Chapter 245: Where To Place

Kalli was sitting behind the desk of the Hall of Heroes, watching the security feeds to keep updated on what was going on around town as she waited for the sun to come up, when Niall arrived with the ladies of the Student Council in tow.

"President, what brings you and your lovely harem to my humble abode today?"

Niall rolled his eyes at the Coordinator, but answered anyhow.

"Coordinator, we were hoping that somewhere in that lovely store of yours is heavy construction equipment. We have a plan to take some of the Earth Mages and clear fields outside the walls.

Not primarily for food gathering, though that’s a bonus. We want it to count the development toward Marimgar’s growth."

Kalli searched the store’s expanded inventory and smiled.

"Yes, I can actually help you with that. However, if you’re using Earth Mages, they can likely do everything that the tractors can do."

Niall nodded. "That’s mostly true. But I am told that it’s better if they work with the equipment, instead of replacing it. It’s easier on mana, and they can get more done in a day. We were hoping to clear hundreds of acres of cropland, and then plant tubers."

"Well, I don’t see anything wrong with that plan. The tubers are friends of Marimgar, and many of the monsters will be slowed if they enter a tuber field. Either to try to eat them, or because they were attacked.

That’s an advantage for everyone, and the System seems to appreciate us creating more food."

Kalli scanned the store for more cost-effective options, and finally settled on a bulldozer with a plow blade for the volcanic rubble, and then a large plow to turn the earth for planting. That should be the basics of what they needed, and she didn’t have a machine to plant tubers.

"Alright, the equipment is outside. Go ahead and take a team out.

No, wait. I am going to do a memorial service at dawn, and purchase a memorial wall plaque for all the fallen Heroes of Marimgar. Don’t leave before that. I will send out an announcement in a few minutes."

"Oh? That’s very kind. I think most of the city was planning to just put it behind them and hide the grief."

Kalli gave him a sad smile. "That’s not going to help anything. A memorial wall will remind everyone of the price that Marimgar has paid for what we have. It’s easy to look at the city and think that we’re doing well, but there is more to it than just the success."

Niall moved the tractor to somewhere near the exit of the city, so it would be ready for later, while the rest of the group stayed in the Hall of Heroes.

"What is your plan for the Fourth Trial? It just says that it wants us to live better, and I heard that you made housing for the Ark residents already. Did you have a grand plan for the trial, or are you just going with whatever points you have to make the buildings nicer?" Joanna, Niall’s little sister asked.

"I’m thinking of upgrading the buildings. The new style is so much nicer to look at.

I did the dorm buildings already, and it’s a reasonably priced upgrade over the base. The issue is that it needs more mana to run everything. Apparently as we increase through the rankings of the system, technology gets set aside for many things, and mana takes over.

If you can do all the same things with mana, it makes sense for the more powerful heroes.

But not everyone in town is a powerful hero, so I didn’t want to do too many buildings yet and risk giving everyone a mana operated stove that half the city can’t run long enough to make dinner."

The petite blonde warrior frowned as she realized the issue that Kalli had found.

The Level 0 residents didn’t always have a lot of mana. Some of them only had 5, with one regenerated every ten minutes. It would take everything that they had to run a mana stove, and they were completely useless with an energy weapon, as they needed to work in pairs to reload it, but they could only do it once an hour if they didn’t have a piece of gear to help them.

Many of them did now. The heroes had been passing down what they didn’t use.

But that didn’t change the fact that some of them were best suited to jobs that were not mana intensive until they could reach level 1 and get some sort of class bonus.

If they had that little mana, they were basically destined to be Warriors anyhow.

Even the ones who had gotten crafting and cooking type class skills were on the higher end of the mana pools.

"Did you have an idea for the memorial wall?" Carmen, the lone ginger of the Student Council warriors, asked.

"I was thinking of a large basalt or granite wall, with the names carved into it, and recesses in the back, so that we can place the urns containing the remains of the heroes we recovered into the top.

People might forget about a simple memorial, but a graveyard gets remembered."

"Oh, that’s a brilliant idea. Yes, if it’s an actual burial site, it can be the start of a proper graveyard of heroes. Though, that does beg the question of where we’re going to put it."

Kalli gestured to the spot she had marked on the map.

"I’m thinking that since the cremated remains aren’t large, we can put them over by where Esmeralda usually keeps her undead. The wall will be visible from the gates that way, with the graveyard inside the Academy compound.

Academy space is limited, but it’s not going to need a huge amount of space, as the urns can be effectively stacked in an underground room if we need.

It’s more about the memorial space, so that people can see and remember."