Surviving The Game As A Barbarian Novel - Chapter 634
Chapter 634: Reconstruction (3)
Let’s talk about Boss A. After assigning you a burdensome task, he disappeared for half a year. And when that boss finally returned, he brought back 8,712 times the work for you to do.
How would you, as the subordinate, feel?
Shavin Emoor, standing before me, was struggling with this exact dilemma. Her hands were shaking. Her eyes were filled with rage as they glared at me.
Killing intent…?
How could a normal civilian exude this much killing intent? It came as a genuine surprise to me.
“So… I think I’m going to quit—”
Before she could finish that word, I quickly cut her off. “Shavin! Calm down for a moment. If you aren’t here, our clan will be destroyed!”
“If it’s going to be destroyed just because I leave, then doesn’t it deserve to be destroyed?”
Uh…
She technically wasn’t wrong.
“Th-think about our relationship, right?” I reasoned. “Haven’t I treated you well—?”
“Then are you saying I haven’t done well for you?”
“No, that’s not what I…”
“Family culture” was one of the characteristics of a small to mid-sized business. However, I decided to give up trying to appeal to her loyalty. I knew better than anyone what a small business needed to do to resolve its human resources shortage. Talks of morality weren’t the tool to hold onto people trying to leave the family.
“Double.”
“Double?”
“Yeah, I will pay you double the salary you are being paid now!”
At the prospect of an explosive increase in her salary, the cold and hardened expression of Shavin slowly started to crack. “D-did… Did you really think something like that would be enough to—!”
It was time to continue my combo attack. “Not just for the future!”
She shot me a dubious look.
“I’ll even count the time you spent alone here, working for the holy land while I was away, and double the pay for that time as well!”
The promise of a bonus made my soon-to-leave subordinate’s eyes flash open. She seemed tempted by the deal, as she couldn’t immediately give me an answer.
Then, I could tell from her expression that I had resolved this situation.
I didn’t press her further and instead silently waited for an answer from her.
“…Do it.”
Her voice was as quiet as an insect’s.
“What?” I asked.
“I’ll do it! That head administrator position or whatever!” Shavin shouted like someone pushed to the edge of all logic before her face flushed red in embarrassment. She rushed to make an excuse, tacking on, “Well… You know… I’m at the age when I need to prepare for marriage, you see.”
The reason came as a complete surprise to me. “Uh…”
…At the age to prepare? Aren’t you well past that?
From what I knew, she was going to be forty in a few years. Maybe that would fly in the modern era, where the martial age was always being pushed back, but for this culture and society, she was definitely too—
“That’s true,” Amelia interjected, choosing that moment to nod in agreement. “It’s about that time for you.”
I was glad I didn’t say anything.
***
Head Administrator, Shavin Emoor.
As one who obtained the highest positional authority of administration today, she displayed that she was truly fit for the role.
“We have land that was set for auctioning off next year. Since it’s just there, waiting, we might as well house that many people. It will be a little crowded, however.”
As if she had never planned on quitting in the first place, Shavin quickly moved the 8,712 refugees like she had planned for this from the start.
“The roofs over their heads will be the problem… but since we have a few materials prepared already, we should be able to whip up something to deal with that problem.”
“You can build something for them that quickly? I mean, it’s still a lot of people. Will it really be possible?”
“Of course. You’ve been away for a while now, so you might not know… but barbarians are born to be laborers. I’m starting to think they’re better at that than being warriors.”
“…What?”
As the chieftain of the barbarians, I felt slightly offended, but when I saw the results, I couldn’t help but agree.
“Behel—LAAAAA!”
As if each were trying to prove themselves worth a hundred warriors a piece, the barbarian warriors let out their battle cries while propping up huge logs by themselves.
“In the middle there! You need to put it there to make the house strong! Like our muscles!”
On top of that, since it was a trend in the holy land to build one’s own home, they were pretty skilled at construction as well.
