“My Lord, although the place still needs some furnishings, what do you think?” The mayor asked.

The party had ended and the girls were allowed to warm up. When we started heading back to the small building we owned near the outer area of town, the mayor grabbed us and stopped us.

“The mansion is essentially finished now, how about you stay the night here?”

The mansion really was completely constructed now. We were standing in the foyer. It had a massive crystal chandelier and an extravagant staircase and all the stuff you’d expect to see in such a thing. I was actually quite impressed by the design.

I didn’t have an eye for this stuff, so it was better to leave it to the professionals. My suggestions were few and far between, like wanting the forest to protect the grove. Celeste left to visit her mother. She said she’d rather sleep near the fairy spring than be indoors.

As for the other girls, I had them each pick a room. For me, I reserved the largest room. I notice that the bed was sufficiently large to accommodate us. It made a King size bed look small. It was about the size of two kings. It was truly the bed of a harem protagonist. That’s not to say I saw myself as a harem protagonist. I was just a guy with a couple of slaves. However, with a mansion like this, I felt I could afford more.

I considered briefly going to the Capitol and bringing Faeyna and the rest of the girls back to this mansion too. However, it was lacking in furnishings. Yes, it had beds, dressers, and the like. But there was really nothing else but the bare minimum. It really needed someone like Faeyna to decorate it. Hopefully, it’d be a lot cheaper for her to do that down here than it was in the Capital.

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“My lord, we should do a report tomorrow.”

I shook my head. “I won’t be here by tomorrow morning. I’m still on a mission for the prince. In all respect, I’m not technically here. How about you report on the important points now.”

“Very well…”

Even though I was tired, I ended up staying with the mayor for another hour as he told me about various things. The population had increased quite a bit. Not only had the slaves from the capital and the refugees from the bandits arrived for protection, but the official recognition of Chalm as a part of Aberis had also caused an exodus of people looking for opportunities on the frontier.

This naturally led to trouble, and so a guard had to be established. The Adventuring Guild took a big stand into this and is still renting out Adventurer’s to deal with the guard shortage.

“If only we had a bit more money…” He ended with a sigh.

I sighed too, but only because I pulled out a purse and gave him 1000 gold coins. Of course, his mouth fell open and he thanked me profusely. This mansion alone, which they had seemingly built from gratitude, could easily go for 1000 gold coins, so I didn’t mind it too much. Well, I did mind it. It was somewhat painful. However, I grit my teeth and tolerated it. This was about building our future.

I also showed him the bug shells. He looked at them for a bit and then shook his head.

“I don’t think our blacksmith is going to be able to work with this. If we could armor all the guards with it, it would certainly help boost morale and make trouble makers worry.”

“Don’t worry about it.” I nodded. “I think I have the perfect candidate to work on this stuff.”

I went outside with him and dumped all the shells. I left it to the mayor to move them to a warehouse for storage. I also dumped a few dozen magical items on him. I told him to give them to the higher rank guards as an award for service. He was naturally very thankful for that too. I’ll say it again, raising an army is expensive, and this was just the start.