Erik got back late from hunting, the groups dispersed, the people from the town had mixed emotions, their levels had greatly increased, but then they had needed to kill tens of boars on their outing. Knowing that in the future that they would be up against hundreds of the beasts, it made everything all the more real for them.

Blaze met him as he was walking in.

“Good hunting?” Blaze asked.

“Not bad, just getting a hang of this thing,” Erik showed his short bow, thankfully Rugrat had taken some time to show him how to be a better archer so he didn’t look like a complete idiot in front of the hunting party.

Erik could see Blaze, the village leaders jealousy even if he hid it.

“You’ll have to come out in the coming days when you’re free,” Erik smiled.

Blaze let out a dry laugh, rubbing his head as he’d been seen through.

“Sorry, it’s just now I’m only a level eleven when I used to be the strongest in the town, now everyone else is catching up quickly!”

Erik nodded, working as the village’s leader Blaze hadn’t had much time to increase his overall level dealing with bureaucratic issues.

“What did you do before you were the villager’s leader?” Erik asked.

Blaze seemed to be caught off guard by the question before he let out a laugh.

“I was one of the king’s knights, I served for twelve long years, earning my right to create a camp. So I gathered some people, created a camp out here and built Alva as you see it now. Had to sell my horse and gear one year the grain supply got too low,” Erik could see the pain in Blaze’s eyes.

He could understand it, too, Blaze had been a warrior, a man to lead from the front, when he lost his armor and horse he had lost that part of him, he’d become some guy behind a desk.

“Have you ever trained with a spear?” Erik asked.

“A spear?” Blaze looked confused but nodded. “It was one of the first weapons I learned as an infanteer, lived with my spear for five years before I was able to become a cavalry squire.”

“Good, I need someone to lead the spear groups I want to build up three to five spear wielding groups of ten people each. Their main purpose is to hold the walls at all costs and protect the archers led by Glosil,” Erik said, looking at Blaze seriously.

He could see a fire in Blaze’s eyes as one side of his mouth stretched into a bloody grin.

“Don’t worry, I’ll make sure that they don’t know the word retreat.”

A cold smile appeared on Erik’s face, a smile between warriors that only offered one thing, death to those that stood in their path.

Erik clapped Blaze’s shoulder.

“To be my man on the ground, I’m going to need someone to replace you in organizing all of the villagers,” Erik said.

Blaze turned thoughtful, not answering immediately, Erik silently nodded to himself, Blaze might want to have the position leading the spear users, but he wasn’t going to leave his previous position to have his previous efforts ruined.

“Elise,” Blaze said after some deep thought.

Erik raised his eyebrow and indicated for Blaze to go on.

“She might just manage the store, but she’s got a good mind for it. She’s well connected to the people and has their respect. She’s fair and kind, but crossing her is a bad idea.

She’s helped me out a time or two with planning out a few projects.”

Erik hadn’t spent that much time talking to Elise, he’d been off with one task or another, or just heading straight for the auction interface.

“Well, let's go and talk to Elise,” Erik said.

“Also, the farmers should be done with their harvest midday tomorrow, also one of the woodworkers has expressed an interest to make a logging area, it will cost some resources and he will be removed from making crossbows, but it would increase the amount of wood we can cut,” Blaze said.

“See to it,” Erik said.

If I could find a technique manual to improve one’s wood working ability then I could decrease the number of woodworkers on weapons building side of things and then pull them for making buildings. I would feel much safer with woodworkers overseeing and working with the farmers to make the buildings. Less chance of it coming down like a pile of dominos.

They entered the store, Elise wiped her brow with the back of her arm as she looked up from the meat she was curing and readying for ration packs.

Seems like there’s jerky everywhere I go. Not chili flavored though.

“Auction block?” She asked, blowing hair out of her face.

“Job recruitment!” Erik said walking up to the table.

She frowned and looked from Erik to Blaze as if trying to get a hint from them. Erik tapped his hands on the counter as Blaze grinned.

“So, want to manage the village?” Erik asked.

“What?” She asked, looking at Erik as if he had grown a third head.

“Well, Blaze here will be creating a spear unit and I am in need to a boss lady to get this village on the right track, I was told that you would be the right person to talk to.” Erik said, watching her closely, while it was Blaze’s recommendation, Erik couldn’t let such a key part of the village’s development be ignored or fall through.

“You’re serious aren’t you,” Elise said.

Erik simply nodded as Elise pursed her lips, thinking.

“I’m not going to lie, I’m not thrilled with the idea of taking over the role and I’m not going to hold my breath,” Elise warned.

