Silver Spoon Series

The village was looking good. The town's industry had been shifted to support her martial plans. The blacksmith had taken on two of her support warriors as apprentices and they were starting to make their own weapons. A rat man had proven skilled at alchemy and the primer they had purchased for him had allowed him to start making both health and mana potions. The most recent addition was the wall they were completing, even as Afilada watched.

Almost everyone had tried to talk her out of building it, pointing out how quickly the village was expanding and how it would just need to be moved soon. She simply ignored the mayor and other villager's complaints, and told them to do it. Pierto had helped motivate them by pointing out how it would at least help protect them from any roaming monsters, and she thought he also took the mayor aside when Afilada wasn't there, and let her know how close she was to killing the golemoid woman if she continued to oppose her.

The next fight had come over the construction materials. They had wanted to build a wooden palisade. The materials were relatively easy to come by, and moving it at a later time would be less of a project. Once again, Afilada wasn't to be swayed. She wanted a proper stone wall, like a true military fort. This time she did her own politicking, pointing out how much better protection it would offer. She also explained how a wooden wall could be used for later expansions, but this stone barrier would demarcate an affluent city center when they eventually upgraded the village. The idea of living in such a grand place made many of the opponents greedy, and they finally got to work. She didn't really care why they did it, just that they did. These people weren't Corellians, She didn't need their respect, only their obedience.

They were fortunate that the land around them was fairly rocky. It made clearing the land for farming difficult, but it provided plenty of small to medium sized rocks. There was also a cliff nearby which marked the start of the area's largest forest. The rock embankment rose over thirty meters in the air and the stone had been of a good quality, at least that's what the 'experts' told her. Afilada was aware that her knowledge in certain areas was only limited or even non-existent. Her Mentor had taught her to rely on the expertise of others, and she really did try, but it was difficult at times when they disagreed with her. She realized how stupid that sounded, and she was trying to rule her own emotions as she did other people, but it was still a process.

With such an abundant source of stone, she hadn't understood why they were so reluctant either, especially since they had to make a significant journey to go around the cliff to access the wood on top, but it made more sense after she saw them get to work. Mining wasn't something they had much of a workforce for, and the couple of villagers who had experience didn't have the proper tools for quarrying. A meeting between her tame human, the small group of miners, and the blacksmiths soon sorted that problem out.

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Sabi and Pierto had been right about keeping the human. Knowing that any failure on his part could end in his death, he was highly motivated. He also seemed fairly competent and the villagers found he was easier to talk to than their cat woman overlord. He was a smart one and knew of their fear of Afilada, so he used it as leverage in getting them to work harder. He had explained it as a version of 'good cop, bad cop', whatever that was.

Even with the proper tools, cutting rocks out of the cliff had still started slowly, but once Forto began helping they made great strides. One of the support Corellians they had unfrozen had managed to acquire a fire trap spell. That had helped immensely with the project as the mage could set the trap in small holes they drilled, and then remotely detonate the spell as a kind of improvised explosive. Soon they had large blocks flowing toward the town. They had originally been limited to a size the villagers could carry, but Sabi had pointed out that between their spatial storage, and the Corellian's higher strength, that wasn't a necessary constraint.

The foundation of the wall was made of the largest and squarest of the stones they had quarried. Not all of the blocks were truly rectangular, and that's where the smaller stones that lined the ground in the zone came in. She had watched the villagers, supported by Pierto and a few of the other strong Corellians, carefully select stones to fit just so. It was like some giant puzzle. She wasn't sure why they were so particular since everything was then mortared into place, but someone had begun talking about stresses and different types of forces and she had simply marked it down as one of those things she had to rely on experts for.

Her Mentor would have taken her to task for such lazy thinking, but he wasn't here. He had convinced her to rely on experts, but she was also supposed to use them to eventually gain the knowledge herself. That was a lot of time and work that she could put towards making herself, and those around her, stronger. As the last stone was put in place, she got a message from the village menu that they had completed construction on a wall. That took backstage to the Network notification that came in at the same time.

Village status met: Mirfield has reached the point where it is eligible to take part in Village Raids. Would you like to participate?

Well now, that was an interesting message. She would have to talk to the mayor, Nawog, about what exactly this meant. To her it seemed like she would have the chance to attack other villages. That seemed like a fabulous opportunity, but she would need to make sure she wasn't misunderstanding what it was talking about. The timing of the message strongly suggested that Mirfield had needed a wall before it was eligible. Now she was really glad she had pushed for one. This was why people should listen to her more often.