I woke the next morning to the semi-darkness of the ship. With the power still only barely in most areas, the room we had slept in was only lit by emergency lighting.

It was enough to get prepared, however, and I used it to pull my best set of clothing from my pack. While they still weren’t great, they were at least mostly clean and free from damage.

Really need to get some proper fancy clothing, I thought with a wince as I took in my appearance. Hopefully, they’ll take it as me being down to earth or something.

Linnea had woken and begun her preparations as well by this point and before long we were leaving the ship together. Nothing untoward had happened overnight, or at least nothing that we or the AI had detected.

I was pretty sure that was only due to how recently we had found the ship and that I would have problems eventually. Without a dedicated guard yet, I would have to find someone to monitor it while I went out exploring.

I should probably just contact the palace and see if they can post a few guards for now. I mused as we began the walk to the central square. It is a national asset after all so I’m sure they would help until I can put some people together.

Given how many resources our adversaries had deployed in the past, I didn’t feel comfortable just asking for a few people from the town. It would be much better to have trained, and armed guards looking over it.

With that in mind, I sent a couple of messages off to the palace. The first asked about guards for the ship and the second asked how much longer the army would patrol around the town.

Finally, I sent a message to Professor Henceforthe asking if he might know any academics that specialized in agriculture. That would be key in developing the area and I hoped that an introduction from him would be more productive than just searching myself.

By the time I had done all that, we had nearly reached the center of the town, which was now jam-packed with people. The mayor had been true to her word and had assembled most of the population at short notice.

Hopefully, this doesn’t cut into people’s work days too much, I thought as we began making a path through. Though we are doing it pretty early so it shouldn’t be too bad.

Linnea was decked out in her full adventuring gear, including her massive rifle, so the people in front of us parted easily as we moved toward the center. There was a small podium there, with the mayor already standing atop it.

She looked over and gestured us up as we reached the edge of the crowd before turning back to face the assembled people.

“I’m sure you are all wondering why I called a town meeting this morning,” she started, her voice echoing through the area in a way that suggested some form of amplification. “This is because they have finally allocated us to a lord’s lands.”

The crowd exploded at that, with people shouting out all sorts of questions. Predominantly, however, was the question of who was now in charge.

While a few of them shouted out the names of the other counts, most of them seemed to assume that they had been assigned to a baron. This made sense when I thought about it, as it was unusual for a count to run a town or village directly.

It was pretty much only happening because it was the largest settlement in my lands at this stage. If another town reached the level of a city first, I would likely swap to that and put a viscount in charge of this area.

Mayor Kosfeld let that shout for a while as her assistant carefully clipped some kind of microphone to my shirt. Then she gestured for quiet before continuing.

“Like most of you, I had assumed that they would promote a new baron to run our village. However, this is not the situation that we find ourselves in. Instead, we have the honor of being under the direct control of our province’s newest count.”

“Count Hope!” she finished, gesturing toward me as the assistant let me onto the stage.

The crowd went crazy this time, and it took the mayor several minutes to calm them all down. This was lucky for me, as it gave me time to get over my initial stage fright at standing in front of so many people.

While the population was fairly small, having most of them in front of me was still well over three hundred people. This was so far beyond what I had dealt with before that it would have been funny if it wasn’t so terrifying.

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Just keep calm and talk, I thought as the noise quietened.

“Good morning, everyone,” I started, turning in place to look over the entire crowd. “As Mayor Kosfeld said, I have been granted lordship over this area and its surrounding lands. I intend to build the area up to the best of my ability, making it something of a hub for all the new settlements that will fill my lands.”

The murmuring from the crowd increased, though no one dared to interrupt me like they had the Mayor. Still, I thought it was best to let them get some questions in.

The following exchange was exhausting and took longer than I had anticipated, but I was happy with the result. The townsfolk had many questions and concerns, some of which I could assuage then and there.

Others were points neither the mayor nor I had considered and would need to be thought through and addressed later. Some of them might even be helpful in my long-term plans.

