The sound of wood scraping against wood echoed in the tavern, cutting through the morning chatter. Meanwhile, a growing line of hungry villagers formed, eagerly anticipating their breakfast. At the same time, the newcomers gathered their bedding, creating space and making themselves at home in the bustling tavern. I made my way to our designated table where Wesley had already claimed a spot. Hanna and Sarah descended the stairs. Following closely behind them was a groggy Jayden, clearly not a morning person.

As I joined Wesley, he gestured towards the air, as he tended to do when accessing something from the System in his vision. "The quest to upgrade our village is now available," he announced. "The arrival of the newcomers yesterday pushed us past the required threshold."

Village Council of Columbia, you have reached a new threshold of [100] villagers. You may now upgrade your village to level [3]. To do so, assemble the village council in the council chambers.

Hanna's expression was blank as she also reviewed the quest. "It’s about time. Upgrading the village will be a major boost for everyone. Those extra hundred experience points will help our non-combat classes reach level three."

I chimed in, “I noticed our recycling crew finished with the resource excavator yesterday. Kinda weird to walk through empty fields where our neighborhood used to be.”

Wesley nodded, “Yeah. But those resources will let us provide houses for our newcomers. I doubt they enjoyed sleeping on the floor of the taproom.”

Before we could head over to the council chambers, old Mrs. Norris caught came over to us. She pointed to the newcomers, “We’re not going to have enough to feed them for long. We’re almost out of oatmeal.”

I followed her gesture and saw Emily seated with her family a few tables away. The other newcomers sat at tables in close proximity. I allowed my thoughts to drift toward what kind of date we could go on in our little village. Excuse me, Emily, would you like to go raid a dungeon with me?

I stifled a chuckle at the amusing thought, but Mrs. Norris's concern was valid. Wesley addressed the situation, "We have been collecting a sales tax recently. If the village has the necessary funds, we can allocate some of it towards purchasing food. It should help tide us over until our fields are ready for harvest."

We made our way to the door, eager to avoid further interruptions. During our walk towards the gatehouse, I accessed the village's tax receipts. It seemed that our group's successful dungeon expeditions had generated considerable activity on the auction house. And then, I stumbled upon something important.

Tax receipts for the last week: [74] silver, [25] copper.

I perused the records, noticing a few sporadic purchases from both the store and auction house since the establishment of our village. However, it was the substantial surge in sales following our successful venture into the hospital dungeon that caught my attention. It appeared several of our fighters had taken the opportunity to upgrade their equipment.

As the rest of our group proceeded towards the council chambers, I stopped next to the store and spoke up, "I'll take a look and see if we can purchase some oatmeal for the kitchen."

Using the kiosk's floating blue interface, I located a fifty-pound bag of oats available on the System Store. The price was set at eight silver, but I knew better than to stop there. I switched over to the auction house tab and conducted a search. Unfortunately, there were no current auctions for oats. With that in mind, I decided to proceed with buying a couple of bags from the System Store of oats for the village before heading upstairs.

After accepting the expansion quest, we gathered around the council table, each of us engrossed in the information displayed. Jayden shared, "Looks like I'm in charge of the stakes again. This time, we have thirty-six hundred feet of mana-rope to mark our boundaries."

My attention shifted to the map of our current village’s outline, revealing our village's mismatched wall that surrounded us, a combination of stone and metal fencing. As I examined it, I noticed that there was still ample space available on the southern side of the street running through our village for additional buildings. So far, we had only placed the alchemy lab in that area.

We spent the next couple of hours placing and replacing the stakes on the ground outside the village’s current boundary until we were satisfied with the results. When we returned to the council room, we’d decided the village’s new width would be six hundred feet, running east to west, and twelve hundred feet, running north to south. Much of the village’s boundaries would remain outside our walled area.

With the abundance of reclaimed resources from our excavation team's efforts, we successfully added five new houses to the map, completing the northern section of the wall predominantly with houses. Additionally, we were able to place several houses along the eastern wall.

Despite reserving resources for these houses, we still had plenty left for further construction. Sarah excitedly shared her discovery, "I found a building option that combines a mill and a bakery. It has a similar footprint to the tavern and inn, but it's divided in the middle to accommodate both production types."

Stolen story; please report.

After adding the mill-bakery building and another greenhouse for gardening, we still had surplus resources. I carefully studied the map, searching for overlooked possibilities. My focus turned to the village's northeastern corner and I proposed, "What if we put a tower there? It would give us a better position to defend from if we’re attacked from the woods.”

Jayden's mischievous grin appeared, and he teased, "Sounds like you just want a spot to take potshots at goblins."

I playfully returned the grin, saying, "Well, what better way to deal with goblins? I'm not the one who wanted to swing a sword."

Wesley interjected, bringing us back to the task at hand, "Alright, considering we still have a thousand excess units of stone, let's use them to extend the wall. A solid stone wall would provide better protection for the village compared to a flimsy metal fence."

Even after allocating most of our stone, a section of about a hundred yards of metal fencing would remain along the southern part of the village, separating the buildings from the Systemized farms.

