Soon, Tribios saw Olivia approaching with a long procession. The towering Tide stood out, carrying seven or eight logs single-handedly.
In truth, whether Tribios participated in the upcoming trip to the city to sell timber was irrelevant. The task required no specialized skills. Northern cedarwood was highly sought after in the south, guaranteeing brisk sales. The only concern was avoiding setting the price too low.
Jay volunteered to handle the task, declaring, "I'm well-acquainted with the Kingdom of Ukel's market prices. But we can't expect to fetch top dollar by just hauling the timber there ourselves."
Jay then requested funds from Olivia, his strategy was simple: use the money to buy decent clothes and a horse-drawn carriage. The goal was to present themselves as a legitimate merchant caravan, because only by negotiating as equals could they secure fair prices and equal terms of trade.
If the group from the Grand Duchy of Augustus showed up bare-chested and in ragged shorts, no matter how high-quality their timber, they would inevitably be lowballed.
Hearing Jay's words, Tribios silently withdrew her earlier thoughts. Well, selling timber does require some skill after all.
With Jay's assurance, she felt much more at ease. After entrusting the timber sales entirely to Jay and Tide, Tribios turned to Olivia and said, "Alright, we have other matters to attend to next."
Olivia blinked in surprise. "What?"
"A census!" Tribios declared.
To Tribios, accurately counting a nation's population was of paramount importance. Only with precise figures could she allocate resources and jobs appropriately, ensuring everyone remained productive and driving rapid national development.
However, Olivia asked blankly, "But... how do we conduct a census?"
Tribios sighed in exasperation. "How else? We'll gather a team and go door-to-door asking!"
Yet after further discussion with Olivia, Tribios realized the task was far more complex than she had imagined. Conducting a census would inevitably require paper and pens to record the collected data, wouldn't it?
Let's put aside the issue of paper and pens for now. The entire Grand Duchy of Augustus could barely muster a handful of literate individuals.
Jay might count as one, and Olivia herself is another. It's worth noting that Olivia learned to read from Jay. Yet, after racking her brain for ages, Olivia couldn't think of a third literate person in the entire territory.
After all, the entire nation consisted of former slaves. Jay ended up here because he had been exiled from his homeland and, by sheer chance, found his way to the Grand Duchy of Augustus, where Olivia took him in.
Tribios fell silent for a moment before saying, "Surely, among the tens of thousands of people in this country (approximately), we can find at least one more literate person?"
And so, their task shifted from conducting a census to 'finding literate individuals'.
Olivia immediately recruited a few people with booming voices. They ran through the city streets, shouting as they went. Though a primitive method, it proved surprisingly effective.
"Anyone who can read and write? Her Highness the Princess needs your urgent assistance!"
"Literate individuals, please gather immediately at the entrance to Her Highness the Princess's residence!"
"Anyone literate here...?"
"Literate people..."
It must be said, these people had remarkably loud voices. Tribios could hear them clearly even from a distance, and she couldn't help but reach up to touch her pointed elf ears—soft, smooth, and surprisingly pleasant to the touch.
They waited outside Olivia's house for nearly half a day. By noon, seventy or eighty people had gathered before them.
Eleven of these were human men, while the rest were all dwarves!
The dwarves' average height barely reached Tribios's waist. Each had dark skin, sharply defined wrinkles on their faces, and thick, long beards. From any angle, these dwarves seemed utterly unrelated to the concept of 'wisdom.'
Yet precisely this group of dwarves constituted the most highly educated individuals in the entire Grand Duchy of Augustus.
This was hardly surprising. Those with longer lifespans naturally had more opportunities for education. The Grand Duchy of Augustus was home to dwarves, Beastmen, half-elves, and humans.
To be honest, the literacy rate among elves must be exceptionally high. The problem is, the Grand Duchy of Augustus has no pure-blooded elves at all. As for half-elves, as previously mentioned, their social status is so low that simply surviving is a struggle. How could they possibly find time to learn to read and write?
Beastmen have a lifespan of approximately 100 to 150 years, slightly longer than humans, but their primitive lifestyle means most prefer hunting and other activities over reading and writing.
Thus, after much deliberation, the older dwarves who had, for various reasons, learned to read and write over their long lives ended up being among the most literate people in the Grand Duchy of Augustus.
While pondering these facts, Tribios produced neatly shaped wooden tablets and small knives, handing one of each to everyone present.
The knives and tablets were the substitutes for pens and paper she had prepared for this morning's task. She instructed, "Each of you will be responsible for a specific area of the city. Don't just count individuals; instead, go door-to-door and ask each household how many members it contains."
"Furthermore, humans, half-elves, Beastmen, and Dwarves should be counted separately. And while you're at it, feel free to ask if anyone has special skills, like carpentry or blacksmithing."
After Tribios finished explaining, Olivia nodded in agreement. "Exactly! That's how it should be done!"
However, likely overwhelmed by the sheer volume of instructions, some of the Dwarves wore puzzled expressions.
"What does 'by family unit' mean?"
"How do we calculate separately?"
"This wooden slip is so small! How am I supposed to write on it?"
