episode_0103

After securing sufficient funds, I immediately called the village chief. In the past, it would have been right for me to visit, but not now. It wasn’t right for me, a nobleman and lord, to visit the village chief.

Anyway, after calling the village chief, I immediately got to the point.

“Chief. I understand that there is some land owned by local residents within the border that will become the city. Could you please call those people?”

“These are landowners within the border… … . Are you planning on expropriating the land?”

“Oh, don’t worry. Because I’m definitely not trying to take it from you by force.”

In this world where the class system was very strongly enforced, there was no major problem even if land was forcibly taken. No, it is not completely non-existent, but other than losing the reputation of those around you or the public support of the people of the territory, there was no problem. It was not like he was being punished by the royal family.

This is because it was common knowledge in this world that all land in a fiefdom basically belonged to the lord. Of course, like in my case before becoming a lord, if there is another noble, I cannot take it from him.

Of course, it was not his intention to forcibly take away what belonged to the territory’s residents. The plan was to pay an appropriate price and take over ownership of the land.

“I plan to purchase it at a reasonable price, plus some compensation.”

“Well, I’m glad.”

The village chief seemed glad that he wasn’t taking it by force. Of course, he didn’t look completely comfortable. The fact that I was adding compensation in addition to the full price seemed to be because I understood that this meant I would have to sell the land unconditionally.

Still, this was a good enough condition, so the village chief immediately called in the land owners as per my request. After waiting for a while, the landowners hurriedly gathered at the village chief’s house.

“Oh my lord!”

The landowners who had gathered at the village chief’s house looked at me and greeted me as if they were very happy to see me. In particular, some people brought light gifts. They were simple snacks and such.

I don’t know if it was because I was supplying iron products to the people of the territory at low prices, but it was a good reputation.

Perhaps that’s why the landowners nodded without notice when I told them I was purchasing the land. Everyone willingly agreed to sell the land, as they agreed to pay an appropriate price and also provide additional compensation.

In the first place, all the land inside the area I had set as the border was useless land. Because it was located near a village, it was a land with frequent traffic, and as a result, it was difficult to farm in most places. Even if you were growing something, it could be said to be a perfect location for the crops to be damaged.

As a result, the landowners had no hesitation in handing over the land to me. They all handed over ownership of the land in exchange for an appropriate amount of money.

After using some of the money I received from delivering goods to the royal family to purchase land, I immediately continued my conversation with the village chief about the next task.

“Are there any manpower available in the village right now?”

“Well, there has been a small number of people flowing into the village recently, so there is ample manpower. Is there anything else you would like to work on?”

“Trees need to be removed, and things like grass inside the border need to be removed. Besides that, there are some minor things.”

Since we had a huge amount of money, we had no intention of just using skeletons. If I had been a nobleman who simply ran a business, now I was a lord who wanted to develop his territory. Naturally, there was a need to provide work for the residents of the territory.

No matter how good and excellent the territory was, it was meaningless if the people who could be considered members of the territory were incompetent. Therefore, in order to make the people of the territory bigger and stronger, they needed jobs. Especially jobs where you can make money.

Eating, wearing, living. It was all done with money. Therefore, in order to make the people of the territory better, it was necessary to give them money. However, just giving money was like a shortcut to ruining the people of the territory. Even if it were me, I just wanted to have fun without working if someone gave me money, but I didn’t want to work.

Anyway, for that reason, the intention was to provide jobs for the residents of the territory so they could work and receive wages. The idea was to encourage people to earn money by doing something other than their main job and use the extra money to develop themselves.

Of course, I had no intention of forcing myself to develop myself. In fact, right now, it could be said that the focus is simply on improving the quality of life for the residents of the territory. Even if I simply eat better with the extra money I have from working, I have achieved half of my goal.

In this world, problems arise mostly from not being able to eat, but there are very few cases where eating too much becomes a problem, except for nobles. Therefore, it was possible for the residents of the territory to see great results simply by making their meals more plentiful. It was clear that if abundant nutrition was provided, health would be maintained, life expectancy would increase, and the survival rate of newborns would increase. Honestly, from my perspective as a lord, that is enough.

Of course, there was no way all the territory residents would only invest in eating, so they were hoping for other positive effects as well. A typical example was investing the extra money in learning knowledge or skills. It was nice to see new intellectuals and specialized technicians appearing in the territory. In the case of intellectuals, there may be disadvantages.

‘… … ‘There may be people who waste their money on things like gambling, so we should stop gambling, right?’

Also, I thought that the results would not be all good. In this world where entertainment was scarce, the biggest entertainment was gambling. Since the shortcut to ruin is gambling, it was decided to strictly crack down on that matter and leave the work to the people of the territory.

Naturally, the work that was decided was related to the development of the territory. Although it is easy and convenient to use skeletons, the skeletons are currently building iron pillars that will protect my territory, which will become a city, so it was better to mobilize the people of the territory. The purpose was to focus the skeleton on tasks that took the most time and that not everyone could do.

It was a job that had to be done anyway, and it was possible to shorten the time by providing help to the residents of the territory and having the skeletons focus on producing iron pillars.

“First of all, we will hire some mercenaries to protect the territory residents who will be harvesting the wood, and those who find it difficult or reluctant to go outside will work inside the border.”

“That’s a good choice. Then can I recruit people?”

“Please do that. There is a need to shorten the time, so please save up a lot.”

