The World Dragon's Heir

Chapter 748: First Census

"I have the report from the Malton Knights. They’ve finished the Kinewen Provincial census for this rotation. The numbers aren’t impressive, and there is only one major road that even runs through the Province at this point, with no major city.

However, we’re up to fifty villages of Trolls in the western region. The old Barony at Skipton River should count as a proper town now, as they counted a thousand people in the immediate vicinity.

However, as you were already aware, the old Baron and his family are dead.

The current village leader appears to be half Giant, standing over three metres tall, but not a troll. The first impression was that it might be a tribal warlord, but he invited the Knight Commander in for tea, and the order found no signs that the town was being coerced to remain.

In short, it’s mostly empty where it’s not claimed by Trolls between Skipton River and the Axbridge border. But there are no shortages reported. They have embraced nature magic all over the Province, to an extent even higher than Stansia Province."

"Well, that is unexpected. But if they’re willing to integrate with the Trolls, there is hope for the whole region to recover.

The Province might not look like it used to, but it used to rely on one massive city to sustain everything. Now, it’s a Province in name only, more of the rural region of Stansia Province, as all the major cities are on this side of the line.

I doubt that we will have any major issues with them, but if we can make plans to at least establish a road through the region, that would be good.

Speaking of which, how is the infrastructure development going?"

"We’ve got roads through to every Barony house now. Some of the Knightly manors are set on hills or other locations where a lane way to a road was better. They’ve started on the road to Lympsbury now, following the standard pattern.

Six metres wide, stone block surface with a gravel base for drainage.

From early reports, the rubber tires on the new vehicles are much easier on the road than the old banded metal wheels were, so we should see longer replacement times for the top stones."

Not that the stones were actually replaced. The ones under the ruts were simply cycled and flipped when they got too worn. At least, that was the process when you couldn’t just send a magitech roadwork machine down the road behind a tractor and fix all the ruts.

"Perfect. Being known for having the good roads is going to be a great advantage."

Blackwell nodded. "The King also has a team using the new road machines, working their way here from Castle City. They should be here within the month, following the populated villages in the border region.

I suspect that might be an effort by either the Lord Castle, or Lord Darden.

We had expected that the roadwork machines would have been used to repair roads damaged by war, but they have been sent to build a main road between us and the inland cities instead.

That will integrate Wistover into the rest of the Cygnian merchant routes.

Four hundred kilometres by truck isn’t so far. Not with the new trucks. Once that road is finished, caravans will be able to make it from Wistover to Castle City in only a couple of days if they don’t stop for deliveries. Four at the most, except in the wet season, when the road might be flooded.

That will reduce the demand for airship deliveries within Cygnia.

Which is likely a good thing.

The Merchant’s Guild has three steady routes now, going between the major cities in different directions. But that’s only a tiny fraction of what needs to move between cities.

There is just one more item on the list. The Mayor of Castle has sent an invitation to his Son’s coming of age event. It also happens to be two days before the birthday of both Earl Totbu, and Count Maltondon.

Those two Nobles currently reside in Castle City, and have expressed a desire to thank you in person for all the work that Wistover did to keep their people fed during the aftermath of the war.

I’m informed by my people that Castle City is in fine shape these days, and they’ve even upgraded the slums to be somewhat presentable."

Dominic nodded. "I should go see the neighbours, I suppose. Do we have another roadwork team available? I could send them toward the team starting from Castle."

Lord Blackwell shook his head. "No, they’re all fully occupied. The infrastructure team is focused on the road projects they’ve already got and the storage buildings all the Knights and Barons need.

They underestimated the storage capacity needed, and now they’re rushing to get enough built before next harvest.

On a related note, Merchant Rill has requested that I find a polite way to inform you that the Merchant Guild is not the Wistover Crop disposal company. I believe that he’s feeling the stress of trying to requisition enough caravans to move goods for us."

Dominic laughed. It wasn’t just the amount that they were moving. It was that the mages were charging them an exorbitant rate to send the caravans anywhere but the five locations that they had finished portal arrays at.

The mages had full control of the rates, as any of the mages who had the power to make a portal that large were normally in positions that made them fantastically wealthy.

Asking them to do grunt work, like keeping a portal open for twelve straight hours, required a large bribe of some sort. They weren’t short on money, but that was what the Guild had the most of as well.

However, they were also the source of the most valuable goods the Guild had to trade.

It left the merchants in a bit of a tight spot, and there were hundreds of towns and villages to cover that didn’t have a portal array, but still needed entire caravans of trade goods that Wistover produced.