“It’s almost finished!” I croaked cheerfully in anticipation, as the two hammer-wielding minions moronically swung their tools around in the air in front of the house and its hazy outline.

As soon as it completed, I felt a warm feeling inside and was forcefully pulled back into my core within the hideaway in the top of the tree-trunk.

I heard Imu yell my name from outside as everything faded black.

Congratulations! For evolving into a Hamlet, your list of buildings available has expanded and your demesne has grown! You’ve also gotten fatter…

When I regained consciousness, it was no longer midday outside, but rather sometime towards the evening. I would have jumped out of myself if not for the fact that I was an inanimate core, given that I awoke to the sight of Imu leaning right up against me with the strange finger-bubble that he was looking at me through.

“Can you give me some space?” I asked. I felt all tingly and weird.

The giant child-like entity crawled backwards on his hands and knees, and I could’ve sworn he looked a bit smaller than normal.

“You shrunk,” I remarked. “It’s important to eat your flies or you’ll wither away.”

His eyeholes narrowed, before he replied, “Sluagh don’t require nourishment, and, if I did eat, I would certainly never… actually, forget it. I haven’t shrunk. You’ve just gotten bigger. Of course, that’s relatively speaking, but you now look less like a pebble and more like a rock.”

I instinctively dove my essence into his eyes to witness myself through them. Sure enough, my core had grown to twice its previous size. It reminded me of the strange glass orb that some luckless fool had dropped into my pond and which now lay at its bottom, reflecting the light filtered in from above the water’s surface.

“We should celebrate!” I announced, using Imu’s mouth, which he didn’t seem to enjoy.

I pulled myself out of his body to hover over his shoulder, watching him rub his mouth-slit uncomfortably.

“There’s no time for that,” he replied. “If you’ve forgotten, our terrible two-headed neighbourhood monstrosity seems to have taken a liking to our minions and produce…”

“Oh. Frog-damn-it… I really wanted to indulge in some fat beetle larvae.”

“That’s disgusting.”

“Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it. That’s a frog’s way of living.”

“Enough. Let’s get to it. Your foragers have already filled your storage barn to the brim and I wanna see what else we can craft.”

“Okay!”

“But first, you need to expand your demesne.”

I lifted myself out of the opening in the tree to witness my abode. Though I couldn’t fully see the borders of my demesne, I could feel it more clearly than before. I clenched real hard and forced my essence to expand outwardly. It seemed it would not go above the treetop of my central tree, but it continued to spread out like a ring from this central feature and consumed all my essence rapidly, though I was left with what felt like two-fifteenths when I was done.

“Finally we have more space to work with,” my Guiding ‘Fairy’ announced.

“How far does it go now?” I wasn’t really very good with measurements as the inherent toad mentality still held its grip on me, not to mention, I only had a vague feeling of how far my demesne now spread out, while Imu could see it.

“It seems to be about fifteen metres in radius from the tree. So, about three times what we had before.”

“My housing limit has gone up!” I exclaimed excitedly.

“So it has. It seems we can now build up to twenty, which is rather excessive, but the growth seems to be very much exponential, which, again, will lead to a definite logistical headache sooner-rather-than-later.”

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“What do I have to do evolve again?” I asked excitedly.

Imu, who was sitting on the ledge of the hole in the tree trunk, pinched the air and retrieved his Encyclopaedia. “Hmm, let’s see.”

After flipping through a couple pages, he paused, then groaned loudly.

“What? What is it??”

“Okay… so, these are the requirements,” he started and waved his hand in the air. A list manifested itself in the air before him, like fireflies working together to form images. Although I couldn’t read, I still perfectly understood what it said.

