Ch.94Adoption

There are certain things that are essential for human survival.

These are commonly referred to as “clothing, food, and shelter,” meaning clothes, food, and housing.

Conventionally speaking, clothing has the lowest priority since people would wear even patched-up rags unless they’ve completely lost their minds. Next comes shelter, and the most important is food.

This is because even if you wear tattered clothes and live under a bridge, as long as you have food, you can somehow manage to survive.

However, in cold regions like the North or hot regions like the South, the priorities are greatly reversed, becoming shelter > clothing > food.

Without shelter, you can’t warm your frozen body, and without proper clothing, you can’t block the cutting wind.

The human body can survive without food for a month, but it has a strange mechanism where exposure to cold can kill within just a few hours. That’s why housing prices in the North are quite high.

To be more precise, I’m talking about the price of a proper house that can withstand sub-zero temperatures, bear the weight of snow on the roof, and is finished neatly without any gaps for strong drafts to enter.

Well, such well-built houses would be expensive anywhere, but they’re especially costly in the North where you’d freeze to death on the streets without one.

When heavy snow falls, even I, the ruler, can barely leave the fireplace. What about ordinary citizens? They might go bankrupt just trying to pay for firewood.

“That’s why this housing distribution is important. It’s almost the only means to help those poor souls who can’t afford to buy a house or who struggle to buy bread after paying rent.”

“The number of applicants for housing rights has already exceeded 200,000. Looking at their income… most of them live on less than one silver coin per month.”

“One silver coin per month…?”

I’m not sure about the cost of living in this world, but calculations become simple when you know that the birth rate is so high that you’d be called an idiot for suggesting it might drop below 2.0 children per woman.

Given this world’s notion that women barely participate in the workforce, the head of the household earns just one silver coin… or less through hard work. While that might be enough for one person to survive a month, it’s woefully inadequate for an entire family.

Moreover, such low-income people can’t own homes, so they invariably rent, leaving them with almost nothing after paying their monthly rent.

Add living expenses and taxes to that, and some months they’ll be in the red.

People struggling with such financial hardships—the working poor—won’t develop patriotism out of nowhere, and even if they did, it would evaporate instantly. Therefore, maintaining their lives at a certain level was nothing short of my sacred duty as a ruler.

Of course, that doesn’t mean I’ll reduce their taxes.

“200,000… Can we accommodate that many?”

“Yes. We deliberately constructed high-rise buildings to accommodate a population of 400,000.”

“I see.”

Then I can roughly picture the cityscape. High-rise buildings looking down on the lush trees, and people gathering as if drawn by a mirage…

“Not bad. But it still can’t be self-sufficient. There are no farmlands or orchards. We’ll need to cultivate more of the Amurtat plains.”

“We’ll need more farmers and more gardeners. That will create more jobs.”

Forests are fundamentally not meant for humans.

They are places for trees, grass, and animals.

Trees produce sweet fruits not to satisfy human taste buds, but to be eaten by wild animals who then spread their seeds through excrement. Precious herbs grow in forests not because they like humans, but because they synthesize various compounds to survive, and some happen to suit human needs.

Humans aren’t the apex predators in this world, but absurdly, humanity often forgets this.

In fact, one could say it’s natural.

Unless you go into the forest yourself, getting scratched by poisonous plants and bitten by venomous snakes while picking berries, apples and grapes are just fruits growing in orchards.

Unless you battle with beasts in the forest yourself, wild boar meat seems no different from pork, just more expensive.

People surrounded by the artificial space of a city can never understand how the products they complain about being expensive are actually made.

Yet these same people—intellectuals who spout nonsense like “let’s leave the city and live with nature” or “the beauty of the great outdoors,” merchants who exploit these ideas to raise prices with labels like “organic,” and consumers who empty both their minds and wallets falling for it—make me wonder whether I’ve fallen into past Earth or a fantasy world.

Who was it that said?

Admiration is the emotion furthest from understanding.

*

Fall of the 11th year of the Amurtat calendar.

At last, the long-awaited construction of the new city in the Western Forest was completed.

I thought about what to name the city and decided on “Woodbury,” meaning a place surrounded by forest.

It might sound like a name from a zombie apocalypse, but that’s just a coincidence.

Anyway, the newly created Woodbury began accepting migrants in earnest, and the forest keepers, refreshed with good food and rest, guided the applicants safely to Woodbury with their smooth skin.

“Come on now. Keep your lines orderly.”

“We’ll reach Woodbury in a week. I’m in charge of this convoy during that time, so find me if you need to leave the group.”

“For medical assistance, look for those in white coats. If you need blankets, approach those carrying backpacks. If you need food, go to the wagons.”

“Move out!”

The forest keepers skillfully controlled the procession of hundreds of thousands of migrants, and under the strict control of armed personnel, the migrants stopped their disorderly movements and began to move in unison.

Humans, being creatures who consider others’ gazes even when littering on the street, rarely disobeyed the instructions of the armed personnel tightly controlling the procession.

Especially when forest keepers who fearlessly traversed the rough forest were watching them.

“Um… it’s too cold, could I have a blanket…”

“Here. We have plenty, so share with others too.”

“O-okay.”

Although it was autumn, the rainy climate and the dense forest blocking sunlight made the perceived temperature much lower.

As a result, many migrants complained of cold during the journey, but fortunately, none died of hypothermia.

The professionally trained forest keepers regularly stopped the procession for rest and warm food, and they had prepared enough blankets for hundreds of thousands of people to use during the journey.

How did they prepare all that in advance?

They had to prepare in advance.

Why? Obviously to avoid repeating the failures I had experienced in the past.

When I sent migrants to the first satellite city I built, inadequate preparation led to a catastrophe where half died in just a week of travel. Once was enough for that lesson.

Anyway, thanks to my “careful consideration,” the migrants arrived at Woodbury without a single death, and only then could they receive their new homes.

Giving ground-level homes with sunlight to those who had been living in dark basements due to poverty was a form of relief only I, as the ruler, could provide.

“Here is your home. Here’s the key, try not to lose it.”

“Th-thank you!”

“And you, it says you have no special skills. Can you do manual labor?”

“Yes! I can!”

“Then gather at the collection point tomorrow morning. Woodbury still needs more workers.”

“Understood!”

And those who received homes also got jobs.

Although they were 3D (Difficult, Dirty, Dangerous) jobs, at least they had employment, and working hard would earn them wages.

For human survival, having stable housing and a job meant one could generally obtain everything else on their own.

And now that Woodbury would shed its ghost town status and begin real growth, I could extract 70% of the total income without any pangs of conscience. Isn’t this what they call a win-win situation?

Real estate is truly the best!

Always thrilling!