The next morning, so the morning of my 394th day in the new world, I went to my man Jonathan to ask him if he’d become my first knight... well, not a proper knight because I didn’t have grant title researched yet, but I’d give him a proper title in the future.

“Becoming a knight? What’s even a knight?” He asked me, as that just wasn’t a word he’d heard before, and I explained him that as a knight he’d basically be my eyes, ears, and hand on the field and the places I couldn’t go to because of my duties.

And he’d be doing quite a bit of monster hunting as well.

“Wait... there are monster around here? Where?!” He asked, gripping his spear and getting up.

“Calm down, there are no monsters threatening the village—for now at least. And, while you will be doing quite a bit of monster hunting as a knight, that won’t be your main duty.

“Your main duty will be to oversee the forces I assign to you, and like I said, be my eyes, ears, and hand in the field. And, even if your main duty was to kill monsters, you won’t be doing the actual fighting and instead you’ll be ordering your forces to eliminate any monsters that threaten the people.” I told him, and he quickly calmed down.

“Aww, really?” He said, sounding almost sad that there were no monsters around and sat down.

“So, what do you say about becoming my first knight?” I asked him once again, and he thought for a moment.

“...Eh, I’ll pass. Sounds boring.”

“Umm... you sure?”

“Yeah. Why wouldn’t I be? I mean, I am sure that I’d be bored as hell if I were to become an actual knight as I’ve been having quite the fun while fighting against the occasional monster, and the stronger animals. And sitting around and only sending others to do the fighting sounds boring.”

“...Makes sense.” I just told him, not expecting him to actually reject my offer as being a knight was simply an upgrade to being a hunter. But he didn’t have the same knowledge as me, so being a knight might sound like a downgrade to him.

“On the note of sitting around being boring...” He started saying, and I focused my attention on him.

“Are there any monsters like the one you and Jonathanne killed last year?” He asked.

“Well... not around this village, or at least I hope there are none around here, but yes. There are monsters as strong, or stronger than that monster. Why? Do you want to fight one?” I asked him, wondering why he was asking me such a question, and threw in a little joke at the end, not actually expecting him to want to fight one.

“Yes, I do want to fight one.” He actually said the unthinkable and I was surprised for a few moments. Not that he realised though, as he just kept talking.

“Ever since I’ve seen the corpse of that thing, I’ve wondered how it’d feel to fight something like that but there just isn’t anything like that around... and how did a monster get that big anyways? And why are the other ones in the forest weaker than it?” He asked, and while I was a bit worried about his blood lust... I wasn’t that worried about it.

“Do you remember the weird sapling I have in my home? The monster from last year was able to grow so large only because it was eating it and feeding parts to the other animals in the forest, and no—you can’t eat it, and we won’t be feeding it to other animals either.” I told him, after seeing a spark forming in his eyes.

“Aww... then, are there any other saplings like that in the forest that may make stronger monsters?” He asked and... should I tell him about the one in the other continent?

...Well, there is no reason not to, but also, there is no reason to.

“There are no saplings like the one we found, but there are dungeons around that can make monsters as strong as, or stranger than the one from last year.”

“Hoh?” His interest immediately become piqued as I talked about dungeons.

“And are there any near us you know of?”

“There are probably quite a few around us, but I don’t know of any that are close to us. And I am not telling you where the only one I know about is.”

“Why not?” He asked, confused.

“No reason to. The dungeon is nowhere near us, and going close to it is out of question anyways.”

“And why is that?” He asked once more, even more confused.

“Simple, I don’t want to poke the hornet’s nest.”

“Hornet?”

“...Just forget about it.” I told him.

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Our conversation continued for a bit more, but when I told him that he couldn’t go to any dungeon alone, because he’d simply die if he did that, he seemed a bit offended, as he thought that I was calling him weak which... I simply was?

Then I tried to explain him the dangers of fighting monsters alone, but he still thought that he could still do it, as he’d been fighting against the monsters in the forest quite easily.

His lack of self-preservation instinct was... concerning. But thankfully there were no dungeons around us, and after we found one, I’d have to talk to him about not going there, or just put guards around it, which I was going to do even if I never talked to him today.

Returning to my daily duties with still not a single knight under my command, I inspected our progress this year, and it was honestly pretty great.

The farmers were fully done with planting the dark onions in most of the fields, and in the left-over ones, they were planting a few experimental crops made by the alchemists. Alchemists whose job of creating new crops got immensely easier after the wilting roses started “blooming” in the little garden I made for them.

And currently 20 farmers were focused on taking care of the “Horses”, the fields, and repairing the farming equipment, which left the other 20 farmers mostly free—but not entirely as they changed jobs quite frequently.