Well, it still wasn’t as impressive as the dwarves.
“There! It’s crooked!”
“I can’t be bothered, just put it up!”
“Alright!”
Such was the limit of one’s birthright, perhaps. With their masterwork mindset, the details created by the dwarves using their acclaimed metallurgic engineering and construction techniques were still impossible to replicate.
“It’s fast, right?”
“Yeah…”
However, when all the barbarians of the holy land worked together, the speed of construction was second to none. At the pace they were going, I estimated that all the shacks needed for the refugees would be completed in just a few days.
Well, with their quality, I don’t think the houses will last a year…
Still, thanks to that, I realized something.
Barbarians are cost-efficient…!
The cost-efficiency wasn’t just good, either. It was fantastic.
Very easy-to-acquire manpower. Bodily stats that allowed for one person to work the job of many people at once. And most importantly…
They don’t complain.
Even when they weren’t paid much, they just accepted and rolled with it.
There was no point in getting offended over Shavin’s comment about how they were born to be laborers workers. That didn’t even begin to describe how good they were. Surely, the barbarian warriors were the greatest workers of this era—
“Yandel.”
As chills ran over me at this discovery, someone called me from behind. It was a familiar voice.
“…Rotmiller?”
“It’s been a while. I wanted to come find you earlier, but it seemed that you were busy.”
“Why are you in the holy land?”
I asked because I was genuinely curious, but Rotmiller just looked back at me with a confused expression as if I had asked him something nonsensical. “Yandel, it’s because of you. You asked me to teach the young warriors of the holy land my exploration skills.”
“Ah…”
That was true. Honestly, I was just…
“Sorry,” I said sheepishly. “A lot of things have happened recently so I forgot about it.”
“It’s understandable, you don’t have to apologize. You came across your fair share of major events yet again.”
“Thanks for saying that… In any case, have you been staying in the holy land since that day?”
“Yes, unless I had something specific I needed to do in the city. Teaching the young warriors brought me some satisfaction as well, and the job actually suits me quite well.”
“Oh, really?”
“I’m not just saying that, either. I’m serious. Thanks to the skills I taught them, they returned alive from the labyrinth, and whenever they hand me a stonebread as thanks, my heart feels full…”
But then, Rotmiller suddenly trailed off before he cleared his throat with an embarrassed expression. “Ahem! In any case, I’ve been living a decent life, so you don’t have to worry about me.”
“I-I see…?”
“Ah, and these days, after my obligations are fulfilled, I have some energy to spare, so I’m helping with the administration.”
“The administration…?”
“Ms. Emoor was having a difficult time. I can’t really let such a young friend take on such a difficult responsibility by herself…”
“Huh? Shavin Emoor… Young…?”
“Did you not know? She’s about two years younger than me. Of course, age isn’t that important. Even though she is two years younger, she has accomplished much more than I have…”
As he said that, Rotmiller let out a sort of self-deprecating chuckle.
I watched the breath leave him, and then like a bolt from the blue, realization struck me.
Was the reason Shavin is preparing for marriage…?
Despite my curiosity, I held back from doing anything tactless like asking him what their relationship was. The two of them could sort that out themselves. They weren’t children.
“Ah, right,” Rotmiller said. “Yandel… do you happen to know what happened in Bifron? Although no one is making it obvious, everyone is quite worried.”
“I’ll tell you that when I hear about it later. I don’t know much right now myself.”
“I see…”
Rotmiller and I chatted about a few other things for around thirty more minutes before Shavin came to find me.
“Mr. Bjorn…! Huh? Mr. Rotmiller, you were here as well?”
“Good to see you, Ms. Emoor. I completed the survey operation you requested yesterday and was on my way back when I met Yandel here. We got to talking for a bit.”
“Ah, really? So you’re already done with the survey?”
“There’s no reason to delay it. I know very well that you are busy too, Ms. Emoor.”
