Chapter 45: Stabilizing
The Grassland – Fall
Summer had ended, and fall had finally arrived on the grassland. After weeks of resistance, complaints, and confusion shaking the alliance apart, things were finally starting to settle down.
Solon had spent the past month fixing nearly every idea Theo introduced to the Grassland Alliance. Some only needed small adjustments. Others got completely torn apart and rebuilt from the ground up.
During his first few weeks, Solon traveled from village to village conducting surveys and census work. But he wasn’t only counting numbers. He observed how every village lived, how they traded, how they argued, what they valued, and what kind of people they respected. Then he started building a system around those differences instead of forcing everyone into the same mold.
---
Drak’s Mining Village
Located near the ravine, Drak’s village looked far humbler compared to Blackstone. There were no earth mounds, no wooden walls, and no watchtowers. Only clusters of tipi tents surrounded by simple wooden fences.
Honestly, every other village looked poor compared to Blackstone now.
When the villages first relocated near each other, the complaints never stopped. Every morning, hunters grumbled about the chance of running into other hunters from neighboring villages because the territories were now too close. Every night, they complained again because they actually did run into each other while chasing the same prey.
But those complaints had mostly disappeared over the past month.
Now the mornings were filled with villagers going through their routines peacefully. Some prepared tools, some cleaned hides, some carried baskets of foods, while others sat around the fire drinking hot milk before work.
“Morning, chief.”
Mikol, one of the burly villagers, greeted Drak with a grin as he approached the fire pit. Drak was already sitting there with a mug of hot milk in hand, enjoying the chilly fall air.
“Oho, morning, Mikol,” Drak replied cheerfully.
“You sound real happy today, chief.”
“How could I not?” Drak laughed loudly. “Not after we found another iron vein yesterday. This ravine truly is a blessing from the heavens, hahahaha!”
Drak grabbed the pickaxe resting beside him and rose to his feet.
“So then,” he said with a grin, “shall we get to work?”
“Uh… I don’t think you can, chief,” Mikol said hesitantly while scratching his head.
“Huh? Why not?” Drak frowned.
“You forgot today is Friday?” Mikol replied. “Ration shipment day.”
“Gah, I still keep forgetting the damn day names,” Drak muttered in annoyance. “Sigh… Blackstone seriously need to teach more people how to read other than the village chiefs.”
“Yeah, sorry about that, chief,” Mikol said awkwardly. “Right now only you can read those shipment manifests properly. Oh, but the messenger also said the timber shipment from the forest village should arrive today for our smithy construction.”
“Oh?” Drak immediately brightened up again. “Now that’s something worth waiting for.”
Before, Theo tried to make every village equal. Now, Solon established a controlled hierarchy instead. Blackstone was officially labeled as the central village, while the others became allied villages under the alliance structure.
But Solon also gave every village a role.
The river villages became farming and fishing settlements. The forest villages specialized in timber and monster hunting. The grassland villages focused on herding, leather crafting, and hunting. The ravine villages handled mining and stonework. Meanwhile, Blackstone became the center of administration and military organization.
Surprisingly, simply giving people labels, responsibilities, and target quotas changed everything.
Before this, nobody had ever told these villages what they were supposed to excel at. Every settlement just survived however they could.
Now every village had pride.
Competition became productive instead of hostile. Their identities stayed intact, but the resentment began fading away.
Turns out people accepted hierarchy far easier than fake equality.
---
Blackstone – Tara’s Tent
Inside the tent, Tara and Erika were still sleeping soundly.
Clang! Clang! Clang!
The village bell rang eight times, signaling eight o’clock in the morning.
“Gah!” Tara suddenly jolted awake halfway from her charpoy bed. “I need to get ready before the chiefs arrive!”
“Mother…” Erika muttered sleepily from the bed beside her. “That’s Saturday. Today’s Friday. Stop disturbing my sleep.”
“Oh…” Tara blinked blankly for a second. “…Right.”
Then she immediately dropped back down and continued sleeping.
The new hierarchy system also solved many of the alliance’s daily headaches. Before, every single village problem got dumped onto Tara. Then Tara brought those problems to Theo, and Theo would immediately start inventing spontaneous solutions on the spot.
Now, Solon strictly separated village matters from alliance matters.
Daily complaints from villagers were handled by their own village chiefs instead of being thrown directly at Blackstone. That alone made the chiefs feel like they still had authority over their own people instead of slowly becoming decorative figures under Tara.
Meanwhile, alliance matters were only discussed during scheduled weekly meetings in Blackstone.
That’s right, a weekly meeting. Such a ridiculously simple concept, yet somehow Theo forgot it exist for a reason.
Before, village chiefs came to Blackstone whenever they felt like complaining about something. Sometimes five chiefs arrived in one day. Sometimes arguments dragged until midnight over problems that could have waited several days.
Now everything was organized. Urgent matters stayed urgent. Minor matters waited until the meeting day. Everyone suffered fewer headaches.
---
Blackstone – Village Square / Market
As for the economy, Solon managed to save it right before Theo accidentally drove it straight into a cliff.
Previously, Theo planned to expand the salt production aggressively by building more Archimedes Screws and pushing the mine toward one ton of salt production per day.
