With the military buildings becoming available to the village, Arthur felt ecstatic. This solved one of the two problems he had thought before: Farming and self defense.

The addition of the mage tower felt like a heavy rain after a long period of drought to him, after all, what kind of fantasy world where everything is supposed to be possible would be without magic?

With this in mind, Arthur looked over the building costs.

Apprentice mage tower (Tier 1)

Requirements 300 Stone

500 Wood

50 Metal (Durability varies on metal used.)

‘50 units of metal? Goddammit, I have to start organizing mining parties…And then there is the issue of tools available for mining.’ Thinking up to this point, Arthur felt a blooming headache.

He shifted his focus quickly to the other military structures, and it somehow didn’t surprise him. Besides junior scout camp, they all required metals. Ruffling his hair and pulling out a few strands of his blonde hair in misery, he shivered and looked over the horizon.

The sun was slowly falling behind the Snowstone mountain range.

‘I think we can start to work on the resources starting from tomorrow… It has been a long day and everyone is both physically and emotionally fatigued.’ Briefly after glancing at the villagers who were clamoring around him about the job change, he smiled and let them enjoy the moment.

“I kind of wish that I had a carefree life, but who could share the burden with me…” Muttering with a small voice, Arthur started to walk towards his hut and two seconds later, his shoulder was tapped from behind.

“Hi! Did you say you needed help with managing the village?” A cheerful and feminine voice resounded in Arthur’s ears.

Arthur turned around and saw a smiling woman in her early twenties, with dimples on her smile and bangs swinging in tune of the wind.

With a small lean, she took a step forward and said. “I don’t mind taking some responsibility around here.”

“Charlotte, nice to see you.” Politely greeting her, Arthur had a forced smile on his face.

“Nice to see you too, so how about it? You know that I get along with everyone and physical labor is not my strong point. That way I could help you and contribute in my own way.”

Rubbing his unshaved stubble, Arthur looked her up and down while considering her proposal seriously.

Yes, it was true that she was friendly and easy to talk to, but could he actually entrust her something to manage? From what he had seen; Charlotte was both clever and sly when it came to bargaining, but he had no idea how her managing skills were.

If he had to make a comparison, she would be one of those people who bargained for better deals as a hobby.

From Arthur’s perspective, Charlotte was like a budding merchant. Persistent, greedy, opportunistic, amicable and wise.

Maybe it would be a good thing to have a person like that by his side negotiating for him, so Arthur gave her a chance.

“If you can prove that you can manage the job specific buildings, resource gathering for them and prioritizing the most useful ones first for a couple days, I can consider it.”

[Hint: You can appoint a maximum of three persons with managing privileges to a village.]

[These privileges include]

[- Building allocation ]

[- View village status ]

[- Treasury management (Locked) ]

[ - Citizenship bestowment (Locked) ]

[- Banishment (Locked) ]

“I can do that!” Cheerfully, Charlotte jumped in joy as she quickly fled the scene quickly.

Arthur looked at her retreating figure. ‘It’s not because she’s pretty…But I'd be lying if I insisted that it wasn't one of the reasons I gave the chance to prove her skills.’

As that thought passed his mind, he tried to be as objective as possible when he previously made the evaluation of her.

Charlotte disappeared from his sight, and the wind was already starting to blow from the sea as the sun slowly disappeared beyond the horizon.

It was time for him to leave today's problems for tomorrow’s Arthur. Maybe she would do a superb job, and he could delegate his stress to someone suitable.

Stolen novel; please report.

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The night passed quickly and peacefully. With some of the villagers being too excited for their jobs and newly gained perks, a few loud yells of excitement resounded in the middle of the night by the blazing bonfire.

As the night went on, the hustle and bustle gradually faded into tranquility until the first rays of the sun started to shine on the budding village once more.

The villagers woke up one by one and opened the doors of their small shabby huts before starting a new day.

Once again, Arthur started his day by washing himself in the small stream of water, taking a few gulps of water and wandering around the village.

‘So, my current predicament is mainly caused by lack of metals, but the transportation by hand is far too inefficient… I should make a design for a simple cart that is able to transport the iron from the mountains, but how to go about it?’

Arthur considered what technology he could make use of and a simple wooden cart was the best choice. It was easy to push to the mountain range and relatively easy to bring back with the downslope.

Rolling his sleeves, he walked to the big pile of resources and started to process the wheels. It was easy with Arthur’s strength, but he was limited by the tools. The uneven surfaces made him cringe with discomfort, but soldiered on with his design.

Half an hour passed in a flash, and several sets of crude wheels made from thick tree trunks were lined in front of him.

The wheels proved to be an easy task, but the dilemma was the body of the cart itself. Moments after frowning and thinking, he came up with an idea. Weren’t the shabby huts made from wooden planks? If he just tore down the first shabby hut he made with his own hands, would the planks remain?

With some excitement, Arthur started to swagger towards his initial hut with bold steps.

“Morning Arthur, what’s got you going so early in the morning?” Jonathan walked next to Arthur with a fishing rod on his shoulder.

“Morning! Nothing much, just making a cart for transport. Otherwise getting enough iron will prove to be problematic.”

Jonathan squinted and looked at the crude wheels in the distance. “I see. By the way, I heard you put Charlotte in charge of the new buildings? She’s talented and ambitious, so maybe be careful on how much you give her…”

“What?”

“Nothing. Just do your thing, chief.” Jonathan said with a wry smile and waved his hand over his shoulder as he started to walk towards the shimmering coastline.

While walking away towards the sea, Jonathan was energetically whistling and humming.

Something about the humming seemed quite familiar to Arthur, and then the awkward dancing and humming from the previous night came to his mind.

“Goddammit… Even the tune I was humming wasn’t spared. Whoever you are, don’t let me find you or you’ll be the first to volunteer to mine the iron.” With his left eye twitching, Arthur swore.

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While Arthur was building his cart, Nick and Caleb donned their rags on them and chatted next to the great forest.

“Did you hear? We can choose jobs now.” Caleb gave Nick a shove with his elbow.

“Yah, I did. But I haven't had a chance to show off my class yet. It’s berserker and I can slash a tree down in seconds!”

Caleb raised his eyebrow and thought that Nick was bullshitting him.

It was inconceivable to him that Nick would get so much stronger over one day, so he just pushed it to the side with an awkward smile as an offhanded bragging.

“I am serious! Watch this.” After seeing the awkward smile on Caleb’s face, he started to emit a light red hue and took out his stone axes.

With an excited cry, he hacked and slashed multiple times a second at the ancient looking tree. With every moment, large pieces of wood were scraped off the trunk and started to make ever increasing creaking sounds.

“Careful now! It’s falling down!”

Having learned his lesson from the previous time, he promptly alerted his buddy before the tree snapped in half.

“Well I’ll be damned. That’s awesome!”

With the truth laid before him, Caleb reluctantly admitted that the young silver haired man had grown so strong practically overnight. Just as he was about to ask how did Nick get his berserker class, he felt the ground beneath him tremor slightly.

“Shhh.” Caleb pressed his ear on to the still cold grass.

Seconds passed slowly and the low rumble seemed to get stronger, as if something was approaching. By Caleb's experience and estimation, it was not a single entity.

“I think it’s a pack of sorts. Alert Arthur and the villagers just in case.” Eyes dead serious, Caleb muttered and immediately was on guard. The experience of being captured by the ratmen had taught him to take every precaution possible.