In a normal village, the free farmers would be the ones doing the smelting, tanning, carpentry, hunting, and all the other stuff that we were doing right now.

But this was not a normal village, so, instead of letting the free farmers do as they wished, I was going to just make them help the construction groups!

Not that we didn’t need more carpenters and other specialists—we did. But I was simply counting on the fact that I could just create more people and grant them knowledge with the snap of a finger, so I wasn’t too worried about it.

And about the construction projects we’d be doing now... we basically had 2 construction groups of 2, with one having 35, and the other having 10 permanent construction workers, and the last one having 20 farmers that were helping out.

Group 1 will continue making houses, while the group 2 will be making workshops, which were just going to have sleeping rooms at the back and workshops in the front.

First, they’d be expanding Jame’s workshop to accommodate for at lest 2-3 more carpenters, then they’d expand the tannery, and finally give the smelters proper wooden buildings.

And with their new orders given, the farmers started helping the construction workers, and James didn’t have any problems with sharing a workshop with others, so there was nothing stopping us from expanding his workshop.

And in 3 weeks, Group 2 was finished with expanding the workshop, and Group 1 had finished another house.

And I created 2 more people and give them the carpentry class and was left with 326 mana stones.

Then group 2 started another project to expand the tannery too!

But only the workspace as the tannery could get quite smelly.

Then another 2 weeks passed, and the tannery expansion was completed! Then I summoned 2 more tanners, and spent 2 more mana stones on them, which left me with 328 mana stones.

The next week, after the family house was done, I’d summon 2 more tanners, but for now that was enough. So, I sent the group 2 to start building huts for the smelters to work in, and made them outside the walls, like all the other industries, as we just needed more space inside the walls... well, not now, as we still had quite a bit of space left.

But we had space for only 18 more family homes inside the log wall, assuming we don’t tear down the church and the 27 wooden barracks that are built on the eastern side of the wall that take a good chunk of land by themselves.

So, I needed to expand the wall as I’d be able to only summon 36 more people this year, forcing me to end the year at only 181 population, if I kept to only building homes inside the wall that is.

And I was going to both expand the wall, and build homes outside of it, but I won’t be expanding the wall now as we don’t have enough logs to expand it.

But after we take move the smelters’ workshop outside the wall, I was going to focus both groups on making more houses, so we should be able to divert some people to the lumber industry without much of a problem.

The next week another home was completed, and I summoned another 2 homunculi to be tanners, and 2 weeks later the smeltery workshop or just the smeltery was completed outside the walls, and the old one was de constructed.

Then I put the Group 2 to build houses like the Group 1. And I was confident that they’d be able to build a house in 3 weeks like Group 1 too!

Then weeks started passing by pretty calmly, and we just continued building quite a few houses and I assigned more people to be lumberjacks, but as time passed a problem, I completely forgot about surfaced.

“Rae, I don’t know how to be a midwife.” I told her as I was sat in my room at the night of my 498th day in the new world.

“And why are you telling me that?”

“...Didn’t you see the women with large bellies?”

“I did?”

“So, how am I supposed to help them give birth? There is no research that talks about anything like that!”

“Basic Sanitation.”

“...Seriously? That one?”

“Yeah? Is there a problem with that?”

“Its description only talks about keeping the roads clean?”

“So?”

“...Give me knowledge on how to deliver a baby.”

“No. Research it yourself.”

“You know I don’t have the points to do that! And its your mistake that I didn’t know what to research anyways!”

“Damian, you don’t have any points. How would you research anything anyways?”

“I literally have 2 researches that I could’ve completed in a month or two if I wanted to, but I didn’t because there were no researches that caught my interest, so I never completed them. This is a you problem, not a me problem!”

“...Fair, but you know that my descriptions are not always 100% accurate. You should’ve guessed this yourself. And why haven’t you researched basic sanitation yet anyways?”

“We have latrines set up and streets are literally made of dirt. Researching it wouldn’t make much of a difference for me.”

“...I am not giving you a research for free.”

“...Hahhh... at least give me a loan?”

“A loan?”

“Yes. A loan of points so I can research sanitation.”

“...Don’t feel like it.”

“...A divine quest then?”

“Hmm... sure. But what can you offer?”

“I mean... not much? At least not much right now, but you can always just ask me to build a giant ass church later or do something else. Can’t you think of anything?”

“Well... what about a favour?”

“A favour?”

“Yes. A favour I can cash in at any time, and you have to do the thing I ask of you.”

“...That’s definitely a red flag, but I am also kinda desperate so, okay I guess?”

Then information flooded into my mind, and I saw another divine quest, A Favour, slot itself beneath the other divine quest I had.

Not that I thought too much about it as I was simply surprised by how easy it was to actually make soap.