"I do have one concern. Aoi, are you planning to feed the workers you hire? And if so, how?"
I sure was glad Ann had brought that up earlier. In my own world, the expectation was that employees brought their own food, and I was sure if I'd been put on the spot without preparation I would've just said that.
"We don't have enough food stockpiled in the labyrinth to feed more than the three of us, so I was hoping to buy additional food from the village. I was also hoping that I could hire some of the housewives in the village, both to transport and to prepare food for all the workers."
Suzu's symbiotic relationship with her surrounding community had led me to that conclusion. If my labyrinth could benefit everyone in the village, and they could all help me, that would be the best outcome. And I realized I'd already begun to make some progress in that area myself, with the way I provided health potions to the village and Deneb provided me with food. Though it wasn't like I was running some kind of charity. I got no donations, and no support or financing from the top. Hell, I was paying money out of my own pocket just to save my boss's skin!
"Ah, that's great! If you would do all that for us, then the village would be happy to support you. You've been such a boon to us, helping with your construction project is the least we can do."
And that was the moment the locals and the labyrinth manager joined forces. Though arguably it was more of a business deal than an alliance.
"Thank you very much. How many people can you spare?"
"Let me see. I think the most we could manage would be about thirty men and fifteen women. Any more than that and I fear we wouldn't be able to do everything necessary for the harvest."
So, 45 people, all told. He sure did come up with that number quickly. I was curious exactly who he had in mind, specifically what races they were and what they were good at. But 45 adults was nothing to scoff at regardless, especially for a tiny village like Milt. I certainly couldn't complain.
"Barry, do you think that will be enough?"
"That'd really depend on how big a project you have in mind, but with that many, I reckon we can do decent work. To be frank, any more than that and I don't think my old eyes could look after everyone properly."
Huh, so he had a cap on the number of people he could manage. I hadn't thought about it, but in retrospect it was obvious. It'd be one thing if all he'd had to do was bark instructions, but these were mostly inexperienced workers, so he'd have to show them the ropes and keep an eye out for accidents. If I wanted to do construction on any larger scale, I'd have to do like Suzu said and hire specialists.
"Negotiations sure are fun! Sharing what you have and making everyone's lives better is important, don't you think?"
While Mayor Hopper and Barry discussed who exactly we would be hiring for the construction work, Ann and I were having a chat. Ann had apparently gotten pretty excited watching me negotiating with each of them. Her enthusiasm was both reassuring and a little alarming.
Ever since I'd let her play that company management game, she'd been thinking about these things in game terms. Enterprise management games were a classic genre. The one I'd shown her had you giving detailed instructions to little franchise shops of your company to help them grow. But the bigger your conglomeration grew, the busier you got, leaving you unable to deal with the minutiae of every shop. At that point, you had to start working with middle managers, negotiating deals with them so you could solve higher-level problems. It was the perfect game for leveling up Ann's view of the world.
"When did you become such a smooth talker?!"
"Hey, Ann, that's unfair. It's not like I'm bad at negotiating or anything. I just wasn't familiar with how things worked around here."
"Is she wrong? To tell the truth, I share her doubts."
Even Mary expected me to be a bad negotiator?!
"Okay, seriously, both of you are being too hard on me. I just don't understand how things work around here, and I have no head for money, that's all. I happen to think I make an excellent labyrinth manager, thank you very much."
"Those both seem like excellent reasons to worry about you."
"...Actually, I can't argue with that."
"Now I feel kinda bad."
Then maybe you should've kept that thought to yourself!
"Um, I don't think you're dumb, Aoi! I rely on you!"
Aw, that gave me a little jab to the heart. Like, the painful kind, not the good kind. Just how much of a hopeless failure did Ann think I was?! No, wait, better not ask that. If she thought I was a lost cause, should I be happy that at least she still wanted to look out for a failure like me?
"Aoi, how much were you planning to pay the villagers?"
"Oh, hmm."
Tough question, especially given that, like I'd just mentioned, I was pretty bad with money. I'd kind of gotten a rough idea for a ballpark figure, but now she was asking for hard numbers.
"They'll be commuting from their village and doing physical labor all day. How much is that worth to them, and to you?"
"I was thinking four thousand DL for one day's work.
That would be a lot for a rural area like this. Right...?
"But Aoi, what about people who aren't super strong like the mayor? Will they still get paid the same?"
Ann yanked on my sleeve and suggested a concern I hadn't thought about before.
"Not everyone can be good at everything. For instance, it's not Aoi's fault he's a weakling."
Ugh. That smug grin on Mary's face was getting on my nerves.
"Will they get any days off?"
"Let's see. It'd be bad if they don't get enough rest, and just as bad if they get too much. I would like them to have the market day free, at least. It won't be much of a break, but it'd disrupt their normal lives too much to miss out on participating."