“Duly noted,” Erik said.

“Good, then I’m going to need helpers, no offense but Blaze was making a dogs breakfast of this trying to manage it all. I want to break down the operations of the village on the civilian side even more. I want Jasper to manage the resources and their storage, grain, wood, stone, food, as well as meal preparation, morning, midday and evening meals and creating rations in their time off, also I want him to have twenty people, not just ten. Taran will be in charge of making weapons he’ll appoint someone to attend meetings,” Elise saw Erik and Blaze wince. “Everyday I want to have a meeting with all of the leaders, You two, Rugrat, Glosil, Jasper, Taran and myself will attend to go over everything that has happened in the day. If you agree to this then I’ll agree to the position.”

“Done,” Erik said as fast as possible, not willing to let her go away.

Blaze scratched his head, compared to Elise’s management skills he was truly lacking,

Erik pulled out a notepad he had been working on, flipping through the pages.

==========

Breakdown = 17 groups + 2 guard groups (190 people) (9 unable to work)

Groups-Activity

3-Weapons/arrows/defensive items

5-Farmers Harvesting

5-Logging

1-Food/Storage

3-Training/hunting

------

2-Guards

==========

“Elise, I want you to focus on building projects, the first to be completed will be the logging camp to assist the loggers. I want you to use people from the harvesting groups once they’ve harvested all of the crops. One group will be sent to assist Jasper, one second,” Erik opened up the auction marketplace and went to Blueprints.

==========

1000 Gold Town Headquarters

100 Gold Barracks II

100 Gold Workshop II

10 Gold Smithy I

100 Gold Store II

10 Gold Stone Mine II

100 Gold Ore Mine II

10 Gold Farm I

10 Gold Warehouse I

10 Gold Wall

10 Gold Watchtower I

100 Mana cornerstones (Earth grade) Teleportation Array I

==========

If he had the gold for it he could buy any of them. The Town Headquarters could be bought, but it couldn’t be built until the village had certain buildings within its domain and a certain population base. He could build a Smithy, but unless he had a smith, or he trained one, then it would be useless.

He wasn’t just held back by these buildings, he could build whatever he wanted.

Erik wanted to build badly, but he took a minute before rushing forwards.

Defensive lines, sure we need them, but not an immediate concern, need to build up the basics of the village. We aren’t going to rely on the walls but on people. Food, sorted, water, need to put some measures in to make sure that we have enough, we’ve got the well and people have rain water barrels but we need to make sure that’s sustainable. If I was able to get a purification spell I could get Roska to purify the water, then we wouldn’t have sewage and wastewater. I could talk while people are eating about health and safety, that way we could keep down infections and diseases. Bathing is low on these people’s priority, but it would keep down disease and increase people’s morale having a hot shower. Shelter, we need to make sure that everyone has good sleeping quarters, clean out that sprawling mess, clear up the roads to the walls. Then get watchtowers up to give us an early warning, that will require people.

Erik flipped to the auction side of things and went looking through spells.

==========

Purification

==========

Novice

==========

Purify water you are touching

==========

Consumption of Mana based on amount of water purifying.

==========

Bid: 7 Silver, 35 Copper

Time; 1 day, 17 Hours 23 minutes

Buyout: 12 Silver 79 Copper

Erik bought it directly and looked to crafting technique manuals.

He looked at an architect technique manual but it was in the range of fifty gold. He could only shake his head and move onto the next best.

He moved to the crafting and then woodworking section, the big name Expert Woodworkers technique guides and other straightforward titled manuals had been bought up. Erik reduced his overall buyout amount, limiting the number of books as they became more obscure.

Most people want the general guide and pass by, if one was to look at the basics, the key points then those would be the greatest influence.

Erik’s thinking was based on how his general spells were less effective and cost more in mana than when he targeted his focused heal as much as possible. Like a machine, if you only had to build one thing, you didn’t need to be a master of that machine, just the master of making that one part.

==========

Basics of joining

==========

Apprentice

==========

Learn apprentice grade woodworking skills. Focused on: Joining, Load bearing joints.

==========

Bid: 4 Silver, 35 Copper

Time; 3 days, 9 Hours 21 minutes

Buyout: 6 Silver 37 Copper

==========

Wood Carving

==========

Novice

==========

Simple guide on working with complex and fine carvings

==========

Bid: 1 Silver, 72 Copper

Time; 13 Hours 59 minutes

Buyout: 4 Silver 11 Copper

Hope I don’t fuck this up.

