06 — The Plan

06 — The Plan

We returned to the Healer’s Guild, then went straight downstairs. The first floor of the basement had been turned into a full-on, sprawling pasture.

“I guess the fields and plants have already been moved to the third floor. I’ll never get used to seeing this, though.”

“Neither will I, it seems.”

“Pola and the elf have been at it for a while,” Ketty said. “Bet Dhoran’s found a productive outlet for their little rivalry.”

I agreed with her conjecture. Forêt Noire and the other horses seemed happy enough with the extra room, but it only made me more scared to see what the third floor had become. One way or another, I had to go down there, so I resolved to at least try and have fun with it.

But all my mental preparation still wasn’t enough for what awaited us at our destination.

“This is just insane,” I said without thinking.

Upon reaching the third floor, the wall at the back of the dwarves’ workshops was leagues farther than it had been this morning. In its place were large crop fields easily ten times bigger than anything I’d seen before, with plots to plant trees deliberately sectioned off and that same artificial sun overhead. I had expected fast progress with Dhoran in charge of the expansion, but not, like, half-the-entire-project-all-at-once levels of progress, and the whole area looked, felt, and smelled just like the outdoors, no doubt thanks to Pola and Lycian’s intense competition.

“You could make an entire country down here with the right materials.”

Lionel and Ketty could only nod in stunned silence. We approached Honeur by the fields before he noticed us himself and flew over.

“Sir Sage, they’re incredible! Simply incredible! My people could live great lives here!”

“I’m as surprised as you,” I chuckled. “But it turns out Yenice is more dangerous than I thought, so let’s start bringing people over slowly once you have a base set up.”

“Ah, yes, then please bring me and my attendants along the next time you visit the forest for materials. We’ll gather more of our people from the colony as well as various flowers and trees that will help us to make honey.”

He was raring to go compared to yesterday. Like he’d already settled on pulling the trigger.

“Does that mean what I think it does?”

“You have our full support!”

Yes! I shouted in my head. I hadn’t known the prince had the authority to make that decision by himself, but I wasn’t about to complain. Dhoran’s fine display had earned us the final piece necessary for our underground operation to take off. Not to detract from the fantastic work of Pola and Lycian. I’d say they had earned themselves some extra magic stones.

Milphene, however, looked pale. She’d probably felt pressured after the previous day’s events and pushed herself too hard with her spirit magic. I handed Ketty a potion and asked her to take it over. She passed it along to Milphene with a smile. Hopefully, it would help their relationship to recover a little.

I conveyed to Honeur that we’d be having a meeting the following night with Bryan, the ursan, and Dolstar, head of the slums.

“You’ve been on the move, have you? I see you’re busying yourself above ground as well.”

More like simply watching things fall into place.

“I never expected it to move so quickly. When I thought the plan up, I was hoping to reach this point in maybe half a year. The pace has been almost dizzying.”

“We’ll help however we can.”

“I appreciate it. It would be an enormous reassurance to have the vespians on our side. It’d let me focus my efforts on things up on the surface while you handle matters down here.”

“When do you plan to visit the forest again?”

“We’ll need some more materials fairly soon and probably more magic stones than anticipated, so in a few days, I think.”

The Adventurer’s Guild sold the gems when needed, but that came with too many questions. I wanted to play it safe and have us procure them ourselves.

“May we join you?”

“Of course. Dhoran and Milphene will be with us, so they’ll be able to transplant trees without too much damage. Just let us know which ones need moving.”

“As sage-like as ever, Sir Sage!”

His eyes sparkled with unwarranted respect. I simply plastered on my best smile and left it at that. It was about midday, so before I got to the rest of my business, I gathered everyone for lunch.

I headed to the mess hall, feeling fulfilled. My once vague ambition had begun to take real shape. With the vespians’ help, honey and mead would become viable new exports for Yenice while the ursans and other races had several possibilities open to them, like cotton and clothing production. We could make Yenice a bustling city of merchants, which would bring in more adventurers like the council wanted by virtue of the business folk needing hired bodies. More adventurers, more potential residents, a better future.

My head was swimming with visions of days to come, but I knew that without the help of the Yenitians who already lived here, they would never be more than daydreams. Even so, I couldn’t help but be amazed by our progress in less than half a month. It didn’t seem so far-fetched anymore that I might not only be able to save every Yenitian from poverty in the near future, but bridge the divides between races, or at least begin to. I just needed someone passionate and respected enough to take my place when the time came for me to leave.

Of course, if things did go as far as I was thinking, the vultures who wanted to pick Yenice clean of money and power would almost assuredly stand in our way. I had to consider more diplomatic solutions to the inevitable conflict. That being the case, I was still banking on Gulgar or Galba eventually replying to my letters (which they still hadn’t done) with their own remedies.

On that note, Yenice was so insanely huge that I wondered if a second city would be off the table, but then I realized I’d been spoiled by Dhoran’s abilities and laughed it off...which no one around me blinked twice at, as if me chuckling to myself wasn’t even worth the effort acknowledging. But I didn’t always wear my emotions on my sleeve so blatantly. Er, did I?

When I arrived at the mess hall, Nalia’s students—the young boys and girls we’d taken in along with the elves—were preparing our meal in sharp suits and refined maid uniforms.

They were still minors, right on the verge of adulthood, who had decided to remain slaves just as Milphene and the others had. Ever since, Nalia had, at her own request, taken full charge of them in the new orphanage we had added to the guildhall. She was supposed to have been providing them with a basic education, but at some point her lessons had produced three novice butlers and eight maids-in-training. And it was then I had recognized the gap in our understandings of the word “education.”

