hsntnovel Chapter 313 The Age of Religion!
Chapter 313 The Age of Religion!
Chapter 313 The Age of Religion! (6k)
Filled with both anticipation and apprehension towards the cult of Byoddin, Gavin took a deep breath and looked down at Kili, who was gnawing on a cow's heart.
Honestly, this isn't what Keeley wanted. Who could understand? He wanted cookies, cookies!
Therefore, Kiley inevitably ate somewhat reluctantly.
Fortunately, there wasn't much in one heart, and Kiley quickly finished eating it all.
After he finished eating, Gavin pointed to the dozen or so dead cows nearby and tentatively spoke to Keeley.
"It's a bit difficult for you to understand what I'm saying, but I hope you can roughly understand my gestures. If you can, then the dozen or so cows closest to you are yours and your pack of wolves!"
At this point, Gavin's calm, slightly amused gaze met Kiley's bewildered, somewhat disappointed eyes.
A moment later, Kiley looked in the direction Gavin was pointing, then pondered for a few seconds before looking up and letting out a long howl.
"Awoo~~"
"Awooooo!"
"Aww!"
"Oh ho~"
In an instant, the pack of wolves all howled, and then the first batch of the strongest wolves circled around the dead cow.
Seeing the wolves approaching them, Adriana and her group quickly left the dead cow surrounded by wolves, leaving the cows chosen by the wolves to their wolf companions in the camp.
There were quite a few dead cattle this time. Not only could the camp not consume them all, but the wolf pack only surrounded fourteen cattle before losing interest in the others.
Wolves are not wasteful of food; they probably know exactly how much they can eat.
The strongest wolves can probably take on one cow, with eight to ten of them.
The old, weak, sick, and disabled wolves in the other packs would simply surround a cow with twelve to fifteen wolves, biting and nibbling at it.
For a time, the wolves were having a great time eating, especially the strongest of the dozen or so wolves, which was even able to eat the internal organs that were usually only available to the wolf king.
Heaven knows how excited they were eating. Gavin watched as a strong wolf devoured a bison's intestines with gusto, sucking on one end while excrement was being pushed out of the other.
Hiccup————
Gavin gagged slightly, then chuckled and started walking toward the other dead cows abandoned by the wolves.
Kili, licking his lips, followed Gavin and walked into the crowd without any hesitation, arriving in front of the dead bull that Adriana, Thomas, and the other four had been fighting together.
Gavin reached out his hand to Thomas and said:
"Give me the knife, Thomas. Even if you're an excellent butler, you're not omnipotent. At least when it comes to butchering, you're far worse than managing and doing farm work."
As soon as he finished speaking, Gavin glanced amusedly at the cow that Thomas was butchering.
Thomas had no idea how to butcher a cow; his knife work was completely awful, and he ruined even the best steak, leaving it shapeless.
Seeing Gavin tease him about his swordsmanship, Thomas gave a helpless, bitter smile for the first time.
Although he has a master's degree in agronomy, he has never done any work of slaughtering cattle or sheep. Now he is being forced into this job, so how could he possibly do it well?
He's definitely not omnipotent!
So, after handing the knife to Gavin with a wry smile, Thomas took a handkerchief from his front and wiped the sweat from his brow.
"I'm sorry, sir, I'm not good at this kind of work. But I think the next thing I need to learn is how to butcher a cow. I don't want to have any flaws that would displease you, sir."
"However—after today, it's likely that the camp won't need to slaughter another batch of Angus cattle for quite some time, since today alone has replenished the camp with tons of beef—"
"yes----"
Upon hearing this, Gavin skillfully controlled the knife as it moved smoothly across the bison's body, easily peeling off half of the hide. While Adriana was busy spreading the hide on the ground to support the bison's body, Gavin straightened up and looked at the dead bison in the distance.
An Angus cattle typically weigh between 600 and 900 kilograms. Gavin Farm has no shortage of money and pasture, so most of the bison are very strong and extremely heavy.
Even after removing the weight of all bones, a cow will still produce at least 350 to 400 kilograms of meat.
Therefore, today's bison charge will add at least twenty tons of fresh beef to the camp's stockpile!
Even if each of the more than one hundred people in the camp ate a full eight pounds of beef every day, it would still take them almost a month to finish all that beef. So, as the old saying goes...
Is there a shortage of supplies in the post-apocalyptic world?
Stop messing around!
The Earth, which was originally large enough to support billions of people, has been reduced to a situation where less than one-thousandth of the population is still struggling to survive.
The average amount of resources available to each human being increased more than a thousandfold!
Even if all kinds of goods in major cities rot over time, the global animal population will surge due to the reduction of human activities.
