Homesteading in a fantasy world

I had talked to Sandy for well over 2 hours, but I sent her to get herself some food. Currently, I was simply leafing through the design book, but I was doing my second pass. There didn’t seem to be any design more suitable for my needs than 5e. The story of this company, or at least their founder’s family, was a sad one.

Their great-grandfathers started this, but the child’s grandfather was the one to make a crucial mistake. He wanted to expand, but for that, they needed investment. Everything had been going great at the start; they were constantly expanding, but their new business partner eventually wanted to start taking the designs in a different direction.

While this wasn’t as sinister as I originally thought, the disagreement broke apart the original business, and it was quite obvious that the market trends favored their business partner.

Still, they were doing good enough, that is until a monster horde big enough to get into this city, but not big enough to completely destroy it, happened to pass by. The girl’s grandfather died defending the walls, and his father was still a bit too young to be able to hold up the business.

Once again, some bad business decisions and currently, they were working mainly for other people as their loan interests were quite bad.

“Sandy, I think we should go and get some food, what do you think?” someone spoke from inside the wagon, most likely the girl’s father.

When there was no answer, it didn't take long for a well-built man to poke his head out of the wagon and look around. Seeing me and not his daughter, he pulled out what looked to be a nasty-looking crossbow.

“Who are you, and where's my daughter?” “I’m a customer, and your daughter went to get some food. Come sit down, we have a lot to discuss.”

He didn't lower his crossbow, but the next moment Sandy burst through the door, arms full of food. Nice timing. The man immediately relaxed his shoulders and made the crossbow disappear. They talked with each other for a bit and then they both approached.

"We are currently busy with this project, but in two weeks, we can get started. So, if this is fine for you and you have the time, we can currently work out what kind of design and features you would prefer."

I held up a hand to stop him. "That would not be necessary for now. Please instead take a look at this," I said while pulling out a contract and handing it to him.

"It's a rough one; we can iron out the details a bit more. But I hope you will agree." The man took the papers skeptically and started to speak.

"We will not go into partnership with—" but then stopped, probably because he continued to read. "With what, but that would keep me completely in charge, then why would you, what... why would you take such a risk? You gain nothing from it," he finally spoke when looking into my eyes.

"You are wrong about that. I would gain quite a lot, but it would be in the long term. In the short term, you are right; it would be an unfortunate deal. I would need to give you funding and protection, not to mention pay off all your loans, and in return, just get priority work."

"Eventually, however, I think we would be your only customer because you would only be making products for my company and simply won’t have time for anything else unless you expand, of course, but that’s up to you."

"How can you protect us? I’ve never heard of your company, so you must be from some other Fort?" I guess that age has wizened him up a bit, good.

"It would, in fact, be a good excuse to expand here. We are reaching our optimal capacity; I need other cities to expand to. This could be a perfect destination if we had an asset like you that would require protection."

I was glad that he didn’t disagree immediately. We talked and discussed well into the next day until he finally chose to sign the papers, however, they were changed from when I first presented them. I then gave them the money to pay their debts and some funds to continue running their business.

That took a large chunk of my current funds, but that was the cost of expansion. We have discussed many plans with Arabella on how to expand, but it was difficult to do so in a way that wouldn’t truly piss off any other company that occupied a fort and its connected city.

Just in case, I went into my mind palace and the huge library Alan had set up. Here lay all the information I had gathered, and I quickly went into the law section.

Wars between companies and guilds were fought quite regularly, but you needed to actually have a valid reason. Expanding to another city was one of those reasons, unless you had a valid reason to do so. Now, I was certain there were more loopholes besides the one I found, and after checking one last time, I was positive that what I had done was a safe and valid reason for expansion.

We were not the only company to have such desires, and there were some really successful companies in history, but they often moved into the middle and the inner ring, becoming true giants but not bothering with the outer ring any longer. We would have some different plans, but that was for the future.

After I went and got myself a proper meal, it was time to head to the raid dungeon. I made it there quite a few hours before my time slot, but I still registered myself, which caused quite a stir.

"What do you mean you're the only one going in? You need at least 20 rank-two fighters to be able to clear the first wave and beyond. You would get killed."

