The Land: Predators: A LitRPG Saga (Chaos Seeds Book 7)
Page 87
As irritating as it was to have to factor one more thing into his calculations, he was still immensely grateful that he had someone as diligent as Randolphus to catch these kinds of details. Mama had been completely right when she’d introduced the two of them in Yves. Richter would have been lost without the man. Whatever past the chamberlain had, and whatever had earned him that evil alignment, was ameliorated in the chaos seed’s opinion by all the good he had already done for the Mist Village.
“Is there anything else that is draining our food reserves?” Richter asked. As much as he appreciated Randy, he’d be damned if he’d do another round of math just to hear that gremlins were stealing food every night or some other such nonsense.
“No, my lord,” Randolphus responded with a faint, knowing smile.
“Why aren’t we adding meat from the animals?”
“We do butcher them when you request, my lord, but I believe it is the best course of action to build up the herds. Next year we should have enough of a surplus that we can utilize them without worrying about depleting that resource.”
“Speaking of which, I see that most of the females are pregnant.”
“Yes,” Randolphus replied, nodding. “I can only think that it is because of the boon from your Life Mastery.”
Richter nodded. His Bounty of Life ability apparently didn’t just increase the rate at which any offspring grew by 30%, but also the birth rate. This could perhaps explain why so many of the village women were starting to sport baby bumps, but Richter would be damned before he pointed out that those women were eating more than normal too. Of course, there were also boosts to Population Growth that came both from the village’s elevated Morale and Health. It did still raise a question that had been at the back of his mind for a while though, “Are the animals giving birth faster than they normally would?”
“No, my lord,” came the slightly amused response. Richter breathed a sigh of relief. While he was all about growing the Mist Village, he had not been super excited about women getting pregnant then zooming along to delivery 30% faster. It might be paranoia, but he shuddered when he thought about pregnancy hormones being compressed and amplified because pregnancies were shortened. When you also factored in that hundreds of women might be pregnant all at once… well, there wasn’t enough chocolate in the universe to deal with that perfect storm of fury. If it had turned out that way, monsters might have avoided the village just out of fear and self-preservation, but Richter still didn’t think it would have been worth the cost!
The fact that there might always be a great number of women pregnant at the same time still filled him with a small amount of nervous energy though. Growing up with two sisters, a female cousin, three aunts and a mom that all liked to congregate at the house had taught him the wisdom of staying outside as long as possible. Suddenly, Richter saw a great deal of extended hunting trips in his future, and also saw a bunch of villagers, men and nonpregnant women alike, wanting to go with him.
“My lord?” Randolphus repeated. He’d actually addressed Richter five times in response to the distant look of horror on his liege’s face. The chaos seed finally came back to the here and now, shaking himself visibly to banish the waking nightmare.
“Yeah, man. What were you saying?”
“I was merely telling you that the length of gestation appears to be the same, but the rate of impregnation is higher than normal. Also, the animals are growing larger and healthier and approaching maturity faster than would otherwise be expected. While at present they are mostly a drain on our resources, each butchered cow should be able to make five to six hundred units of food when fully grown. We are already benefiting from the milk from the herds, as well as the eggs from the chickens. I believe that while your Life ability explains the high birth rate, their increased growth can be attributed to the level two bonus from the Quickening.” The celestial tree increased the yield of all resources in the village by 25%, as well as making it 25% more likely to find rare resources.
Richter processed the information. Children might grow into adults faster than normal thanks to living in a Place of Power that contained Life magic. That might be disconcerting, but at least there wouldn’t be any mega hormones. “Well, even though the animals are draining some of our resources, it’s really not all that bad. They can’t have eaten more than fifteen hundred units of food. That means our total reserves are… What? Fifty-one thousand, six hundred units?”
“Fifty-one thousand six hundred and forty-seven,” the chamberlain corrected.
Richter made a notation on his scrap paper, “And our current population is one thousand and fifty-three souls. Taking the pixies out of the equation though removes roughly a hundred people. Let’s call it nine hundred and fifty for simplicity’s sake. That means…” he did a few more calculations.
950 units of food/day x 7 days = 6,650 units of food/week required to feed my population.
15 Hunters produce 2,200 units of food each week
8 Fishermen produce 500 units of food each week
Cost to feed livestock = 238 units of food each week
Net Food loss each week: 6,650 – 2200 – 550 + 238 = 4,138
Total Current Food Stores = 51,647
Weeks Food Stores will last: 51,647/4,138 = 12.5 weeks
“We’ll be out of food in three months?” Richter asked.
“Even faster than that, my lord. You are forgetting the loss due to lack of proper storage.” Randolphus told him, looking over his figures. “I estimate we will run out of food in ten weeks and five days.”
“Then why the hell do you look so chill?!” Richter demanded. The man was just sitting there, calm as a Hindu cow, and the chaos seed was two seconds from yelling at him. Something like, ‘How could you let this happen,’ when he realized something. Randy would never have let this happen, which meant that, once again, Richter was missing something. After a moment, he remembered, “Wait, what about the crops?”