While humans still face challenges such as keeping warm, the reduction in human activity will also lead to a surge in forests and other plant environments.
For Gavin, his ideal was, of course, to lead human civilization to continue and to preserve as much of the cultural and industrial legacy as possible before the end of the world.
But in other words, even if he can't achieve what he ideally wants.
He only needs to meet the camp's basic needs for firewood, rice, oil, and salt, and he can lead them to survive!
Thinking about this, and then looking at the fact that the mere seventy or eighty dead cattle meant that the camp wouldn't have to worry about food for at least a month.
Gavin felt much more relaxed than usual.
As he was tearing the other half of the hide from the dead cow, the sound of horses' hooves and pickup trucks coming from afar drew the attention of Gavin and his crew, as well as the wolf pack.
As soon as Gavin looked up, old Bert's exclamation came through the walkie-talkie on his waist.
"Mazefak, Gavin boy, are you sure we want to keep approaching you? What the hell is that wolf pack? Have you been kidnapped by them? If so, fire a shot to signal them!"
While old Bert was shouting into the walkie-talkie, Gavin also saw old Bert rein in his horse in the distance.
Hearing old Bert's voice, Gavin smiled as he stuck the knife between the ribs of the cow, then took off his gloves and pulled out the walkie-talkie.
"Old Bert, was your son scared away by the wolves? If so, I'm not going to help you find him."
"These are my wolves, the wolves of the camp, our future partners, and our secret weapon against those damned rabbits and groundhogs!"
"So don't hesitate, summon the courage you had as a cowboy and come see our new darling!"
"It's a pity Jonathan isn't home, otherwise, this dog-loving guy would absolutely adore my wolf pack. Heaven knows how many outstanding war dogs these wolves could produce with our beautiful and charming dogs, unique to our camp! Haha!"
Amidst the laughter, Gavin put down the walkie-talkie and continued working on the dead cow.
Led by old Bert and Madison, the group of people in the distance hesitantly approached the wolf pack.
For them, approaching a pack of wolves that were feeding voraciously was indeed a test of their mentality.
Moreover, the typical wolf pack size in the Americas is only between sixteen and twenty-six wolves!
Since humans began to inhabit every corner of the earth, large wolf packs of 160 or 170 wolves have become rare.
If it weren't for the existence of nature reserves, the wolf king Kili would hardly have had the opportunity to lead so many wolf cubs to roam the wilderness.
And so, amidst the fear and apprehension of the men.
The crowd and the wolf pack gradually converged.
Old Bert, visibly alarmed, stopped his horse about twenty meters away from the wolves. Then, with a trembling heart, he jumped off the horse, baring his teeth in fear.
As old Bert dismounted, behind him, Gavin's secretary, Miss Bella, walked past him with a sneer, giving him the middle finger and laughing.
"Tsk tsk, old Bert, is this all the guts you have? This is nothing like the old ghost who used to mock me!"
"cut!"
Faced with Bella's teasing, old Bert shook his head with lingering fear and sneered.
"That ignorant brat has no sense of awe. If you were like I was when I was young and had witnessed a cowboy friend being ambushed, surrounded, and devoured by a pack of wolves, you would be just as fearful as I am now!"
"That's a fucking wolf, a wild wolf, not a fucking vicious dog, and definitely not a fucking husky, Samoyed, or Golden Retriever!"
At this point, old Bert looked at Gavin in disbelief.
At this moment, even he couldn't help but wonder if God had really secretly thrown one of his God's children into the Jin family farm!
As old Bert was horrified, Arturo suddenly stood up beside a dead cow in the distance and strode toward the newly arrived men.
He knew that today was destined to be a sacred day for his Odin religion!
Because Father Hogan, the main priest of the Southern Baptist Church, went off with his field team to do some kind of unrestricted speed racing, and he wasn't home at all!
In an instant, Arturo’s deliberately lowered voice rang out among the newly arrived crowd, while even more incredulous eyes fell on the wolf pack and Gavin!
Wolves—they are not like the relatively friendly ravens to humans!
The sudden appearance of such a large wolf pack and their submission to Gavin's tutelage was even more shocking to the camp crew than the story of Buddha attracting monkeys to bring him honeyed fruit and elephants to bring him sweet spring water by preaching!
Moreover, although Americans call themselves civilized, relatively civilized religions actually don't have much fertile ground in this land.
Just as traditional Buddhism's influence in America is far less than that of Tibetan Buddhism, which is known for its bloodshed—
In short, the sight of the wolves eating while occasionally raising their blood-stained faces and baring their teeth at the crew made more than two-thirds of the crew believe in Arturo and Abel's theory of Odin's incarnation!
