Tier IV Village Claimed: Elstree

Current Population: 1083

Number of Claimed Settlements: 2/5

It turned out that it wasn't very complicated. Basically Roger had to go through the town menu and select Alan as the new owner. There wasn't a list of eligible people or anything, he had to will the option to someone physically present. Then Alan had gotten a query asking if he was willing to accept the claim over the village, and that was it.

From the notification that followed, Alan was able to work out that there was a limit to how many settlements he could actually control. He would have to ask Tamee, when he had some alone time, if there was a way to increase that. He didn't have any plans to become a real estate mogul, but you never knew what life would bring you. Shortly after getting control, he received several notifications in a row, but seeing what the first one was, he put them aside until he could get out of the current crowd.

In his best drill sergeant voice, Alan spoke to the people. "Thank you everyone for the trust you have put in me. I hope to talk to each of you personally as the days go by, but for now I need to speak with your mayor."

As they started to disperse, with the closest shaking his hand before they did so, Alan and Roger walked back up the steps of the town hall and went inside to Roger's office.

The mayor was the first to speak. "It feels a little weird to offer you a seat since you are now technically my boss, but take any chair you want."

Alan chose the small chair by the wall and sat down. "Thank you, and I look forward to working with you. As I'm sure you know, this is a big step for someone in the tutorial and I will be counting on your support. But I have a few notifications waiting for me. Please don't think me rude if I take care of them now."

Roger waved his acceptance and Alan focused on his messages.

Congratulations on claiming the village, in order to unlock all of the features of this area you must defeat all of the other recruits in your zone.

Congratulations on defeating all of the other recruits of your zone. As you also are the owner of the local village you have successfully won tier three. New features unlocked.

With the completion of your objectives for tier three, you have regained access to the Earth zones for tiers one and two.

With the completion of your objectives for tier three, you have been granted the option of bringing in a party from the Earth tier two Zone 256 recruits who are currently in stasis.

After successfully defeating the other recruits and claiming the village in your zone, you have been granted the ability to progress to the tier four zone at the end of the current cycle. Be aware that your ability to succeed in the next tier will depend on the village you have claimed. The stronger the village, the larger your advantage.

That was a lot of information all at once, and some of it was quite surprising. The information about unlocking the previous areas and the ability to unfreeze another party were expected. He and Tamee had already discussed what would come after completing the challenge. The second part of the reward was useless since there wasn't anyone in stasis for him to select. What he hadn't been expecting was for the tutorial to consider him having cleared the whole tier already.

Claiming the village was half of the victory conditions, but as far as he knew he hadn't satisfied the other part. The Nivex were dead and the Corellians had already surrendered to him, but the Bodarians should still be around somewhere, which should have meant that he had more to do. The Network probably didn't make mistakes about things like this, so somehow the Bodarians must have been eliminated. Chrisly would have bragged about it if he had been responsible, so while he knew it wasn't them, whatever happened might forever remain a mystery.

Their disappearance wasn't bad news, however. This meant he could immediately move onto his plans for improving the village without worrying about interference. Unless Chrisly's family decided to push things, and since there shouldn't be more adventurers around for Chrisly to recruit, there was little he could do while Alan held the rest of his party, Elstree should be in the clear for now. Speaking of which…

Alan returned his attention to the room around him and the man sitting behind the large desk. "Thank you for letting me get through that. There are some things we need to discuss, but first, is there somewhere we could hold the prisoners outside?"

Roger thought for a moment before answering. "There isn't a good spot at the moment, but I can see about having something built by the end of the day. Until then, would you feel comfortable with some reliable people watching over them?"

It sounded like a good compromise for now, so Alan gave his consent. It wasn't going to be a comfortable day for the adventurers, but with their abilities Alan didn't have another way of keeping them contained unless he wanted to sit on them himself. That wasn't a viable option since there was a lot of work to do.

"Okay, so good news first. The last group of recruits will apparently not be a problem, and since I've already accepted the surrender of Lyonel and his group, I have fully won this tier. That should unlock several opportunities for us that we didn't have access to before." Alan informed his new ally.

"That is good news, and I'm glad I won't have to be watching my back for another party to come and assassinate me. What's the bad news?"

