Chapter 366
"The village has gotten quite lively, hasn't it?""It certainly has.""Having vitality is a good thing."
The daily life here, which has rapidly begun to outgrow the 'village' stage since we leveled the mountain, now has a splendid city wall, but the inside is still undeveloped.
Today, as we steadily progress with the underground sewage system, I'm conducting a site inspection with Lady Esmeralda and Claudia.
Since we've been building fortresses along with the walls and diligently working on the sewage system, we haven't been able to start on the town itself yet.
However, the population has been increasing in the meantime.
There have been births, but also, the families of Genjirou and the others have joined, along with the families of the entertainers.
We built additional temporary housing to accommodate them, but just at a glance, over two hundred people have gathered. It's getting to the point where we can't realistically sustain this village's population just by buying food.
We also have the dwarves' arrival to prepare for, so we'll need even more food.We still have plenty of funds, but perhaps it's time to start preparing for self-sufficiency.
"Esmeralda, how is the household registry management going?""Yes, regarding that, I'm managing it properly with Mr. Zinc, so there are no problems."
I thought people would be surprised by me dropping honorifics and using first names, but surprisingly, they accepted it smoothly, and it's become natural.
"Claudia, how are things with illnesses and injuries?""Yes, since you arranged personnel in advance, no issues have arisen."
However, there was someone who took this opportunity to ask me to drop honorifics with them too.That person was Claudia.
Perhaps after our exchange the other day, she had some thoughts about our relationship. She dropped the honorifics and formal speech, and now talks to me with the casual ease of comrades.
So, an environment where I refer to women older than me by their first names was created.
"For that, we have Mr. Zinc to thank. I never thought he'd manage to bring a pharmacist along.""That's a big help. Whether or not we have pharmaceutical knowledge changes how we handle illnesses in the village.""Right.""Considering that, when I reported it to Father, he was pressing his fingers to his temples, groaning.""Regarding that, I think it's because we built such splendid walls."
As for why I'm with these two, it's simply to hear about their dealings with the Duke during their trip to the Royal Capital. Also, since I previously spent time with Nell, Amina, and Ingrid, I thought it'd be good to also spend time with these two, and this is the result of that consideration.
"Will he be okay? Next time we report, we'll have to say we're leveling a mountain, right? Will the Duke be bedridden with a stomachache or headache?"
The conversation lacks any hint of romance, but just being able to spend time together feels pleasant.
"We'll have to tell him. Well, I don't know what will happen when he hears it.""Who would even think of leveling a mountain to secure flat land?""Me."
Admittedly, we haven't completely leveled the mountain yet, but the scenery has already changed from how it was initially.Especially the summit, which used to be pointed, is now trapezoidal in shape, and Block Golems are still being sent down from the mountain.
"Can you think of anyone other than Liberta who would come up with this? I can't think of anyone offhand. What about you, Esmeralda?""I agree. Even among nobles, if someone said such a thing, it would be obvious they'd be laughed at as crazy, clearer than seeing fire.""The only one who can execute it is Liberta.""Yes, precisely because it's Liberta, I think we can accept it, don't you?""No disagreement here."
Listening to their conversation where they accept this sight *because* it's me, I look over the construction site.
There are more people here than when we first began pioneering this land.
With this many people, we really need something like a city office to manage the household registry.To properly keep track of numbers, we're creating, documenting, and managing registries.
I'm really glad we scouted those shopkeepers.
Furthermore, the knowledge Esmeralda gained from studying territory management as a noble is also proving very useful.
Right now, we're assigning administrative duties to combat personnel on a part-time basis. If we had someone like Zhuge Liang, we could delegate everything to them and move more freely ourselves. But encountering named characters isn't easy, and in this world, which has diverged from the original story, they might not even be in the same places.
As the population grows, corresponding troubles arise, and managing hygiene becomes more difficult.
It seems the time has come to seriously consider securing personnel in that area as well.
"......It's good that our workforce has increased, but now we're starting to run short of people at the executive level.""That's true. However, most of those kinds of people are already serving someone somewhere.""Even if there were such people available, trusting them is another matter.""It's lamentable that even if we find a promising person, we can't readily bring someone with that kind of knowledge into our inner circle in our current situation. Ah, I want to build a school and gather orphans soon."
But can we easily bring in people? I can assert we cannot.Because our actions regarding Azhdaha have made us too conspicuous, we now have to be wary of spies, making us cautious about gathering people.
In fact, there are people who have come all the way to this frontier to offer their services, but most of them are connected to nobles, wealthy merchants, and the like.
Until now, we've managed with people connected to our inner circle, but even then, the trust factor is a grayish white.We treat them well to prevent betrayal and deepen exchanges to build trust, but we're still far from perfect.
