Reincarnated As The Heroes Guide

Chapter 100: Population Recalculated

{Marimgar village population recalculating}

Kalli stared at the system message that had popped up at precisely noon. Temple and the others had just finished moving people to the other buildings, though they were still setting everyone up, and making sure that everyone had a proper place to sleep.

They hadn’t started on building security, cooking arrangements, or anything else yet.

But the System was already adding them to the population.

{Township population requirements met. Amenity levels not met. Please improve living conditions to be considered a proper town.}

Kalli glared at the message. It was definitely taking a shot at her competence and management skills now.

Hadn’t she already been working to improve the living conditions? They had stabilized the food supply for now, and they were working out constant security patrols so that the apartments weren’t left to fend for themselves.

What else did it want? Restaurants? Retail stores?

Actually, that was likely exactly what it wanted. They weren’t a proper town at all. At best, Kalli would call this a refugee camp. This wasn’t the sort of conditions that people wanted to live in forever. There weren’t enough jobs, and everything relied on the protection of the Heroes.

A very tenuous protection, as everyone had already seen.

The missions had mostly been completed for the morning. Everyone had done what they could, and while not everyone had received the full five points, every hero had gotten at least one for the food gathering.

And, they hadn’t only brought back tubers today.

They had spread out through the forest to find monsters to hunt, and that had brought them to multiple varieties of mushrooms, tree fruits and nuts.

Not everything that came back would complete the quest, especially the mushrooms.

But once the poisonous and inedible ones were sorted by the System, everyone knew what could be collected.

Kalli had even taken pictures and had them displayed on the wall of her shop.

What the heroes were affectionately beginning to call "The Quest Board" though it was actually a monitor on the wall that scrolled between images and the quest details for the day.

{Population Calculated}

{Hero Population} 321

{Civilian Population} 1101

Kalli smiled as she saw that they had so much more population than they did before. Then realized that they were going to have to start setting up a proper town after all. If not, what were they supposed to do with eleven hundred bored and hungry people?

They could get a larger tuber farm set up, find some more plants to transplant near the Academy, and make a proper farm out of it.

That would be a good start.

But then they were going to have to find work for the rest of the people as well, and that would need some sort of organizational structure.

Unfortunately for her, Kalli strongly suspected that she was the organizational structure of this place. If not, it would be all infighting about who was supposed to be in charge, why anyone should listen to them, and who gave them the authority to make decisions.

Kalli stayed in her new office a bit longer, then headed outside the gates to see how everyone was doing.

It seemed that they were all settling well, but she knew that they didn’t arrive with much in the way of supplies, as their previous base was overrun, and there was little to nothing to scrounge along the way.

The solution, Kalli decided, was a make work project. She would have the new arrivals use that lovely tractor and some ingenuity to till up a bunch of land to plant crops, then they could replant tubers and herbs that the kitchen liked.

Getting everyone in on a manual labour project would keep them from worrying too much about their living conditions.

Once there was food, people started to forget their other troubles.

Kalli stopped at the door to the second apartment building, where most of the new arrivals were living.

"Good morning everyone, or should I say good afternoon? I do hope that you had enough rest and were able to pick your new homes with a clear mind. My name is Kallista De Marimgar, and I am the Coordinator for the local heroes.

I will also be in charge of infrastructure for the area, which is why I have come over today.

I see that your group has brought some heavy equipment with you, and that might save some time getting food production sorted if there are tiller attachments for that tractor.

As you can see, nothing of the old city remains, and what we have in the Academy is not suited to large-scale farming."

The men at the door laughed. They could well imagine that the Academy was well-equipped with lawn maintenance tools, but that wouldn’t do much toward planting a field.

Once the humour died down, Kalli continued. "What we are going to need soon is enough crops planted that we can count on them to support the population, even without too many additional resources.

There is a large crab breeding ground by the beach, and there are boar monsters near us now.

However, those things are both likely to change after the crab breeding season is done, and once we have eliminated enough of the Swineherd Demons that we are no longer directly threatened with annihilation if they work together.

However, it is also possible that they are migratory, as we have found no signs of permanent residence, only small group camps.

So, you can understand our desire to have everyone who can’t fight help with the farming and maintenance manpower.

If there are those with maintenance and repair skills, or other trades that we might be able to use, please come forward so that I can record them, and we can add you to the payroll. The official employees of the Academy are being paid in System Points, which can be directly traded with me for resources.

Food, clothing weapons. Whatever the group needs. The skilled workers will get full-time contracts, the rest I will pay day rate and the apartments can work out the schedule themselves.

However, I will be checking in every few days, to make sure that things aren’t getting too dystopian in here, and that everyone is being treated well."