“Where?” Bell demanded. “Are you expanding it ahead of where the town starts?”
“If you’ve acquired new land, we would love to set up shop on some of it!” said Rango.
They advanced on me in their excitement. Apparently I had lit fires in their merchant hearts. “I’m expanding the town toward the Wolfsbrook Mountain Range. For now, I plan to dismantle part of the wall and double the size of the town.”
“Double?!” they said in unison. Apparently, their excitement had doubled too.
I understood their reactions. The number of adventurers and visitors coming through Seatoh Village was increasing by the day. In terms of people moving here permanently, we were looking at five hundred new residents per month; with adventurers, we saw monthly gains of a thousand people. Those adventurers often came on jobs and then left for the next town, but the percentage of those who eventually came back to Seatoh Village was actually very high, or so I was told. The population of the village was soaring. By this point, most of the folks from neighboring villages had also moved to Seatoh Village, pleased that we had lots of jobs and housing to boot.
Amidst all of this, the Bell & Rango Company was growing at a speed that was, quite frankly, insane. Unfortunately, that also meant they had a huge shortage of personnel, which was causing problems. But little Van had his own issues to deal with! In fact, things were so busy that he was considering learning some kind of technique to enable him to create shadow clones of himself!
The main roadblock there, of course, was that little Van had no clue how to go about learning such a technique. Teehee.
At this point, all I could really do was prioritize the jobs that came in and get things done to the best of my ability. “I’m aiming to expand the town so it can house another three thousand adventurers and merchants. And His Majesty will probably return shortly, so I want to have this done by the time he gets back.”
“Hmm,” said Bell. “I guess I should refrain from making any further requests. At least for now. I’ll speak with you another day.”
“’Kay!” I replied gently.
I said my goodbyes to Bell and Rango, grabbed Khamsin, and left the adventurers’ town to go check out the construction site. It wasn’t long before a group of people caught up to us.
“Lord Van! Please wait!”
It was Paula and her machine bow squad. Even little Porte, the squad’s youngest member, was with them. It looked like they’d come in a hurry; only ten members were present, and they were all equipped with light armor, machine bows, and short swords.
“It is dangerous outside, so we will protect you!”
As happy as Paula’s heroic words made me, they also led me to feel conflicted. “No, no, no. You guys must be exhausted from that long march. You need to rest.”
Paula shot me an exasperated look. “I could say the same to you. I heard you haven’t rested at all since we returned. The villagers and the adventurers are all worried about you.”
“Wait, really?” Ah, man. I guess this comes with being so popular, I thought bashfully.
Paula nodded. She wore the most serious expression she could muster. “Of course. If anything were to happen to you, Seatoh Village would be finished. We can’t yet construct buildings or make weapons on our own. Without you, this village does not exist.” Then she smiled sunnily.
I was a bit wounded to hear that my only value was in making things, but I kept that to myself. I would just cry into my pillow that night instead. With a sigh, I asked, “In that case, can you guys come with us?”
“As you wish!”
Paula and the others saluted me. Everyone had mastered the formalities that came with being in a Chivalric Order, including wee little Porte. The fruit of their hard training, no doubt.
Still, I wished they would show as much consideration for my wounded heart and soul. Little Van was the type of child who thrived on praise!
Upon our arrival at the construction site, I confirmed that most of the wooded area had in fact been cultivated. All the tree stumps really make me feel like I’d come to a forestry site. The area was also much bigger than I’d anticipated.
“I can’t believe we’ve cut down so many trees,” I whispered. “We’re destroying nature.”
“How so? You can find trees anywhere,” Khamsin replied. He looked confused.
I see. It was true: either the human population of this world was much smaller than my old one, or this world’s natural areas were much more vast. It was normal here to traverse long, winding roads sandwiched between deep woods and mountains before finally arriving at a population center. Going to a neighboring town or village took a few days at best, and at worst it could take several weeks for a round trip. That was the world I now lived in.
In that case, maybe it wasn’t such a big deal that we’d cut down all these trees.
Okay, I won’t let it bother me. I tried very hard to convince myself of this before I turned my attention back to the forestry site.
Because I’d built the adventurers’ town along the road, expanding toward the Wolfsbrook Mountain Range would give it a strange shape. Viewed from above, it’d look like a messy “L.”
