Callum wiped the sweat from his brow. It was impressive that he could even still sweat, but an hour of working at his hardest still pushed his endurance, enhanced by the skill points or not. He looked back at what he had managed to accomplish in that hour.

Trees were toppled everywhere, and he had carved out even more land for houses to go on. He had overdone it with how much wood was strictly necessary for the houses, but he was sure that having the wood would be helpful as he needed to expand.

The other woodcutters had continued to work, furthering the stockpile of wood he would have available. For what it was worth, Kirsti had watched him work for about five minutes before walking over to someone else and demanding their axe.

He was impressed with her work ethic and filed the name away for when he would start rewarding people for their efforts. His basic premise hinged on a meritocracy, but he was not some expert in law, or setting up governments for that matter. He wasn’t even sure he wanted to rule anything, but the idea of being the owner of a town in this new world was something he could get behind.

After a short break, he went back to cutting trees until he felt satisfied with the work he had done. That was strange to him. He had never done much true manual labor in his life, but the rhythmic thudding of the axe into the tree was calming. Being able to see real, verifiable progress brought him peace as well. It was something that he could lose himself in to forget the trials of the day.

He worked until the roughly two hours left of daylight. There were still houses to buy, and people to get moved into them. He found Kirsti before he left and returned the axe, but the woodcutters had all decided, like him, that it was time to quit for the day.

He talked with them a bit as they walked back. It was not surprising to Callum that none of them had any experience cutting trees, considering they lived in a city, but they had all picked up on the technique quickly enough. It also gave Callum the opportunity to ask other people what they thought about how they all had received RPG stats.

Three of them, Kirsti included, were unfamiliar with most of the concepts of stats and skills, so Callum took the opportunity to fill them in on what they could expect. It was a pleasant conversation, and he was glad to give them some pointers as they had been the ones to step up and help him get the wood for the houses. Back at the town hall, they separated, and Callum stepped over to the obelisk to see the fruits of his labor.

The answer that greeted him was a lot of wood. Through all the clearing, they had managed to stockpile nearly 2,500 wood. It was more than enough for the houses he had planned to build, and that led him to a bit of a crossroads.

He could just build the twenty-five houses at fifty wood each, plus some for him and his friends. Or, he could build two sections of houses, one for the people who hadn’t lifted a finger, and then nicer ones for the people who had been helping out around the place. That option could lead to some resentment, as they had all been living in the same-sized apartments a few days ago.

There would also need to be some way of determining who had been contributing and who hadn’t. He could ask Ryan, but had a feeling that the man had been spending quite a bit of time in meditation to learn more about magic.

He would have leftover wood even if he built the twenty-five houses, and expansion would probably be needed if the people in the dungeon found their way to the town. He would do that first, then look at houses for people he determined that deserved it, if someone wanted a bigger house, he would just have to be willing to hear out their case.

The next big problem with this was where to build them. Callum had played a few city-building games but had no real experience in actual city planning. He decided that he would have to approach it like a game. A common theme that he noticed when playing those games was that future unlocks could reveal poor early city planning, in which case he needed to be smart about it.

The simple way to do things would be to create four sections, based around cardinal directions, with the town hall being the center. With an absence of knowledge, the simple way would have to do, so until he could find someone with urban planning knowledge. In the future, he could make a trip to the library to see if any books there would help.

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Settled on a plan, he roughly sketched out what it would look like, with housing being located north, towards the center of the city. He got some basic measurements on how big the houses were and figured out how much land he would need. He knew that there would likely need to be areas for recreation and craftsmen. Those could go east and south, respectively, and then west, towards the forest would most likely be early farming and then resource gathering as farming expanded.

This seemed overwhelming to him and raised several questions about how big he wanted all of this to grow, and what would it look like a month from now or even a year from now. He pushed these questions down as he focused on the present. Right now, he needed to solve the problem of the houses.

Ideas in hand, he opened the menu to buy houses. When he purchased the first, it took him out to the map and asked that he select a location for the house. Keeping in line with his plane, he started the first of a double row of houses. He made sure to leave space around the house, just enough so that if there was a way to upgrade houses in the future there would be room for expansion, but not too much as to eat up all the real estate he was working with.

With the first one purchased, and a location settled on, he rushed over to the spot he had selected to watch the process of it being built. As with the town hall, though not as grand, logs stacked on logs and slowly the shape of the house was revealed. An interesting addition was the cutout for windows along with the ones for a door in the front and back.

He knew the basic layout of the house as he had read the description, making sure that it was at least on par with the apartments the people had given up. To see it in person was different, and once the construction was complete, he walked through to see how good it was.

The house reminded him almost of a log cabin, though one that was built quite a long time ago. As he stepped in, the quality of construction was made obvious. The door, despite only being on wooden hinges, glided open and closed. The floors were solid wood that did not creak, and the shutters for the open windows were a nice touch.

It was made up of three rooms. One that served as a living room, surprisingly with furniture already there. There was a kitchen that was just a room to prep food in, and finally a closed-off bedroom. There was a bed there that looked to be roughly full size if he was guessing, as well as a dresser.

Overall it was very simple, but on the slightly roomier side of the apartments the people had been living in, based on who he had talked to. With his inspection over, Callum headed back to the obelisk to finish constructing the rest.

As he had with the first one, purchasing the second brought him back out to the map to select the location. He continued making the double row of houses, and on the fifth one, he was getting a little annoyed that he couldn’t just purchase a number of them and then place them. Something that, if it was a game, would have led to him yelling at the developers for the annoying UI. The fact that he was building real houses with a thought, did assuage those annoyances.

The construction of the houses was not completely silent, and it was starting to draw a crowd. That solved the problem of having to gather them and tell them their houses were done. As he worked, he called Ryan over to stop the people he had selected, Sally, Kirsti, and the woodcutters, from selecting their houses yet.

He had ultimately decided that these people deserved a reward for the work they had done, and he was happy to reward them with at least a somewhat better home. He also wanted to give one to Eliza as well, if he could find her. Ryan may not have been directly contributing as much, but the magic lessons were worth something, even more now that it appeared to unlock a class for him. From a few short conversations Callum had with him, he learned that Ryan was keeping some semblance of order. It could come off as playing favorites, but Callum was prepared to defend his reasoning if he needed to.

The double row of housing was done, and he could see people slowly claiming houses, oddly pausing in doorways as they entered. He had decided that with his extra wood, he would go a little further, and round out the number of houses to thirty, just in case.

Next was the bigger homes. He was not going all out here, but a decent upgrade in space was acceptable. Even if he had money, Callum would not have wanted a big house. Not for any reason other than he had no use for it. He knew not everyone felt the same, but at present, there was no building a dream home, so he settled on the homes that were one hundred wood.

He needed eight houses for the people he had chosen to give one to. That consumed another eight hundred wood, but now that he was confident in the amount of wood they had available, it was something he was willing to spend it on.

Starting a single row of houses, he placed all eight of them. They were built in the same manner as the others but with more interior rooms. The main difference was a bonus room that could double as a second bedroom if needed. He planned to turn his into a meditation room.

The next step was to present the houses to the people he had selected, and he was a little excited to see the looks on their faces.