the immediate toxins, so the short-term harm would be less severe. It was a patch, a temporary fix. But it wasn't the cure.
The real issue, he realized, wasn't just fixing the water. It was fixing their bodies, reversing years of malnutrition and parasitic infection. And even harder than that, it was fixing their minds. He had to give them a reason to care about living before he could teach them how to live properly.
Kael looked out at the sea of blank faces, at the grey sky pressing down on the grey valley. The water filter was the easy part. The real work, the impossible work, was just beginning.
And the relentless, freezing wind wasn't even the biggest problem he had to face.
He held their blank gazes for a moment longer, then gave a sharp nod. "That is all. You are dismissed."
The crowd dispersed without a word, shuffling back to their cold hovels with the same weary gait they'd arrived with. Kael watched them go, his fists clenching at his sides. He had offered them a lifeline and they didn't even have the strength to grasp it.
AI, recalibrate strategy, he thought, his frustration a sharp, cold edge. Top-down directives are ineffective. The primary obstacle is not ignorance, but a total collapse of morale and will. We need to demonstrate value, not just explain it.
Acknowledged. Re-prioritizing for trust-building protocols.
He turned to Jorun, who was watching him with a stoic, unreadable expression. "This isn't going to work. Not like this."
"They are… slow to change, my lord," Jorun offered, the closest he ever came to an excuse.
"Then we change for them," Kael snapped back, a new plan forming with cold, rapid-fire clarity. "Set up a fire right here, by the new filter. I want a large cauldron of water boiled and kept hot at all times. Instruct the guards to offer it to anyone who passes. We'll bring the mountain to them."
He then pointed toward the manor. "And I want a fire in the great hall. A massive one. Have the men gather enough wood to burn through the night. Tell the cook to prepare a hot meal for everyone. A thick stew. If they won't save themselves, I'll do it for them until they remember how."