Once everything was set on the map, we called down to the guard to let everyone in the village know we were ready to expand. We didn’t know what would happen if someone was caught inside an area being transformed by the system. And frankly, given how the System handled things, none of us wanted to find out.

[https://i.pinimg.com/originals/0f/4e/ff/0f4eff84d946f90575e6b4138efc4b00.gif]

I leaned against the outward facing window on the top floor of the tower. There was a lot of work yet to be done. For reasons known only to the System, wildwoods, like what we faced to the north, seemed to spread preternaturally. Just the other day, the woods ended between ten and twenty paces from the wall. Now, I swear, the woods had crept closer. A lot closer. The nearest tree to the tower was only a half dozen paces from its circular walls.

“The view’s amazing from up here.”

I turned around, a smile lit my features. Emily stood at the top of the stairs. My mouth was dry as I squeaked, “Oh, hi. Yeah. We’re forty feet up here.”

I cursed my nerves as I shifted over, giving Emily room to join me in looking out the window. As she looked out the window, I felt her arm brush against mine. My heart raced as I tried to think about something cool to say.

Then, completely unexpectedly, the System rescued me.

New Unlock: Rare spawns will now appear. Level up by neutralizing threats and completing quests.

An evil wind whipped through the trees, making them sway back and forth. A hot gust blew through the round room rippling through my hair. Emily’s long chestnut locks flew behind her as the wind caught it.

Then as soon as it came, it was gone. When I tried to laugh, my voice shook, “That was interesting. You get the alert?”

Emily nodded, “Yeah. As if the world needed to get any harder.”

There were four windows, on the tower’s top floor, facing the four cardinal points on a compass. I moved to the left. The town was spread out before me. In the distance, Mr. Lowe closed the gate. In the common areas, women rushed to get children back inside. The handful of fighter types who had been training, stood and stared around them.

From there, I moved to the southern facing window. Two of our three farms were coming along nicely. The systemized grains grew many times faster than non-incorporated fields ever could. In the distance, clouds swirled around the old Victorian house across the decayed farm to market road. Right as Emily joined me at this window, preternatural lightning flashed from the sky, striking a lightning rod.

Then the clouds dissipated and an eerie glow radiated from the house for a few seconds before fading. For the first time since we cleared that old house, I spied someone stride from the house. While I’d have liked to have a scope to better see, even though it was five hundred paces or thereabouts, I was pretty sure the creature was an orc. It was easily twice the height of a goblin. And if I had to guess, probably with more than enough hit points too.

As more creatures came out of the building, I needed to let the rest of the group know. Without thinking about it, I grabbed Emily’s hand, “Come on. We need to sound the alarm!”

When we reached the tables outside the tavern, tension hung in the air. For the first time since leaving the tower, I realized Emily’s hand was still in mine. Maybe she took strength from holding my hand, but I definitely drew comfort from the feel of her hand in mine.

Wesley stood amid several villagers, whose faces were full of worry. I tried to ignore the other adults and focus on the paladin and took a deep breath, preparing to share the unsettling news. "Hey, guys," I greeted them, my voice carrying a hint of urgency. "We've got a problem. From the tower, I spotted a group of orcs at the old Victorian house, roughly 500 paces away."

Silence fell over the table as a few fighters made their way to join us. I was glad to see Jayden, Hanna, and Sarah in that group. Jayden spoke up first, his voice laced with urgency, "Orcs? Are you sure about that, Cade?"

I nodded, my gaze sweeping across the gathering fighters who were beginning to join the table. "Positive. I saw them clear as day. They emerged from the house, and there seemed to be more than just a couple."

Hanna's brow furrowed, her tone filled with concern, "Are they heading towards the village?"

"Not yet," I replied. Whether it was a desire to impress Emily or to show the older men around Wesley that I was an equal, I forced determination into my voice. "But who knows what they're planning. We can't let them get any closer; our farms are outside the walls. We need to do something."

Sarah's eyes narrowed. "We need to organize a group to clear that house again. We can't let it become a stronghold for those creatures."

That’s when I noticed Mark Wilson with the fighters. Even though he’d been in the village less than a day, he faced Wesley, “If you need me to pull together a group, just say the word.”

Wesley gave him an encouraging smile, “Much appreciated. For this one, I think I’ll take a group over there. You’re welcome to come, Mark.”

With that, Wesley scanned the group and pointed at me, Jayden, Hanna, and Sarah. When his eyes saw Emily’s hand in mine, his forehead arched before he said, “Emily, if you’d like to join, you’re welcome to. And I want Matt Ulrich to join us. I want more healing than what I can do.”

Before we could start toward the gates, Steve Jr. stepped up, “I just hit level four, Wes. Let me come. I promise you won’t regret it.”

Wesley traded looks with Mr. Lowe. When the older man shrugged, Wesley nodded, “Sure, Steve. Grab your sword and shield and meet us at the gatehouse.”

There were more orders shouted, but a few minutes later, a party of nine of us set off for the ramshackle Victorian house across the road.