Froit. Inside the former town chief’s house.
“What do you have to say for yourselves?” asked an angry Fela.
Several dozen demigods knelt in front of the glowering Fela, they were separated into two different smaller groups. Behind her were the guild members of the enforcement squad. They were ready to enact punishment if Fela ordered it.
“We were stopped by a large force of unknown warriors. Onezhot and a few others were killed instantly by long-range ballista from the enemy’s ships. We were outnumbered and I was lucky to survive,” said the first group’s leader his head bowed in shame.
“And what is your group’s excuse?” asked Fela.
“We got lost…”
Fela looked at the two group leaders with scorn.
“All of you are to hand over all of your money right now to pay back what you lost.”
“…” the demigods kneeling all were silent looking at each other to see what they should do.
The enforcement members walked forward and stuck their hands out.
“Fine,” said the first group leader with gritted teeth. He took out a large leather bag and handed it over to the enforcement member.
The other members reluctantly did the same.
“1000… 2000… 3000… 3569. You’re short 3500.”
The demigods stayed quiet and did not mention the 69 extra gold she had added.
“Either sell your equipment for the rest of the gold or work it off by doing errands for me. I’ll be having you pay it off quickly by participating in all of the coming clashes with the other guilds to try and gain some benefits for ourselves.”
***
Kodria.
With the weather warming up everyday the large caravan of the Werewolves clans was able to move faster and reach Kodria on the first day of the official start of the warm months.
Akira was swamped with hundreds of tasks that needed his attention now that he was back. It didn’t help that the warm months had arrived and added even more tasks to that list.
Currently, Akira, Grand elder Dùghall, Brod, and several elders from each of the werewolf clans stood next to a long wooden table inside a large tent with the flaps open allowing the cool breeze to enter the tent.
“You should be safe and out of the way if you set up the temporary camp near the south wall of the outer city,” said Akira pointing to a position on a crude map.
“We have no complaints living in our tepees as we have done for several years now. How long do you expect we will have to wait to move into proper houses?” asked Dùghall.
“The outer city is quite cramped right now. Mainly due to the hastily built clusters of housing each time a new wave of people arrived over the past few years. With the flood of new people constantly coming in from the many troubles everyone faced, it was hard to properly plan it all out.”
Dùghall nodded his head. He had seen the many small, medium, and large wooden houses that cluttered the inside of the outer city all in random clusters with no order other than the roads that separated them.
“Now that the warm months have arrived, we will be tearing down the old housing and replacing it with larger and sturdier stone houses each being several stories high, giving enough room for many families to live more comfortably. I have already given the blueprints to the builders who should be starting the first of the teardown and rebuilds today. When every building inside the outer city has been converted we will be working on expanding the outer city further by building a second wall if there is still not enough room.”
Dùghall and the other grand elders looked at the new blueprints of the outer city that now lay atop the map. Unlike the crude map, the blueprints had been drawn up by several skilled architects all according to Akira’s vision from the systems city planer. This was done to make sure that no mistakes happened, as even a small error on such a large scale as this would be painfully time-consuming to fix.
“Impressive. This looks like it will require a lot of stone. Do you have enough? What about the stone needed for the new settlements that you were talking about?” asked grand elder Brod.
“We have already stored up enough stone for at least one wall for our future settlement. They can get by making use of bricks for housing for now. The miners led by the Dwarves are working as fast as they can to create as many stone blocks for the houses of the outer city. The most recent attack made it clear that wooden houses will not cut it when an enemy comes knocking.”
“Is that why you have the houses lined up like this?” asked grand elder Brod, pointing to the several square formations of housing.
“Correct, After discussion with the grand elders and architects we decided to do something similar to Kodia’s inner city.”
Akira pointed to an outer square of buildings on the blueprint, “These buildings will be the first to be torn down and rebuilt. They will be the new shopping district that replaces the old trade plaza that the outer city was built around. The space that the trade plaza takes up can be better used by building more houses.”
