Chapter 56 56 The best option for building a city is not to build it!

Chapter 56 56.The best program to build a city is not to build it!

“These NPCs can act with efficiency! It’s only been one night and the shelves of several departments have been erected.”

When the Dirt Truck trio came online in the camp the next day, they found that Miriam had already arranged office tents and a few experienced subordinates for them according to their respective management duties.

Outside the whole camp was in an uproar.

That was Miriam’s assistant registering the information of the survivors, and there was also a team of militiamen wearing squire’s leather armor with weapons in hand to maintain order, and at this glance, they were the ones who had been seconded from Maxim’s.

Most of the survivors in the camp were illiterate civilians, but a large portion of the survivors rescued by the players’ second batch were literate and from good families.

After all, at the time when the Astral Rift was opening over the city and Despair Derivatives and Astral Beasts were scurrying about, only the mansions of the rich were sturdy enough to protect them until the rescue operation by the smaller players began.

After the men were drafted and put to work, the middle-aged trio was surprised to find that establishing a set of ground rules in the camp from scratch wasn’t as difficult as they had thought.

Especially with the rationing of the camp.

There was almost no backlash at all, and everyone accepted the harsh management with equanimity.

Dirtbike also specifically looked for his own assistant to ask, and only then realized that in the original Cadman City had already implemented the rationing system for several years during the war.

All of them had already gotten used to this system, and even saw the familiar rationing system return to their side and there was a strange sense of “peace of mind”.

It meant they knew that their current leader, the vampire lord named “Murphy”, wouldn’t give up on them, and would need them to do enough work in the coming days, otherwise there would be no point in giving them their daily ration, would there?
The people of Transylvania aren’t afraid to work more than they’re worth.

The old residents knew exactly what a worthless human in this land was in the eyes of the vampires.

“The Transylvanians claim to have been fighting vampires all along, but anyone who knows a little bit of history knows that we’ve actually accepted this set of rules of domination for 400 years, we just have a stiff upper lip and don’t want to admit it.”

Dirtbike Lao’s assistant, a middle-aged man who used to work as a tutor for wealthy merchants and minor noble families, sighed and explained to his new boss:

“The people here are like a bunch of savage, belligerent but ignorant goats who need the knowledge that they are being protected to give birth to courage. If the protector were just a little more merciful, they would be grateful to him.

I don’t mean to mock my countrymen.

Because I am one of them, and 400 years of dark rule has been enough to change a lot of things.

Alas, my lord, perhaps we should begin the day.”

“Ow, right. Get to work!”

Dirtbike understood the words of his elegant, easy-going and very good at what he did assistant through the translation function of the Operational Treasure Pearl, and with a thoughtful wave of his hand, he said:
“The first task of the camp’s logistics office, then, is to make sure that all supplies are registered and properly utilized in our hands. We’ll need a warehouse, a few full-time guards, and professional cooks and doctors!
Robert, you will go to Miss Miriam immediately!

The people I need must be here in an hour, I don’t have that much time to wait for them.

We’ll also need a timetable, and a tally book of daily supply needs, as a way to interface with the human resources side, who will turn around and post specific jobs and calculate labor points.”

He crossed his arms and spoke in a steady stream, as if he was back in the state he was in when he was managing his own machine shop.

It was surprisingly somewhat glowing for a while.

And his words were translated into concise local characters by the arithmetic treasure pearl, popping up continuously on the psychic energy projection on his wrist.

The assistant named “Robert” immediately wrote it down in his notebook, and the same thing happened to Shovel Boss and All Risks Semi-Trailer.

These three middle-aged old men might not be as good at fighting monsters as the younger ones, and their passion for fighting was not very high, but their rich life experience and management skills that were far higher than those of ordinary people were what the survivor camp needed most at the moment.

With their assistance, Miriam got the first camp roster at noon, recording the specific information of 300 people, and entered it through the arithmetic treasure pearl, allowing her and Murphy, who was far away from the city, to enter a new level of management and control over the camp.

Since there wasn’t much to record, it wasn’t a difficult job to do, and it was almost done by nightfall.

If this really was an internship, Miriam felt like she’d get an A anyhow with the setup she had now.

In her eyes, the originally chaotic survivor camp had also been up and running.

Although it was still a bit raw and many parts of it would go wrong, it was much better than the previous state of doing nothing, and it was time to follow the advice of the three veteran players and fill the daily lives of the survivors with work.

As long as people were busy, they didn’t have time for nonsense!

This law applies in any world.

The crowd’s good mood lasted until the Chosen Fighting Gray Man came online.

This design major was also yawning after he came online, he barely slept last night had been studying the construction plans for the survivor camp and then came to a conclusion that made the three middle-aged old men stare their eyes off.

“What did you say?”

