Chapter 157: Arrangments for planning the city (1/2)
”Yuck, everything so dirty,” Sitra said with disgust as she ran her finger through the brick wall of the first building she entered. ”Are you really not bothered by this, guys?” she asked while turning her head back to the rest of the group.
”Stop it,” Layn said without even looking at the girl. ”You are well aware that all those buildings were constructed in a hurry and just to satisfy the basic protection needs,” he pointed out before looking at Irea to his side. ”You did a great job at expanding the camp,” he patted his girl on the head before turning his head around and looking every member of the party in the eyes. ”You all did a great job,” he praised the group.
Before Layn went away, the camp consisted of measly two buildings. A shared lodging for the first pioneers and a kitchen area. And while the kitchen remained the most complicated building with its heat exchange system, the brick-burning plant wasn't that far off from being far more impressive.
But the main point of the comparison wasn't in the production plant but in the scale of the entire place. What used to be a field filled with tents through the day and just two buildings in the night turned into a proper settlement with a single house only required to house two people at once.
”Still, this won't do,” Sitra didn't show even a single hint of remorse after being schooled but fell into a deep thought instead. ”Now I know that the absolute priority will lay in bringing qualified personnel,” she suddenly announced.
”Wouldn't that be quite hard?” Layn asked, surprised by the notion. 'If I were to just roughly guess... Slavians should be somewhere in either late medieval or early modern level of development. Unless it's the latter, it might be nearly impossible to amass the numbers that I would like to have here,' Layn thought, not even daring to attempt calculating the exact required numbers.
”Dealing with the guild might be a pain in the ass, but as long as we get the King on our side, it should be a breeze,” Sitra replied, casually dropping a valuable piece of information. While others could consider this to be an innocent slip of a tongue, Layn knew better than that.
'It seems she is slowly starting to open up... Or rather, consider my group as allies, rather than just people to use and then trample on,' Layn thought, keenly observing every last twitch on Sitra's face.
”Can I make a request?” Layn asked, raising his eyes with a poorly hidden hope brimming in them.
”Do you want some whores or what?” Sitra replied with a question on her own, instantly raising her guard.
”That could come handy, but not yet and not just like that,” Layn shook his head before taking a glance at the rest of the group. While he was talking with Sitra, they already distributed the houses between themselves, leaving the most modern one to Layn and Irea while ceding two others to Sitra and her bodyguards. ”What I need are people with actual experience with managing the town. Only they will notice the problems with my plans with a single glance, as they are used to dealing with problems like that.”
”City planners?” Sitra asked in a half-assed voice, speaking to herself rather than actually posing the question. ”I'm not sure what you meant by that, but I can get any amount of governors and economs. Ever since our borders started burning, we lost a fair number of cities and villages to the enemy,” Sitra said, gently biting on her lips.
'Early modern period then,' Layn decided when noticing this small expression.
For people in the medieval and alike periods, the notion of patriotism didn't exist. The entire country structure was created just for the strong to exploit the weak in exchange for protection from other strong people. The creation of countries, duchies, and even cities was all dictated by this simple social hierarchy.
And in such a world, even the highest class at the very top of the entire country would lack the notion of love for said country. Not because they were some coldblooded and calculative people. While this part of living at the top had its weight, the crux of the problem laid in something far simpler.
With how the country was nothing more but an organized structure of influences and profits, they lacked the awareness that the country and the nation could be something greater. Sure, they valued their own culture and pride, but if anyone were to ask a random person on the street where do they belong to, they would reply with the name of the village, city, or maybe a province, but never a country itself.
'Since she has the national sentiments, as can be clearly seen in how distressed she was by mentioning her country's losses, there is no way for the Slavians to be still in the high medieval period,' Layn bit his lips as he concluded the analysis of this simple detail.
A simple detail that changed a lot with how he viewed the other party.
”That's great, but there is a question in this suggestion,” Layn added while raising his eyebrow, clearly anticipating the girl to figure out what he meant on her own.