In the end, the crowd disbanded to return to their work, seemingly happy for the most part. The news that they were expanding to a full town was taken well by most, though it annoyed a few that had been looking forward to the quiet village life.

Luckily, I had an answer for that as well since I was going to be building more villages that were always going to stay that way. Simply informing them that they were welcome to move as I constructed the new villages solved that issue.

With the meeting over, I thank the Mayor again and left her to analyze all the notes she, and her assistant, had been taking. While she would need me to work through some of them in the future, I could leave the initial work of sorting them to her.

By this point, I had also received responses to all my messages. The first confirmed that a squad of special forces was already on the way and would watch the ship for the first month. While this was good news, it also hinted that they would expect me to take over after that.

The second message was very similar, saying that my lands would continue to be patrolled for the next month before they pulled back. This put a deadline for getting my troops sorted and I forwarded that information to the mayor.

It felt like a pretty short timeline, but then I was expected to be handling a lot of responsibilities now. After thinking about it, I felt like this was some kind of test by the Duchess.

Given the value of the ship, I doubted they would abandon it if I wasn’t ready by the timeline, however, it would reflect poorly on me. This then forced me to prove that I had been a good choice for the position.

Luckily, it was something that I had already begun to organize and would just have to speed up at this point.

My last message was from the Professor who said that while he didn’t directly know anyone, he would make inquiries and get back to me in a few days. While it wasn’t his area of expertise, he still sounded quite excited at the prospect of starting up agriculture in the province.

With that, I had covered all my immediate responsibilities and was finally free to begin preparations. Linnea and I quickly found Brian and got a lift back to Elendes to gather supplies.

The trip passed quickly, with Brian talking about the refresher course he’d been able to sign up for at the fleet academy. They had just re-opened their doors to all past graduates, something that was almost certainly caused by the new need for ship personnel.

While this was good news, it meant that we would be without his help after he left for it in a week. At that time we would have to find a new pilot, or perhaps have my gunboat ready for use.

From what I knew, it would have no trouble flying in atmosphere and while not that similar to a fighter, Linnea could still get certified to fly it.

With that new deadline in place, we changed our initial plans. Instead of coming with me for the first week, she would go for intensive flight training. While it wasn’t exactly usual, my new rank was enough to get her a certification test next week.

If she passed, she would be able to fly us both around with us using the ship as a kind of central hub to explore from. The plan was to spend a few days exploring a circle around it before moving forward to the edge of what we had just explored.

This way we could scout our new landing site in advance to make sure it was safe, move, and then set up as a base. Continuing this way would allow us to gradually explore an area, while also providing a safe place to sleep.

From my understanding, there were Beasts dangerous enough to tear through metal and damage the ship, however, their presence was almost always obvious. This was why Brian and the other pilots refused to land somewhere that hadn’t been scouted in advance.

I was a bit sad to not be spending the first week out with Linnea, however, I knew that this would be a lot better in the long run. Not only would we be able to avoid using outside services, but it would allow her to return for regular flying lessons.

It meant more fuel expenditure, however, I could use some of the Beast cores I found to manufacture more. It would cut down my income a little but that wasn’t a big deal.

I no longer had to save for big expeditions, as Linnea's help was now funded by my goods tax income. That meant I only needed to make enough money to maintain my real-world expenses.

Thinking about that reminded me I had been in full dive for much longer than I had planned. It was kind of doing my head in a bit, and I could see how it affected Linnea and Elana a bit more clearly.

Going full-time wasn’t something I was interested in right now, however, so I decided to log back out that night and return to my usual schedule. Not only was I interested in what was going on in the real world, but I was also worried that one of the doctors might pull me out.

I had registered a general timeframe when I entered full dive and was now well over it, so they might decide I needed to be checked up on. The consequences of suddenly being pulled out could range from embarrassing to catastrophic, so it was something I wanted to avoid.

My mind made up, I booked a hotel room and organized to meet Linnea there. We had a pleasant night together before I logged back out and returned to the real world.