After Wesley sent his letter to Leonin, he sat waiting in his home for nearly an hour before receiving a response. Apparently, there had been a team dispatched just a few days after Wesley had left to visit Corvath. However, for some reason, they never made it to our settlement.
Until now, the guild hadn’t been sure if the team had been attacked or simply busy, but there had been no response to any letters that they had sent to the team’s leader asking for an update. Now, it seemed that they had gone missing for some reason, whether it was bandits or a monster. Moreover, there had been at least two other groups that had left the northern gate of Leonin since that team had gone missing.
When Wesley read this, he narrowed his eyes in frustration. Now that the guild understood that there was a problem somewhere between Leonin and the settlement, he was worried if he would need to personally investigate right after he had made it back. However, another letter came in, saying that they had sent a request for an A-ranked adventurer to handle the task.
Seeing this, Wesley breathed out a sigh of relief. An A-ranked adventurer would surely be able to handle whatever had happened, unless a true calamity had struck. Just to be safe, he asked when the adventurer was expected to pass through, so that he would be able to greet them and ensure that their presence was properly noted.
Naturally, I was watching through his eyes, curious about who this powerful adventurer would be. Unfortunately, it’ll still be another two weeks before they arrive at the earliest…
Still, there was nothing that could be done about it. On the bright side, the increased population meant that the daily income had gone up from just fourteen points to twenty-six. So, after just four days, I had once again hit my point cap.
Originally, I had been preparing to buy another plot of land, going through this process until something new appeared. However, there was already a new option there. Although it wasn’t the farm, it was something else that Wesley and I quickly agreed was necessary, the Lord’s Manor.
T1 Lord's Manor
100C
Creates a large residence for the Land, as well as a free avatar customized to their choosing. Prevents others from attuning to the Land.
With this, I no longer needed to worry about shady merchants or greedy adventurers trying to take control of me, because it would not be possible to attune to the Land anymore. In addition, if it was a large residence, it would probably have enough room for Prim and Lesley to live there.
As soon as I purchased the manor, I was shocked by how big it really was. There was barely enough space for it in my first plot of land, a full thirty meters wide and twenty-five deep. In addition, it had three floors, making it by far the biggest building in the entire settlement.
Once the manor was in place, I felt a tug at my mind, pulling me towards the avatar designer. Unlike when I made Lesley or Prim, I was not given the chance to add in extra skills or stats. My only options were for the race, gender, and customizing the appearance.
For race and gender, I naturally went with a human male. However, when it came to appearance, I wasn’t entirely sure. The default appearance matched how I used to look back on Earth, but… if I had the chance to change how I looked, wouldn’t anyone want to do a little bit of tweaking here and there?
Call me vain if you want, but I’d rather be handsome than look like a pasty, chronically tired nerd who hasn’t seen sunlight in years. With that said, it was time for… character creation!
“What’s taking so long?” Wesley asked in concern, standing before the closed doors of the Lord’s Manor. Currently, the doors were locked, and Prim had told him that the Land was creating a body for itself. However, the process of doing so was taking far longer than when Prim or Lesley had been created. The source of this chapter is novelping.com.
It had already been more than an hour since the manor appeared, with Wesley curious what other features it might hold. Unfortunately, the doors wouldn’t open until the creation of the Land’s body had been completed. “Maybe there was a complication when transferring his mind into a normal body?” Wesley thought aloud in worry, but Prim simply shook her head wordlessly.
Finally, after nearly another hour had passed, the doors of the manor opened, and a figure in a black suit stepped out. His hair was blonde, neatly combed back and with striking red eyes. His features seemed almost chiseled, and his frame was slim yet with an underlying tone of muscle.
When Wesley saw this, he cleared his throat, looking over and quietly asking Prim. “Did it take so long because he was trying to decide how to look…?”
Prim didn’t answer, simply turning to face in another direction. Though, that in itself was all the confirmation that Wesley needed. He let out a low sigh, turning to face the embodiment of the Land. “I believe that this is the first time that we have met face to face. What exactly should I call you, sir?”
The Land paused briefly, seeming to consider it, before lightly shrugging his shoulders. “You can call me Cain. That was my name back on Earth, and I’d rather not have to worry about getting used to a new name…”
“Cain it is, then,” Wesley answered warmly. “It’s nice to meet you, Cain. With your permission, can I see if the manor has any other features?”
“It does, actually,” Cain answered, catching Wesley by surprise. “There is an option to hire people for it, but… it’s the same Management skill as the treasury, so you would have to choose which job you wanted.”
