“Look at the next page,” the Mayor said. “It will bring up the morale and satisfaction overlay.”
I complied and was immediately given a series of statistics about the village. There was Satisfaction, Happiness, Health and Morale.
“Overall, satisfaction is how the people feel about you as their leader. High satisfaction means that they won’t revolt, try to fight against your decisions or abandon their posts. Happiness is different from satisfaction, in that happiness is less concerned with your decisions and more with their living conditions. Beautiful houses, abundance of luxuries and healthy work schedules will make them happy, which improves their efficiency.”
“Health seems self-explanatory,” I said, “but what is morale?”
“Ah yes, morale is army related. It is an unfortunate fact, but the world is in disarray. There are many powerful leaders who want to expand their size and, sometimes, they pick you as their destination for expansion—especially if you grow prosperous. Morale is how composed and capable your army is.”
I eyed the numbers to see that happiness, morale and satisfaction were all set to 0. The health of the village was in the positives, as they had access to clean water, thanks to a well, and there were no major illnesses occurring.
“This is quite a bit of information to take in,” I muttered as I began to shift through the various overlays, getting a feel for how all of this worked.
“Do you think you can help us?” the Mayor asked. “We aren’t too far gone, are we?”
“Oh no,” I said as I settled on an overlay labeled trade. “You’re never too far gone when it comes to business.”
Chapter 4
The Mayor was gracious enough to provide me with lodging in his own bedroom, opting to instead stay in the barn. I had to say, the man was dedicated to his people. He was willing to make any sacrifice to ensure that they were happy and healthy. It was an admirable thing to see in a leader and was certainly a break from the norm that I encountered back home, where leaders often used their positions of power to improve only their own lives. I was beginning to admire Hemmings and hoped that I would be able to make him proud.
I continued to study the many different overlays, learning as much as I could about the management of the village. The power of vision—to see the Great Picture, as they called it—would give me an incredible advantage in building up the settlement. All thoughts of going back home began to fade away, the more I learned about what my abilities would be.
There was nothing back for me in my old life. I had spent my entire existence developing one of the greatest and most expansive corporations in all the world. Money didn’t particularly matter to me; after you make your first billion, it all becomes meaningless. The ability to afford anything never led me to live an extravagant or exciting lifestyle, because I wasn’t really that interested in wealth for its own sake. To me, wealth had always been an indicator of success, like points in a football game.
I would stay here in Liora for as long as I liked, starting from the bottom once again. I would turn Tine into a mighty empire and, then, I would return back home. It would be a great challenge, one that would require all of my mental faculties in order to achieve. I was excited that my retirement would be far more wondrous than I had expected.
The first thing that needed to be addressed about the village was the fact that we had very little income or resources. The meat production was enough for the people to survive, but storing meat long term wasn’t very useful as it would spoil without the proper facilities. This world was medieval in nature, but where my own world used technology, they used magic. Concepts like refrigeration were replaced with simple spells that could preserve food—provided we had access to such magic.
The road to gaining such tools, however, was advanced and would take a great amount of resources. So in the meantime, the meat would simply have to be dried out and salted, to preserve it. In order to do this, I would have to assign a single villager to do so. And of course, the task of Butcher required an upgrade cost of 100 gold. With our coffers so low, I would need to figure out a way to improve our cash flow.
I turned my attention to the surplus of wheat that we owned. Generating 10 units of wheat per week wasn’t bad, but the problem was that we had nothing to do with it. For now, the villagers were storing the excess in a rickety storage shack. However, without proper refinement instruments, most of the excess would spoil. Since we were already producing enough food, to take care of the population each week, there was no real need for bread other than variety.
The trade overlay informed me that wheat was worth 10 gold per unit. We had 100 units in storage and the rest was being wasted. If I could find someone who was interested in buying this wheat, we could start exporting weekly. It would start us off by generating 100 gold per week. That would be a good start. But while I had the ability to determine what the base cost was, I had no trading partners, nor any knowledge of who I could possibly sell this wheat to.
According to Hemmings, there were a few larger villages nearby, but reaching all of them would take a few days on horseback. Without any emissaries or diplomat specialists, it would be up to me to go out and make the trade deals myself. This was perfectly fine by me, it would be good to get out, meet our nearby neighbors and start building good trade relations. Hopefully, I’d be able to strike a mutually beneficial deal with them.
So, I took the town’s only horse—a tired old Mustang named Smiles—and departed down the road, heading east. Smiles did not much care for the conditions of the road and I took note of that. We’d need to repair this road if we would be seriously exporting products.
There was another village only five miles down the road, named Reed. The people had no champion, but possessed many natural resources that allowed them to grow larger than Tine. That was the only information the Mayor knew about them.
One curious thing I realized as I rode Smiles was how instinctively I was able to do so. In my old life, I had never ridden a horse, but I was able to hop on it and command it as if I had been riding all my life. Perhaps this was one of the benefits that came with being someone who was brought into another realm—all of the basics of this life seemed to be transferred to me. Either that, or riding a horse was far easier than it looked.