As the cooks who had just been gathered together finished the first pot of “big pot rice” in the camp and prepared to start the meal, the middle-aged trio who had gathered together to eat looked at the gray man in disbelief, and Dumper exclaimed in astonishment:

“You’ve been thinking all night, and you’ve brought us all such a surprise? What do you mean ‘can’t be built’ ah! You make your words clear! This is the intention to put down?”

“It means literally, it can’t be built.”

The ash-battered man skimmed his lips, looking at the cauldron in his hand with no appetite at all.

He had eaten a takeaway just before going online, so he simply handed the porridge filled with various wild vegetables and a few seasoned meat strips to the two ‘secretaries’ beside him, and told the Parian sisters to go and find a place to eat, and come back later.

After the two young girls had left with the “camp manager’s hearty lunch”, the young design student explained to the three of them:
“I looked at the terrain last night and discussed it with my dormitory mates, and the conclusion is that this place is simply not suitable for large-scale construction.

First of all, it’s too far from the local water source, the Cadman River, secondly, the terrain is not very good, and lastly, we don’t have enough manpower.

Do you guys know that to build a permanent stronghold you have to dig a hole first?
I mean, a perfect underground water supply and drainage system!
It’s the unseen things hidden underground that are key to a place’s longevity, so I’ve come to the conclusion that the camp should not be built on a large scale yet!
Tents for the survivors, I found a simplified version of the Arabian tent on the internet, that thing is big and cozy, and I asked, it’s not raining too much lately over here, and the temperature is suitable, so the tents will be enough.

The resources all have to be saved, I’ve got a better plan to get us a newbie village.”

Speaking here, the gray-hitting man habitually pushed his glasses, and the result was an instant touch that made him laugh awkwardly, then pointed in the direction of Cadman City and said:

“Isn’t that Lord Murphy trying to recapture the outer city? Just build the novice village directly there!
The fact that that city has existed for 400 years in the backstory means that its underground drainage and other designs are passable, so we can just take over and utilize it.

Unless the devs didn’t even think about that.

But with how realistic and hardcore this game is it shouldn’t be that big of an oversight.

Secondly, the disaster in the city was an energy invasion not an earthquake, and there are tons of leftover buildings in the outer city that can be repaired directly without even needing to be cleaned up.

This would certainly save lots and lots of manpower.

Finally, I’ve asked my two assistants.

They told me in no uncertain terms that there is an underground water source in town, connected to the largest local river.

There is also a natural cavern in the inner city with a local underground storage reservoir, and when there have been droughts in the last 400 years, the locals have taken water directly from there, so the water source is also taken care of.

The choice of that city is actually perfect at my current level, the development team clearly put a lot of effort into it, I suspect they had a professional designer do the modeling.

How high the level is I don’t know, but it’s certainly much higher than a student like me.

So there’s no need for us to mess around with it ourselves at all, all we need to do is clean up the remnants of the city and tinker with it and it’ll be OK.”

“I do feel like it makes sense when you say it like that.”

Shoveler scooped a spoonful of soup and fed it into his mouth.

The game’s tastebuds were made quite anthropomorphic, allowing him to savor the odd flavor, so he sipped his teeth and said:
“But you’ve got to come up with a design, too! Even if we do use the ruins of the old town as a newbie village, we can’t just live there. That’s our first novice village.

Do not seek to make it opulent, at least can not be ashamed of it.”

“I have to go and take a look on the ground.”

Beating gray male skimmed his mouth, two hands, said:
“I can’t draw you a map out of thin air, I have to look at its underground passageway arrangement in order to set up different divisions on the drawings, alas, if there is a design plan of Cadman City, it would be good to directly repair it and bring it to use. This kind of specialized medieval city would interest my mentor if I take it to him, maybe I can even whore out his labor for nothing.”

“What’s so hard about that?”

Shoveler rolled his eyes and said:

“Go to the NPCs and say, this game can even appoint us as officials, just tell them what you need and they’ll find a way to get it for you, you have to believe in the wisdom of the NPCs.

Hey, Dirtbike, lend me a few of your warehouse guards.

The first curfew is tonight, and I’m afraid there won’t be enough camp guards.

I’ll go offline first and come back on to watch at night, I’m not too sure about letting go and letting them do it, I’ll have to keep an eye on it myself for the first two days, and as long as it goes well at first, I’ll just leave it to them to do it on their own afterward.”
—
Outside of Cadman City, Murphy was checking his arithmetic jewel for a special request sent by Miriam, she asked for Murphy’s help in finding the designs for Cadman City, the vampire hadn’t even realized what Miriam was planning to do when he was surprised to see a guilt-ridden Maxim reporting his loss to him.

“You lost? How is that possible?”