“But why are they seamlessly all connected and have the doors on the inner wall of the square facing the inner city? Shouldn’t they all be on the outside wall of the square facing the gates allowing for quick access to the market?” asked a clan elder, pointing to the bare road that ran between the entire main wall and the largest square wall that Akira said would be the market district.
“Where are the openings in these square stone building walls? How are they supposed to get to the center of the city?” asked another.
Akira pointed to two points on the square wall that looked slightly different.
“There will be two gatehouses built into each of the square walls. The reason for connecting the buildings in squares like this while placing the doors on the inside is because they will be used as makeshift defensive walls if there is ever a siege again. They will be used if the main wall is ever breached. The roofs of these buildings have all been modified to allow for soldiers to be stationed atop of them and defend against any enemy.”
With Akira pointing this out, the way they saw the entire blueprint transformed revealing something remarkable as they imagined what the finished outer city would look like.
“You’re building a maze of fortresses each within a larger fortress,” said Dùghall as he looked at the blueprints with new understanding.
Each of the square walls only had two gatehouses. The first square wall had its gatehouses on the east and west wall. The next square building wall was built taller than the first and had the gatehouses built on the north and south wall. Each square wall alternated where the two gates were built. As the walls grew smaller in length they continued to grow taller than the previous wall towering over the first fall the closer they got to the center of the outer city.
On the blueprints, the former trade plaza was replaced with large towering stone buildings for housing many citizens.
“Correct, we will not make it easy for anyone to enter the outer city to cause havoc or kill our citizens. That is why we have decided to focus much of our stone output on this major project. Not only will we be able to house everyone more comfortably, but it will also be far safer than before.”
“We of the Coldpelts will offer ourselves to help in any way you need,” said Brod.
“Our clan as well. We can not just sit around and do nothing,” said Dùghall.
“Your help will be much appreciated. With the manpower you can provide, I am sure that we can finish this major project before the warm month’s end,” said Akira.
When Akira finished answering the questions of the grand elders and their clan elders, he headed back to Kodria’s castle.
“You’ve finally come to pay me a visit? I thought you forgot about me,” said Mileena, as she slowly waddled down a garden path over to Akira. Her large belly showed through her loose clothing and was hard to miss.
She was helped along by Yuki, Azura, and Maya who had been keeping an eye out for her for a while now.
Yuki had arrived several weeks ago to support and keep Mileena company. She was determined to stay with her friend even with the uncomfortable warm months arriving.
“Piiii!” screeched Pii’per as she swooped down, nearly colliding with Akira as she landed next to Mileena and folded her wing, and waddled along with Mileena.
“You know how busy the warm months are. There are too many projects with so little time to complete them all before the winter months arrive again,” said Akira.
“The least you could do is spend a few hours with her every day,” said Yuki.
“Pii!”
“Yap!”
“Hey, it’s not like we never see each other. I spend all night with her every day!”
Due to their pestering Akira rescheduled several meetings for the next day so he could spend more time with Mileena.
***
The next day Akira was busy overseeing the work done by the architects and several thousands of workers who were dismantling the outer wooden housing inside the outer city as well as ferrying the large amount of prepared stone across the lake.
The dismantling of the tens of hastily built barracks and houses were easily torn down and stacked up in newly created warehouses outside the city. The wood would be reused for other future projects and if needed, as part of their future settlements.
The ground where the new stone buildings were to be erected was currently being dug out and leveled to allow for sturdy slabs of stone to be laid out to create a solid foundation. It would not do any good if the stone buildings crumbled because of a weak foundation underneath.
“Awooo!”
Akira’s ears twitched as he heard an excited howl from Azura come across the lake. Every werewolf stopped what they were doing and looked towards the main city.
Those nearest to Akira looked at him to see what he was going to do.
“Yap!” said Fluffball.
“I know! We have to hurry back!” said Akira.
“Lord, we will take care of everything while you take care of more important things,” said the lead architect.
Akira nodded to them before transforming and using the [AQR] skill to reach the boat faster than running on two legs. Fluffball managed to keep up with him while his guards were several seconds behind.
“Hurry up! My wife has gone into labor!” growled an impatient Akira.
