Chapter 24: Crisis in Starter Village

Congratulations! You have earned the recognition of more than half the villagers to successfully earn your leadership in the unnamed town.

You can now choose a name for your fief. (First name change is free, changing name again requires purchasing of name change ticket from the shop)

As the last stack of harvested spirit oats was stored amidst the townsfolks’ worshipful and disbelieving gazes, Angora Faust heard the notifications ding from his Liege System as he had hoped for.

Nonetheless, he was not rushing to check the notifications, but instead turned to the townsfolk. “My seeds have been empowered by divine arts and its effect would be lost after planting it. It would be meaningless even if you take the oats and plant them—I know that there are those of you who have tried and had no success, which is why you’re here now. Isn’t that so?”

Some of the townsfolk lowered their gazes in shame and fear.

If it had been any other lord in any other land, any subjects who even dared to steal a look upon a blessed crop would most likely end up hanged.

But Angora clearly wouldn’t.

The first reason was that the population in the town was too few, and human resources were vital to revive a town, and every bit of labor force at this time was considerably precious.

The second was that the townsfolk were all basically related, and simply punishing them could get him hated by the entire town. Without even an escort, Angora did not need to bear the unnecessary risk of being knifed in the back by his own subjects over some trivial matter.

“These spirit oat seeds are limited in number, and I’m unable to provide everyone with some. However, it is my promise as a lord that not one townsfolk would die of the cold or hunger in winter!” Angora declared loudly.

Since he did not have the skills for a show of force, he could try swaying the people through virtue.

All at once, the townsfolk erupted in cheer.

Watching as the town became filled with a delightful atmosphere and that the townsfolk chattering too excitedly to look at his direction, Angora breathed a sigh in relief.

He quietly muttered the command in his mind to check the system panel.

[Player: Angora Faust]

[Fief: Unnamed town]

[Class: Unknown Lord]

[Credits: 70 game coins]

[Fief prosperity: 12/100]

[Yield Points: 110]

[Population: 29/29 (You must build new residences to increase population limit)]

[Resident Players: 0 (Other players are coming soon)]

[Buildings: farmstead (Level 3)]

[Storehouse (Level 0): spirit oat x5, grown oat x22, Watering Bucket of the Devout]

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“Why does it feel like nothing has really changed?”

Angora Faust mumbled before turning the system page, stumbling on a new one aside from Penguin Farm.

The new page resembled the shop page from Penguin Farm, but instead of selling seeds and farming tools, it sold a random assortment of building blueprints.

Angora even found something resembling a mage academy, but flinched once he saw that it required him to exceed 5,000 fief prosperity points and 15,000 yield points.

‘What the heck is that requirement? My fief is just past one hundred now…’

Complaining inwardly, Angora stopped browsing through the lofty buildings and instead turned toward the cheaper buildings.

It turned out that Angora could unlock some of those building blueprints.

Examples include the most basic wooden house that requires a meager thirty yield points and no prosperity requirements, but also needing just thirty game coins and any between one to four individuals’ prayer to build. Construction time was one to four hours, and each housing increases the population upper limit by three.

Stone house, just slightly above wooden house requires fifty yield points and above ten prosperity points. Building each would cost fifty game coins but increases the population limit by 5, whereas its construction requirements were otherwise identical to wooden house. In fact, it could be directly upgraded from built wooden houses by paying twenty game coins.

Aside from that, there were also log workshops, mines, warehouses, and other buildings, along with some blueprints that left Angora rather baffled.

Some of those include outdoor healing spa which blueprints require a hundred yield points and reaching above 20 fief prosperity. It also costs a hundred game coins while needing two to eight people for construction, and around four to eight hours to build.

It appeared that the effect of the particular building was ‘ease fatigue to a certain extent’ and provide certain buff status: increased skin moisture, skin refinement, and skin smoothness, but with a certain rate of attracting monkeys and peeking perverts.

It was another world with inconvenient transportation as well as beasts or magical creatures everywhere, there was simply no such thing as tourism economy, leaving Angora

“I guess it’ll have to be building houses first…” Angora muttered to himself.

Although there were many vacant houses in the town, years without maintenance left them uninhabitable. Moreover, the reminder that ‘other Players are coming soon’ left Angora feeling a sense of urgency.

After he had obtained the System, Angora certainly understood that the so-called players were believers of the God of Games like himself.

He wondered if the others had the same interface…

In reality, Angora did try to preach but did not achieve much success. Most townsfolk had gotten used to having no faith, and would not know how to devoutly offer their faith even with the spirit oat as reward. As such, most of them ended up as shallow believers like Vela.

To obtain the God of Games’ blessing that was the System and join the ranks of the Players, one must at least reach the threshold of True Believers!

It was not actually an exclusive demand by the God of Games. In truth, most churches and temples recruit clerics with a strong requirement of faith, and in their case being a devout believer was the basic requirement. In comparison, the God of Games’ requirements were much relaxed.

Of course, dear Lord Faust had also forgotten that he was not even a shallow believer when he just received the Lord System.

“Feels like there’s no end to this. If only Vela could be blessed as a true believer… I would have gathered more information…” Angora grumbled quietly.

“Lord Faust, were you calling for me?”

Angora jumped, startled by Vela who suddenly appeared behind her.

“N-nothing, you’re hearing things!” Angora quickly denied it.

While Vela was confused by Angora’s panicked reaction, she did not ask more questions as there were more important things at hand.

“Lord Faust, it’s sudden but our hunters had found signs of revenants… it seems that the royal army did not completely wipe them out after they escaped from the Valley of the Tragic Dead. This could threaten the town if not handled well!” Vela exclaimed seriously. “What should we do now?”

Angora’s instincts were to head to the nearest neighboring city to ask for help, but soon realized that it would be futile.

What could be done, then?

Ding!

Side quest started: Defend the town, wait for reinforcements.

Please build sufficient houses as soon as possible and wait for other Players to arrive!