Wesley’s shoulders slumped at that. “I don’t suppose there was a suitable replacement for me among the new people I brought in before?”
Cain closed his eyes, his body going still. “There are a couple with the Management skill, but they’re all at level one.”
The elf grunted when he heard this. “In that case, I’d like to work at the manor for now. At least until we figure out what the features it offers are. If it’s not something that would be beneficial to have permanently active, I’ll go back to working at the treasury.”
Cain nodded his head in agreement, and Wesley saw the window appearing in front of him, informing him that he had been fired from the treasury. As soon as he stepped into the manor, a new job window appeared, inviting him to accept the job of ‘City Planner’.
Curious, he accepted the position, finding an office for the job on the first floor of the building. Within that office, he had the option to pay points to rearrange buildings within the domain. Of course, since the manor had just been purchased, there were currently no points free to spend.
When Wesley saw what the features of the manor were, he shook his head, opting to return to the treasury. There was no pressing need to rearrange anything in the territory, but there could always be a reason to be available in case a currency exchange was needed.
While Wesley was exploring the features of the manor, I walked around the town, introducing myself to the various residents with a smile on my face. That said, despite smiling, I found myself extremely disappointed with this avatar.
The problem was not with how the avatar looked, as I had spent quite a while getting the appearance I wanted just right. Nor was it that the avatar had no exceptional abilities, such as enhanced stats or useful skills.
The problem was that the avatar was just a puppet that I piloted like a video game character. I could see, hear, and feel through it, but there was no sensation of taste or smell. Half of my consciousness was used to pilot the avatar, but it served no real purpose other than as a symbol to communicate with people. Get faster updates on novelping.com.
This left me immensely disappointed, as I had been looking forward to trying the food in the tavern. Even when I had been brought over to this world, it was when I was hungry. Though that sensation faded when I lost my stomach, the idea of it still lingered in my mind. The desire to eat a good meal was one that anyone could understand.
Maybe the second tier of the manor will have an upgraded avatar, I thought to myself hopefully. That said, I had no idea when I would be able to start accessing the second tier of buildings. At the very least, it would certainly not be until after I had broken my current point cap.
As an experiment, I walked towards the road, curious to see if I was bound by the same restriction as Prim and Lesley. I expected to find an invisible wall around the border of my territory, something solid that prevented me from leaving.
Instead, I reached out, feeling nothing but air in the place where Prim encountered a solid wall. Emboldened, I took a step forward, only for my avatar’s vision to go dark for a moment. Immediately after, I found my avatar back in the manor, grumbling in discontent.
I could understand if there was a wall like with the others, but why did my avatar just respawn instead? Did that mean that it was possible for me to leave, I just hadn’t unlocked the right method? Or was it just that there was no reason for me to hit a wall in the first place, since my avatar could only exist in an area covered by my territory.
Regardless of which one the answer was, it irritated me that the avatar was not as convenient as anything else that had been purchased with my points.
After this experience, I spent most of my time in the manor, only going out now and then to interact with the citizens of my territory. After a few days, my points had reached one hundred yet again, but there were no new options. So, I purchased another plot of land and waited.
This cycle repeated a few more times, until I had a grand total of five plots of land, three of them completely unused. Then, as I was preparing to purchase a sixth plot, I spotted a new option, a farm. Finally, a reliable way for us to handle food without constantly sinking money into the tavern. Even Wesley must have been feeling the financial burden at this point.
When I purchased the farm, it treated it like purchasing an entire new plot of land, with the farm itself being a full hectare in size. Granted, one hectare was actually a pretty small farm to feed an entire settlement, but its description indicated that its growth rate was accelerated.
I placed the farm down in the plot that I had been planning to purchase next, and was given three choices of crop production. First, Manual Planting would allow the residents to plant any seeds that they had on hand, and those seeds would grow in the farm at ten times the normal speed. This was the only method of the three that did not cost points.
Secondly, there was Designated Planting, which allowed me to choose a specific crop from a catalogue of options, and the price would be determined by the specific crop that I chose. Unfortunately for me, I had no points to even see any of the options in the catalogue.
The final option was Random Planting, which was described as a lottery of all of the plants in the catalogue, plus a few extras. This cost ten points for a single spin, which I could not currently afford. I also didn’t want to ask Wesley to invest ten gold coins in what would essentially be gambling with the village’s food.
In another day, I should have enough points to buy a second farm and open the catalogue. If I don’t see anything I like there, I’ll try the lottery. For now, let’s just have them manually plant. I know that some of the people brought bags of seeds with them, and were planning to set up their own farms soon anyways.