“Yes, we do that.”

Since the village chief knew the village better than I did, I immediately nodded. The village chief was perfect for simply gathering people to do the work. In fact, it was no exaggeration to say that he remembered everyone in the village.

Anyway, after finding people to work through the village chief, we started the work right away. The development of the estate began in earnest as those from the village who were willing came and did all kinds of work.

The gate of the wooden fence surrounding the village opened wide and a large number of people escaped through the fence. This is because, except for farmers who are busy every day except during the off-season, most village residents participated in the work to earn additional income. Even young children who still like to run around were mobilized. Of course, by the standards of this world, it wasn’t anything particularly strange.

Under the protection of mercenaries, men with good physiques and sturdy bodies went out to look for logs to fill the gaps between ironwood fences, while those who did not go looking for logs but wanted to work inside were put to work on various tasks inside the boundaries of what would become a city.

Men began work on digging out deeply embedded rocks where buildings and roads would be built, while those with relatively weaker strength were mobilized to remove overgrown weeds.

As we began work by bringing in so many people at once, things really changed day by day. The inside of the boundary, which was green no matter where you looked, lost much of the green, revealing a dirt floor, and a large number of logs were piled up between the iron pillars. The iron pillar that had been stuck unsightly in the ground became a support for the logs and was transformed into an iron fence that protected the village.

Of course, the skeletons were not idle during this time. As the production of iron pillars was accelerated while producing goods to be supplied to other franchises, the entire border of what would become the city was surrounded by iron pillars. It seemed like the work would be completed in a day or two.

And, when the iron wooden fence made by not only my skeletons but also the residents of the territory was about halfway completed, one of the mercenary teams I had asked to purchase supplies returned. With a bunch of stuff I asked for.

When I heard the news that the mercenaries had returned, I immediately greeted them with Amy. First of all, since it was in the form of a request, the purpose was to inspect it together with Amy, the head of the mercenary group.

Amy greeted the mercenaries with me and began to show interest in the items loaded on the cart skeleton. But that interest quickly faded. This was because what was being loaded on the cart were stones.

“Andrew, did you ask me to buy you a rock?”

Amy looked at me in confusion, but it wasn’t just a rock. Simple stones were plentiful even in the territory, so if a person needed stones, there was no reason to ask them to buy them from another territory.

“This is limestone. It’s not just a rock.”

“Limestone? Where are you using it?”

“It can be used when smelting iron ore into iron, when laying roads, and when building stone buildings. Right now, I’m going to use some of it to build a road and some to build my mansion.”

The item I was told to buy was limestone. It was to be crushed into small pieces and mixed with sand and water in appropriate proportions to be used in construction.

Originally, they were going to use steel mills that smelt large amounts of iron, but they were worried that iron production might decrease, so they asked them to buy new ones.

Anyway, after securing limestone, I immediately started preparing to lay a road using limestone. Of course, I didn’t know much about lime, so I didn’t do it myself. The work was done by promising reasonable wages to those who could handle lime well and hiring them.

And, thanks to this, roads began to be built in the territory at a rapid pace. All you had to do was pour the dough-like form onto the area that had been compacted to make a road, and make it flat so that it was not tilted or biased to one side. If you do that and wait for it to harden, a very strong road will be completed.

Of course, the roads made using lime paste were very well received by the residents of the territory. Like the dirt floor, there was no sinking in one place or tripping and falling due to protruding rocks, and it was very comfortable to pull things like carts around.

However, rather than paying attention to the reactions of the residents of the territory, I continued to develop the territory based on the road. The first thing to be created was a new store that would be located in the best location in the commercial district. I was planning to turn the place where the store is now into a mansion, but to do that, I needed to have a new store.

This time, instead of using skeletons, they called in those skilled in construction among the territory’s residents and built a store building.

After the road was built, the mercenaries heading to the other two locations also arrived one after another, so the speed of putting up the buildings was very fast. This is because they had been asked to obtain chemicals that could prevent wood from rotting due to rainwater. With all the necessary items prepared and a large number of manpower invested, the speed of raising the building was bound to be very fast.

“Boss… … .”

Thanks to this, it was Jienna who died. This was because they decided to move the store as soon as the new store was completed. Now that the new store was completed, everything from the existing store had to be moved out and the new store had to be decorated. Naturally, Jiena, who was in charge of managing the store, had no choice but to have more work to do.

The store was already very busy thanks to the fact that I had been paying wages to the residents for their work. It was natural that blacksmith stores were one of the places that residents of the territory who had enough money went to purchase necessary items.

At first, Jiena was happy that there were more incentives, but as the high-intensity work continued every day, even Jiena, who loved money, complained that she wanted to take a break now.

But unfortunately, I couldn’t listen to Jienna’s complaints. Because there were so many things going on at once, there was more than one thing to worry about. In the end, I decided to leave all aspects of the store relocation to Jiena and take care of what I had to do.

As I tore down the existing store and started building my own mansion in its place, I started taking care of other things as well. Starting with sending and receiving letters to officially launch the Rosy Skeleton, which regularly travels between the Earl of Carbon, the Viscounty of Defuty, and the Barony of Palmer, it was also necessary to reorganize each district by tearing down existing fences.

Still, it may have been because they were so busy moving around so quickly, but the development of the territory was being completed at a very fast pace. No, there was no end to the development of the territory. To be precise, it was closer to the fact that the development of the territory was starting to become noticeable.