I arrived at my first stop, Reed, in the early afternoon. The village was far more prosperous than Tine. The buildings were well made and looked rather new, with glistening paint jobs and roofs that weren’t collapsing inward. They had a large cattle ranch with dozens of cows and a guard tower where an archer stood, keeping watch over the village.
“Halt!” the archer shouted as I approached. He drew his bow and aimed it at me. “Who goes there?”
“I am Charles Morris of Tine,” I shouted, raising my hands to show that I was not carrying any weapons. “And I wish to speak about matters of trade.”
The archer looked at me for a moment and then lowered his bow. “Are you their champion?”
What was the appropriate answer to this question? I hadn’t been sent by any god nor had I been assigned, but I did have the ability to see the Great Picture. Yet dishonesty here might have serious consequences in the future, especially if the real champion should ever arrive. “I am their leader and wish to parley with your own.”
“Very well,” the archer said, “you may approach the town hall and meet with the Governess.”
There were no gates to open, nor were there any walls that would stop an army from rushing in. In fact, if a serious military had arrived in the hopes of attacking this town, a lone archer in a guard tower would have stood no chance. I wondered where the nearest big city was.
I walked into the busy town square to see many people working together to raise a new building. It looked like some kind of tavern. No doubt it would increase both the happiness and income of the village.
Reed’s town hall was much bigger, with multiple floors and stained glass windows. It was a symbol of opulenc
e to have such an extravagant display, but the people all seemed fed and healthy. Perhaps they could simply afford such a thing. Still, I kept note of this stained glass, for it indicated the personality of the leader who was running this place.
I entered the building and looked around. The interior was certainly extravagant, with golden suits of armor standing tall in the hallways. I could see a few painted portraits from the same family: a husband, a wife and a rather grim-looking daughter all seemed to stare at me as I searched for the Governess. She found me first, emerging from one of the rooms, carrying a few books in her hand. I glanced at them to find that they were books about advanced fertilization methods for farming, all written by the same author: Hermion Minzer.
“Hello,” I said, extending my hand. “I’m from the village of Tine.”
“Tine?” she repeated, pushing her spectacles up and peering at me. For all of the glamour of the manor, she hadn’t been what I expected. She looked tired, worn out and humorless, grim and in dire need of a vacation. She reminded me of those weary businessmen who often ended up trapped in managing their own company because they had originally started it with the hopes of working less. Not more. “I’m unfamiliar.”
“A village a few miles down the road,” I said. “My name’s Charles Morris and I’m here to negotiate on their behalf.”
“They finally got a champion?” she asked. “No, you’d be talking to me via magic if that were the case. As you can see, I’m very busy right now, so what do you want?” She brushed past me and continued to walk towards another room. It was somewhat similar to the library that Hemmings had shown me, except there was no door with a crow upon it. Rather, there was just a table full of books about agriculture.
“What are you working on?” I asked.
“What aren’t I?” she replied with a weary sigh. “Mathematics, architecture, agriculture. Trying to figure out crop rotation, but it’s difficult.” She dropped the books on the table and looked up at me. “Reed has been around for hundreds of years. We never got a champion and eventually we decided we didn’t want one. To sit around all day, waiting for the gods to arrive and give a handout isn’t quite productive. So we’ve been doing it all ourselves. Three hundred years of work and we’re finally a level 4 village. It wasn’t easy. Well, I say level 4, but I’m not sure if that’s accurate. None of us have the Topsight.”
“My village has come to the same conclusion,” I said. “And they’ve asked me to help build them up.”
The Governess nodded at that and sighed. “Well, good luck. As you can see, it’s an unbelievable amount of work. But other villages have done it before. Hermion Minzer was actually able to build an entire functioning city without the need for the Topsight.”
“So let’s talk business then,” I said. I sat down on one of the chairs and leaned back. “How’s your wheat situation?”
“Wheat?” she asked. “We buy it from the city of Igithor.”
“How much per unit?”
The Governess paused and reached for a ledger that had been sitting by the pile of books. After a moment of thumbing through it, she answered. “We are paying 500 gold for 15 units per week.”
“2,000 gold a month then, for 60 units,” I said. “Seems expensive.”
“Farming isn’t our strong suit,” she replied as she pointed to the collection of books. “Without proper magics, it can be very difficult to pull off. And it’s our only food source.” Was she really just giving this information away to me? Perhaps she did not realize that this was a negotiation.
“What if I were to cut that price down significantly?” I asked. “We are willing to sell you the same amount, 15 per week, for 300 gold per shipment.” While we didn’t have the full production capabilities of the offer I was making, we did have an excess of 100 units. That would give us six weeks to improve those production capabilities, which we could afford with this extra income.
The Governess looked at me for a moment as if I were a madman. “You know I can’t do that.”
“Why not?”