“Yes,” Randolphus said with a pleased smile. He was doing that head nod that teachers always used when the slow student finally grasped a concept. Personally, Richter had always found it to be a bit smug and irritating. He wasn’t about to admit that to Randy at this particular moment though.
“Well, when will the food be ready?”
“Crops typically require four to six months to mature. That means, depending on the climate, farmers may normally harvest one to two crops per year. We lost time unfortunately during the bugbear attack, and all the plants were ruined. In this part of The Land, the planting season is typically only seven to eight months out of the fourteen-month year. We have a shorter season than other areas, especially this close to the mountains. I anticipate the winters will be heavy with snow.
“In truth, without your Bounty of Life ability, we might not have had enough time to maximize a harvest. With the 30% boost to growth speed, however, what would take four to six months will now take three to four, roughly speaking. In addition, the 25% boon from the Quickening, coupled with the 100% boost from Isabella’s spell Virol’s Blessing, has massively increased the yield of the crops. Having the aeromagi use Gentle Rain to always provide water when needed is also a boon.
“One other factor that is weighing heavily in our favor is the mist workers. Each farm normally requires twenty-five to thirty people to maintain throughout the crop cycle. The constructs you summon are able to do a great deal of the manual labor, however. Due to this, each farm only requires twelve or thirteen people with no decrease in yield. The bonuses to village Productivity from our Morale and Loyalty also decrease the number of workers needed to weed, irrigate, remove pests and perform the countless other tasks required to maintain a farm. With the recent boost to Productivity and the fact that we now have a Professional Farmer, we may even be able to allocate some of the farmers to other tasks.”
Richter nodded, impressed. He motioned for Randy to carry on.
“As I said before, each farm can typically produce a crop sufficient t
o feed five hundred people for half a year. Put another way, each harvest would make one hundred to one hundred and ten thousand units of food. With the boosts to yield, that will come close to a quarter of a million units.”
“That’s great!” Richter exclaimed. Even with the increased population, that would be more than enough to get them through the winter, with a healthy surplus besides. “When will the harvest be ready?”
“Most likely in eighty to one hundred days, my lord. We will also need to muster almost every hand in the village to help pull in the harvest for several days when the time comes.”
Richter’s excitement soured, “And our current food stores will run out in seventy days or so.”
“That is correct, my lord.” Randolphus agreed. He couldn’t help but add, “That is if we forgo any more feasts.”
His liege pinned him with another glare, “Not helping, man.”
In the chamberlain’s opinion, he was being exactly helpful, but he kept that to himself.
“This is a problem,” Richter finally realized. “Even if the crop can be ready early, I don’t want to mess around with the ability to feed our people. Even a novice ruler like me knows that’s a good way to create an uprising.”
“We could always halve the food people receive each day, but living on half rations can have serious negative effects upon the Morale, Loyalty, and even the Health of a settlement. As you just stated, ignoring those City Mechanics can have very serious consequences.”
“Yeah,” Richter said slowly and thoughtfully, “I don’t want any part of that.”
“I must also point out that the village’s supply of ale is nearing depletion and that units of grain need to be allocated away from consumption and into brewing if you want to make more.”
Richter quickly straightened in his chair and his voice took on a tone of grave intent. “This just got real, man. We need to deal with this. Now!” He thought long and hard for a minute before suggesting, “What if… what if we allocated some of the new villagers to be hunters or fishermen?”
“An excellent idea, my lord!” Randolphus told him with a magnanimous smile. He took out a sheaf of paper he had already prepared, even while sighing inwardly at how Richter had just “come up with” an idea that he himself had proposed at the start of the conversation. Why were rulers always so much work? Not even just work, they required high amounts of… maintenance.
Yes! Rulers were high maintenance. Randolphus hid an internal smirk, thinking how spot on that description was. The Spy surreptitiously made a notation in the corner of one of his papers so he wouldn’t forget such a perfect turn of phrase. Then he prepared to ‘ooh’ and ‘aah’ over any other ideas Richter “came up with” for the next several minutes.
CHAPTER 78 – Day 145 – Kuborn 35, 0 AoC
Randolphus ultimately led Richter to agree to allocating ten percent of the new villagers to either hunting or fishing. That number would give the village a nice cushion against unexpected food needs. No additional farmers would be required as it was too late in the year to start a new crop. Similarly, the livestock didn’t need any more handlers than they already had. After finding the best people for fishing and hunting, the remaining new villagers would be heavily encouraged to join the guard and, after that, the construction crews.
They covered a few other topics. The chamberlain had taken the time to assess the personal levels of everyone in the village. When the first wave of colonists had come to the Mist Village, most of the civilians had been level five or below. The guards and former soldiers were more advanced due to the time they had spent fighting, but most of them were still level twelve and below. The hunters had been somewhere in the middle, having levels four to seven. They gained XP from killing animals, but not quite as much as the fighters gained in battle.
