If it had been possible to hop up-and-down in my essence form, I would have done so, but, alas, the closest I came to it was a bizarre back-and-forth floating motion.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m attempting to hop excitedly in expectation of the last two carts arriving!”

Imu was sitting cross-legged atop Goldie in front of the nearly-finished Church to Lady Light. Every now and then he would turn towards it and scowl, clearly upset at having to venerate a deity responsible for his death in his mortal life, not to mention the fact that she was opposed to his company, Deathheim Inc.

As I continued to attempt my floating hop, our long-awaited carts arrived, the drivers and guards bouncing up-and-down every time the toad mount hopped forward. Within the pair of carts were a few bits of raw material, which we already had bountiful stores of in our now five separate barns, as well as some coins and such.

“It’s finally happening!” I exclaimed, beginning to fly around my centre in an excited sprint.

As the carts crossed the threshold into my demesne, I was forcefully pulled into my Core.

Congratulations! For evolving into a Town, your list of buildings available has expanded and your demesne has grown!

WARNING: Your settlement will now actively begin attracting explorers and adventurers!

I awoke to the familiar sight of Imu sitting at the edge of my tree cave. He turned towards me, noticing that I’d awoke, but in his eyes was a terrified expression.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“…The tree grew. A lot.”

I moved through the walls of the cave and soared out into the air, looking down at ground below. It had at least increased by twice its usual size and its branches had tripled in length, the whole oak tree starting to take on an uncanny resemblance to the weeping willow down by the pond I had lived in.

“How do I get down?” Imu asked, clearly not fond of heights like this.

“I have an idea.”

All unassigned and idle minions form up below the tree and catch Imu when he jumps!

“Are you out of your blessed mind!?” he yelled at me from the tree, as a horde of minions formed a human pyramid below, quickly rising up into an eight-metre tall structure that swayed unnervingly from side-to-side.

Since I felt that Imu would not take the jump, I forced my essence into his body and made him kick off the edge of the tree cave and soared down towards the horde below. Mid-air I pulled my essence out and got to watch him plummet downwards, screaming obscenities the entire way.

Though a handful of minions were crushed when they caught hold of Imu, he himself made it down to the ground unscathed, although his legs remained shaky for a bit.

“Brilliant idea, right?” I asked. “I’ve gotten even smarter thanks to my evolution to Town!”

“Don’t. Ever. Do. That. Again!”

“It looked like fun.”

“I will somehow go back in time and strangle your tadpole self if you forcefully control my body like that again! You inbred-small-brained-toadstool-smelling imbecile!”

“Have you seen the Goose2 recently?” I asked, changing the subject.

Imu pushed one of the minions still holding-on to him away, before finding Goldie who was waiting patiently nearby. “No. I haven’t. It was suspiciously quiet when you were evolving.”

“Suspicious?”

“Think about it: we got to move eight carts of food and such out of our settlement without being harassed, and our altar of offerings has gone untouched for a week now.”

“Do you think it died?”

“Definitely not. My fear is that it’s evolving again or has found a lair or something equally-likely to screw us over eventually.”

“What if it found a mate and had offspring?”

Imu paused, his face draining of colour as he thought about it. “It would spell disaster. Armies would have to be assembled and heroes would have to be ascended, all to combat the scourge of overpowered geese!”

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“It can’t be that strong,” I commented.

“You didn’t see it last time, since you didn’t have the Scope yet, but it was level 77 out of 100… I think it must have found a loophole in the levelling system or something. It’s definitely way too strong and given that offspring inherit many of their parents’ strengths, any children it sired would be a calamity by themselves.”

“Nevermind all that for now,” I said.

“It seems rather prudent to worry about it now.”

“No! I wanna see my new requirements!”

Imu sighed and tossed his hand out, letting me see what was required for my next evolution.

