Farmland!
Kilometers and kilometers of carefully cultivated fields stretching to the horizon in every direction.
Massive irrigation systems visible as geometric patterns in the landscape. Automated farming equipment moving in coordinated patterns that suggested centralized control. Greenhouses the size of city blocks gleaming under the sun. Grain silos that looked like small skyscrapers clustered at distribution points.
All of it protected by the walls he could still see in the distance—those twenty-meter barriers marking the boundary between this productive paradise and the Wildlands beyond.
'They're not just surviving. They're thriving.'
'This is what losing seventy percent of your landmass forces you to do—maximize every meter of controlled territory.'