"Well, there is still someone out there we may have to keep an eye out for. How do you think Chrisly and his family will respond?"

Roger sat back and didn't try to conceal the grimace on his face. He had enjoyed watching the belligerent man get some of his own medicine, but he wasn't sure that was the best way to handle him. The man was so full of himself that there wasn't room for him to think about other people. Would he take Alan's threat seriously, or once removed from the situation would he convince himself that he could fix everything on his own?

"I think the family will be reasonable. All communication between the villages and his parents has run through Chrisly for the most part, so my knowledge is only secondhand, but their actions don't seem to be those of people ruled by passion, unlike their son. Also, those who we have sent to the town with trade goods have returned with only good things to say. Some of that may be them trying to put their best face forward so that they can poach people from us, but even that simple effort is beyond Chrisly's ability to scheme."

Alan pondered that briefly. "So you're saying that Chrisly is the one we have to worry about, not his parents. I hope you're right, because I can guarantee he won't want to come back here anytime soon. I've dealt with people like him before, and after the beating I gave him, he won't come anywhere near me if he can help it. Well, in either case, all we can do is wait. How long do you think it will take him to make it back to the town?"

"The way he was hobbling, it might take him six or seven hours. When we send a caravan, they can pull a cart there in about five, but I'm not sure he can manage the same pace with the injuries he took." Roger told him.

"I think he'll make better time than you think, we should have our answer one way or another by tomorrow morning. If our people haven't returned by then, they won't be coming and we'll have to prepare for some other kind of response. Let's put that aside for now and focus on what we can do to make this place better. Don't get me wrong, you guys have done an amazing job so far, but we now have an opportunity to surge ahead. Let me start by telling you what things I can do for you right away, then you tell me what things you would like to get done, and we can figure out how to make it happen.

"I've checked out your fields, and I'm impressed with the variety of crops and how well set up they are, but I notice you haven't irrigated them yet. That's something I can help you get set up."

Roger sat forward eagerly. "That would be a big help. Growing food is the number one priority of a new settlement, but we don't have many people with a lot of experience with farming. Some have been occasional farm hands, but there's no one with real experience running the whole thing. Anyone who owns their own farm is doing well enough that they wouldn't risk coming to a tutorial. So, as you've said, we've done a good job with what we have, but we are lacking some in knowhow."

Alan hadn't considered things from that perspective. The people who would volunteer for something as risky as the tutorial would be those with a drive to take a chance to improve their lot, but most likely weren't too well set up already. "Well, I'm glad you are interested in food, because I can help out a lot with that. I have access to a ton of things you don't seem to have here, especially fruit, but also some other vegetables and grains you seem to be missing. We should prioritize clearing out at least three additional fields for these new crops."

Roger's eyes widened at this news. Even if Alan was exaggerating how many types of crops he could add, even a few would be a huge improvement. Especially fruits and vegetables. The next part was even more shocking. "It's important that we get some growing right away, because they will be food for the chickens I can offer. Right now they are just eggs, but if I can hatch them we can get some farm animals running around. I would suggest we focus on increasing the population before we try eating them, but it should still provide us with a source of much needed protein eventually. I also might be able to get us some ducks, but we will need to set up a few things before we try for that."

Meat had indeed been an issue for the village. The price of any farm animals was ridiculous. The only place Roger could buy them before now was the town, and they asked for so much it just hadn't been feasible. Now that the village was claimed by a recruit, they had access to a limited Network store, and while Alan had been checking his notifications, Roger had been looking over what they could buy. The prices for livestock weren't quite as bad there, but only in comparison to the ruinous amount the town had demanded. If they could get some chickens without paying the huge amount the Network was asking, that would be an incredible boon.

Alan continued to list off ways he could make life better. "Obviously we can help out with clearing the dungeon and collecting bounties as well. The Corellians have agreed to assist us and they have already finished off the town dungeon twice, so there shouldn't be any issues there. In addition to all of that, I can also provide some limited magical diagrams and enchanting. I'm not sure if you see any ways that could be useful at the moment, but I think I can use it to create some magical fruits we could sell. I've been led to believe those would be rather valuable. And last, but not necessarily least, I do have some gold of my own I wouldn't mind investing."

