Homesteading in a fantasy world

POV Charles

I was incredibly nervous yet excited. A new chapter of my life was about to begin as soon as I stepped through that portal. Many people were given an actual portal mage, and from what it looks like, an energy-type portal mage so he could connect to quite a distant land, probably one of the most northern civilized areas of the world. Normally, I would have liked to keep working here, but I can read the writing on the wall; none of the cities around the Central Sea will be expanding, and I would be fired like so many others with my skills.

From a very young age, I thoroughly enjoyed architecture and even more so, city and kingdom planning. It was so fascinating, and there are so many aspects to it that most people never think about. At first, I was skeptical, especially because they wanted me to join their nation, but they kept wearing me down, and when they showed me their latest development plan, I almost puked at how ugly it was. But the idea behind it grabbed me immediately. Of course, they tried to hold back information, but I could see through what they were trying to hide. They were trying to build a brand new nation from the ground up.

Immediately after I understood what they wanted from me, I walked into my boss's office, quit on the spot, and then accepted the United Freeholds' offer to become a citizen and to accept the job of head of the development branch of the government. At first, I didn’t even know that I was accepting that responsibility, and I think they were a bit mad, but after I took their oath, I understood why they could trust people like me. I was quite hesitant to do this because I might die, but I wasn’t going to let anything stop me from actually building a nation.

"Everyone, move in an orderly fashion," I heard a guard speak, and then it was repeated multiple times. With me were at least 50 people; most of them seemed like they were not doing so well, but I could see the determination in their eyes. That was one thing that was common with everyone associated with United Freeholds. Whoever was in charge of the recruitment was doing an excellent job.

When I stepped out of the devil portal, I found myself in a climate that was colder than I was used to, but since I mostly lived in a tropical climate, that was to be expected. Seeing almost everything made out of wood was a strange experience; even the portal station itself was basic, although there were a decent number of guards and soldiers around us. Whoever they were, they were well-equipped and seemed quite strong and disciplined.

I saw larger buildings; they seemed quite well-designed. Then, however, I noticed the road. I was expecting muddy roads, especially inside the town, but they looked like they were made from extremely precisely cut stone. I used a few of my abilities to understand the little road a little bit better and was totally surprised. That thing will last for 1000 years, if not more, and that's if no one maintains it.

With this quality of stonework and design, I was surprised that everything else was made out of wood, but then I remembered how small the population they had was. It will probably be a few more years before they have the population, spare money, and workforce to start building proper walls and upgrading the buildings. A person was approaching me, someone who looked like a government official.

"Good day, Charles. I’m incredibly excited that you chose to join us. My name is David, and we will be working quite closely together. I’m in charge of the economy, among other things, and I’m truly excited that we get to work together," he said. I was a bit surprised as I had just thought that he worked in the government, not in charge of anything this important. Where were his guards? Wait, I was being rude. "It's a pleasure to meet you, and I’m honestly quite excited as well."

"Follow me then. I will show you to your office and then to your home," he said. I was a bit surprised by those words. "Well, that’s some news. I suspected I needed to find my own home and, to be completely honest, I expected to be living from my office for a little while, and that might not change as I suspect there’s a lot to do." David laughed at my words, but it was not a mocking laugh; it was a genuine laugh. That was refreshing.

The town seemed to have a second wall, but it looked like they were dismantling it as we spoke. David explained that that was the original village and it seems like they have only been here for three years. That surprised me. Then I got my second huge surprise when David started to explain how their job system worked after I asked how many workers the government currently has. The answer was basically zero; everyone was a freelancer. This shouldn't work, but David continued to explain, and even he said that they will continue to monitor it as their population continues to grow.

Now, I had known that this part of the world was dangerous, I never expected them to have survived this many disadvantaged wars and other dangerous events. The fact that they actually had a rank one dungeon was unexpected, yet their ability to plant dungeons. Well, that I had to mark as the third surprise so far.

Now, a few hours later, after dropping off my stuff in my house, being shown where to get food and the market as a whole, I was of course in office where I currently was looking at the map of this country and its surroundings. On this map were the development plans and already started outposts that they wanted to make into villages. The plan was decent enough, although it was ugly and would need a lot of polishing.

The resources I had available and the workers were not the best, but they were driven, and I believe we will get the abilities we need to do this properly. A lot of the resources also went into the military, which of course I didn’t like as I like to focus on the civil side of things, but I could completely understand the need even if I didn’t like it. On that front, it seems that I’ve met my match. Whoever this architect was, it was clear that he could plan not just a war strategy but a complete development plan to keep a nation safe.

That was rare, but it was also obvious that he was out of his depth with the civil side of things. For example, his plan to use the flooded area they caused to be developed as a new source of different resources. Overall, it was a good plan but lacked detail and depth. Not many would think this, but even on a national scale, a simple overlooked mistake could cause a huge ripple effect. What did they overlook with this plan? Simple, it was time. Currently, starting to work on this right away would not account for what changes would happen to the plants and creatures surrounding this newly flooded area.

Many times I have read and even seen people thinking that they could change the nature around them, only for something to change that undid all their plans. We could put a few years of effort into developing an underwater farming area only to discover a bug that had mutated to consume everything in its path. We would then have to cleanse the entire place and start all over. That was just the most likely scenario, as you should research which environmental changes make nature go a bit crazy.

Still, groundwork can begin, but some things can't be rushed. What can be rushed, and what they should have pushed for more, is to get more people to the different outposts and get a village built there by the end of the summer. With the current plan they have, it’s going to take at least two years to reach the point that I want to reach this year. The problem, of course, is manpower, but I kind of understand them; they need to use the people they recently conquered.

Hopefully, I will be able to convince them to use the amount of manpower available to them. It seems that they have forgotten that these places also need upgrading, and they haven’t even done proper surveys of the kind of resources they actually have in their newly conquered lands, especially the ones that are actually a part of the nation, at least not right now according to the achievement page. The fact that they could monitor their territory so well is amazing, but it can also make them too reliant on it.

A perfect example is the North. Now, I could somewhat understand that they didn't use to have many rank-one scouts, but they do have them now after the war, and basically, all of the north was unexplored. Who knows what threats might lie there or what resources.

It seems that they are not thinking big enough. For some reason, they seem to be content with the land they currently have. Bullshit. They should have the drive and the ability to claim the entire northern tip of the green continent, if not more, but that would depend on how willing they would be to conquer other nations.