The next day, Lark gathered the officials of Blackstone Town inside the mansion. Several people sat in the room. A medium?sized map of the region was plastered on the wall.
Lark looked at all the people gathered.
The officer in charge of the Southern District, including the livestock and the umami salts—Pico.
The head mason of Blackstone Town and the officer in charge of the Eastern District—Silver Claw.
The head of the farmers—Oliver.
The head miner—Cooper.
The so?called scholar and current teacher of the soldiers—Melody.
The captain of the Blackstone Soldiers—Qarat.
And finally, Lark's butler—Gaston.
These men had been supporting Blackstone Town for almost a year now, and they had continued to do so even after Lark left for the war.
Although not everyone was talented, they all held the best interest of the town in mind. Lark was sure of this.
Lark cleared his throat. "First, I'd like to thank everyone for managing the town while I was away. I've already been briefed by Gaston beforehand regarding the developments the town underwent during my absence."
The butler nodded at the young master's words.
"I gathered all of you here today for several reasons," said Lark. "First, to hear your reports, the status regarding your assigned regions. Second, to make some important announcements, particularly about the direction Blackstone Town is going to take in the future. And third, to allocate an appropriate budget to each department."
Lark looked at the dark?skinned man across the room. "First, let's hear from the Southern District."
Pico was obviously terrified of the idea of giving a status report before everyone. He stuttered, "A?After the snow melted, we planted more Loi Plants as planned. C?Currently, we're able to produce around half a kilo of umami salt each day. Just like the Young Master said, it's possible to store the salt for months, as long as it's kept away from insects and bugs."
Spices were expensive in this era and the price of ordinary salt was high. It was no wonder that even in major cities, the food seemed bland compared to that served back in the Magic Empire.
"I've already spoken with a few local seamstresses," said Lark. "We'll pack the salt into smaller bags. The supply is limited, so we'll aim for higher prices by using exquisite packaging aimed to attract the nobility and by advertising it as a limited item. Judging by the food in Lion City and the capital, I'm confident that umami salt will become a big hit once introduced to the local market."
Pico gained more confidence upon hearing the young master's words.
He hadn't expected the umami salt to hold this much significance in their acquisition of funds.
"The Poultry Farm?" said Lark Pico cleared his throat. "We finished the construction of the coops two months ago. The device introduced by the young master was simply amazing. We've been hatching almost a hundred eggs each day and even after selling the chickens to our local market, there are still enough to export to Lion City."
"Good work." Lark nodded. He looked at everyone in the room and said, "I'm sure all of you are aware of this already—our priority is the local market, the market of Blackstone Town. The nearby territories are secondary. This is especially true now that we're getting an influx of immigrants from the city and the other towns and villages in the nearby territories. Our people are our greatest asset in developing this town, and to retain them, we'll have to make sure there's ample and affordable food in the local market."
"Yes, Young Master?" the officers replied.
Lark looked at the document he held in his hand. He spoke to the head mason, "Silver Claw. I've seen the newly built tavern in the Central Plaza.
Impressive as always."
Silver Claw smiled. "Thank you, Young Master. The second floor's an inn, catered to travelers. With Blackstone Town's current growth, there's no doubt that people will come flocking in the future. We already have several travelers coming from Lion City. The tavern and inn have been generating a steady flow of income these past few weeks."
Lark pointed at an area on the map, at the Eastern District of Blackstone Town.
"Now that the library's been finished, I plan on building a small school next to it," said Lark. "Two stories tall, three rooms each floor. We'll be conducting classes there, so each room should be large enough to accommodate at least a hundred people at once."
Silver Claw rubbed his chin and nodded in understanding. "I see. So this is the reason the Young Lord insisted on leaving the plot of land next to the library vacant."
"For now, building the school will be your top priority," said Lark.
"How soon can you finish this task?"
"We've managed to hire more workers lately, due to the sudden influx of immigrants. It should be possible to finish it in a month. Maybe less than that."
"Perfect," said Lark. "Next, Melody."
The so?called Scholar eagerly replied, "Yes?"
"Starting today, every night, you are to come to the mansion and learn Arithmetic and Language from me. I know you've already been studying them using the books I gave you before, but there might be a bottleneck.
There's a limit when learning everything on your own. I also bought several books from the capital. History, Theology, Agriculture, and Geography. I don't believe there's a conflict with the law if we were to mass reproduce these books in Blackstone Town and use them in our curriculum."
Books were considered expensive commodities in this era. Copying already written books and mass producing them using the tools on the third floor of the library would greatly reduce their expenses. Thankfully, there was no law prohibiting the reproduction of books in this Kingdom.
Lark looked at everyone in the room. "The night lessons apply to everyone else in this room, apart from the head mason. All of you are to come to the mansion each night and learn how to read and write. I will also teach you basic arithmetic afterward. We'll continue doing this until I've taught you the basics. Understood?"
The other officers were surprised that they were also included in this, but they nodded their heads regardless.
"Yes, Young Master?"
