Chapter 71: The Long Winter [ 2 ]

Raymond looked at the notification, smiled briefly, and returned to the construction report. Two thousand four hundred and sixteen people would have sounded extraordinary only weeks earlier.

Now it meant the southern communal house needed another extension, the kitchens required more firewood, and Lily wanted permission to establish a second permanent distribution point because making hundreds of people cross town for every ration was becoming inefficient.

Raymond approved it, then spent the rest of the evening arguing with Harlan about whether one of the empty storage yards should become additional livestock shelter or be reserved for construction materials.

By the third month of winter, Althoff no longer behaved like the dying village Raymond had inherited.

The change was clearest in the streets.

There were simply too many people now for everyone to know everyone else. Workers moved between construction sites carrying timber, hunters returned through the gates with sledges of butchered Magic Beast meat, carts traveled constantly betweenthe granaries and communal kitchens, and children had reclaimed any open patch of snow not occupied by adults.

Raymond once stopped near the central square after hearing shouting and discovered nearly thirty children engaged in what appeared to be a highly organized snowball war between Marden and Greymill, except the alliances had become so confused that half the Marden children were apparently fighting for Greymill while two original Althoff children had declared themselves an independent kingdom.

Lily watched beside Raymond for several seconds before one snowball flew wildly off course and struck the front of his coat. Every child in the square froze.

Raymond slowly looked down at the snow covering his chest, then toward the horrified boy responsible.

"Run."

The square exploded into screaming laughter as the children scattered, and Raymond scooped up enough snow to begin what Lily later described in her daily report as "Lord Althoff abandoning his administrative responsibilities for twenty-three minutes."

The adults were creating something equally unexpected. Informal trading had begun near the central square without Raymond authorizing anything.

At first it was simple exchanges between households: repaired boots for smoked meat, sewing work for firewood, preserved vegetables for candles, or a few hours of carpentry in exchange for something another family possessed.

Then someone set up a table. Another person brought a cart. Within two weeks, several residents were appearing in the same area every few days with spare goods, cooked food, repaired tools, simple crafts, and whatever else people wanted to exchange.

Raymond discovered the growing market after Lily mentioned that residents were blocking one of the transport routes with stalls. His first instinct was to move them.

His second was to stand there for ten minutes watching money change hands and realize that Althoff had somehow developed enough economic activity for traffic congestion to exist.

"We’re keeping it," he decided. Lily looked toward the badly positioned stalls and asked, "Here?"

Raymond shook his head. "God, no. Half these people are oneoverturned cart away from shutting down the street. Mark out proper spaces around the old square, keep the main road clear, and don’t charge stall fees yet."

Lily immediately wrote it down. Raymond glanced toward her. "Emphasis on yet."

She added another note.

The market grew because Althoff’s population kept doing the same.

New arrivals brought more than hungry mouths.

A cooper from Fellcross reopened an abandoned workshop and began producing barrels for food storage.

Two masons from a destroyed estate joined Torren’s construction crews.

A family of bakers convinced Raymond to allocate part of the grain supply for a communal bakery after demonstrating that they could process flour more efficiently than several smaller kitchens.

Herbalists worked with Marianne’s medical staff. Shepherds helped Gideon manage the growing livestock herds.

A former caravan clerk joined Lily’s expanding administrative operation and nearly cried when the ten-year-old handedhim three ledgers and told him his handwriting was unacceptable.

Raymond increasingly found himself approving appointments for jobs that hadn’t existed when he arrived in Althoff, and the territory’s administration slowly expanded beyond himself, Lily, Marianne, Boris, and whoever happened to be standing nearby.

Another System notification appeared during the third month.

[ Ding! ]

[ Population: 3,108 / 5,000 ]

Raymond actually stopped walking when that one appeared. Three thousand. Althoff had nearly tripled from what it had been when he first inherited responsibility for the place, yet the increase no longer felt impossible because he could physically see where everyone had gone.

They were inside the new longhouses, working at the workshops, training under Boris, processing meat, hauling timber, caring for livestock, repairing roads, staffing kitchens, and filling the growing market.

The number represented pressure, certainly. Food consumption had risen dramatically, and even with Magic Beast meat supplementing the harvest, Raymond knew their reserves weren’t infinite.

But more people also meant more labor, and more labor meant Althoff could accomplish things that twelve hundred starving citizens never could.

The winter continued, and Althoff adapted to it instead of merely enduring it. Snowstorms occasionally shut down hunting for days at a time, forcing patrols closer to the settlement.

Smaller Beast attacks still occurred, including one pack of Frostfang Wolves that approached the livestock enclosure during the night and discovered that Boris had become extremely unsympathetic toward wolves after several months of dealing with them.

Another Silver-class Razorback Bear wandered near the western road and was intercepted by a Silver Knight team before it reached the outer farms.

Nobody rang every alarm in town for incidents like those anymore.

The defenses had been repaired, the weakest wall sections reinforced, and several of Raymond’s original kill corridors remained permanently incorporated intothe northern streets because Boris saw no reason to remove something that had already proven capable of slaughtering Magic Beasts.

Raymond’s military forces improved alongside the town.

Ordinary guards drilled beside former village defenders, hunters practiced coordinated ranged attacks, and the Bronze Knights increasingly served as squad leaders rather than isolated superhuman weapons.

Boris reorganized the growing manpower into proper rotations so nobody remained on duty until exhaustion, while Jonathan coordinated the summoned Knights and continued teaching Raymond enough basic combat principles that he would hopefully never again attempt to hold onto a sword embedded in a charging beast.

Raymond accepted the lessons without complaint after the Stonehide Bull incident had permanently damaged his confidence in the idea that high attributes automatically made him competent.

He was getting better, but he knew exactly where his actual strength lay. Boris could train soldiers. Jonathan could kill things Raymond sometimes couldn’t even see moving.

Lily could apparently terrorize grown administrators into correcting ledgers.

Raymond’s job was making sure all those pieces had what they needed and were being used where they mattered most.

By the time the System displayed another update, the end of winter no longer seemed impossibly distant.

[ Population: 3,927 / 5,000 ]