Left with no other choice, Tribios pulled out a knife and a wooden slip herself to demonstrate the process.
She knocked on the door of a cottage next to Olivia's house. It's worth noting that Olivia's residence, like those of all the commoners, was a simple wooden hut—no castle, no manor, nothing befitting a Princess.
Soon, a middle-aged woman answered the door. Tribios greeted her politely, "Good day, madam. May I ask you a few questions?"
"Y-you... you may ask," the woman stammered as she opened the door. Nearly a hundred people had completely surrounded her home, all staring at her in unison. The Princess was among them. Though the woman had no idea what was happening, the pressure immediately mounted.
Seeing her distress, Tribios adopted a gentle expression and spoke in the softest tone she could manage. "Don't worry," she said reassuringly, "it's just a few simple questions."
The woman, sensing the almost overflowing tenderness radiating from Tribios, gradually began to relax.
Then came the routine questions: "How many people live in your household?" "Do any of your family members have special skills, like carpentry or blacksmithing?"
Afterward, the number of people from each household was simply carved onto wooden tablets. Tribios instructed her followers, "Use separate tablets for humans, Beastmen, Dwarves, and half-elves to avoid confusion. Each number represents the size of a household. If a household contains members of different races, count them according to the dominant race. If the numbers are equal, choose either race arbitrarily."
For instance, if a human married a half-elf, there was no need for precise records. The household could simply be recorded as either two humans or two half-elves, simplifying both the initial recording and later statistical analysis.
Tribios added, "Also, if anyone claims to possess a special skill, instruct them to report directly to Olivia's House."
After dispensing a few more scattered instructions about minor details, everyone dispersed to officially begin their work.
Time passed slowly as Tribios waited at Olivia's House. After about two or three hours, the first batch of wooden tablets filled with numbers was delivered.
Tribios personally added up all the figures mentally, consolidating the totals onto separate tablets. This record-keeping task alone took her three full days.
Of course, she wasn't calculating nonstop during those three days. Rather, the "census" itself lasted three days, and Tribios found herself relatively free during that time.
Whether it was her imagination or not, Tribios felt her intelligence had sharpened considerably. After a timid start with the first few batches, her confidence grew, and she began calculating results mentally, no longer needing to record them on separate wooden tablets.
In other words, Tribios could scan a wooden tablet, perform mental calculations in a few seconds, and repeat the process. She could summarize information that took the Dwarves hours to investigate in mere minutes.
On the evening of the third day, the final census results were tallied: the Grand Duchy of Augustus had a total population of 203,151.
The raw number might not seem significant, but consider this: the Grand Duchy of Kandela, a small region sandwiched between the Empire and the Alliance, boasted a population of 500,000.
Moreover, among Augustus's 203,151 residents, half were humans, twenty percent were Beastmen, twenty percent were Dwarves, and ten percent were half-elves.
The next steps were straightforward. Jay had already made a fortune selling timber, so the obvious move was to ramp up production by sending more people to chop down trees.
Tribios turned to Olivia beside her and said, "Keep only the men needed to tend the fields. Assign everyone else to lumbering."
To be honest, abandoning the fields entirely wouldn't matter at this point. Jay's daily timber sales alone could buy far more grain than the Grand Duchy of Augustus produced in a year.
But since half the crops had already been planted, abandoning them would be wasteful. Even if everyone obeyed such an order, it would undoubtedly leave them deeply resentful.
In game terms, it would severely lower civilian morale. After all, no one could be happy watching their crops wither and die.
Besides increasing timber production, the second priority was improving literacy. Tribios and Olivia couldn't personally manage every task. The nation needed some 'government officials' to assist with administrative work.
Thus, the dwarves who had previously conducted the population census were now tasked with teaching. Anyone who wanted to learn and had the time was welcome to attend, but with such a half-hearted directive, it was unlikely anyone would actually show up.
In the eyes of the people of this nation, knowing a few words was utterly useless. They'd rather chop down a tree and earn a fortune directly.
Left with no other choice, Tribios instructed Olivia to issue a firm decree: all minors aged 12-16 were prohibited from engaging in farming or logging and were required to attend daily classes.
Out of a population of two hundred thousand, only about three thousand children met these criteria. Of these, two thousand eight hundred were human, while the remaining two hundred were dwarves, beastmen, half-elves, and other races.
With one hundred teachers, each instructor would only need to teach an average of thirty students, which seemed manageable at first glance.
The problem, however, was that these dwarves had absolutely no teaching experience. Their lessons were often disjointed and incoherent, making the progress of instruction alarmingly slow.
Left with no other choice, Tribios had to step in personally. She taught a group of students herself while demonstrating proper teaching methods to the Dwarves.
During these classes, the Grand Duchy of Augustus, thanks to the earlier census, had identified several skilled individuals: two blacksmith Dwarves, a half-elf carpenter, and five exceptionally experienced Beastman hunters.
Tribios assigned them tasks accordingly. She allocated funds to the two Dwarves to build a blacksmith's workshop, kept the half-elf carpenter by her side to experiment with creating wooden artworks, and instructed the five hunters to form small teams and explore the five cardinal directions from Augustus, searching for other habitable lands and... mapping the territories.