[Evolution Requirements]

Town => Castle Town

- Build a Castle -

- Construct walls to separate and encompass the separate areas of your town -

- Construct a Gaol and evolve 3 cruel minions to Jailer -

- Reach more than 1000 minions (404/1000) -

- Build 1 Gentlewhomen’s Club and evolve 20 lazy unproductive minions to Aristocracy -

- Evolve the most ambitious offspring of two Aristocracy minions to Lord -

- Evolve 20 Guard minions to Cavalry Men -

- Evolve 12 Archer minions to Sharpshooters -

- Build 1 Marketplace, evolve 3 Merchants to Wandering Traders, and evolve 3 cart-driving minions to Caravaneers -

- Establish permanent trade and supply routes -

- Build 1 Branch Office of the Adventurers’ Guild and evolve a Mayor minion to Guild Master -

- Evolve 5 Brave Minions to Adventurers and give them names -

“Wow, that’s a lot of tasks. We’ll need a lot of Builders for the walls, and we’ll need to expand our farmable land again.”

“It seems like there’s no more limit to how many minions you can have, you know, except for space and food and such.”

“What happens if I don’t have houses for them? Just for a thousand we need a lot of space to put houses.”

Imu leafed through his Encyclopaedia, then answered, “Minions without houses evolve into Homeless.”

“That sounds cool!”

“I wouldn’t recommend aiming for it. They seem to lose the ability to comprehend commands and they become fiercely territorial. Like bipedal geese basically.”

“Hm.”

“Where do you want to start first? It’s pretty open from here on it seems.”

“Guild!”

We had to do a bit of urban redevelopment to fit all our new house blueprints. To reach a thousand minions, we required one-hundred-and-fifty more houses. Additionally there had to be made room for the quadrant-dividing walls that I had decided on.

As minions, Builders and unassigned workers ran around being busy, many idle minions took the opportunity to sneak away into the houses that remained to copulate and multiply. Already after just half a day I had over 500 minions. Many of my Foragers had transitioned to working in the Quarry which now covered half of the southern quadrant, and my Woodchoppers worked diligently in teams to constantly bring wood for the Carpenter and the Builders who tore their way through the raw materials in a frenzy fuelled by an abundance of Iron and Copper tools amongst them, which significantly increased their production speed.

Since it was an important building, I put the Guild Branch Office near the Mayor’s House, but it was a great building which by itself required a mountain of iron, timber, and quarried stone to be built. As it was underway, I worked with Imu and placed blueprints for all the additional buildings we’d need, like Farming Plots, Barns, Grain Windmills, Forges, Anvils, as well as the great walls that would crisscross my demesne.

“Given that the Guild Hall takes a while, we may as well start on the castle as well. It’ll require a bit of moving around of buildings, like the Mayor’s House, but it’s sure to be a weeks-long project for your Builders.”

“Okay! Let’s do it!”

“How do you want to design it?”

“It isn’t premade?”

“No.”

“Hm, I have no idea what a castle is supposed to look like,” I admitted.

Imu stood up from the back of Goldie and stretched his arms. “I have some ideas in mind.”

“Then you’re in charge.”

When all the separate blueprints for the Castle, of which there were seventeen, were placed, it was quite a thing to behold, even in its ethereal blurry outline. It had three towers, a large garden with an area for a pond, a central courtyard next to its main building, an outer courtyard, and tall walls that, when combined, created a coiling series of gates that had to be bypassed to reach the centre, like the shell of a snail.

After the blueprints had been placed, and exhausted overworked Builders moved on to this new colossal project, my Guild Office stood ready.

I immediately sent my Mayor inside and fed him an abundance of my expanded essence pool, until a green-and-golden light shone from within and he stepped out like a summoned hero amidst a deluge of strobing lights and blooming grey smoke.

“Finally! Normal clothes!”

I looked at Imu who had actually thrown his hands into the air in celebration. The Guild Master was wearing a gleaming jade-green suit, but unfortunately had lost his Mayoral cone hat.

“…Wait a moment!” Imu jumped down from Goldie and strode over to the Guild Master, then started poking and prodding his suit.

“What’s wrong?”

“His suit… I thought it’d be cashmere, but it’s metal! What in all Hells!? Listen!” he knocked on the jade-green pants and there came a loud ding each time he struck it with his knuckles.

In the distance, as though answering the reverberating clothes of my new Guild Master came a loud earth-shaking honk.

“That’s not a good sign,” I said.