"Alert!" shouted one of the patrol guards, and in the very next second, I walked out of the house and stood in front of the porch.
"He only has an axe," suggested the fox, who was sitting off to the side. "And a bunch of legitimate grievances against the aristocrats."
"Everyone back! Don't shoot!" I shouted and glanced at my fighters from the corner of my eye.
Holy crap! They really can't see the ghostly white fox. But within the crystal's range, she can be everywhere simultaneously and, consequently, see and hear everyone. Too bad she can only read my thoughts.
While I was contemplating the possibilities suddenly opening before me, a huge brute entered through the hole my men had made in the fence. He looked quite unusual—long gray hair framed a grim young face, and in his enormous fist, he held a sizable axe.
Two fighters stood shoulder to shoulder, blocking the big man's path. Much depended on his next action—first, his life, and second, my first step as the local landowner.
"What do you want, Grysk?" I said loudly.
Hearing his name, the gray-haired young man was confused, but after a few seconds, shaking his tangled mane, he stated the essence of his grievances:
"I want my house back!"
I wanted to take the cowardly route and say something like: "You got the money, and if you don't like it, go complain to the emperor." But I didn't. The success of my entire venture lay in squeezing the maximum out of every situation, especially important at the very beginning.
"Grysk, I understand you perfectly," I tried to speak and look like a loving mother, but judging by his face, it wasn't working particularly well. "But try to understand me too. This house has the crystal, we simply must occupy both it and the neighboring ones..."
"I live in this house!" Grysk bristled again.
"Did you build it?"
"No," the giant muttered after a short pause. "It's Stefra's house."
Ah, so that's what this is about.
"Stefra is that plump girl in the fur coat," the fox suggested.
At this, the girl in question immediately lit up red, distinguishing her from the crowd rapidly gathering around the fence.
This is the first application of that interface we were discussing before Grysk's visit interrupted us.
"Stefra!" I immediately called out and waved my hand. "Please come over for a minute."
The girl fearfully looked around and blushed even more, this time on her own.
Fortunately, the village elder stood right behind her and, driven by innate wisdom, pushed the poor girl out of the crowd.
"What did you want, your..." the girl squeaked and stumbled.
"Radiance," someone prompted.
"Highness..." blurted another.
"Grace," I suggested, before it escalated to majesty.
"Grace..." Now the girl turned crimson.
"Is this your husband?" I pointed to Grysk, who was anxiously shifting his gaze between me and the girl and back again.
"Fiancé!" the girl answered, barely audible.
"And when's the wedding?"
"In autumn!" Grysk suddenly roared so loudly that I flinched, and the crowd recoiled from the fence.
"Really?" exclaimed Stefra, suddenly turning pale.
"Really!" declared the big man, now blushing himself.
"Well, in that case!" I interjected into this tearfully romantic moment. "How about receiving as a wedding gift from the owner of these lands, that is, from me, a house larger and better than the one I was forced to take?"
A deathly silence fell, in which I heard two whispered comments, both female: "Maybe we should get married too?" asked some village woman to her fiancé, "And where's the money coming from?" exhaled Kalthyra.
I knew the answer only to the second question.
"Would that suit you?" I asked again.
"Excuse me, your Grace," the village elder stepped forward. "You may not have had the opportunity to walk around here yet, but there's no space for large construction in the fenced area."
"That's nonsense," I waved dismissively. "By autumn, the village territory will be increased at least twofold."
And most likely twentyfold, but I didn't say that yet, so they wouldn't take me for a bullshitter.
"So what do you think?" I addressed Stefra.
"We agree!" the girl exclaimed joyfully.
"And you?" I turned to Grysk.
"Me too," he grudgingly muttered.
"Excellent!" I clapped my hands. "Then, since everyone's gathered here, let's also conduct the first court in my village."
"Court?!" came a collective gasp.
"Of course! Attempted assault on a baron must be punished. Grysk, surrender your axe."
"Bravo." The fox wagged her tail, and at least twenty people out of the fifty I could see became highlighted in red. "Analysis of external parameters shows that these people have sharply changed their attitude toward you from negative to neutral in the last few minutes. The rest probably changed too, but the crystal's power isn't sufficient for analysis yet."
Grysk scowled but handed the axe to Veldor.
"So." I stepped forward and stood in front of the dejected troublemaker. "You committed a serious crime—going against the owner of these lands. But! Given the overall stressful situation, the lack of explanatory discussions, and your past merits... The fine is reduced to the minimum. Three hundred imperial dollars or free labor for me for a month."