So, one day off per week? They had to get at least that much, since we couldn't very well take market day away from them. Milt didn't have a general store, so that was the only day the villagers had to barter for and purchase food. I was a bit concerned about the pay. 45 people at 4,000 DL per person came out to 180,000 DL per day. Tally up that much per day, six days a week, for three months, and it came out to a whopping 14 million DL. It was really hitting me that my daily expenses to support myself and Ann were a world apart from what it was going to cost me to build this labyrinth. I would've liked to economize, but if I didn't pay a fair wage, their motivation would drop and the quality of their work along with it. Not to mention, it would be bad for the villagers themselves. I really didn't have any good choices here.
There was this one MMORPG I played where I was the mayor's advisor in a vast, unexplored world. The game was called Harvest Rune, and the game's main hook was that you didn't just go out slaying dragons or whatever, you actually cleared out a spot in the wilderness and set up your house there, wherever you liked. Now sure, there were plenty of games where you could build a house, but in this one, natural events like snowstorms, floods, and monster attacks wore down whatever you built. Maintaining your house and your fence and whatnot was hard work! If you upgraded to a mayor's house and got approval from a majority of the players with houses in the area, you could become the mayor, incorporating all the surrounding structures into your jurisdiction. At that point, you'd set up tax rates and collect them, and then use the money to fend off threats, maintain roads, improve infrastructure, and so on. It certainly was a unique game.
So, anyway, I was the advisor to one of these players who'd made themselves a mayor. Doing the accounting, like figuring out what taxes were coming in and how much was being spent on various maintenance projects, turned out to be a nightmare. Add that to the monster invasions, not to mention actual combat and stuff, and it left both of us with our fair share of sleepless nights. I had one fond memory of both of us, bags under our eyes, asking ourselves if we were sure this was really a game, rather than our job, and then laughing our asses off. The village we operated grew to be a little over the middle of
the pack in overall ranking and was considered a medium-sized rural town in terms of development, and that was good enough for us. But I remember hearing a rumor about the highest-ranking players, who apparently took a different approach. Rather than raising taxes, they'd actually hire the town's residents themselves, paying them high wages to develop the area, maintain the town, and boost the economy.
If I was going to be paying for the labor on this project out of my own pocket, I wanted to hire the people of Milt so that I could improve their quality of life. Hiring a bunch of unknown workers from across the country just didn't sit right with me. That said, it wasn't like I could just give out money willy-nilly. I wouldn't have minded paying outrageously, if the only consequence were that I personally went bankrupt, but I had to plan for the future. I had to establish a reasonable rate now, in case I needed to hire them again sometime down the line. Figuring out what qualified as reasonable was easier said than done, though.
Well, if I was still agonizing over this, it was probably time to turn to my last resort.
"Ann, I want to pay the villagers an amount that they'll be content with. How much do you think I should pay them per day?"
I whispered my question to her. This was my secret weapon, which I'd dubbed "Teach me, Master Ann!" It was incredibly convenient and highly reliable, but if I resorted to this option too frequently, I felt like I was leaning on her too much, so I usually avoided it.
"Uh, hmm. Lessee. You said four thousand DL a day before, right? I think that's fine. You could go a little lower for the people making the food, but I think they'll be happy to all be paid the same."
Hmm. Well, it was true that slaving away on the construction all day was going to be a harder job than hauling, preparing, and serving food. That said, I wasn't offering a big pay raise for the construction workers, compared to what they would make working in the fields. Overpaying a little for the food prep would be my way of boosting the total amount that went to the village.
"Four thousand DL per person per day, whether doing construction or preparing food. What do you think?"
"I'm certain they'll be happy to hear that."
Mayor Hopper nodded with a gentle smile on his face. It seemed my offer was good enough. Ann watched with a proud grin as the mayor and I shook hands. Hmm. It seemed that when we were outside the labyrinth, our positions reversed.
◇
"I'll let Barry handle assigning tasks to the villagers."
I didn't feel I had a firm enough grasp on all the villagers' strengths and weaknesses yet---I didn't even know them all by name---so delegating that to Barry was the best course of action.
"Let's see now, let's see. The kobolds and dwarves should handle excavation, for starters. The ogres and giants are the strongest, so we'll ask them to do all the hauling. Lots of soil and wood to haul in construction. Say, you think you could hire a guard to escort the villagers what need to forage and lumber in the forest? I reckon the sound of chopping trees'll attract no end of monsters."
We'd need wood? Oh, to reinforce the passageways and rooms, I supposed. I was probably going to need proper tools for lumbering as well. And I'd have to take measures to protect the villagers from monsters while they were doing it. Good attention to detail there, Barry. He really knew his stuff.
"How many guards would you say we need?"