Erik bought them both, watching as his gold dropped again. It came to nearly thirty silver altogether which, while it was expensive, Erik could still chalk it up as a test, not including the new monster cores that he had gathered in the hunt, the village had 8 gold, 4 silver and 73 copper, though Erik and Rugrat were holding onto the strongest monster cores, selling off the excess.

The villagers grumbled about having to hand them over to Erik and Rugrat but they were happy enough with the levels and seeing their combat capabilities they had been stifled.

Erik closed the auction organizing his thoughts.

He could put the farmers to work as laborers to improve the village, he wanted to build badly, but he couldn’t rush forward.

Defensive lines, sure we need them, but not an immediate concern, need to build up the basics of the village. We aren’t going to rely on the walls but on people. Food, sorted, water, need to put some measures in to make sure that we have enough, we’ve got the well and people have rain water barrels but we need to make sure that’s sustainable. If I was able to get a purification spell I could get Roska to purify the water, then we wouldn’t have sewage and wastewater. I could talk while people are eating about health and safety, that way we could keep down infections and diseases. Bathing is low on these people’s priority, but it would keep down disease and increase people’s morale having a hot shower. Living conditions need to be acceptable and we need to clean up the roads to make it easier to deploy people to any of the walls. Even if we have to rip them down and replace them with tents that would be fine. Waste needs to be organized better than just being buried or tossed into dump piles outside the city. If we burned the refuse to heat the water for the showers? That would have the basics covered and we can move on to more complicated things like watchtowers. With the technique manuals I can see if I can’t make some woodworkers into engineers, at least to build some simple structures.

Erik nodded to himself and looked to Blaze and Elise, coming to a decision.

“Alright, the way I see it, our biggest priorities right now in the village other than lumber are the living conditions, food and water, Jasper should have food covered with everything we’ve brought in. Water isn’t a big issue right now but I want to check on the levels of water in rain barrels and the well, also we need to organize the homes and shelters of people, if the conditions aren’t livable we tear it down in the morning and have a new structure built by the night, I don’t care if it’s a tent, I want people to have clean places to sleep, even if they’re damn simple. Elise, I want you to see if there are any talents in building among the population, there is someone that wants to build a logging camp, maybe they would be a good place to start. As they will be away from work, we need to keep up weapon production, since we don’t have the numbers we’re going to have to make it up with quality,” Erik pulled out the technique books for woodworkers.

This book on joining is for whoever is the best you think for construction designing and leading the construction teams. I want them to look into building a watchtower, here are the specifics,” Erik passed her a note on what the watchtower would do and some technical specifics he understood. “The woodworking technique manual is to increase the woodworkers ability to do fine and detailed work and I hope it helps them increase the speed that they can create crossbows and spears. Questions?”

Elise and Blaze were looking at the technique manuals and Erik, clearly a bit stunned.

“Alright, then we will have your first official meeting of the Alva council tomorrow night. Make sure that everyone knows their appointments. Also keep an eye out for people with potential. Blaze, I need people for that quick reaction force, Elise, make sure that you and the new heads that you’ve assigned pass onto me a list of promising people. At the meeting we can talk about them, see if we can give them the best environment to grow their skills, the stronger they are, the stronger we are,” Erik said, trying to drive home the point to them.

Blaze and Elise stood straighter, their faces hardened, accepting their roles and showing their determination to do their best.

“Understood,” they replied.

Erik looked deep into their eyes, feeling like he had made the right decision.

“See you at dinner, Blaze, best you talk to Glosil about your new position and discuss it with Rugrat, they have the best handle on the military side of things,” with that Erik left the store, leaving them behind in stunned silence.

***

Elise and Blaze’s eyes turned back to the counter where Erik had put the two technique manuals. They both knew how such things would be expensive. Most people would hold onto them forever, not letting them go, to not only give them away, but to give to Elise to pass onto her candidates, it showed Erik’s trust in her, it also provided a test for her to look for the person most deserving of the manual.

“He said that he wanted lists of people we recommend,” Elise said as if just realizing his parting words.

“Yeah,” Blaze nodded, a heavy expression on his face.

“Do you think he would give them technique manuals as well?” Elise said, she had known Erik for a few days but it was in passing, Blaze had been next to him from nearly the moment he walked through the gates.

“Rugrat and Erik aren’t like other lords or fighters. I don’t think he even understands what he’s just done right now. He also said to me one time, money is money, but it can’t buy lives, what use is having all this money if you can’t protect the people around you?”

They fell into silence, sinking into their own thoughts.

Elise stored the manuals in her storage ring.

“Right, well, I’ve got work to do.”

Blaze grunted in agreement, the two of them moving with purposeful strides.