The people murmured—on one hand, this was an enormous sum for them; on the other, everyone knew that Grysk, or rather, Stefra had received ten thousand for the house.
"Labor!" grunted Grysk.
"Money!" squealed Stefra.
"Settle this at home," I waved my hand. "Tomorrow morning, I expect either one or the other here." I turned to the elder. "Are the necessary people here?"
"Yes," he replied, scanning the crowd.
"Then gather them, and dismiss the rest. Actually, no. Everyone listen!"
I ascended the porch and surveyed my first subjects.
"I've already told Myrath Veltharin, and now I'll tell you. I'm not a lunatic who decided to commit suicide in the forest. I came here to make these lands safe and fertile. Your task is to provide me with feasible and well-paid assistance! And to spare me from situations like what just happened. And if you do this, very soon your life will fundamentally change! It will become safer, more abundant, and more comfortable! Everyone is dismissed!"
※※※
"What's that noise about, Vassek?" The wrinkled old man punctured the thick leather and threaded a needle through it.
"Who the hell knows, Ivandor, seems some kid from the city arrived," replied the second, equally wrinkled old man melancholically as he placed a template and began cutting out another pattern.
"And why did he come?" Ivandor asked again, skillfully making stitch after stitch.
"Seems he'll be our master."
"Why do we need a master?"
"We don't..."
"Is he a fool?"
"Seems that way."
Vassek made sure the pattern exactly matched the template and placed it in a neat stack of identical ones.
※※※
Besides the fighters who remained to ensure our safety, all my subordinates were inside the already heated house.
The elder brought three people with him.
A bald hulk, whom I'd seen at the gates, everyone called Axe. A dark-haired, also sturdy but not as tall man with a thick black beard—Rydon. And a wary fat woman—Kaelia.
I mentally divided the clothing of all village residents into two "styles." To keep warm and to be able to fight. For fighting, everyone wore comfortable leather gear, and for warmth, they wore something thick and shapeless on top, which I generally called a fur coat. Right now, among the guests, only the woman wasn't dressed for fighting. And even then, who knows what she had under her coat.
For so many people, there wasn't much space in the room, so the elder and I sat opposite each other at a small table, while the others, dividing the room in half, positioned themselves behind our backs.
"Thank you for not severely punishing Grysk, your Grace," Myrath began. "He's a kind and hardworking fellow..."
"I know," I interrupted. "And I also know that ten years ago, the count evicted him from his home and killed his parents."
The fox had already managed to extract all this from the locals' whispers. By the way, she was sitting on the windowsill, curiously observing the proceedings.
"How do you know?" Kaelia threw up her hands.
"I take my business seriously and, of course, prepared in advance and gathered information, so!" I clapped my hands, showing that we had closed this topic, then spread a map on the table. "Now I need brief information about your relations with the nearest aristocrats and other villages. Also about the location of large clusters of wild crystals. And generally about your way of life, means of earning. What zone have you already managed to stalk?"
"Only the permitted three kilometers!" Kaelia immediately bristled, and I gave the elder a meaningful look.
"Kaelia, I'll ask you when needed!" Myrath understood me and began answering himself.
I must note that he spoke strictly to the point, and everything he told harmoniously fit into the picture of the world already formed in my head.
The New York Empire was developing rapidly and approximately once a year annexed a new major city. Currently, they were actively clearing Denver, then would come the turn of Santa Fe, and then Albuquerque.
Kansas was fourth in line, and therefore only the most preliminary preparations had begun in the region, and only poor or adventure-prone aristocrats settled here.
There hadn't even been preventive explanatory work with the non-assimilated population, meaning those living in the forests. However, how would you conduct such work, when those very forests are filled with monsters, and the population itself, when seeing a man in rich clothing, primarily thinks about whether they can remove that clothing with impunity. And, as a rule, comes to the answer "yes."
So. When the search radars managed to detect a neutral crystal, the village of Dodge wasn't even within the boundaries of the New York Empire. The misunderstanding was quickly resolved, and now it's one of the southernmost border points.
The nearest large annexed city was Topeka, a hundred kilometers to the north, where the good road ended. Then the border fortress of Fort Larned, forty kilometers away. There the decent road ended, and one could only travel further on something with tracks or very large wheels.
My nearest large (by local standards) neighbors were two counts. Semoar Pavelcrest and Borsk Evgenthorne. Both were twenty kilometers away, and there was about the same distance between them. That is, our domains formed an isosceles triangle with Dodge at the vertex closest to Kansas.
