When Mark activated the beacon, a dim blue glow emanated from the top of the pillar, and he felt a single pulse from the beacon. The pulse was similar to the sensation he had when there was an unread notification from the System. Mark stood vigil beside the pillar, staring off into the woods as if someone would walk out of the woods at any moment.
"What're you looking for?" The sudden question shocked Mark out of his stupor and he turned to see Naomi standing beside him.
"People, I guess," Mark said.
"And why would people just walk out of the woods?"
"I activated the beacon."
"Is that what that pulse was?"
"Yeah, the pillar gave me the option to let people know that we are here. I was putting it off, because I didn't feel like here was any better than out there. Now that I have more firepower, I think I can keep this place safe."
"It's a noble goal. Does the wolf attack from the night before last not bother you? If I'm honest it's kinda worrying."
"It does, but we made it through, and are stronger now. I gained two levels from the fight."
"I hate to be the glass-half-full kind of person, but you also got that nasty scar, and one of your men was injured. Not what I would call the best scenario. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad you're here, but if things keep escalating like that, I don't know how long we'll make it." There was a trace of despair in her voice, but she sounded more curious than anything.
"I understand where you're coming from, but we're just getting started. Sure things look kind of bleak right now, but we get some people here, and we start growing food, making vehicles, looking out for each other, I think it's all gonna be okay." Mark
"You don't have to sell me, I'm already here, plus I want that garage, I miss being able to tinker with things. You've gotta sell him." Naomi pointed at a man walking out of the woods in the distance. "Good luck," She said and ducked back into the town hall, leaving Mark to talk to the newcomer alone, not that he minded.
The man approaching was just coming out of the woods as Mark waved to him. The newcomer looked to be on the young side, probably in his early twenties, though Mark wasn't exactly sure. Mark could see where dirt covered his face and he looked to have some minor injuries. Mark felt bad for the guy, and he mentally kicked himself for taking so long to get the beacon turned on. How many people could have died in just that short amount of time?
He pulled his mind away and focused back on the man approaching.
"Uh, Hello," the man said, "I think I'm lost. The system told me there was a town around here somewhere, if you could point me in the right direction, I'd appreciate it." He sounded much older than he looked, and Mark realized that if he got a prompt saying a town was here, then it was going to get tedious quickly having to explain to people that they were in the right place.
"No, you're not lost. I know it doesn't look like much, but when you consider we've only been here a few days, I think it's great progress." Mark inflected his voice, trying to sound like a salesperson, though if the town was the product, there wasn't much to sell.
"I guess that makes sense, but shouldn't there be more buildings? Seems a bit sketchy for a town."
"Well, we are getting there. We've chosen to prioritize safety, but there are places to sleep inside the town hall. We even have some meat. Why don't you give me your name, and we can see about getting you some food?"
The man's eyes glazed over at the thought of meat and he replied, "I'm Felix, and I would very much appreciate some food."
"Sure, and if you don't mind I just need to use Identify on you as a precautionary measure."
"Go ahead." Felix said with a shrug.
Mark was mostly telling the truth about using Identify on Felix being precautionary, but he also wanted to try to level up the skill. Mark was hoping for someone who knew what they were doing, based on his reaction to being Identified but was disappointed when he saw that Felix was still in the G-Tier. This wouldn't discourage Mark from still offering him food and a place to sleep, as he felt it was basic human decency to do so.
As the day wore on, more people found their way to the town. Mark was slightly embarrassed by the amount of times he had to tell people, "yes, this is the place you're looking for." He knew that the town wasn't much, but it felt like a slight against him for people to criticize the town. He knew that it would grow and that the people that came today would help it. People arrived, with none being rather exceptional, and most being in the age range of twenty to forty. Mark took a few minutes to interview everyone, not that he wanted to turn anyone away, but more so that he could learn what skills people brought to the table. His luck pulled through as one of the sixteen people that arrived was a botanist, or, used to be a botanist before the integration. Now, she was listed as a pilot, but Mark was willing to do whatever he could to help her gain some kind of farming profession. Her interview had been the longest, and he quickly learned that she was very long-winded, but that her name was Savannah, she was learning the oboe, and her favorite color was green. Mark only needed her name, but someone that could provide food easily would be worth keeping happy, so he let her talk until someone else needed to be introduced to the town.