You can really appreciate how useful the trust system from the game era was. Also, binding people too much with contracts isn't good either. Human relationships are truly difficult.
"It's a form of advance investment, isn't it? Educating from scratch, raising trustworthy personnel. If you raise them carefully from childhood, loyalty will grow. Not many can do that, though.""If we contacted the orphanage my acquaintance runs, gathering them itself wouldn't be too difficult. Most orphanages aren't doing well financially. However, this village isn't yet prepared with an environment to educate children."
If that's the case, it's a natural conclusion to think: if we don't have trustworthy personnel, we should raise them ourselves.
"Right now, everywhere is short-handed, with no leeway to teach, and we haven't created farmland either. It's difficult to raise people in an environment that isn't prepared. At the very least, we need to achieve self-sufficiency and prepare a minimum training environment first."
We don't need to be fixated on named characters.The essence of FBO is that even mob characters can become formidable if raised properly.For now, I'll suppress feelings of nostalgia and longing, and prioritize acting based on trust.
"The sewage facility completion is about two months away. The shortage of people who can make and install magical tools and handle detailed work is delaying the construction progress.""On top of that, we're building defensive walls and fortresses in parallel, which takes even more time. Only after that will the foundation for building the town be ready. Then we'll zone the area, create necessary living facilities... The earliest we could build a schoolhouse would be next year. Considering gathering teachers, it might take even longer.""It seems unavoidable that it will take time at this point.""Even so, the development speed is sufficient—no, it's abnormally fast."
The more you count the challenges on your fingers, the more there are.Mainly personnel issues.
"The immediate problem is agriculture. It's good to gather people, but it's not healthy to sustain the people indefinitely with Liberta's personal wealth. Self-sufficiency absolutely requires food and water. Securing a water source is especially essential, don't you think? Without water, agriculture is impossible."
To raise trustworthy personnel, you need trustworthy personnel.
"The nearest river from this pioneer village is beyond about three of those mountains over there. Liberta, do you have any countermeasures for that?"
Feeling like I'm being asked the chicken-or-egg question, Lady Esmeralda points out the future food problem.
"Ah, yes, regarding that, we'll create water sources for each farmland, so it's not a problem."
The solution already exists.This frontier land has enough groundwater to dig wells.However, there is no river nearby.
As Claudia indicated, there are mountains, so water flowing from them forms rivers, but those rivers don't flow into the limited flat areas of this frontier land.
From the mountainous area beyond about three mountains, they flow into territories I don't own.
That's also why this land was considered unsuitable for pioneering and no one ever tried.
Where there is water, people build civilization.
Conversely, it means if we can just solve the water problem, we'll be fine.
"I see, you can create water sources. Then the problem is solved.""Aren't you surprised? I'm saying something pretty nonsensical, you know."
I'm aware that saying we can provide a water source, which nature usually provides, is an outrageous statement.I also used the strange phrase "for each farmland," yet both Lady Esmeralda and Claudia seem reassured, as if to say, 'Then it must be okay.'
"It's a bit late for that now. If we were surprised by every one of Liberta's words, we wouldn't last.""That's right. We've decided to think that Liberta's actions are possible because it's Liberta.""Huh?"
Maybe I should think they trust me, which is a good thing, but isn't their response a bit rough?They do like me, right?
Even though my actions are being affirmed with smiles, I feel a little lonely.
"So, what method will you use to create farmland?""Ah, yes. We'll build vertical farmland."
To dispel that loneliness, I take out the design drawings I carry with me from my bag and unfold them for them to see.
"Is this... farmland?""It's a building."
Its appearance is exactly like a multi-story parking garage.
"It's a convenient farmland! It has storage facilities for harvested vegetables on the first floor, water treatment facilities for water flowing from above, and space for delivery wagons to enter!!"
It's a fantasy farmland that sets one floor to 1 hectare and stacks them upwards to increase farmland area.
"........"
The two who said they wouldn't be surprised anymore were apparently taken aback by this, staring at the design drawings with serious eyes.
"The water source for the farmland is water supplied from a mini-dungeon installed on the roof. Also, we'll place Sun Stones on each ceiling that emit light identical to sunlight to ensure illumination. Furthermore, we'll install magical tools on each level that allow the use of Thermo Control Skill and Air Clean Skill for temperature and air management. Soil management will be handled by dedicated golems that can enter the facility, so that's no problem either!"
For construction materials, we'll use the Block Golems currently being delivered.As for the magical tools, I've already asked Dark-san to secure enough for five buildings.
He happily made them, since I promised delicious vegetables and meat.
"We can adapt this for chicken farms, pig farms, and also start dairy and beef cattle. Ah, we also need to make vineyards for wine."
There are still so many things I want to do! This is really fun!!