"The school will become Melody's battleground. You'll be tasked to teach the citizens of Blackstone Town," said Lark. "This time not just the soldiers, even the serfs, the servants, the miners, the farmers. All of them, regardless of rank and status."
Melody felt the heavy weight of responsibility on her shoulders, but she did not back down. For some reason, she found joy in teaching other people. She always came home feeling fulfilled after teaching the soldiers the basics of reading and writing.
"We'll try to find assistants for Melody later on, but with the Kingdom's current level of education, we'll have to settle for what we have for now."
Lark turned toward the middle?aged man sitting next to Pico.
"Oliver."
Unlike Pico, Oliver seemed unperturbed upon the mention of his name.
He bobbed his head and began his report. "We started the harvest last week.
A surprisingly abundant harvest, considering the fact that the Northern Land was considered to be nonarable for the past several years."
Oliver grinned. "I'm not sure if the Young Master has seen it, but the unending gold and green is amazing? I've never seen such a vast wheat field? We've been harvesting so much wheat that we're almost close to filling the entire granary? With this, our people will no longer have to fear dying of hunger during winter?"
Oliver's last words had a great impact on the officers. Just a year ago, several people died from hunger and the cold. But after all these reformations, it seemed that such things would now become distant memories. They would no longer fear the coming of winter.
After Oliver, the head miner gave his report. According to him, they'd managed to uncover two more areas in the mine, and it seemed that the seventh area was by far the largest one so far. The only downside was it was way too deep underground and, with the lack of flowing air, the miners were at risk of dying from asphyxia.
Until they managed to find a way to solve this problem, Lark decided that mining would be limited to the sixth area of the cavern.
Captain Qarat also gave a brief report regarding the status of the soldiers. Although they'd lost a lot of their men during the war with the Empire, over a hundred new recruits had joined their ranks. It seemed that the soldiers who'd joined the war with the Empire were now being revered by the new recruits. The first day the veterans returned to the town, the recruits started asking them to tell stories about the war during their free time.
Lark found it amusing that the soldiers—who couldn't even kill mere goblins several months ago—were now considered war veterans by the new recruits. Well, their skills had indeed increased a lot since then. Lark was even confident that they wouldn't lose to the soldiers of Lion City.
Surviving the war with the Empire was also a tremendous feat by itself, and Lark had no intention of dismissing the achievements of his soldiers.
After everyone had given their reports. Lark discussed the direction Blackstone Town was going to take. Mainly, he discussed the projects he had formulated during his absence. After earning a hefty sum from the war, he now had enough funds to support several concurrent projects in Blackstone Town.
He also started allocating the budget for each department. Silver Claw was especially stunned after his department received a thousand gold coins, meant for building a watermill and a waterway connected to the town, and for the development of residences and school in the Eastern District.
*** After meeting the officials of Blackstone Town, Lark went straight toward the underground chamber of the mansion. Just like before, a putrid stench assaulted him the moment he opened the metallic door. For a moment, he wondered how the servants managed to store all the monster corpses here.
Lark cast his spell and a translucent bubble formed around his head, preventing the stench from assaulting his nose any further. He breathed a sigh of relief.
"The smell will go up and fill the entire mansion at this rate," he said after shutting the door. "I need to finish this quickly."
Lark cast an orb of light and willed it to hover up, lighting up the entire chamber, revealing the mountain of corpses filling up almost half of the room. Most of them were the same gorilla?frog monsters he encountered back then. He spotted several peculiar ones, like the humanoid lizards and the monsters resembling a flying fish. It seemed that there was a variety of monsters living in the lake.
Lark grabbed the ormatane and gold dust sitting in the corner of the room and started drawing magic circles on the ground. After he was done, he placed the iron ingots at the center of the magic formation and started pouring his mana into the runes, activating the spell.
The iron ingots melted and slowly formed a distinct shape.
Since there was no longer a need to consider appearances, Lark decided to create the Blackstone Knights using the same design he used with the basilisks: Humanoid with a slender body, prioritizing performance over appearance. The arms had three joints instead of two, reaching all the way to the foot. The fingers were thin and designed to be capable of performing complex tasks.
It looked like a monster used to scare unruly children. But since his subjects had gotten used to these living suits of armor, producing more of them shouldn't be much of a problem.
Lark looked at the monster corpses filling half the room. A long time had passed since they'd been stored here. He was sure that most of them had already lost their essence, rendering them unusable in the ritual. He just had to make do with the monster corpses whose essences were still intact.
Lark kept creating living humanoid armors one after another.
Thankfully, his mana pool had been greatly expanded and he still had excess left, even after creating more than a dozen of them. He dedicated the entire day to make the bodies until his mana pool was wrung dry.
Two days afterwards, after replenishing his mana reserves, Lark proceeded with attaching the monsters' essences into the humanoid bodies.
Just as he expected, more than half of the corpses were no longer usable in the ritual, and he ended up only making twenty new Blackstone Knights as a result.
There were still several humanoid bodies left. Lark decided to use them later, once the next batch of monster corpses was delivered from Lion City. Twenty new Blackstone Knights were fewer than the original plan, but he had to make do with them for now.