[Evolution Requirements]

Hamlet => Village

- Build 20 Houses -

- Build 1 Bakery, evolve a minion into a Baker, and bake 10 loaves of bread -

- Build 1 Grain Windmill and grind twenty kilos of grain -

- Build 1 Mayor's House and evolve a minion into a Mayor -

- Build 1 Butchershop, evolve a minion into a Butcher, and make food from cattle -

- Build 1 Animal Pen, evolve a minion into a Breeder, and spawn 5 cattle -

- Breed 2 cattle and slaughter 2 cattle -

- Assign, till, seed, and harvest 5 farming plots -

- Build 40 metres of wall -

“Wow…”

“Yea…”

“I thought you said it wouldn’t get complex until later.”

“Trust me, later evolutions get even crazier…”

“What should I do first?”

Since the construction in my demesne had been confined mostly to the area in front of the tree, Imu advised that we expanded all the way around the tree, to better utilise our entire workspace.

I spent the better half of the day having my Builders construct houses according to the plan Imu had in mind, and, as each house was constructed with our hoard of materials, I immediately spawned new minions and made them workers. Before the sun had fully set on the forest and my hamlet, I had a legion of Builders flitting back-and-forth between the shimmering outlines of building blueprints, carrying materials and swinging their hammers around frantically.

Though Imu advised against it, I had the minions continue through the night, but by morning I need to absorb and respawn eight of them, who had fallen ill from overexertion.

“You’re quite a slave-driver,” Imu remarked with a nostalgic smile as dawnlight was falling across our demesne. “Reminds me of when I was a Core. I had the most well-trained guard corps of zombies. The bane of adventurers my Dungeon was.”

I had just finished placing the last of the five necessary farming plots and commanding Farmer fledgelings to work the soil and get to planting. My hamlet was buzzing with activity as the eighty-some minions performed their set tasks or constantly brought in new materials they’d harvested.

“What will happen to me if I ascend? Will I become a corporate underling like you?”

“Well, actually… I… erm… hmmm.”

Imu flipped through his Encyclopaedia frantically, perhaps repeatedly rephrasing the question for the answer he sought and hoping for it to manifest on the strange pages.

“That’s weird.”

“What is?” I floated my essence over to his shoulder to look at his tome. The pages were constantly coming up blank.

“What’s that mean?” I asked.

“It means there’s no answer. You might be the first ever Settlement Core, so there’s no precedence for what ascension will bring…”

“Is that good or bad?”

“I have no idea.”

A loud honking followed by a guwaaaah of fire being spewed immediately sent us into a panicked frenzy. “Quick! Get the offerings ready!” Imu yelled.

Three of my youngest minions ran from the barn with their arms full of vegetables, tubers, and berries, all of which now grew in abundance from my fields and could be harvested twice per day. The short fence I’d made before evolving still stood awkwardly reaching out into the forest for five metres, and, for some strange reason, the monstrous Goose2 had decided to perch on the wall every time it came seeking food in exchange for leaving my settlement alone.

Imu and I both observed with bated breaths as the fat Honking Menace devoured the mound of food with rapturous glee. The sight reminded me of Toadicus whenever us other bachelor toads had been forced to find him mosquitos and flies or face his tongue-whips.

“…son of a Hellion,” Imu cursed, when, despite eating all the offerings, the Menace still killed one of my young minions with a powerful chop of its stone-crushing wings.

As the two-headed monstrosity lifted from its perch and took off into the air, roaring challenges and spewing flames, I sent the two younglings back to their task of foraging for edible plants to turn into seeds. I had still yet to find the ‘Wheat’ plants that Imu insisted we required for evolving.

“I just had an idea,” the Myling announced deviously.

“Uh oh.”

“Remember the plant that made your minion vomit blood and spasm until he passed out?”

I nodded, but then realised that he couldn’t see the gesture, though that did not stop him from continuing,

“If we give that Goose2 that as an offering, we might get rid of it for good!”

I spawned a replacement for the minion the Menace had brutally folded in half with its wing-chop, then commanded it: Minion, gather as much Wolf’s Bane as you can, then bring it to the wall where your predecessor was murdered. Oh, and don’t eat it!

The newly-spawned minion took off on his special quest with not a second to waste.

“You really are a natural at this,” Imu remarked.