After he had finished listing off the obvious things he had to help the village, Alan sat back and studied the mayor. There was a gleam in the man's eyes like a kid at Christmas, he was obviously thrilled with everything he had just been told. Now it was Roger's turn to list their needs and he sat forward to explain them.

"That will definitely help us significantly. If you can get some chickens going, and even ducks, that will be perhaps the single biggest improvement. The additional types of crops, plus the fruits, will no doubt be helpful as well. However, I think our problem is going to be manpower. Clearing new fields and adding irrigation to everything will take a lot of work. Unfortunately, since the tier officially opened, we haven't been getting anymore volunteers portaled in. We have enough to get the work done, but it will take time.

This novel's true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.

"Also, assuming you want the village to grow as strong as possible, we are going to need more people to upgrade to a tier five. Through all of your efforts to complete bounties, we have already met most of the benchmarks to improve our rating. However, our population has to be over fifteen hundred people to move up a tier. I just don't see how we can do that right now."

That was unfortunate. From the not so subtle hints the Network had given, and what Tamee had been able to tell him, he knew that the next tutorial tier would involve a confrontation with the local town, Dewhurst. Even if this time the tutorial chose an alternate challenge, it was Chrisly's parents' base and they would certainly have some interest in getting revenge once they could.

For all of those reasons, it would be helpful if Elstree was as strong as possible. Getting up to the status of a town itself in the time they had was more than he had figured they could do, but he had been hoping to get it up to tier five. While it didn't seem like a big difference, the top level of village would have unlocked some new options that a tier four just didn't have. One of those was a wall around the village.

Sure, Alan, especially with the help of Samson, could put a rock wall around the village, but it would simply be a mundane barrier. The wall that they could have constructed once the village reached the maximum tier would have been backed by the Network. That would have made it stronger, cheaper to build and maintain, and have allowed them to add on to it easily. The same Network assistance applied to some specialty buildings that they could have made. Assuming Alan had the technical knowledge of how to build something like a sawmill, which he didn't, one he built himself wouldn't be as efficient as one built in conjunction with the town array.

"So then what else do you think I can help with?" Alan asked.

"Well, bringing in more people from your planet could help. I know that you are limited to a single party, but they would add some more muscle that we just can't match."

Alan had to break the news to him. "When I said I was alone, I didn't just mean here. I was all alone in my zone, there are no other recruits for me to pull from."

Roger's face showed his shock, which quickly morphed into disappointment. Another party of adventurers would have been able to complete more bounties and help protect the town. It would have brought in much needed money as well as made the upcoming confrontation with Dewhurst a lot easier. As Alan watched, though, he could see that the mayor had come up with an idea.

"What are you thinking?" He asked.

"Well, you don't know this, but I have wanted to become a mayor since I was a little kid. My family was just serfs and I knew that getting any classes myself wasn't an option. That meant if I wanted to lead a town one day, I would have to join a tutorial. There was really no other way for a serf on my planet to get into a position of authority. It seemed like a longshot anyway, since tutorials don't just happen every day, however, I have studied them extensively on the off chance I might end up here one day. Believe it or not, your situation is not unique. There have been worlds claimed that had races of solitary beings who carved out large domains on their planets, devoid of others, and thus were all alone when the tutorial arrived. There was a feature created for getting a party to help if your zone was otherwise empty. It doesn't normally come up since your situation is still very rare, and even when it does happen, it is often not utilized."

Alan had to ask. "Why not?"

"Well, aside from the fact that someone would have to know about it in order to use it, the process is risky. Basically, you can hire mercenaries to fill in for your missing team. You should have a tab on your town menu that will let you put an ad out to the wider Network to recruit a party to join. You'll have to offer them something valuable, but you should be able to get some people who are interested. The problem is, mercenaries are not usually the most reliable of people, especially the kind who would take this opportunity."

That was an interesting idea. If it was as rare as Roger made it out to be, then it wasn't surprising that Tamee hadn't mentioned it as an option. The mayor was also correct when he said it was a risk. He wasn't sure what kind of guarantees the Network made that the hired help wouldn't just turn around and betray him, but even if they were totally aboveboard, they probably wouldn't be very impressive. He would end up with people like Chrisly's party, the dregs of adventurer society. Why would someone who was successful in that already exalted group want to risk themselves by coming here. Only those who for one reason or another were down on their luck would be interested. It was still an intriguing idea and he would have to talk it over with Tamee before he made up his mind about it.