When Gavin looked at his men while clutching the piece of meat he had cut off, and saw that even more men were kneeling before him, from that moment on, Gavin knew very well that his camp had officially entered the religious era!
But this is inevitable, because the hearts of the American people are never filled with various ideologies and ideas.
They have long been accustomed to a life based on faith.
But now—
Gavin also needs their faith and will not deviate from any of his orders!
But no matter what Gavin thought, time continued to slip away as the guys kept moving.
The crowd was like a flowing stream, or a swarm of ants, busily moving among dozens of dead cows.
The beef was gradually broken down, and the bones were collected by Thomas.
When the field team returned to camp with excitement, they immediately sped up their work of cleaning up the dead cows.
And the number of people who believe in Gavin and Odin has undoubtedly increased.
When Gavin returned from the field mission, he was still very concerned about Hogan's situation. After all, the camp was now truly swept up in a frenzy of faith in Odin by Arturo and Abel, two former sinners.
But Hogan—
He showed no reaction to the situation, as if he had no intention of proselytizing at all. He casually glossed over the Odin cult, and even joined his increasingly fanatical followers in offering a few prayers to Odin and Gavin.
This phenomenon made Gavin think more highly of Hogan, because Gavin knew that only the most irrational missionaries would advise their followers to worship other gods when they were fanatically believing in one.
That will only provoke the rebellious mentality of those unruly Americans.
In short, although the religious age has begun, the day when religious conflicts might erupt is still far away, and Gavin also glossed over this situation.
After more people joined, Thomas stopped carrying the beef by hand and began to direct and manage the crowd, classifying and arranging the different parts of the beef.
While settling in, Thomas took some time to be by Gavin's side.
Gavin was sitting on the grass smoking and drinking, while massaging Keeley's wolf head, and Thomas whispered to Gavin.
"Boss, now that the wolf pack has arrived, I think we can make use of the ox bones."
"Besides being used for cooking in the kitchen, those cow bones can be processed into bone meal if we find the right machine. This meal can then be further processed into wolf feed to better maintain the wolf population during the winter when food is scarce."
"Moreover, bone meal feed provides enough calcium and also reduces the amount of food our wolves need in winter."
"Do you think we should collect all the cow bones and put them in the ice cellar for the wolves to use in the winter?"
"certainly!"
Gavin readily agreed to Thomas's suggestion.
After all, while wolves are desirable, their treatment during the winter months when food is relatively scarce is certainly not comparable to that of humans.
With Gavin's support, Thomas immediately went to the side, assigned the new rules to the men, and led them to collect all the cow bones, pack them up, and take them back to the manor cellar.
While the other workers were busy, Winnie and Nikita, who had been staying at home, finally couldn't stand the loneliness any longer and, together with William, the camp sentry, went to the slaughterhouse where the beef was processed.
Looking at the wolf pack in the distance, William's face went numb. There were indeed a lot of wolves!
The fact that he brought Mrs. Nikita here was far too dangerous. If anything happened to Mrs. Nikita and Winnie, he could not make up for it even if he died!
but----
They were old friends, and William found it hard to refuse Winnie and Nikita's request.
So, he had no choice but to bite the bullet and bring the two girls to Gavin, where he would dejectedly wait to be scolded.
Seeing William's lack of confidence, Gavin stood up with amusement, put his arm around Nikita's forearm, and placed her on the felt he had spread on the floor.
Then, Gavin casually lifted Winnie, who had jumped onto his back, and patted William's arm, saying, "Why do you look so down? Did you think I didn't thank you for bringing my lover to see my wolf?"
"No! No! Boss! It's just that I—I deserted my post—"
William's confidence was indeed lacking, but Gavin didn't seem to care.
Although William's actions were not exactly right, Gavin did need people like William in the camp who were willing to obey Nikita's orders.
As Gavin's wife, Nikita was one of the pillars Gavin used to stabilize the camp. If Nikita wasn't given any special privileges, how could she replace Gavin and play the role of stabilizing the camp when Gavin was away and something unexpected happened?
Just because she's a pregnant woman?
Stop joking. Power needs real supporters and certain privileges granted by superiors to function perfectly.
In short, Gavin patted William's arm again, chatted with him for a bit, and then sent him home to continue managing the outpost.
After William left, the sun gradually began to set in the west. The men and the well-fed wolves ran around in the beautiful sunset until the torches were lit one by one.
The bison disappeared completely from the grassland, as if carried away by ants.
The men led the wolves back to the manor, and the wolves escorted the humans into the manor. Led by their alpha wolf, Kili, they lay down casually on the grassland near the stables.
