Chapter 6:
The Importance of Human Resources
I WANTED TO INCREASE OUR POPULATION AND RECRUIT some folks who could manage everything in my place, but things never went quite the way you wanted. Going around to nearby towns and villages was an option, but that would mean picking a fight with the nobles in charge of those towns and villages. What should I do?
“Maybe I’ll ask the Bell & Rango Company for help,” I whispered.
Esparda nodded. “I believe that would be for the best.”
Guess I had the right answer! What a relief. “Heh heh. Let’s have them head to the capital and other big cities first. They can recruit people looking to make money, and I can set their pay higher than the baseline in the capital. There’ll be all kinds of jobs available, so we can hit a wide range of people! We can also hit up the Adventurers’ Guild with escort and dungeon-diving quests at the same time. They’ll be all, ‘wow, Seatoh Village sure is affluent and awesome!’ If we can hire an expensive team of mercenaries, they’ll basically function as publicity!”
Now, Esparda! Lavish me with the praise I deserve!
Instead, Esparda looked back at me with a reserved expression. “The Bell & Rango Company is already recruiting and running publicity for us in the capital and in House Fertio’s territory. I have already sent requests to the Adventurers’ Guild as well. This was all in the report I delivered to you—”
I interjected hastily. “Ah, I read it! I totally did! I knew that!” If I didn’t bluff my way through this, I had hell in store for me: twice the usual amount of study. Elegantly, I wiped the cold sweat from my brow and shot Esparda a cynical smile. “I already knew all that. I’m talking about drumming up publicity in other big cities! I was also thinking of having the Bell & Rango Company buy some more slaves for us. We have plenty of jobs here for hard-working people.”
For a long moment, Esparda considered me with narrow eyes. I averted my gaze and took a deep breath. Finally, he said, “Fine. In that case, I must send them the order. What is your budget for this?”
There it was. He was trying to catch me in a lie. My well-honed Esparda Radar was screaming at me. If I’d read the report, I could give him a proper answer based on how much money we had…but frankly, I had no clue what our financial situation looked like. How could I? I’d been busy marching to the front lines, rebuilding fortress cities, fixing strongholds, all sorts of stuff!
But Esparda would never accept that as an excuse. Not this study demon.
“Let me see… Last time, it cost something like three platinums to purchase 150 young and healthy slaves, right? In that case, let’s raise our budget to ten platinums.”
There! I’d dodged any direct references to the report, but also presented him a concrete number. Esparda raised a single eyebrow and stilled, but after several seconds of silence, he replied, “I see. Given Seatoh Village’s current fortune, it would be safe to spend thrice that amount. Why ten platinums?”
“Well, if we move a ton of people here at once, that’s a lot to handle in terms of room and board, not to mention education,” I said, trying to sound like someone who had been thinking about this for a while. “And if we buy too many slaves in one go people will get the wrong idea about me, plus the market will suffer. I think we should buy a few at a time.”
Esparda’s expression relaxed minutely. “Hmm… That makes sense. It seems you’ve put a great deal of thought into this. You will hear no more from me. About the petition for more equipment for the Chivalric Orders, however…”
It was another two hours before I finally managed to flee the manor. As I walked through the village, I hunched over and sighed. “I’m so dead.”
Till and Arte both smiled at me. Till said, “Excellent work.”
“Personally,” Arte ventured, “I think it’s incredible how much you’re managing. I only understood about half of what Sir Esparda said.”
I flashed the girls an ambiguous smile. Given Arte’s age, it was impressive that she understood that much of the conversation, but she might take that the wrong way if I said it aloud, especially since I was younger than her. Instead, I took a look around the village.
Following Esparda’s advice from a while back, I had enclosed a pretty wide area with the wall, meaning we currently had a ton of open space in the village. But in the context of our future plans, we had barely enough ground to accommodate all the people we wanted to bring in. As always, Esparda is one step ahead. Talk about wisdom.
As I walked around, I talked to myself about my vision for Seatoh Village. “I still want more restaurants, clothing shops, and other miscellaneous goods stores on this street. I’d also love to have an open market with stalls. We can set up some blacksmiths near the dwarf forge, and then we’ll need carpenters, storage units for the businesses… Oh, and a fancy residential district and park. Hmm, what else do we need?”
We had long since passed the point where we could reasonably describe this place as a village, but given how long we’d been doing it, I was committed to the name to the very end.
Arte, hearing my monologue, raised a hand. “Don’t we need a hospital?”
“Oh, I forgot about that. We totally do.” I smiled at her.
Till raised her hand next. “I would like a library!”
“I see, I see. What about education? We probably need schools, huh? Could we get by just teaching reading, writing, and basic arithmetic? People won’t be able to read books without those skills.”
“Wait, you want to teach the commoners, too?” Till asked.