Homesteading in a fantasy world

Lately, I always have something to do. Suddenly, things got even busier. Recently, we received a new batch of refugees and hires. It was a positive change, in my opinion, but it also meant a lot of work.

I do feel that our growth as a nation will be a lot smoother in the future, but I have yet to meet the person who brought so much change. The reason is I’ve been extremely busy finishing up all the paperwork required so I could create the organization required for anyone above rank three.

I will just need a few people to join and sign the charter to make it legitimate in the eyes of the World Council. I once again looked at the top of the massive piles of paper to find the name and I once again winced.

United Freeholds Company. That was the brilliant name that I came up with. Truly, I was disappointed in myself, but that was the only name that could encompass all that I needed this organization to do.

If I just made a guild, we would be restricted in where we could operate and what we could do. Most likely, we would have to build our headquarters near an outer circle fortification. Every continent had multiple circles: the inner, middle, and outer. They were all situated near the center of the continent in places where most people couldn't survive. There were monsters so dangerous there that even the combined strength of the whole known world would find it hard to kill.

The only reason we could still survive and build our civilizations was because of the density of energy, mana, and holy power in those places. As a rank three, I would be able to survive going to the middle ring without too many negative consequences if I’m fully healed, but fortunately, it works the other way as well.

Monsters aren’t like people, and the monsters at the pinnacle of their power, whom basically no one could defeat, would die quite rapidly if they left the rings.

Those rings weren’t stationary; they shrank and expanded all the time. The higher-rank organizations are required to put manpower into defending the outer and middle ring so the monsters who could leave would be killed by the defenders of civilization, as they call us.

A Guild would need to operate there, while their members continued to strengthen themselves against the strongest monsters you could find in this world, well, except for the oceans, but only a few brave those waters.

A company would have more freedom but would also need to support the defensive effort a little bit more, not just by manpower but also with resources. I deem that an acceptable cost for being able to operate all over the world, especially inside our own nation.

Of course, there are many limitations once again, but fortunately, those limitations are mostly only meant for conflicts with other civilized nations. For them, regular people will need to be enough, and I will be making sure that our soldiers are all trained enough that my home would be safe.

It's funny that I started to make contact with civilization because I was afraid to lose my land, not to monsters but to other people. To fix that, I started a nation, and while I am truly enjoying the different kind of responsibility, it is a lot of work, but I think in the end it would be rewarding.

Eventually, like always, my goal would be that no one could challenge or take my land, not even the World Council, and I could just continue to live on my land and farm and do the things I like to do.

It will be a lot of work, but freedom has its cost, and it seems to become truly free, you must at first play by the rules of others. To change those rules, it seems that the nation I started would play a huge role.

There will be a lot of challenges before I achieve my goal. But I will not stop, and like always, I am comforted by the fact that if I died pursuing it, I would not have to worry about if I achieved my goal or not. Unless I wake up yet again in a strange world. Well, hopefully, that won’t happen.

I packed everything up that I needed and started walking towards the capital, where I had seven people waiting for me who would sign and join my organization. When the papers are signed, we can fortunately use one of our mages who has the spell to deliver this kind of important paperwork safely.

That way, I would only need to go and visit the World Council's headquarters when the final hearing to start my organization would be held. Fortunately, it won't be a grand display like my previous visit, but I am suspecting that I'll need to deal with the queen's plans once again.

She was beginning to really get on my nerves, but we need to work slowly and secretly to undermine her base of power. The only thing that I’m sorry about would be how many people would be hurt by our actions, but once again, in the calculus of life, people who are from United Freeholds will always be placed above everyone else. That doesn’t mean that I want everyone else murdered; there's only the hope that things will go as well as they can go.

The alliance is, of course, the third thing that will keep me busy since I need to educate other nations in our alliance in military affairs. I am contemplating writing a third book as I’m basically done with my second one, which teaches basic control and manipulation of energy. The third one could be for the military, more specifically the legion structure. Yet, I feel it’s too early.

Even during the war, I learned a lot of things that need to be changed, mostly because of this world and how it operates, but partly because I had never been a leader of a semi-medieval military. The 'semi' part was the hardest thing to get used to because people with abilities could act so much like regular modern soldiers of Earth.

Yet if an individual got even stronger, they would more act like champions or heroes from some of the strategy games that I played. Basically, I have had to pull knowledge from medieval, modern, and fantasy sources and somehow mix all of them together. It will take a lot of experimentation that will unfortunately cost lives before I can feel comfortable being proficient in this world’s large-scale warfare.

When I reached my office, my secretary had already shown in the seven people who were going to join. The first one, and the person I was still not used to seeing without him being in the shadows, was Keldric Veilstrider, the assassin who joined us quite early and who helped me fight the forces of that madman in the last war.

There were three mages who had all joined us and led their own department in the government, which meant that they had taken the vow and were to be trusted. From the remaining three, one was Helwid, originally the commander of the bratty noble I killed so long ago, who was now one of the three generals underneath me.

The other two were Vikings who had reached the second rank. One by one, they signed their name and made a fingerprint with their own blood. My own bloody fingerprint was on top of all the others, and I could see as every signature was added how the magic of the contract continued to get stronger.

When everything was done, there were no congratulations; we all understood the responsibility that we would have. We would be the defenders of United Freeholds from the higher-ranked world, and it would be a hard job.

We already had enemies, partly because of the idiot queen, but those old bastards also didn’t like change, and our nation didn’t operate like the rest of the nations in this world did. The mage sent the paperwork away with a spell, and now it was a waiting game until we were going to be summoned.