Chapter 82: Meeting

By the following afternoon, Raymond had finally accepted that the next stage of Althoff’s growth could no longer be handled through scattered conversations in hallways, hurried orders to Boris, lists handed to Lily, and whatever Marianne managed to organize before somebody found another emergency for her.

Winter had allowed that kind of administration because survival reduced every problem to simple priorities: food, shelter, defense, medicine, repeat.

Spring was already proving more complicated. Refugees were settling permanently, roads were turning to mud, merchants had started asking questions about stalls and storage, farmers wanted planting assignments, craftsmen wanted workshops, Boris wanted training grounds, Harlan wanted more land prepared, Marianne wanted proper sanitation before half the town got sick, and Lily had begun carrying enough ledgers under one arm to look personally offended by the concept of free time.

Raymond therefore ordered the largest meeting House Althoff had held since the Beast Tide, not in the old audience chamber but in the long dining hall where there was enough space to move tables together and spread maps across them.

By the time everyone arrived, the room looked less like a noble household and more like the headquarters of a small state that had only just realized it was becoming one.

Lily took the chair nearest Raymond with three ledgers already open before the meeting had officially begun, while Marianne sat beside her with a stack of medical and housing reports.

Boris arrived with Darric and Jonathan, the former carrying military patrol records and the latter bringing a quieter presence that made several of the civilian representatives noticeably more careful about where they stood.

Harlan and Gideon came with all five agricultural specialists, their sleeves still carrying traces of soil from the eastern fields.

Torren represented the construction crews, Oren came on behalf of the larger refugee communities and former village leaders, while Edran Marr represented hunters, scouts, and several northern families now settling permanently.

Raymond had also invited a blacksmith named Pell Dorn, a carpenter named Soren Hal, a woman called Mira Tel who had begun organizing market stalls during winter, and two newly arrived clerks whose handwriting Lily had apparently judged acceptable enough to keep alive.

Raymond waited until everyone had found a seat, then looked across the crowded table and said, "All right. Before anybody asks why half of Althoff is in this room, the answer is simple. Winter is over. Surviving was enough then. It isn’t enough anymore."

The reaction was immediate but restrained. Boris leaned back slightly and folded his arms. Harlan exchanged a glance with Gideon. Torren looked as if he already suspected whatever came next would involve him being told to build something impossible. Lily simply dipped her pen into ink.

Raymond continued, "We have more than five thousand people now, and that number is going to keep rising whether we’re ready or not. We have farms expanding, military forces growing, new workshops appearing, merchants asking for space, refugees wanting permanent homes, and enough abandoned structures being repaired that I’m no longer sure which buildings are supposed to be temporary. If we keep adding things wherever there happens to be room, Althoff is going to become one enormous accident."

Mira Tel nodded almost immediately. "It already feels like that in the market. Every time another group arrives, somebody puts up a stall wherever the road is widest."

Torren added dryly, "And every time they do, someone asks me three days later why the wagons cannot pass."

Raymond had expected that. What none of them knew was that he had already spent the morning alone in his study using The Lord’s Eye properly for the first time.

He had locked the door, closed the shutters, and activated the Family Authority Ability without witnesses. The result had nearly made him laugh.

[ Family Authority Ability Activated: The Lord’s Eye ]

The familiar Family Map opened before him, but it was no longer the simple territorial display he had used before. Althoff appeared in layers. Roads. Houses. warehouses. wells. defensive positions. farmland. livestock concentration. population density. military patrols. recognized resource sites.

The known territory stretched farther than before, while unsurveyed areas beyond established routes remained blurred or partially obscured.

Raymond had spent several minutes moving through the map before selecting the City Master Development Blueprint stored in his inventory.

[ Althoff City Master Development Blueprint ]

[ Compatible Settlement Detected: Althoff City ]

[ Integrate Blueprint With The Lord’s Eye? ]

He had selected yes.

The current town remained visible for one heartbeat.

Then the future appeared around it.

The difference was so ridiculous that Raymond had actually leaned away from the interface.

What everyone called Althoff occupied only a small fraction of the projected urban footprint.

The old main road, castle, winter market, residential clusters, repaired warehouses, farm access routes, and defensive walls were all still there, but now they sat inside something vastly larger. District lines unfolded around them in clean sections.

Residential zones spread south and east. A broad Central Commercial District formed around what was currently little more than an enlarged winter market. An Administrative District rose closer to the castle.

The Artisan and Industrial District shifted downwind and away from dense housing. A dedicated Military District occupied a defensible western sector with barracks, training grounds, supply storage, and rapid routes toward the walls.

A Warehouse District spread near the major roads. An Agricultural Processing District connected directly toward the eastern farms.

A future Noble District appeared farther uphill, though Raymond had stared at that one for several seconds before deciding it was a problem for another day.

Then came everything connecting them.

Roads wide enough for two wagons to pass comfortably.

Secondary streets, drainage channels, water distribution lines, public wells, market squares, storage yards, waste collection routes, bridges, expansion zones, outer defensive walls extending far beyond the existing settlement.

The System was not proposing that Raymond repair Althoff.

It was proposing that he build a city around it.

The old town would simply become the core.

Raymond could not exactly summon a floating magical city projection in front of twenty people without creating questions he had no intention of answering, so he had done what any respectable fraud with access to impossible knowledge would do.

He copied it. For most of the morning, he had worked from the System display, sketching rough layouts onto parchment while one trusted clerk waitedoutside.