Sam woke up the next morning, feeling refreshed.

" I should use today to improve the city and take a look at Woodchester and Oakhausen. I have to make sure that all our settlements grow as fast as possible, especially during the time I'm gone!

I will go and take a look at Lance before leaving the city."

Sam decided to save his points until he knew what they needed the most. He dressed himself and left the keep.

After entering the smithy Sam immediately was welcomed by one of the blacksmith trainees. He led Sam to the back where Lance was in the process of forging a new sword.

Sam got interested and told Lance to finish the sword, so that he could observe the process a bit more. The sword was mostly finished and only needed to be sharpened after half an hour.

Lance put it aside and washed his face and arms with a wet towel one of the trainees had brought him.

" So, what did you bring here today? I have to make a lot of new weapons for our soldiers, I wasn't able to craft your items until now."

" I'm not here to pressure you, I only came to look how you are doing. How are the trainees and the other blacksmith doing?"

" They work hard, and try their best right now. It hasn't been long since I met them, so I can't give you more detailed information. I might be able to tell you more about their potential in one or two weeks.

For now, with them assisting me, I'm able to create everything that is needed. We might need another forge and more tools in the future. One set isn't enough for four people to work with!"

" Ok, I will prepare the bigger things you need, you should be able to create most of the small things yourself right?"

" Yes! I have to finish a few more weapons, after that I will start to make new tools with the others. We need at least for sets of tools, that will be good practice for the trainees."

Sam wrote down what he had to prepare for Lance and left his smithy. He called Linda and told her to meet him at the keep later. He told her about him leaving to check on Woodchester and Oakhausen before walking through the gate north gate.

He walked the familiar way and observed his surroundings while doing that. Sam passed the destroyed defense post where they had fought before and continued on his way.

Eventually he arrived in Woodchester. The guards knew Sam and greeted him respectfully when he passed the gate.

A lot of people were busily doing their work on the main street. New houses were being built and young men trained into hunters and craftsmen.

Sam went straight to Rudolphs house end entered after getting announced by the guard.

" Sam, good to see you! Sorry that we left while you were gone, but a lot of the former villagers really wanted to return and couldn't wait any longer,so I decided to accompany them and manage the situation.

Come, I will show you the village! We are changing a few things to improve Woodchester."

Sam nodded and followed Rudolph while conversing with him. They walked through the village and Rudolph showed him what they were building right now.

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With the first delivery of stones they started to slowly build a new wall around the village. They actually build about 20 meters away from the wooden wall, therefore enlarging Woodchester by quite a bit.

" With the few carriages and workers we have right now it will take a long time to build this new wall.

We have newcomers nearly everyday to be honest. Almost all of them travelled a long time until they reached our village. The places to live here get sparse and I heard the situation in Oakhausen is the same. We don't have food peoples though, enough wild animals are roaming the surroundings and our hunters do a really good job to kill them."

" It is good to hear that the food is enough right now. I will figure something out, concerning the transportation of the materials."

Sam noted the problem and continued to follow Rufolph.

They passed the smithy where Arthur was working and Sam entered to say hello.

" Hey Arthur, how is it going? How is the trainee that I sent doing?"

" Hi Sam, it's great to be back, Marlo is a great help, he is talented and might become a better blacksmith than myself!

Woodchester is growing and the tools that are needed become more and more, so this trainee really helps a lot, thank you for that!"

" I'm glad to hear that, just let me know when you need something. "

Arthur thanked him again before going back to work. Sam also left and continued his tour with Rudolph.

They walked on a platform at the side of the wall and looked out on the planes behind the village.

A few people were enclosing a herd of cows that were grazing on the fields!

" These are cows right? Where did you find them? " Sam was surprised to see these animals. They were a huge source of food and Sam was really eager to find out how to get his hands on more cows.

" Our hunters found them on one of their tours. We didn't find more since then but there are ten male and eight female cows, we should be able to breed them! "

" You definitely need to do this! Also, you have to look for more animals, like sheep or pigs. Having different types of stock farming will be really helpful.

You should build fences, that will make it easier for you to breed them. That will also need less people to look out for the herd."

Rudolph agreed and immediately gave the orders to start the construction.

The tour lasted for another hour before they arrived back at Rudolphs house.

" I have to go now. There are a lot of things I have to do today, therefore I will leave now. There will be more stone deliveries coming, starting tomorrow. This should help you a lot. If there is anything you need let me know."

Sam said goodbye and left towards Oakhausen. He met two zombies on the way, which weren't dangerous for Sam anymore. He only needed one karate punch to smash their heads.

Sam reached Oakhausen, also going directly towards Carl's house.

" Hello Sam, I assume you are here to check on the situation?"

Sam smiled and nodded.

" Well, I had a lot of conversations with Rudolph during our stay in Blackstone city and both of us agreed on the point that we have to improve the defenses of the villages at the time we reclaim them.

That is why I started to build a new defense wall with the stones we acquire now but the problem we have is that we haven't enough manpower. Most of our men work at the quarry which means we don't have enough to build the wall. Naturally we can't use women for a work like this.

Rudolph and Carl had the same plan and didn't waste time to execute them. Besides the quarry there was also a big river to the north-east of Oakhausen. A group of fishermen had been formed which was fishing at the river on a daily basis.

They had caught a lot of fish, helping to ease the food problems in Oakhausen but due to monsters still roaming the surroundings, they had to be protected by guards, which left the village with only a handful of experienced fighters while they were gone.

Sam also visited the blacksmith and his trainee. He saw the antiquated forge and decided to buy new equipment while he was still in the village.

Sam bought the standard equipment a village blacksmith needed, which cost him 150 reward points. With this their work would be a lot easier and faster.

They went back to the gate because Sam planned to leave and return home.

" So all in all you need more people capable of fighting and more workers to build the wall, right?"

Carl nodded and send Sam off, who assured him that he would send the people Oakhausen needed.

Sam took a little detour on his way back, so that he could explore a bit more of the surroundings but he didn't find anything interesting.

He directly went into the keep after returning, are a meal and sat down on his throne. He opened the city menu and took out the notes he took during the day. Then he started to think about how he could use his reward points in the most useful way.