By the end of the day, Mark was exhausted. He hadn't slept in nearly forty-eight hours, and the entire day of speaking to people had left him drained. He looked around for one of the original few, but the only one he could find was Mike, and while Mike had grown on him, Mark didn't want to put Mike out there greeting people. He was just too erratic. Mark eventually found Arlo at the barracks and asked him to cover for a few hours in case anyone showed up. Mark explained that he needed to get some sleep and that should anyone come, to just wake him up. Arlo told him it was no problem, and that Naomi had come to find him so that Mark could get some sleep. Thankfully, no one needed to be introduced to the town while Mark slept, and he was able to get up the next morning to be ready to greet more people.
Mark had some downtime the following morning, and he had some notifications to check from his time spent greeting people the day before.
[Leadership Lvl 5 -> Lvl 6]
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[Mayor Lvl 1 -> Lvl 2]
[Mayor Lvl 2 -> Lvl 3]
[Leadership Lvl 6 -> Lvl 7]
[Identify Lvl 2 -> Lvl 3]
[Identify Lvl 3 -> Lvl 4]
It wasn't much, but Mark was pleased to see that Leadership was a transferrable skill. He had also leveled Identify, which wasn't surprising to him as by the end of the day, Mark had a change to the skill, which showed him if they were lower or higher level than he was. Mark also accessed the Town Management Menu to see if anything else had been unlocked. To his disappointment, it hadn't. There still was the factory he didn't have enough resources to construct, but he did not want to leave the town to go hunting for the resources.
Mark was thinking he was stuck for at least a week before he could get the resources for the factory when it occurred to him that he could send his soldiers out with Arlo to go hunting. He thought back over the fights he had been in with his soldiers and Arlo and realized that when his soldiers killed something, sometimes without him landing a shot on it, the kill still gave him full resources. He wasn't sure if it would work without him in the fight, but he was willing to take the chance. If it didn't then at least Arlo would gain some experience so the trip wouldn't be a complete waste. Mark jogged over to the barracks and found Arlo at the front desk of the barracks.
"Hey, Arlo," but that was as far as he got when Arlo immediately responded.
"You want me to go hunting for you," Arlo said, not as a question, but as a statement. He didn't appear offended, but a smug smile crossed his face.
"Uh, yeah. How did you know?"
"Naomi told me about the beacon, and since it's still on, I figure you want me to take your soldiers to go hunting for resources. I don't mind, I did sign up for this whole pseudo-army thing." Arlo stood up and slung his rifle on his shoulder. "I assume you want us to go now."
"Yes, that would be great. Be sure to take the specialty units with you, and a couple of the regulars. We'll probably need the manpower here more than anything." Mark said as Arlo walked to the door.
"You sure you don't want any of them?" Arlo paused on his way back to the rooms.
"No, I think the extra firepower will be of more use to you. By the way, if you have a suggestion for something, don't hesitate to let me know."
"Will do, boss," Arlo said with a wave as he walked further into the barracks.
Mark was still adjusting to having someone he was in direct command of. It was a little different with all of the new people that had shown up to the town, they were more constituents than anything else. Though Mark wasn't quite sure if that term quite fit as they hadn't elected him, he was just offering food and shelter. He was not sure what to think about Arlo, either. He seemed almost lazy, but always knew what Mark was about to ask him to do, and was willing to do it every time.
Minutes after Mark talked to him, Arlo had the soldiers headed into the woods. Mark wished he could go with them, especially because he wanted to see his specialty units in battle, but he still needed to stay in the town, not only to protect it but to greet anyone that might show up. And they did. Another twenty people showed up in the town, and it was growing harder and harder for Mark to remember all of their names. He was quickly realizing that he was going to need help running this town. An administrator of some sort would probably help to organize everyone's talents. It was made even more confusing as most people had picked a class or profession that was not at all similar to what they had done before the integration.
All of the logistics were giving Mark a headache, and he was glad to see Arlo returning from the hunt, giving him an excuse to step away for a moment.
"How'd it go?" Mark asked with a wave.