“What should I do about this?” I mused aloud, staring at the tree trunks. Next to me, Khamsin’s expression grew troubled and he groaned. “Yes, the high ground would be favorable for battle…”
“Are you talking about defensive measures? I swear, you’re always thinking about combat.”
Khamsin can be such a kid sometimes, I thought, smiling. But then a new image materialized in my mind.
It was true that most battles came down to one side trying to take the high ground. If you could shower your enemies with arrows or stones from above, it was tremendously difficult for them to fight back. Even in close-quarters combat, fighting from below was tricky. So maybe Khamsin’s perspective on this was actually great. The big problem was the town’s proximity to Seatoh Village, but if I designed it to function as the village’s defensive line, I could kill two birds with one stone.
In other words, I could build the town such that hostile forces would be unable to target Seatoh Village directly. Then I could fortify both the Wolfsbrook Mountain Range side and the main road side for offense.
With that settled, I just needed to figure out what form this would all take and how tall I should build it. I’d make the wall around the adventurer town about twenty meters tall. The wall facing the village would be five meters, so if enemy forces ever managed to occupy the town, they wouldn’t get the high ground. Just to be safe. Now I just need to figure out the form factor…
Another important consideration was land use. If I used as much of the cultivated land as possible, the town would end up shaped like a magatama. That’d be a little odd, and I’d prefer to have it conform to Seatoh Village’s design.
It was with those thoughts swirling through my head that I struck upon an idea. Seatoh Village was a hexagram, so what if I designed the town like a crescent moon? Back in my old world, lots of nations, like Turkey and Malaysia, had moons and stars on their flags, but nobody had designed villages or towns in those shapes. I was pretty sure, anyway.
Okay, it was time for measurements. I turned around toward Paula and the others. “We need to do some prep. First, let’s make a simple map.”
“Okay!”
Despite some mild confusion over what was happening, Paula and her troops responded enthusiastically. They had no way of knowing how massive this operation would ultimately be.
I looked down from above, listing everything that came to mind. “Hmm, Paula should probably be a little more to the right. And then the whole thing should be bigger— No, we’ll be fine if we put the wall on the outside of where we placed the marker.”
Khamsin, down on the ground, directed traffic as loudly as he could. “Paula! A little more to the right, please!”
Paula and the others responded quickly to our instructions, holding their round iron shields all the while.
I’d started by building a chunk of twenty-meter-high wall at the far end of the construction zone. That way, I could stand on the wall and use the machine bow squad as human markers for where I would build the rest of the town. Unfortunately, the process was proving more difficult than I expected; the distance made things tricky, and that prevented me from arranging my human markers in a clean curve.
“I feel like the rear is getting smaller,” I said aloud.
“Huh?” said Arte. She and Till had brought us tea and snacks. “Oh, you’re right. And I imagine the wall itself will end up different, too.” Arte had been much more proactive in expressing her own thoughts and feelings lately.
“Yeah. We’re not directly above it, so it’s hard to judge the size of things that far away. What should I do…?” I sipped my tea, working through the problem in my brain. We’d already spent an hour taking measurements, and I was starting to feel bad for Paula and her team. “Should I gather another twenty or so people?”
Just then, I heard a loud voice from down below. “What? Is someone calling for me?”
I almost looked straight down, but quickly suppressed the urge. Peeking down a twenty-meter wall was terrifying. I hadn’t built any kind of railing yet, so I crawled forward slowly and looked over the edge.
“Lord Van! Do you need any help?”
“Huh? Dee? What brings you here?”
Below were Dee, Arb, Lowe, and a pack of twenty-odd other people. When we returned from the march, I’d told them to take turns resting for a week, but here they all were, clad in light armor.
Abruptly, Dee vanished from sight.
“Lord Van!”
“Whoa! You scared me!”
I took my eyes off him for a second and he came running up the wall. It surprised the crap out of me; I was still on all fours.
“Running up this wall will prove to be excellent training!” Dee panted. “Might I request stairs?”
“You’re really going to use them for training?” I decided then and there to install an elevator in the wall. If I let him have his way, he’d run up and down until he collapsed. “Well, either way, I’m glad you guys are here. Think you can lend me a hand?”
Dee grinned and nodded. “Leave it to us! I asked Sir Esparda to watch the village, so take all the time you need!”
“You’re a lifesaver.” I smirked, seeing Dee raring to go, then offered my silent gratitude to everyone who had come to help, even though it meant squandering their vacation time. I was blessed with incredible friends and allies.