Two events had affected the levels of every one of the villagers, both celestial in nature. The first was the growth of the Quickening. It had given five thousand Experience Points to every single villager, including the children. It had also earned Richter a large number of Relationship Points with every villager because they knew he was to thank for the boost.
That XP had brought even a level one child up to level four and had advanced most of the adult civilians to levels six to eight. The second event had been the birth of Elora and the other celestial pixies. That had given every villager an additional two thousand XP.
Seven thousand experience didn’t mean a great deal to Richter, mostly because of Alma’s Brain Drain ability, but it was the reason that many of the villagers had finally gotten above level ten. That in turn had given them the opportunity to obtain a noncombat Profession. It also required that they be a journeyman in a skill, but that had helped them level as well.
Each time someone reached a skill level that was a multiple of ten, they were given a reward in the form of XP. Level ten provided two thousand experience, level twenty awarded four thousand, etc. Anyone who gained the forty-five skill levels required to be a journeyman also gained twenty thousand XP just from the bonuses.
It only took one thousand Experience Points to reach level two, then another two thousand to reach level three, and another three thousand to reach level four, for a total of six thousand. The XP needed to get from eleven to twelve though was thirteen thousand, and to get to level thirteen was an additional fifteen K. The increase doubled every ten levels, until at his own level of thirty-eight it would take a hundred and forty-one thousand experience to level again. When you realized that fighting lower monsters might literally only give one XP each, reaching higher levels was a very daunting task.
Richter had instituted a policy of noncombatants being included on hunting trips and guard patrols. Even if they didn’t directly fight, they would still gain experience as long as the group was strike squad-size or smaller; in other words, as long as there were five or less in the party. The final factor in his people’s rapid level ascent was Richter’s generosity.
The first, and possibly most powerful, potion Richter had ever found was the Potion of Clarity. Each one gave an unprecedented 25% increase to the experience someone gained for an entire day. It might not make a huge difference during just one day of fighting, but if someone was on it when they reached a milestone in skill progression or when they were finishing a Quest, you could gain thousands of extra Experience Points.
Thanks to all of that, the levels of Richter’s original villagers were much higher than would have been expected from commoners. The average level of the civilians, barring the children, was now between six and nine. The hunters had advanced to all fall between levels eight and twelve, while the villagers who had previously been guards had gained a precious level or two and were now almost all between ten and fourteen. Even better, many of the villagers who joined the guard without fighting experience were now nearing levels nine and ten.
The newly freed prisoners, in contrast, were still levels six and below, but while their imprisonment had been horrible, they had been able to practice the same tasks every day, all day, so more than a few of them had reached respectable skill levels, especially in Mining. That skill progression was why their personal levels were higher than the average commoner.
Randolphus also wanted to discuss the state of the treasury. First, he confirmed that Richter wanted the new workers to be paid four silver each fortnight. That was the same wage the old villagers received with a few notable exceptions. The Scholars, for instance, were each making only six silvers a fortnight to offset the rather large price Basil had had to initially pay their guild to buy them out of debt. Randolphus, alternatively, made two gold a month. The man had fought against such a high salary, but Richter believed in rewarding good work.
The calculations Randy had made showed that Richter couldn’t afford to just spend money willy-nilly though. The entire thing was written in the chamberlain’s exacting script on pale parchment.
MIST VILLAGE TREASURY
ITEMS
WORTH (IN GOLD)
2,938 gold
4,691 silver
11,787 copper
3,524.97
Gems
25,000-30,000
Tefonim Jewelry
15,000-30,000
5,234 Kobold Coins
5,234
37 Dark Khan Kobold Coins
*
TOTAL
48,758.97 - 68,758.97 *
Adventuring had been highly profitable. The village treasury was flush! Depending on how much the gems and Tefonim jewelry could sell for, the Mist Village could muster the equivalent of about five million dollars! That wasn’t including the Dark Khan coins, for obvious reasons. The ancient coins were magically enchanted to be the answer to an age-old quest. The entire set had to be collected however, something that had not yet been managed. Randolphus had advised not selling them, which Richter had agreed with. If need be though, any of the Dark Khan coins could sell for between one hundred and tens of thousands of gold. Of course, anyone able to pay that much might just kill Richter instead of agreeing to the deal.
The next list on the page showed the village’s trade goods. The various ingots of metal the village had could be worth coppers in the case of iron or be almost priceless in regard to elementum. Randolphus had also listed the Potions of Clarity, magical crystal, enchanted weapons and high-quality potions which most likely would be the Mist Village’s primary exports. There was also a list of other resources like timber and marbled quartz, but there were obvious logistical problems with moving large enough quantities of those to be worthwhile. They did not have standard prices unlike the items in the first table. Richter also wouldn’t even consider selling some items like the rarer ingots of metal.