"We're talking about monsters here, so a few mercenaries with some experience hunting would do. If you can find three or four folks who can hold their ground rather than run away with their tail between their legs when they come face-to-face with a monster, that'll be that. You'll need double that if you've got nothing but beginners, though."
"If I can find skilled people, why do we still need so many of them? Four seems like a lot."
"Strong monsters don't show their ugly mugs too often, but you'll want to be prepared just in case one comes knocking on your door. It wouldn't be a pretty sight if one of the hired swords didn't make it back to their family. Getting everyone home alive is what matters most here."
Wow, wasn't expecting such a cautious answer. I guess people living out in the backwoods learned to be cautious.
"At any rate, it sounds like I can't use the folks Suzu was trying to recommend me, if we need reliable guards. Maybe I'll see if Fez can lend me a hand."
The truth was, I didn't have a whole lot of connections to leverage. Even setting aside the fact that I rarely ventured outside the labyrinth, there just weren't a lot of travelers who came to this remote region in the first place.
"Mayor, do you know when Fez is planning to be here next? Market day isn't too far off now, but that doesn't mean he'll show up."
Fez set up his wagon on the same day of the week, more often than not, but if it was raining or if he just couldn't put together enough of the right sort of stock, he wouldn't make the trip out and would show up the next day instead. The villagers were used to it, and would even defer holding the market day so he could appear. Compared to Japan, where everything and everyone ran on a tight schedule, it seemed like a rather loose way to run things, but I supposed it was a reasonable arrangement, for a fantasy world with limited transportation and distribution options.
"Ah, Fez? He stopped by not too long ago. He should be at his usual spot tomorrow."
Oh, he'd showed up early? Perfect timing.
◇
Fez's wagon was resting where it always did, near the village's north gate. The gray wolfman himself was there, loading and unloading goods.
"Long time no see, Fez."
"Aoi, my man. Been a while."
I put my hand up by way of greeting, and he put up his and gave me a high five. The two of us were about the same age, and we'd had something of a bonding experience on a battlefield not too long ago, after which we'd ended up on very good terms. I guess you'd say we were brothers in arms.
"Now, isn't this a colorful bunch. I had a hunch my lady knight here would end up with you."
Fez gave Mary a nod of greeting.
"I see you've met Mary already."
"Mister Fez helped me search for a job. I'm in his debt."
"Mm, yeah, I poked around a bit back in town, looking for a job for my lady knight, but I didn't have any luck."
Ah, so he'd been trying to help her out as well. I was curious to find out how that had happened, but I decided to leave it be. I didn't want Mary to dwell on her struggle to find a job.
"Yer a whole day early, if yer here for business. Can't imagine yer making social calls now."
"You guessed it. The thing is, I'm planning to extend the labyrinth, and we're going to need to do some work in the forest as part of that. I wanted to hire hunters to protect my workers, but I don't know any. I'm looking for professionals, the kind you can rely on even when the going gets tough. You know anybody who'd fit the bill?"
"My merchant senses are tingling, talking about that labyrinth expansion, but it's hunters ya need, eh? And reliable ones, too. Yer settin' the bar pretty high."
"I'll be asking them to escort the villagers, so I need people who can be trusted to treat them with respect, as well as to protect them."
Maybe it was an unusual request, but it didn't make sense to me to hire bodyguards who weren't going to be concerned for their charges.
"Do you know anyone?"
"Maaaan, part of me wants to tell ya that yer askin' too much here, but the truth is, I know just the folks. They're a skilled bunch, and they just wrapped up a contract. Now they're just sittin' around on their tails, bored to tears and wonderin' where their next paycheck is gonna come from."
"Huh. Is that a common problem for hunters?"
"Sorta, yeah. These folks, well, they used to roll with a seven-man crew, but first one of 'em retired to get married, and then a couple of 'em had kids and had to retire as well. Now there's only four of 'em left, so they can't take on the real dangerous jobs. Tough trade, huntin'."
"You sure do know a lot about this crew."
"'Course I do. I'm t
he one what got married!"
The hell, he's just trying to get me to hire his friends?! Well, actually, it was probably a good suggestion. Fez and I had been through a lot together, so I was inclined to trust him. He wouldn't try to dupe me into hiring a bunch of slackers. He was a bit sloppy in his new trade as a merchant, but having once been a skilled mercenary, he surely had a good eye for talent.
"How long you gonna hire 'em for?"
"The initial contract will be for three months. Depending on how things go, maybe three more."
I planned to finish the construction in three months, but as soon as it was fully operational, I'd be gathering hunters to challenge it. Once things were in full swing, I'd probably need a few additional guards, and if Fez's people proved trustworthy, it'd make sense to use them.
Strongest Gamer; Let's Play in Another World Volume 2 Page 12