"I'll think about that, but you're right. It is a risk. Is there anything else that comes to mind?"

The mayor didn't really have anything else that Alan could help with directly. The new access they had to the Network store would help some. There was now another option for buying things, other than the surrounding villages or town. Food shouldn't be too big of an issue with what Alan was bringing, but there were some blueprints and crafting tools that they might be able to pick up now to add to the trade skills in town. Currently there was a blacksmith, some tanners and clothing makers, and some weavers. They only had a small plot of cotton at the moment, it was a fairly labor intensive crop to harvest and process, but it was necessary if they didn't want to wander around naked.

If they could find some manuals and tools for things like fletchers, enchanters, alchemists, and other types of smiths, they could really improve the goods that they could offer. Alan didn't tell the mayor that he had everything they needed for setting someone up as an alchemist since he wasn't sure how he wanted to approach that yet. If the blacksmith was making decent weapons he could enchant those, but whoever they were, they were probably more focused on tools for improving the village.

It was as the discussion was winding down that Lyonel and his party showed up. Alan motioned them in after checking with Roger. It might be his town now, but this was Roger's office. There weren't enough chairs for everybody, or really anyone but Alan and the mayor, so the Corellians all stood around.

"Welcome guys, you missed the excitement."

Lyonel laughed, "That's all we heard out on the street. How the busboy beat the crap out of Chrisly and ran him out of town."

Alan couldn't help smiling. "Yeah, everything went to plan. It was more fun than I should admit, too. The good news is, Roger here kindly allowed me to claim the village, and it turns out that the Bodarians are gone. Not sure what happened there, but this tier is successfully completed."

It was subtle, but he could see a wave of relief pass through all of the beast people. The golemoids had left quite a scar on their psyche and hearing that they weren't going to need to confront them had given them a measure of comfort. Lyonel was the first to fully process it.

"So where does that leave us?" He asked.

"I have some things I'm gonna need to take care of, but you guys should stick around here. I would suggest running the dungeon as much as possible to level up. Roger here can also let you know if there are any issues you could help with."

Roger looked at them hopefully. "Yeah, every bounty you complete brings gold and resources into our coffers. I might have to ask you to clear out some monsters too, if our hunters run into trouble."

Lyonel spoke for the team. "We have no problem with that, but we would also appreciate some down time if possible. We've been working hard for a while now and I don't want anyone getting burnt out. Also, is it possible for us to get some houses in the village?"

"Would you guys be okay with one larger house for all four of you?" Alan asked.

Lyonel checked with his group but they didn't seem to have an issue with it, and it would make it easier for Roger to only need one building added to the layout, so it was quickly agreed. The only catch was that they didn't have the blueprint for such a house. They had a few basic types for one or two people that came with the village upgrades, as well as a small family design that they had received from moving up to tier four, but nothing with enough space for four single people.

The solution was in the Network store. Roger showed Alan how to access it and they scanned the entries together. There were several blueprints that could have worked, so they had a brief discussion about which would be best. In the end they decided on a boarding house blueprint. It cost a little more than simply a larger house, but it had some future value that Roger thought would be useful.

The boarding house was designed to house up to ten guests, which just so happened to be the size of two parties. There was also space for the operator of the building, who also had access to the generous kitchen. The building included two bathrooms with multiple tubs for washing in each. They were mundane tubs, so water would have to be provided the old fashioned way, but those living there would no doubt appreciate it.

In the listing for the boarding house, they included in the description what the intended purpose was. It was designed to be housing for groups of adventurers who would temporarily base themselves in an area to farm for experience and items. A tavern could serve a similar purpose, but their rates were generally higher and were typically used for shorter term arrangements. The boarding house was meant for those planning to stay for a significant time.

Since Lyonel's party was planning on staying here for at least this tier and the next, this made sense for them. Also, if Alan ended up recruiting some mercenaries to fill out his extra party reward, they would have room for them as well. The only tavern in town didn't have nearly enough space for all of them. A single larger house could have held them all, but the boarding house came with the benefit of someone else taking care of the cooking and cleaning for them. It may seem elitist, but it was simply the reality of the situation. Many adventurers didn't really know how to cook, and time they spent cleaning was time they weren't clearing bounties.

