"As expected of Lord Arthur!!!" Lucien excitedly slapped the table, beginning his daily ritual of praising Arthur. "We'll build fortresses here, one after another! The walls must be made of the best stone from the mountain!"
"We'll hollow out the High Mountain! And live inside the body of the mountain! No one will ever get in!!!!"
"Build the walls high and thick! And dig a moat! Fill the moat with water from the High Mountain! Let's see how those damned bandits can get in then!"
"Exactly! Exactly!!!" Hakon also began his daily ritual of praising Arthur. "Truly worthy of Lord Arthur!!"
"The true genius of Westeros!!!"
Ever since the two of them started working with the cultured folk, they had learned a lot of new things.
The courtiers began to discuss animatedly how to hollow out the mountain, what it would feel like to live inside, how to create secret passages within the mountain, and the height of the outer walls, the moats, and the number of towers.
Evelyn, who had been silent, suddenly spoke. Her blue eyes looked directly at Arthur.
"Lord Arthur, with all due respect."
Everyone's gaze turned to her, wondering why this ugly woman was interrupting Lord Arthur.
"What we need to build should not just be a military fortress." She walked to the table, picked up a quill, and on a clean piece of parchment she had brought, confidently and smoothly began to sketch, as if she had conceived it countless times. "But rather, a self-sustaining, prosperous underground mountain fortress."
Everyone, except the silent Olivier, frowned at her. What business does a handmaiden have interrupting!
But seeing that Lord Arthur was looking at the woman with interest, they didn't dare to interrupt.
Evelyn paid no mind to their strange looks. She seemed to have been suppressing herself for a long time. Her quill moved rapidly across the parchment, completely forgetting Arthur's request for her to keep a low profile. It was as if she had planned it countless times; clear lines formed an astonishing blueprint.
"Look here!" Evelyn picked up her drawing, her finger excitedly pointing at the paper. "The outermost part of the mountain! That's the barracks! And all sorts of traps! And defensive structures! The passages only need two warriors! Even if there are a thousand armies!!!! A thousand armies won't be able to get in!!!!"
Arthur looked at the emotional woman, then at the blueprint. The various strange, vicious, ruthless, and terrifying traps made him break out in a cold sweat. He felt as if he was looking at the traps in a tomb that the trio had once encountered. This woman was truly valuable!
It's decided! As long as her troubles aren't too problematic, he must resolve them for her.
The woman's design shocked everyone present. Just the traps alone terrified the people there. What kind of design was it to build a space above a passage, and when enemies entered the passage, oil would be poured down through small holes from the space above to set them on fire and burn them all to death? Seven Gods, this ugly woman was too ruthless.
But the woman didn't notice, or perhaps noticed but was unwilling to stop, and continued to speak excitedly:
"The middle is the commercial district! The artisan workshops! Like blacksmiths! Carpenters! Potters! Even inside the mountain, there must be markets and plazas! To facilitate trade and public gatherings!"
"The deepest part is the commoners' residential area! Only by having the commoners live in the deepest part can the warriors fight with peace of mind! At the same time, their families are also a deterrent to the warriors fighting outside!!"
"The core area! That's the Lord's residence! The armory! And the most important granary!"
"Then there are the evacuation secret passages! And the design to destroy the entire mountain and bury all enemies when evacuating...!"
The woman continued to speak voluminously. Her plan was terrifyingly clear, perfectly segmenting and connecting defensive, residential, production, commercial, and military functions to form an organic whole.
Arthur was greatly astonished. Could it be that Westeros truly had mountain-dwelling people? He only had a preliminary idea; as for how to build inside the mountain, it was pure fantasy. But this woman directly presented a perfect answer, showing how the mountain interior wouldn't collapse, remaining as stable as Mount Tai, even detailing the placement of a single pillar like a textbook.
Lucien, Barna, and the others exchanged glances. All the courtiers were greatly shocked. They had never imagined that living inside a mountain could have so many intricacies, capable of being planned with such complexity and ingenuity.
However, Evelyn's words did not stop. What she said next truly shocked everyone present.
She put down her quill, her expression becoming serious:
"But this is far from enough!"
"What can conquer a mountain cavern isn't just swords! It's also things we can't see!"
She looked at their confused faces and said, word by word:
"It's disease!"
"It's water sources!"
"Hundreds, even thousands of people living together inside the mountain! Feces and garbage will all be inside the mountain!"
"If we don't properly manage water sources and waste, it won't be long before feces and garbage contaminate the water, attracting flies and plague!"
"When a plague breaks out, it kills faster than a thousand armies combined!"
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