I did not know what was going on with the companies around here, but I was starting to get annoyed.

"Then I will die. Why is it your business? I have paid the cost for a time slot, so what’s the problem?" That shut her up, and she gave me the token needed to proceed further. When I entered, I was immediately brought back to the first raid dungeon I went to.

Everywhere was filled with impressive-looking tents, and in the middle was a bustling market. I spent my time looking through everything when finally, it was time to enter. Yet, once again, it seems that there would be trouble.

As I approached the entrance, I was stopped by a large group of people. "So it's true you intend to go in only by yourself. If you want to throw your life away, I can help you with my blade. You can keep your life we are willing to pay you for your slot. Here take a medium mithril coin."

I simply walked up and punched him in the throat. He immediately collapsed. "Shut the fuck up." Someone else rushed me, and I simply grabbed the weapon arm and immediately broke it. That stopped the rest from rushing in. I simply walked past them and entered the dungeon entrance.

Now they couldn't come in even if they wanted to. I went and stood on the central platform that would start the waves. This was quite a famous raid dungeon, simply because it was only one of two wave-based dungeons.

You had four hours to clear as many waves as possible or until everyone in the party was either dead or yelled surrender. The monsters were all rank two, but the volume of the later waves would prove difficult even for me.

Now, my goal wasn't to get to as high of a wave as possible. No, I needed to do this with as little energy used as possible.

The record system of the World Council was truly amazing. I bet many would be surprised as to how much useful information you could find and how much useful information has been donated to them.

My current knowledge comes from a Guild that, for fun and challenge, did all kinds of dungeons solo to see if they could find some new aspects to the known dungeons. From what I read, they seem to have been really successful.

The portal system of this world was truly amazing; in just a few hours, you could be on the other end of the world, going through libraries of old reports. Knowledge truly was power.

With my sword out, I carefully controlled how much energy I used and started to kill the first monsters that were in the first wave. Even without all the abilities that buffed myself, my weapon, and my every attack, my body was still incredibly powerful, and these were still only rank two monsters.

My blade with every motion easily decapitated or cut off limbs, making defeating the first wave a breeze.

I was breathing heavily, my body totally exhausted, as I watched the seventeenth wave start to spawn. "Damn it," I said out loud when I saw those annoying coat-type monsters. They had ridiculous defenses.

Since the tenth wave, there was not a singular type of monster. Next came what I could only call a flying snake-type monster, but unfortunately, that didn’t seem to be all the types in this wave.

At the back of this massive room, I saw in every cardinal corner a huge monster starting to appear. Those silhouettes looked awfully like dragons. Fortunately, when they fully appeared, they were just giant versions of lizards.

Now, that wasn't much better, but I guess it’s time to fight. The first few goats that charged, I simply jumped over them, which allowed me to start cutting down the flying snakes coming towards me.

They seemed to have some kind of poison breath, which was incredibly good news as poison didn't really work on me. They also died quite quickly, and even if I simply cut one of the wings, the goats trampled him to death. That was a nice thing I found out about this dungeon. The monsters were monsters, and they only cared about attacking me and not collateral damage.

Once again, I was jumping over the charging goats when a huge tongue flew towards me. So, not fully lizards, but some gecko in them as well. Even before I could change my direction, the tongue wrapped around me and started pulling me towards the huge mouth.

The creature screamed when I started to cut into its tongue, but it still took two strikes to cut myself free. This was going to be annoying as there were already two other tongues heading towards me.

It was then, however, as I prepared to dodge, that I felt the world freeze. Immediately, all the monsters started to disappear.

"Shit, did the timer run out? This was just starting to get interesting." It didn't take long for a screen to appear in front of me, and I smiled, seeing that I had gained 300 free points.

When I got out of the dungeon, there were a lot of people waiting for me, including the person who was present when I paid for this time slot. Before they could even start talking, I whistled.

Immediately, everyone got into their combat stances. I slowly raised up my hand. There was so much tension in the air that I could basically see it. Then Goose grabbed me with his talons, and the very next moment, we were already out of the camp. "Nice save. Let's head back home."