Surrounded by wolves, Killy gazed at the lights emanating from the manor, a satisfied look inevitably appearing in his wolfish eyes.
He finally got to eat the cookies!
The other wolves lying on the grassland were undoubtedly satisfied as well. After all, including the old, weak, sick and disabled wolves, all the wild wolves had a hearty meal today, which was an unprecedented feast!
Although the wolves weren't quite used to this kind of life, the feeling of having their bellies full was just wonderful, and they absolutely loved it!
only----
Just as the wolves were contentedly resting—
The other animals near the manor are going crazy right now!
Especially the cow pens near the estate, the cows inside are so frightened they've almost stopped producing milk!
Where the hell did this pack of wolves come from?!
Is there any hope left for us to live like this?!
The scent of wolves and their eerie green eyes, glowing in the night, kept the cattle awake almost all night.
However, the will of the world does not change with the fear of the cattle.
day after day.
Week after week.
The wolf pack thus took root completely near Gavin's estate!
Moreover, to Gavin's great surprise, April and May happen to be the months when wolf packs concentrate on giving birth.
The presence of many mother wolves with cubs in the wolf pack is also one of the reasons why the pack resolutely chose to join Gavin!
Before Gavin entered the wolf pack's life, the pack had lost the assistance of reserve personnel in feeding them, and too many female wolves were pregnant and unable to hunt effectively.
Suddenly, it became much more difficult for the wolf pack to obtain food. This is the main reason why the wolf pack sought refuge with living two-legged creatures as soon as they saw them again. They needed to feed the many newborn wolf cubs that had taken the initiative to be born.
And even today, more than a month after the wolf pack had been stationed at the camp.
The wolf cubs are finally due for birth!
Today is April 27th, a full month and a half since the astronauts returned.
At 7:20 a.m., Gavin, dressed in a neat military uniform, pushed open the manor gate and strode toward the wolf pack whose howls could be faintly heard.
Gavin and his men had already built a makeshift wolf enclosure for the pack, and inside that enclosure, more than six female wolves were giving birth one after another.
As Gavin walked over there, Jonathan followed behind him, a cigarette dangling from his lips, and whispered something to Gavin.
"Boss, this pack of wolves is having a rather late birth. They must have been domesticated for a while before. Otherwise, wild wolves in the southern United States would usually finish giving birth by mid-April."
"Indeed, Jonathan, you really know your stuff!"
As soon as Jonathan finished speaking, Martin, whose hair had grown much longer and was now tied into many small braids on top of his head, patted Jonathan's butt with a smile.
Hearing the two men joking around, Gavin chuckled for a moment, then ignored them and walked past the ever-expanding cow pen.
As he passed by, the four men who had only recently arrived at the camp suddenly jumped up and knelt on one knee, shouting to Gavin from a distance.
"His Majesty!"
"Lord Gavin!"
"grown ups!"
"Your Majesty Odin!"
Hearing the terrified greetings from the new recruits, Gavin glanced at the other recruits who were busy at work, then walked over to them and asked with a smile.
"Alright, stop being so formal. Don't listen to Arturo and Abel's nonsense. Tell me what you've been up to. It's not work time yet."
As soon as he finished speaking, Gavin glanced at the gloves of the men, which were stained with a little hay and milk.
Faced with Gavin's question, the four new recruits looked at each other, and one of them, a muscular woman with two scars on her arm, stepped forward and spoke to Gavin.
"Lord Gavin, we're practicing milking cows because—because we've never done anything like this before joining our camp!"
At this point, the woman couldn't help but smile happily, and her gaze unconsciously shifted from Gavin's face to her arm.
She and her companions arrived at the camp three days ago, or rather, they were found three days ago by Martin's group who were out exploring.
At that time, they were fighting another group of survivors, not in a gunfight, but in a melee combat, which is where the scars on her hands came from.
At that time, she thought that her life would be shrouded in endless danger.
But now, damn it, it's all thanks to Lord Gavin's miracles! It was this Odin-like, resilient and great leader who pulled me out of that terrible apocalypse, allowing me to relax and get a good night's sleep, and to spend the time that was spent fighting continuously on the blissful and easy task of dealing with cows!
Thinking of this, the robust woman sniffled happily.
Gavin smiled and nodded at them, saying, "You're actually willing to use your break time to practice how to milk cows? You guys are good, I'll remember you."
As soon as he finished speaking, Gavin walked past several new guys and strode towards the wolf park.
Jonathan and Martin followed on either side of Gavin, their feet firmly planted on the ground, as the wolf pack drew ever closer and closer to them!