There were other villages here, but the Dodge residents only contacted two nearby ones: Garden and Cimarron. The rest mostly belonged to other barons, and, as far as I knew, they were all vassals of one of these two counts. By the way, both are probably actively gathering embassies and will soon arrive here with offers that will be difficult to refuse. Without unnecessary bloodshed, I mean.
If we consider the territory closer to Kansas, there were villages there too, and all, of course, were primarily engaged in stalking. That is, they went to the destroyed city and looked for electronic devices and other artifacts from the old era. And there were also bandits in the region who preferred to take goods from stalkers.
As for wild crystals, there were none in the immediate vicinity of Dodge, which is logical, because otherwise, people couldn't live here. But further towards Kansas, there were many of them, often growing in whole groups, and, according to the elder and company, some were two meters high... that is, at least level thirty. Excellent!
"As for monsters, rarely does something truly big approach the fence! After all, this side of the river has been more or less cleared," the elder was concluding his report. "And the small fry... if during the day, we shoot them, and at night... we sleep."
"Your Grace, may I ask a question?" Kalthyra spoke up.
"You may."
The question, of course, was not addressed to me.
"Besides the loot from Kansas, do you have sources of income and sustenance?" Despite her youth, the girl carried herself well; only the blush on her cheeks betrayed slight nervousness. "I mean hunting, fishing, agriculture, gathering. Perhaps mining or manufacturing?"
"Well..." Myrath rubbed his stubble-covered chin. "The river flows about a kilometer from here, also called Kansas, we fish there sometimes. Its banks are clayey, and there's also limestone nearby... but, you understand, stalking brings more. It's easier to find something, then sell it and buy what you need, than to produce it ourselves."
"But you grow food, right?" Kalthyra wrinkled her nose.
"Inside the fence, we keep chickens, have eleven goats for milk and cheese. And we grow some things," the elder scratched the back of his head. "And outside, we sow with whatever's left from winter, and if it survives till autumn, we harvest it."
To an uninitiated person, especially one born in the pre-magical era, this might seem wild, but there were no such people in the house now. Everyone perfectly understood that it's irrational to toil in an ordinary garden while in the New York Empire there are families like, for example, the Verdantbloom, who own at least twenty well-leveled crystals. And different ones at that.
Skillful management and combination of elements allows them to harvest three or four crops a year from large fields, and more than ten from greenhouses. Consequently, their production cost is much lower, and if you have money, it's easier to buy food from them. Or from other families specializing in agriculture.
"And manufacturing?" Kalthyra persisted. "You could make something and sell it."
"We do make some things." Myrath glanced at the trapdoor to the basement, where his workshop had been until now. "But mostly for ourselves. It's expensive to run on gasoline, and without an air crystal, there won't be electricity in such a wilderness. We're not going to build a power plant when wild crystals are radiating everywhere."
"And what you find, you sell to the counts, or do you go to Fort Larned?"
"What Fort Larned, your Grace? You might as well say Topeka!" the bearded Rydon interjected. "That's terribly far, and the counts now give a good price. Competition!"
He raised his finger and told a banal story.
It turns out, Count Pavelcrest was the first to find the village, and, naturally, began buying artifacts collected in the vicinity of old Kansas for mere pennies. But that was about ten years ago; there were still many of them here then, and the money earned was more than enough for the locals. And then Count Evgenthorne settled here, and word for word, outbidding each other, the aristocrats reached an almost decent price.
The more I immersed myself in local affairs, the more I understood that it would be extremely difficult to reach an amicable agreement with these two aristocrats; our interests were too much in conflict. At the same time, confrontation carried substantial risks.
It's clear that the emperor wanted aristocrats to help expand the territory and was categorically against them fighting each other, but... If aristocrats could be more or less controlled within the empire, how would you do this here?
So two barons quarreled, went into the woods, and one killed the other. If there are witnesses and the place isn't too far away, then maybe someone will be sent to investigate. But if someone simply disappeared, then sorry. No one will search for a missing person in the wild forests grown over ruins beyond the empire's borders... And the local creatures will quickly clean up what remains of the unfortunate.
And all this must be taken into account...
"Alright, it's already late," I looked at the dark sky through the plastic-covered window. "Tomorrow I need lists of the village residents and their professions. I will also buy from you everything you've obtained in the wild lands, at five percent more than what the counts offered. Tomorrow I'll explain how we'll work and what to do next. You're dismissed!"
The floor creaked, but the locals didn't have time to leave. A deafening squeal rang out, followed by the thunder of gunshots.