Ch.205Public Education (3)

And so, after some time, the Alzar Public School (tentative name), with Sir Corin Lanster as its sole teacher, opened its modest yet splendid doors, accepting the village children as new students (31 in total)….

Apart from this significant achievement that might possibly mark the beginning of something truly momentous, the village itself continued to enjoy peaceful and stable days without any major incidents.

To be more specific, it wouldn’t be strange to say that the village had reached a stage of complete stability.

The primary industries, including agriculture which formed the foundation of the village economy, were vigorously expanding, while the secondary industries processing these raw materials were also developing and growing day by day.

Food production and population had finally achieved balance and were now on an upward trend, and most of the hostile creatures near the village had long since been eradicated.

Moreover, the recent completion of the “wall” had established the concept of a safe zone within the village, and as time passed, the industrial foundation became more solid, eventually transitioning from “ledger currency” to conventional currency.

What pleased me most was that the village now had something that could be called a specialty product.

Soybeans, which weren’t particularly preferred as ingredients and didn’t taste that great, were processed into a jelly-like “tofu” or dried into dried tofu, which surprisingly established itself as a kind of side dish.

But even more popular than tofu—or more precisely, more commercially viable as a specialty product—was soy protein (soy meat).

Honestly, even with the most positive assessment, it was merely edible at best, but as a “cheap meat substitute,” there was always a demand for it anywhere and everywhere.

This was especially true for groups like the military or poor relief centers, where cheap yet somewhat quality-assured food needed to be supplied to as many people as possible.

Soy protein was made from relatively inexpensive soybeans, making it cheap and affordable. It didn’t require that much labor to produce, and crucially, it was extremely easy to preserve for long periods.

Objectively speaking, the resources and labor required to make it were quite substantial, so it did cost something, but from the perspective of being a meat substitute, it was indeed unbelievably cheap.

Thanks to this, demand among the commoners in the domain had been increasing, and supply couldn’t keep up, to the point where I was considering establishing a factory site.

Either way, there was no other way to describe it except that the growth was extremely smooth, and looking at the domain’s growth today, it was remarkably smooth and dazzling.

And because of that, I ended up uttering those cursed words that should never have left my mouth.

“These days… it’s nice that no accidents have happened.”

It was no different from the old saying that words become seeds. I should have kept that firmly in mind.

Because not long after I said those words, a thought occurred to me that was different in direction from all the incidents I had experienced so far, something I had never once considered before.

※ ※ ※

That day, as usual, I was performing the task of reviewing and signing the final documents sent by the village administration.

Whether it was because they had proper formatting, or perhaps my administrative capabilities had improved, processing documents was taking less time and becoming easier.

As I was thinking “I wonder if this is what growth feels like~” while reviewing the incoming documents, I finally finished today’s paperwork and…

‘…Hmm?’

Around that time, a certain proposal caught my eye, attached to the payment-related documents.

“Proposer… Charlotte Mainster?”

It was a proposal sent by Charlotte, who rarely submitted her opinions in document form.

Since I took over the final processing of documents, officials and some others occasionally used the proposal format I had prepared to write down policies they had thought of and send them to me.

To use a familiar comparison, it was like a petition in the Joseon Dynasty era, something I had introduced to broaden my perspective, as I was inevitably ignorant about the lives of individual people.

In reality, it was a fairly well-functioning policy, as I received opinions from people who were experts in their respective fields, or notifications about problems with policies…

‘…Hmm?’

Since Charlotte had never used these proposal forms to convey anything before, I was momentarily lost in thought, and then very carefully began to read the contents.

Charlotte’s proposal was generally requesting an expansion of the village’s size.

Charlotte, who already knew that this pioneer village was created to replace the existing Colland, was proposing to quickly expand the current village size, citing various reasons.

For example, she cited the food production volume, which was quite large compared to the current village size, or the abundance of empty spaces and farmland.

To summarize all this content in one line, it was that the village currently had excess capacity.

As mentioned earlier, the surrounding situation had stabilized after sweeping away all hostile forces, and fertile land was literally scattered everywhere, uncultivated only due to lack of manpower.

In other words, in this situation, it would be wiser to boldly choose to take on challenges rather than conservatively shrinking back.

‘Certainly… that’s right, isn’t it?’

The current village population, counting only those capable of labor, was about 350 people. This size had long since surpassed that of a rural village and was about the size of a decent rural estate.

However, compared to the population, the environment was so good and the surroundings so abundant that the village had more than enough capacity, and with the infrastructure already in place, it was certainly possible to accommodate additional population.

Of course, if we were to add 1,000 people at once, it would cause various problems for the village, but I had no intention whatsoever of committing such a crazy act of expanding the population to such an extreme level.

Therefore, as written in this proposal, the immediate population accommodation would be between 100 and 200 people. This was just the threshold that could increase the size without disrupting the village system.

However, if we were to increase the population indiscriminately like this, there were several things that needed to be done first.

‘Now… I’ll have to seriously increase the number of craftsmen.’

The first thing that came to mind was the shortage of specialized technicians in the village. For now, we could somehow fill the gaps using various expedient methods, but this problem had to be solved eventually.

One master craftsman and several apprentices. Such a system might be more than enough to handle the current village population, but would it be sufficient if the population increased by more than 100 people at once?

Moreover, as stagnant water eventually rots, having certain industries monopolized without competition is never beneficial from the village’s perspective.

Collusion… monopoly… profiteering… Each one of these is a situation that, from a ruler’s perspective, could be torn apart without any particular problem.

Anyway, I spent quite some time reviewing and reading through this proposal sent by Charlotte.

Especially since the review items contained in this proposal showed the experience of a veteran official, from my perspective, it felt like an excellent textbook.

…But just then, as a slight chill ran up my spine—

—BANG!

“It’s, it’s an emergency!”

“…Huh? Pierre?”

Pierre rushed right up to me in a hurry, shouting something urgently. At the same time, my intuition began to react strangely, and I naturally felt my mind becoming anxious as I opened my mouth.

“An emergency? First, calm down, deep breaths, deep breaths…”

Of course, thinking that I could only hear the story after calming down the overly excited Pierre, I said that, and Pierre also showed signs of trying to stabilize his breathing by taking deep breaths.

And, after some time had passed.

“…Thank you, Lord Alzar.”

“Not at all. More importantly… what happened?”

As I carefully questioned him, now showing some composure after calming down his excitement, Pierre opened his mouth with wide eyes as if he had completely forgotten…

“Lady Gretel Wolfblood… has become two people.”

“…What did you say?”

The content delivered in a voice so serious that it could hardly be dismissed as a joke was enough to make me momentarily doubt my own ears.