I thought back to that day...

“Nalia, when you said you were going to teach those kids, was it just to turn them into servants?” I asked.

“No, sir,” she replied. “Being a slave is no excuse to embarrass your host, so I saw fit to teach them proper manners and culture.”

“So this whole thing has a purpose?”

“If they’re to carry themselves in such a way as to bring no shame on you, they need to cultivate knowledge, tactfulness, sociability, etiquette, and skills in self-defense.”

“Really?”

“Yes, really. They have been very willing pupils and understand the importance of what it is I teach. Although I do worry about their capacity to fully grasp it, given their upbringing. Or lack thereof.”

“And that’s why they’re acting like attendants.”

“Yes, that is why they’re acting like attendants. They’re proactive learners.”

It hit me that Nalia was more of a professional at this sort of thing than I’d given her credit for. I had better things to do than nitpick someone more than qualified for the job.

“Right, sorry for probing.”

“You have every right to, sir.”

“Let me know if you ever need anything for your lessons.”

“I do actually have need of uniforms for the children, if it isn’t too much trouble.”

“You got it.”

Since then, I had given her free rein. Back to the present...I sat down at the table and asked her how things were going.

“Rather smoothly. They’re as hardworking as they are open-minded, so I expect they’ll be at an acceptable level within the next three months or so.”

The boys and girls beamed like they had never heard a single ounce of positive reinforcement before now. Whatever her standards for “acceptable” were, I was sure they were anything but ambiguous. From what I’d heard, Ketty had been one of Nalia’s students herself, but the only way you’d get her to take another lesson would be, and I quote, “Over my dead body.”

“That’s good to hear.”

The healers and knights had been doing some teaching every now and then in Nalia’s place too. Who knows? Maybe one of the kids would want to join them. Then I could free them and they could work at the guild or manage things underground.

The situation here made for a unique prototype for the school we would eventually build, and it reaffirmed my confidence that our work would make a difference. Seeing the young men and women enjoy learning and getting ahead in life reassured me. There was an element of truth to the idea that you technically didn’t need a dedicated place of learning to expand your mind, but that was only true for those with affluence or privilege. People would be more inclined to give school a try now that there was evidence of how effective it was.

After lunch, Dhoran and Honeur returned downstairs to continue their work, and I made for my office, where I pored over the papers of requests from the dwarves.

“Two thousand orc-level magic gems... That’s a lot. We might try having mandrakes in the forest cause a few stampedes so we can nab them all at once.”

“I find that lacking in...practicality,” Lionel advised.

“The labyrinth would be best, I know, but we’ve got so many eyes on us. We need alibis. Hey, what’s the matter with you two?”

Lionel and Ketty were smiling widely, eyes bright with excitement.

“Stampedes in the forest, revelry in the labyrinth... This is a joyous occasion!” Lionel exclaimed. “You’ve finally opened your eyes to the thrill of battle. For my part, I find both equally agreeable.”

“Don’t forget to bring us along!” Ketty added.

“Not likely. And sorry, but I have never once been thrilled by the prospect of combat. No one get cocky either. Nothing’s ever certain in a fight, so don’t go treating your lives lightly.”

“No harm will come to you.”

“You won’t lose a hair on that head!”

“I trust you two.” Even if their fiery motivation was getting a little too hot for me to handle. “So, what do you think about the beast races who left Yenice? Like the centaurs.”

“It’s hard to make any firm judgments, seeing as all we know is that they were driven out,” Lionel mused.

“Except that they prob’ly don’t like Yenice too much.”

So not much different from my own interpretation.

“I’m afraid that ignoring the matter will eventually lead to war,” I admitted.

“That is certainly a possibility, but jumping at shadows will only create more darkness. I would advise making contact with the outcast races before it becomes an inevitability, if that is possible.”

“Right,” I agreed. “I’d like to solve this with diplomacy.”

“If confrontation does break out, I don’t see it ending without a little bloodshed,” Ketty said. “It’s always harder to incapacitate an opponent than straight out kill them. Depends on how strong they are.”

“Monsters are one thing, but I don’t want to seriously fight with another person. I don’t think I can kill someone, so I’ll need you two to back me up.”

I had cut down more monsters than I could count since arriving in this world, butchered and eaten animals, but not once had I taken the life of a person. I knew the difference between killing monsters and people was only semantics, that my wherewithal to do one and not the other was hypocritical, but it just wasn’t the same thing to me. I knew that if the time ever came when I had to snuff someone’s light out, I would lose something inside myself. Something I’d never be able to get back. The thought terrified me to the point of trembling.

But then Lionel said in a soothing voice, “That is as it should be. If—when—the time comes to dirty your hands, we will do it in your stead.”

“You help people, Chief,” Ketty said. “You save your hands for life-saving. We’ll use ours for taking out bad guys.”

Why were they so damn cool? There had to be a reason they were so adamant about remaining slaves, and I wasn’t confident I could solve that issue by myself, but I had to repay them someday, somehow. If the time to do the unthinkable did come one day, I had to resolve myself to face it. To be ready for it.

“Thank you.”

The two laughed at my lowered head, dispelling the tension in the air. We went on, hammering out our plan, and once we reached a satisfactory stopping point, I decided to loosen up a bit. Lionel joined me in the training grounds on the fourth floor basement for a few good old fashioned bouts.