Chapter 465 - Improving Sanctuary
Unaware of all the action in the capital, Ed spent his entire day planning out a good chunk of Sanctuary within his office in the town hall. The super skilled livestock idea had given him an idea actually worth considering.
'Transport boars!' It was actually stupid that it took him this long to try and seriously implement them. While some orcs were plenty strong and fast, they couldn't compare to a charging boar. This would be a positive change.
'But it's a bit difficult…' The main problem with this plan was of course the limited amount of boars. Assuming each boar couple had a minimum of 8 boars, and that they grew up in just under 30 days thanks to being monsters as opposed to regular boars... There were still not enough boars!
Believe it or not, the population of Sanctuary had skyrocketed past the 300 thanks to the efforts of the orcs and goblins. Well, most of the thanks went to the diligent work of Dakgu and Gurln.
As they and their teams grew stronger, the casualties they suffered when subduing other tribes became zero. The amount of enemies they killed also became zero, they could just subdue them directly.
These forced captives now formed a large part of the population but Ed was not worried about betrayal. The captives could buy their freedom after doing Sanctuary's menial work for a short while giving them the right to set up business or just settle down.
Most of these orcs were not dissatisfied with this treatment. If these captives were dissatisfied, they could be subdued by the guards and soldiers of Sanctuary without issue anyway. This large population needed accommodation and fortunately there was plenty. There was simply a lot of room for improvement was all.
'Sanctuary is getting a bit too crowded' With all this planning and many more things that were to come, the following next couple of days were very tiresome for Ed.
The first thing Ed had to do was attend the education meeting the council had set up. The conclusion they reached was to create a chief of education. The tiresome part was that there was no one with any qualifications to take on this role. The best candidates were Dakgu and Gurln since they at least had teaching experience.
'Urgh… It would have been nice if Vorgarag was still here' As Ed's teacher, he definitely had the skills and knowledge to dictate how the children of Sanctuary were to be taught.
After lots of pointless back and forth, it was decided to leave the position vacant. In the meanwhile, Sharog had to figure it out alongside Pipsqueak who were it not for his lacking eloquence would have likely been a prime candidate.
The next thing Ed did was dedicate the time after the meeting entirely to city planning with Yerghug. Explaining things to him was a bit...
"We need roads for the boars" Ed had told Yerghug.
"Ah!?! Are the boars free citizens too now!?" Yerghug had no qualms with Ed's idea of releasing the boars from captivity but... he did not know how it was even possible for them to become citizens. Could a boar speak their language?
"No! The orcs and goblins can use some specially trained boars to move about Sanctuary!" Ed replied full of disbelief. How did the orc even come up with such a possibility?!
The planning itself was no piece of cake but Yerghug did not make it any easier on Ed. Yerghug was a far cry from his mentor, Bulwud. Part of the reason was that Bulwud was the oldest orc in the tribe during his time. Such a position brought with it some natural wisdom and maturity.
Yerghug in contrast had some maturity and knowledge in his field but... his brain cells were similarly few. But Ed and Yerghug did eventually manage to make do. The compromise was that the blueprints Ed made were rather rustic.
Nonetheless, Ed did try to fix and improve as many things as possible.
'There are some issues we can only tackle after encountering them' Ed's inference was only able to take them so far. His past life memories were still fuzzy too so his reference for creating cities could be called blurry.
To mitigate this, most of the roads were planned to be really wide. If they needed to be made more narrow or if something had to be added there would always be space.
With the planning done, Ed also spent time making some super skilled boars. They were the ones set to walk down these roads. The sidewalks were not for boars after all.
The skills he chose were the same as the ones for the orcs. The resulting Boar's were stronger but Ed felt that he wasn't necessarily making the best use of resources.
'There might be some good skills hidden in the spirit room' Ed would never truly know though since he couldn't afford to check every single consciousness in there.
He could only hope for a better way to check the status of the consciousnesses he took in. The system or his assessment might one day develop the skill but until then… The resources were going to be wasted.
"Hey Ed! You… You came to return the boars?" An orc woman said with a hint of unease. Her worry and unease came from the way Ed held the boars. He had two of them pressed against his body under his arm pits.
"Not quite" Ed told the boar farmer, Urzoth. The boar farming team was quite expansive and its members were always changing.
"This is Thrust, that one is Plunge" Ed said while ignoring the squeaking and squealing boars. The boars yearned for freedom but Ed did not budge regardless of how hard they struggled.
"Thrust… and Plunge…?" Urzoth was puzzled, why would Ed name the boars?
"I want to set up a new service, you'll be in charge" Ed didn't know Urzoth for long but he knew she was reliable from his brief experience claiming those two boars from the farm.
While Ed was foregoing the hiring process by asking this of Urzoth directly, Ed didn't think this was a problem. The orcs had no resumes, how was he supposed to single them out?
Not just that but Urzoth's position was left open either way so it wasn't like the other orcs were being deprived of their opportunities. While the vacant positions were of much different prestige, most of the orcs looking for jobs were captives anyway.
"Wait… What!?!" For Urzoth this all came out of the blue. She formed part of one of the first batch of captives to buy their freedom so the news of her promotion was very shocking to her.
"You will use these two boars to transport orcs and goblins from one point to another" Since Urzoth was the one put in charge she could dictate the price and what these points were.
"Just- Just like that!?" Urzoth couldn't believe how little Ed thought of this task.
"That's all, if you have any questions just ask me or Sharog" Ed added before putting down the two boars.
"These guys will need proper care and training, there isn't anywhere too far to really visit right now" The only place was the moat Ed made around Sanctuary. There were some orcs who liked to visit it and have fun there.
'It's like a beach without sand' Ed commented inwardly before focusing back on the task at hand.
"I'll leave now then" Ed hired Urzoth on the spot but he actually didn't get to discuss it with her employer just yet. Technically he didn't need to since the boar farm belong to the council but he wasn't a dictator.
'Just a greatly influential member of the council' Or so he'd like to believe.
'They did call me chief on the briefing meeting' He definitely made an authoritarian government with some room for discussion if that even made sense.
By the time Ed finished discussing things with the Sanctuary council, it was already time to say goodbye to another day. Time just kept on flying by as he worked on improving Sanctuary.
'It's kind of late, I should go home' He had lots to think about, maybe he could finally take a nap to get a breather?
'For starters my swordsman boar' The two boars Ed created and gave to Urzoth to handle were definitely dangerous but they weren't going to be killing any orcs just yet. The real dangerous livestock had yet to inhabit the system's living room.
Ed finally reached his home. It was no different from the surrounding houses. The one difference however was the emptiness Ed felt when he opened the door.
'Hm? It's surprisingly clean' Ed expected the house to be dusty given that he had a tendency to fall asleep anywhere. If he switched bodies outside his house then he would find himself in Sharog or Shel's home.
In spite of that, Ed's house was clean and well maintained. It was obvious someone was taking the extra time to clean it.
Ed decided to sit down in a corner of the room. While sitting there, he realized he hadn't trained his mana in a while. Before Ed knew it, he entered a meditative state and a couple of hours flew by just like that.
Morning would have come in the blink of an eye if Ed was not met with an unexpected interruption.
[Recalling Champion's Soul]
"Huh!?" With all the work he had done, and all the work he still had to do, Ed didn't want to be summoned just yet!
'Where are you even taking me!?!' Ed screamed in his mind. But the scream faded out just as he faded into the void of the dungeon's space.