Murphy said in surprise:

“Or by a level 1 . I mean, beaten by a girl who just entered our world? You’re letting it go, aren’t you?”

“No, no, my lord, I gave it my all, but the lady who goes by the name ‘Pomegranate’ is incredibly skilled in close combat, and I doubt she was ever a martial arts monk!

But I lost convincingly.”

Maxim said in a hushed voice:
“I think she is the warrior you really need, the best of all the Otherworlders by far! Aside from lacking a bit of irony in her trials, she’s almost perfect.”

“Since you favor her so much, let her join your ‘Cadmanian Self-Rescue Army’ and give her the title of Decapod.”

Murphy said with a wave of his hand:

“Miriam’s side has fully tapped into the wisdom of my warriors, and you should follow up by learning to use their power, I’ll give you ten . Well, twelve warrior slots plus a ‘Champion Warrior’ as chief.

You can pull those otherworldly warriors you deem to have potential under your command to form your own ‘Sovereign Army’.

The challenges will only increase in the future, and you will have to set up the mechanism for training and selecting warriors for us from now on, if you can’t do this one on your own, you can go and ask Miriam for some experience.”

“Yes, my lord.”

Maxim nodded and reported back to Murphy:

“But at present, the survivors in the ‘Monster Wilderness’ have basically been rescued by your warriors, and only the Despair Derivatives and Star Realm Beasts hiding in the shadows remain in that area.

The eerie black snow is getting bigger and bigger, making those malicious things more and more frenzied.

Things are turning dangerous, my lord, and we should probably advance our actions and purify it all with fire!”

“Give them two more days.”

Murphy, now that this aspect had been seriously considered, said chestily:

“Two days is enough time for my warriors to get most of the valuable things out of the outer city, after which we will burn the darkness with flames and give the survivors a new hope.”

“Indeed, your warriors are extremely talented at searching and finding, and while it’s not a good idea to say so, I still maintain that they all have a dog’s nose and an insatiable squirrel-like desire to hoard.”

Maxim whispered, eliciting a chuckle from Murphy.

The crude analogy was quite apt.

But soon, Murphy’s laughter stopped.

Because Mrs. Adele was silently appearing not far beside him, and this lady who had changed into a vampire style dark red hunting outfit lowered her head and said to Murphy:

“Missy Femis would like to invite you.”

“Shut up!”

Before Murphy could speak, Maxim, who was next to him, chided:

“Do you even know who your honors are? Adele, Lord Murphy may not care, but your behavior is too rude even to me as a blood servant!”

In the face of Maxim’s rebuke, Mrs. Adele didn’t retort, but only lowered her head deeper.

She completely dared not look directly into Murphy’s eyes.

But it wasn’t out of fear.

“Okay, Mark! Don’t say these words that break unity.”

Murphy said as he reached out and placed a hand on Maxim’s shoulder:

“Go get some rest, word of my warrior Pomegranate’s defeat of you will soon spread, and I expect the other warriors will surely follow her lead in launching a new challenge to you.

You will be busy for the rest of the day.

This little bug needs to be fixed as well, and I don’t think you need to be so gung-ho about giving up your advantage, use your sword to teach them that there’s no room for cleverness in the ways of power!”

“I won’t make it easy for them, my lord, it’s my duty.”

Maxim leaned on the hilt of his saber and bowed goodbye to Murphy, followed by a hard glare at Lady Adele before he turned to leave.

After he left, Murphy shook his head and said:

“Maxim is a rough man, he never hides his loyalty and looks down on all disloyal behavior, you don’t pay attention to his words.

I don’t mind if you and Missy continue to have the same relationship as before.

Your first embrace was only a desperate attempt to save you, and I would like to repay you for saving my life and as payment for asking you to forget something unpleasant.

You should know what I’m talking about.”

“Uh-huh.”

Lady Adele nodded, and she said in a muffled voice:

“I will stand willingly in your shadow in the end, Lord Murphy, and I only pray that I will do this for Missy in this last period of time as a way of paying off her kindness in saving me when I was young.

I hope you can understand my choice, it is in no way a betrayal or disloyalty!”

“I’ve told you, I don’t care.”

Murphy waved his hand and asked:
“What does Missy want with me? And, about the quarter of Fae blood in your body.”

“That’s not a topic that should be discussed right now, Master Murphy.”

Lady Adele’s body shook as she said:

“My blood comes from a malevolent curse in the mysterious and obscure Eternal Rift beneath the dangerous Dark Mountains, and in due time I will tell you all that my family carries.

I can also assure you that it will not cause you trouble.

It is only now that you have something more important to focus on, and Missy has a premature idea about your intended plan to cleanse the city of its shadows with a blaze of fire.

She thinks it could be a favor to you.”

(End of chapter)