“I’ll let Barry handle assigning tasks to the villagers.”
I didn’t feel I had a firm enough grasp on all the villagers’ strengths and weaknesses yet—I didn’t even know them all by name—so delegating that to Barry was the best course of action.
“Let’s see now, let’s see. The kobolds and dwarves should handle excavation, for starters. The ogres and giants are the strongest, so we’ll ask them to do all the hauling. Lots of soil and wood to haul in construction. Say, you think you could hire a guard to escort the villagers what need to forage and lumber in the forest? I reckon the sound of chopping trees’ll attract no end of monsters.”
We’d need wood? Oh, to reinforce the passageways and rooms, I suppose. I was probably going to need proper tools for woodcutting as well. And I’d have to take measures to protect the villagers from monsters while they were doing it. Good attention to detail there, Barry. He really knew his stuff.
“How many guards would you say we need?”
“We’re talking about monsters here, so a few mercenaries with some experience hunting would do. If you can find three or four folks who can hold their ground rather than run away with their tail between their legs when they come face-to-face with a monster, that’ll be that. You’ll need double that if you’ve got nothing but beginners, though.”
“If I can find skilled people, why do we still need so many of them? Four seems like a lot.”
“Strong monsters don’t show their ugly mugs too often, but you’ll want to be prepared just in case one comes knocking on your door. It wouldn’t be a pretty sight if one of the hired swords didn’t make it back to their family. Getting everyone home alive is what matters most here.”
Wow, wasn’t expecting such a cautious answer. I guess people living out in the backwoods learned to be cautious.
“At any rate, it sounds like I can’t use the folks Suzu was trying to recommend to me, if we need reliable guards. Maybe I’ll see if Fez can lend me a hand.”
The truth was, I didn’t have a whole lot of connections to leverage. Even setting aside the fact that I rarely ventured outside the labyrinth, there just weren’t a lot of travelers who came to this remote region in the first place.
“Mayor, do you know when Fez is planning to be here next? Market day isn’t too far off now, but that doesn’t mean he’ll show up.”
Fez set up his wagon on the same day of the week, more often than not, but if it was raining or if he just couldn’t put together enough of the right sort of stock, he wouldn’t make the trip out and would show up the next day instead. The villagers were used to it, and would even defer holding the market day so he could appear. Compared to Japan, where everything and everyone ran on a tight schedule, it seemed like a rather loose way to run things, but I supposed it was a reasonable arrangement for a fantasy world with limited transportation and distribution options.
“Ah, Fez? He stopped by not too long ago. He should be at his usual spot tomorrow.”
Oh, he’d showed up early? Perfect timing.