Solon immediately stopped that plan.
Production was reduced to only three hundred kilograms per day, and no more additional Archimedes Screws were approved.
That amount was enough for food preservation, enough to circulate as currency, and enough to make Blackstone wealthy. But not enough to flood the market and destroy the value of salt before the economy even properly existed.
The Blackstone market square had also become far livelier than before. Peddlers shouted prices everywhere while customers moved from stall to stall carrying salt blocks in leather pouches.
“What do you mean four and a half blocks for a bison thigh?!” a woman complained loudly at one of the peddlers.
She pointed toward a wooden board standing in the middle of the square. The announcement board.
“The recommendation there says three and a half blocks for bison thigh!”
“That’s recommendation, not law,” the peddler scoffed. “Besides, weren’t you still illiterate last week?”
“Yeah, and now I learned enough to know you’re overcharging me,” the woman snapped back.
Then suddenly the peddler beside them began shouting loudly.
“Bison thigh! Three and a half salt blocks only! Cheap! Cheap!”
He was shouting at the crowd, but he was also very obviously shouting for the angry woman specifically to hear.
“Hmph, good thing there’s still an honest peddler in this market,” the woman scoffed before immediately walking toward the next stall.
The neighboring peddler welcomed her warmly while throwing a smug side glance toward the first merchant.
The first peddler could only stare back in irritation after losing the customer.
Then—
“Bison thigh! Three salt blocks only! Cheap! Cheap!”
Competition had officially begun.
Armed with standardized block-shaped salt currency courtesy of Archimedes lever-press, the Grassland Alliance had finally begun taking its first real steps toward an actual economy.
Trading became easier. Prices slowly became more consistent. Villagers now had reasons to specialize their work instead of trying to personally gather everything themselves.
Little by little, stability and prosperity were starting to form. Exactly what Theo wanted this civilization to become.
---
Near The Farmland
Unfortunately, Theo himself didn’t look very enthusiastic despite all the progress.
Theo sat beneath a tree at the edge of the grassland, one leg raised while his arm rested on his knee. From there, he watched the farmland in silence.
The harvest had started. Villagers moved across the fields carrying baskets filled with corn and squash. Laughter occasionally echoed from the workers as Delilah walked between them cheerfully, helping with the harvest while humming to herself.
The druid’s nature magic truly was absurd. Less than one and a half month after planting, the fields were already producing enough crops to feed villages.
But Theo’s eyes weren’t on Delilah, they were on Solon.
The ancient Greek lawmaker was currently inspecting corn, maize, and squash with visible curiosity. Naturally, none of those crops existed on ancient Greece during Solon’s lifetime on Earth.
Theo had to admit that because of Solon, the alliance had become far more stable than before. Even though Theo’s status window still hadn’t updated the alliance stability level yet, but he could already tell it was only a matter of time.
“Sigh…”
Theo leaned his head back against the tree trunk.
But the annoying part was that Solon had basically put him under political house arrest ever since the first day he got summoned.
No more random reforms, no more spontaneous announcements, no scaring others with necromancer theatrics, no more “modern ideas” without approval.
Or in short, no more being an MC in Isekai world.
At this point Theo felt less like the founder of a civilization and more like a ceremonial mascot. Sure, he still held the title of vice-chief. The villagers still respected him. Some even feared him.
But compared to before, he barely had anything left to do anymore.
Then, a heavy footsteps suddenly approached from behind. Theo glanced back and saw David riding toward him atop his demon hound.
“Heh, still feelin’ miserable ‘cause of your teacher, boss?” David asked with a grin.
“Aren’t you supposed to check the hounds enclosure?” Theo replied.
“Was on my way there,” David said.
He climbed down from the demon hound, gave the beast a few pats on the neck, then walked over to Theo while the creature lazily wandered nearby to graze.
“Then I spotted ya sittin’ here moping again,” David continued. “Same thing every mornin’ now.”
“I’m not moping,” Theo protested, then he paused. “Well… not that much.”
David snorted.
“So?” he asked. “Did Solon still whippin’ your ass in class?”
“On my standard, I can’t even call it a class,” Theo scoffed. “There’s no classroom, no board, barely any writing tools. We just sit facing each other while he lectures me for hours.”
Theo’s face immediately soured.
“And whenever I answer wrong, he scolds me like I’m an idiot, and he always smacked me with a stick because apparently my sitting posture looked ‘undisciplined.’”
“Huh?” David tilted his head. “Boss… that just sounds like regular studyin’.”
Theo looked offended.
“No it doesn’t.”
“Sure does.”
Theo clicked his tongue and leaned back against the tree again.
“Never mind,” he muttered. “I’m too tired to explain modern education systems to ancient people.”
Then his voice became quieter.
“Not like my knowledge seems that necessary anymore anyway.” He folded his arms and pouted slightly.
The sight was ridiculous enough that David couldn’t stop himself from chuckling, making Theo immediately frowned harder.
“…David.”
“Yes, boss?”
Theo stared toward the farmland again for a few seconds before speaking.
“…Am I even still needed here?”
David looked at Theo quietly. Slowly, a gentle smile appeared on his face. The same kind of smile he used when he sees his children from his old life.
Then he answered kindly–
“Nope.”