There was a side benefit of using the boarding house as well. It would provide income to the proprietor of the establishment, which would also give the village some tax revenue. It would end up costing the adventurers staying there money they wouldn't have to spend if they were living in their own house, but it was well worth it if they had someone to take care of their meals.

After paying five hundred gold from his own coffers, Alan now had another blueprint added to his village tab to go with the crappy house he had made for his little homestead. He could have bought it using the town money, but then the town would have had access to it. The distinction didn't have much meaning at the moment since he was the owner of the town and could build using either their or his own blueprints, but if he ever was in charge of another settlement, he would only be able to bring his personal designs to the new town.

Once it was purchased they had to decide on where to place it. Since it was meant for adventurers who would no doubt want to spend a lot of time in the town dungeon, they placed it at the end of the road nearest to said dungeon. Playing around with the Town Map tab to place the building in the desired location brought back fond memories of playing city building games on his dad's computer. He had needed to steal moments when his father wasn't working on it, but the time they spent together designing residential and commercial districts and planning out the various trade buildings were treasured memories.

Once it was placed, Roger assigned some people to actually build it. There were several construction crews that had learned the ropes through building the rest of the town, but with no new settlers expected any time soon, there wasn't much demand for them anymore, and most had been forced to switch to farming. No doubt they would be thrilled to get back to their chosen profession. That left just one more issue, who would be the owner?

Fortunately, Roger had the answer to that. "I didn't want to say anything until you bought it, just because I didn't want to unfairly sway your decision, but I know just the person to run it. If you all could follow me over to my house, I'll introduce you."

With most of the decisions about the future already handled, it was easy to agree to the little field trip. The mayor's house was also right next door so it wasn't much of an imposition. After Roger opened the door, he invited everyone in.

Once inside he called out, "Dear, I have some people here I'd like you to meet!" After a few moments of silence he called out again. "No really, everything is fine, you can come out."

Alan heard footsteps upstairs before he saw a rabbit person coming down the stairs. He was the first to recognize her, but he had the benefit of working with her for several days and she was the only rabbit beast person he knew other than Samson, so his mind easily made the jump.

"Jessica, I'm glad to see you're ok!" That stopped her in her tracks. Alan had forgotten that she still knew him as the mute busboy and was no doubt startled to hear him talk. Roger hurried over and explained the events of the morning to her. She could have seen everything through the window of the manor, but because she and Roger thought that Chrisly would extract some vengeance for her role in his injuries, she had spent most of her time in a secret section of the building. They didn't know why the blueprints came with such an area, but it had proven helpful.

Once she was all caught up, Jessica thanked Alan profusely for his help in defending her, and also for not killing Roger. The two had developed quite a bond in their time living together and Roger had shared his fear of what the recruits might do to him. She also was excited about taking over running the boarding house when the position was offered. Some of the duties were similar to what she had done in the tavern, and she was sure that Cook would help her with any culinary deficits. She actually had the cooking skill, but it was only at ten. Lyonel's group was also introduced to her.

"So you guys will be my first tenants? Well, I suppose I should give you a discount for helping out with everything. Let's say two gold pieces a week for each of you."

Lyonel's knowledge of the economy in the Network was basically nil. Alan's was a little better, but neither of them really had any idea if this was a fair rate or not. Going off of Roger's reaction, it seemed like an expected amount to ask for, so he nodded to Lyonel, showing he thought it was a good idea.

"Thank you mam, that sounds very fair. When do you think it'll be up and running?"

Roger had to answer that question. "It is a larger building, but I would expect either by tomorrow night or the following day."

If Alan hadn't experienced how the Network seemed to boost your speed while working, he would have thought the man was joking. The idea of building a structure that could house eleven people in a day or two would have been ludicrous back on Earth. It did seem to surprise the Corellians, but Roger assured them it was possible. That just left one issue.

"You said you had some things to take care of, and it sounded like you would have to leave to take care of them. Anything we should know about?" Roger asked.

Alan smiled, "So, about that."

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.