“Two reasons. First off, the Tradesmen do not allow their partners to trade outside of their network. And the second is that bandits are heavily present in the forest to the west. Any of your carts rolling towards us will certainly be ravaged by those thugs.”
I stroked my chin in thought. “Tell me about the Tradesmen.”
“Tine must indeed be tiny,” she scoffed. “The Tradesmen run all trading in Igithor. They make contracts and deals with all the farmers and nearby villages. They organize trade routes and can afford the guards to protect their caravans. Part of their contract is that you can only work with them in all matters of trade. Violating that contract cuts you off from all of their other services.”
“Ah I see,” I said. “So they’re a cartel?”
“I don’t know what you mean,” she replied. “I just know that if I started trading wheat with you, they wouldn’t work with us anymore.”
“And you rely on them for…”
She shrugged. “Nothing else, really. Their prices are too high for anything else. But we need that wheat to survive. If you, for some reason, can’t provide us with our food, we’ll end up starving because the Tradesmen won’t deal with those who break their contracts.”
“And since they have arrangements with all the other villages, you won’t be able to work with them either…” I said, pondering the situation. I was all too familiar with this kind of concept. These Tradesmen were a cartel, a group of entrepreneurs who agreed to collude in order to keep the prices nice and high. It was good for the workers, for sure, but it also gave them the ability to squeeze these villages for even more. The standard price of wheat was 10 gold a unit, they were getting about 33 per unit.
“So my hands are tied,” she said.
“Or are they?” I said. “What if I brought the price down to 15 gold per unit? That’s five above the base cost of wheat. You’d be paying only 225 a week. That’s 900 a month. You really think that your village won’t be able to eat if they are saving 1,100 gold each month?”
The Governess glanced at her ledger and cracked open the book. She began to scribble something down, dipping a long, feathered quill into an ink bottle. “These are extremely generous numbers…but I should tell you, out of solidarity for what your village is trying to achieve, you’d get a better price from the Tradesmen.”
“Oh, I’m not interested in working with them,” I replied. The last thing I wanted was to be forced into some kind of exclusive contract that killed any chances of my village making a real profit. That wouldn’t fly one bit. “Besides, you’re the one who needs the wheat and the money, not the Tradesmen. If you prosper, we prosper. I’m not just looking for a transaction here, I’m looking for partners. Friends.”
“You speak so differently from the other leaders around here,” she said. “But it’s refreshing to hear someone who isn’t obsessed with taking everything for themselves and leaving the rest of us with nothing.”
“Do we have a deal?”
She grimaced. “But what about the bandits?”
“I was traveling through this road and didn’t see anyone,” I said.
“They aren’t going to attack solitary travelers. They’ll only jump on caravans and wagons. You know, people who look like they have quite a bit of money,” the Governess replied. “Otherwise, what’s the point? A few gold pieces isn’t worth the hassle.”
“I am confident I’ll be able to handle these bandits,” I replied. “Let’s make an agreement. If I am able to solve the bandit problem, you agree to tear up the Tradesmen contract and work with me instead. The price will be 225 a week for the next six months. After that, the term will be up and we can renegotiate.”
“Six months?” she repeated. “Why such a short amount of time?”
“I don’t like having contracts that are too long; it tends to create a lot of tension between partners. It’s better to revisit once in a while to m
ake sure that everyone’s happy.”
“Well, if you get rid of the bandits and agree to this price, I’ll do it,” she said. “I’ll tear up the contract with the Tradesmen. I’d take six months over ‘in-perpetuity’ any day of the week.”
Chapter 5
The deal with the Governess—whose name was Liza Reed—was pending, but I felt confident in my dealings. No doubt advanced farming methods were expensive and this sudden influx of additional savings would allow Reed to begin building their own farms. Perhaps this would make our deal obsolete over time, but by giving them such a generous offer now, I was solidifying our relationship for later. The money we would be pulling in would be more than enough to achieve most of my goals in the short term, and that was all that mattered. If I had enough startup capital, I’d be able to really get things moving.
I was riding my horse slowly down the road, in search of the bandits. The entire deal was hinging on getting rid of these thugs, but I had bigger plans for them. Eventually, I came to realize that someone was watching me from the trees. As Smiles trotted down the path, I looked up to see a man who held a whistle of sorts in his hand, sitting from a tree. We made eye contact, yet he said nothing.
“I’m assuming you’re the lookout?” I shouted up to the man.
“What’s it to you? We ain’t bothering you or your ugly horse,” he shouted back.
“I am here to speak to your leader. I have important business to discuss.”
“You know, if you talk to our leader, you ain’t going home on your horse. We’ll take everything you have, including your clothes. So just go,” he said, grinning at me. The man was rough cut, with a dirty face and a nose that looked as if it had taken a regular beating for most of his adult life.
“I have nothing but this ugly horse, and these clothes have been unwashed for many days,” I replied. “I’m not worried about the consequences. Just take me to your leader.”
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