“Yes… I’m always grateful, Mr. Rotmiller…” Shavin hid a ladylike smile behind her hand as she spoke with Rotmiller.
Hmm, it really seems like there is something going on here.
Although my intuition as a warrior was saying so, it wasn’t something I needed to care about, so I changed the topic.
“Shavin, so why were you looking for me?”
“Ah, look at me, getting distracted. A few letters came for you in the morning. Three of them, at that.”
“Three of them?” When I took the letters from Shavin and checked them, I noticed they all came from different sources. “One is from the palace, the other is from Melbeth, and the last…”
I couldn’t tell. What was this?
As I stood there, thinking it over for a moment, Shavin explained, “That seal means this is an official document of the races. With the period we are in, there is a high possibility it’s a notice about the Races Summit.”
“The Races Summit…”
That reminded me. There was supposed to be an event where the leaders of each of the six races gathered to have a meeting.
I should have gone to one of them by now, but because I was locked on the underground floor against my will, I ended up missing out on it.
“Did the meetings open while I was gone as well?” I asked.
“From what I know, it hasn’t. I heard it’s tradition to hold the meeting only when all its members can participate.”
“I see…”
With that question resolved, I went through the other letters and read through them. Thankfully, all of them were for official matters, and could be summarized like so:
1. Notice of an invitation to attend the Palatial Meeting.
2. Melbeth regular meeting attendance request.
3. Races Summit letter of consent.
Maybe it was because I was both the chieftain and a baron. When I received letters like this, I felt like a high-ranking politician. Honestly, that expression probably wasn’t too far from the truth.
“Whoa…” After checking the senders of the letters and their contents, Shavin let out an exclamation of awe before mumbling something in my direction. “You really do look like someone important with all these things here…”
It sounded like a compliment, but I sensed an undercurrent of something hiding beneath.
“What did you say?”
“No, it’s nothing,” she quickly denied. “It’s just amazing that someone who gets letters like this is standing in front of me.”
“…Sure,” I granted, feeling a little embarrassed before focusing back on the contents of the letters.*
“So, what are you going to do?” Shavin asked.
“What do you mean?”
“Three different places sent you three pretty similar letters. Are you going to attend all of them?”
“I should. They’re all official matters.”
“Then which one are you going to go first?”
Oh, that?
Unfortunately, that wasn’t something I had control over.
“Hmm, let’s see. The fastest one…”
I held up one of the letters.
“This one is the earliest.”
The Nonhuman Noble Alliance.
It was the invitation to Melbeth’s regular meetings.
***
Since it had been a long while since I had last been in the city, there were many things I needed to get done. However, if I had to single out one of those things to resolve first and foremost, it was this one.
Although it wasn’t a quest that was originally on my schedule…
Use the refugees living in the barbarian holy land and earn money.
All the refugees ended up becoming my servants. And under the palatial law, the servants of a noble house couldn’t work another job to earn money either.
Well, I probably could keep it a secret and make them work elsewhere, but as things stood, I needed to lay low so I wouldn’t be investigated. I couldn’t risk getting all 8,712 people a second job to work without getting caught.
I need to make money to cover their tax expense for next year…
That was the biggest hurdle. If I were a great noble with an industry, I could send them to work in my business to earn money, but I didn’t have anything like that.
What can I do?
Surprisingly, the solution to that thread of problems revealed itself in the regular meeting of Melbeth.
“Ah, the next topic of discussion is the reconstruction of District Seven and District Thirteen. As you all know, the palace has declared it will select three noble businesses to handle the reconstruction. As there are a lot of gains to be had, many noble houses will try to take the contract, and our Melbeth is also planning on sending a noble house to support.”
“With that, I propose we allow the House of Count Goldbeard, with his many different construction businesses, to serve as our liaison for this contract. Unless any house wishes to object, we will immediately go to vote—”
I uncrossed my arms and immediately stood up. “I object!”
I needed my house to be the one to go.
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