"Excellent. You should see this gun in action." Arlo gestured to the machine gunner with an excited grin on his face. "Completely tears through them."
"That's good to hear. I'm glad you also brought some back. We're gonna need it to feed these people."
"I knew you'd want the meat, plus it feels good to provide food for people, you know." Mentioning the people that they were responsible for seemed to bring the situation back into perspective.
"I know, how about we cook up some of this meat and you can tell me about the hunting."
They sat down and started the evening fire as Arlo recounted the few encounters he had. Mark's eyebrows rose as Arlo told him that they had killed over twenty-five wolves over the day. Arlo recounted how the machine gunner would open up fire, and it was all Arlo and the other soldiers could do to keep up with the damage output of the big gun. The drawback was that Mark would have to buy more ammunition as it had nearly exhausted its supply. He was willing to pay the cost if it continued to produce these kinds of results. With the tale done, Mark opened his notifications again to see if he had earned anything for it.
[Leadership Lvl 7 -> 8]
[Mayor Lvl 3 -> Lvl 4]
[Identify Lvl 4 -> Lvl 5]
[Wolf Lvl 7 (18) Slain. Reduced Experience Awarded. x630 Basic RES]
[Wolf Lvl 8 (5) Slain. Reduced Experience Awarded. x200 Basic RES]
[Wolf Lvl 9 (2) Slain. Reduced Experience Awarded. x90 Basic RES]
Mark frowned when he saw that he had earned reduced experience for the kills. It didn't tell him how reduced it was, but he knew it had to be a lot because the levels and amount of what had been killed should have been plenty enough to level up. He was also annoyed by the amount of resources gained. True, it was more than he had seen before, but from his math, it left him at 1,035 Basic Resources. Just enough to upgrade the town hall, or he could buy the factory and would have to send Arlo out hunting again. Though if this was the return, he would have to do this every day.
He continued to mull it over as he ate, and probably read and re-read the descriptions for both items at least a hundred times, but the descriptions did not tell him much. He ultimately decided that the factory was only 250 resources and wouldn't set him back that much, and he could send Arlo out tomorrow to gather some more resources. As he wrapped up dinner, he also checked in on the people who were new to the town and saw that most of the cots in the town hall were occupied. He stopped for a few minutes to talk to people and assured them that there would be houses soon.
Mark then walked outside and accessed his Town Management Menu and selected the factory. He placed it on the south side of the pillar, almost a mirror to the barracks, and confirmed the selection. Out of the ground rose a two-story steel building. Mark estimated it to be twenty yards by twenty yards. It was turning night time, but the few people that were still outside stared on in wonder at the building that seemed to come from nothing. Nobody questioned Mark as he walked inside, but he could see the disbelief on their faces. He decided it could wait until later before he explained how the town was managed.
Inside, instead of looking like some kind of assembly line, it looked like a series of unrelated machines. It had a large open floor with a few columns running through, and bright fluorescent lights overhead. There were only a few windows and everything was in a gray steel color. Mark looked at a few of the machines, but most of them he couldn't determine their purpose. There was one machine that had a hopper, but no place for any kind of output. On the screen attached to the front of it, it simply said [Materials Processor]. It had no other clues to its function and Mark stared at it before getting an idea.
He ran out of the factory and to the edge of the woods, in his excitement, he ignored all the weird stares he got from the people watching. At the edge of the forest, he found a decent-sized log, weighing around 100 pounds, by his guess, and ran back to the factory, now drawing shocked expressions from the people watching on. Inside the factory, he found the on button for the machine he found earlier and dumped the log into the hopper. There was a grinding sound for a few seconds and then the log was gone. On the screen of the machine, it said [Wood Processed. x5 Basic Resources]. Mark let out a whoop of excitement. Now he had a way to manufacture Basic Resources. While he didn't get much, it was a start, and he would keep putting things in there until he found something that worked well.
His experiment was done, he looked around at other machines but wasn't able to determine what any of them did. That was fine with him because if people kept showing up in droves as they had been the last two days, he was sure it would not be long before he found someone who did know how to work the machines. He left the factory with a grin on his face, as he walked back to the town hall to fulfill a promise.