Chapter 169 - Setting firm foundations.

For the temporary Construction Workers, 50 Gold Coins a month per employee feels little no doubt, they have a lot more experience which would speak itself when it comes to figuring out a proper pay for them. But their food expenses here are covered, they are completely free! Apart from that proper benefit, their families are being well taken care off back at Pameres Kingdom. To be frank, anyone who was sent all the way up to this town, is considered a Hero. Apart from free food and lumber to burn being given to those families completely free until the Construction Workers return to their home Kingdom, their family's social statuses are also increased thanks to this event!

Gustav Iron is in charge of establishing the salaries. It wasn't a hassle for him, but it still wasn't his assigned and Contracted responsibility. Since he is only supposed to be dealing with managers to begin with, or with groups of Craftsmen at most until more managers are established. But someone has to do it and he sure has experience handling big coin more than anyone in this town.

Since there is one Blacksmith here, a forge is required to be build from scratch, well not exactly from scratch when you think about it. This is the trickiest task yet though, and requires the proper items and proper experienced person to build it. Luckily, the Blacksmith had everything he needed plus was assisted by a few townsfolk to build the town's first ever forge. Elderly people lended a hand mostly since of course they've seen more through life, they would need to be supervised a little less strictly and would sure prove useful.

When it comes to building a forge, there are a few key requirements to making it happen. The first of course is the circular base, that will hold the Coal in. In the middle of that circle there will be a ditch, specifically for the burned out coal to slip through and be replaced by new ones. The ditch is considered the most important part by some Blacksmiths in Pameres Kingdom while some argue for the Iron to be the most important.

Bellows is also a very important tool. It is used to blow air on the burning coal which of course speeds up the Iron melting process. The hearth of the forge is considered quite useful as well. It is where new bags of coal are dumped at while the old ones are slowly sent down the ditch in the middle and disposed off elsewhere. A metallic slide like plate stretching from the ditch and reaching a couple of feet out of the forge, helps the Blacksmiths to completely remove the burned out coal, bag it after it gets completely cooled down and throw it, commonly on nature. Medieval littering, nice.

Some additional tools would be Tongs to hold hot metal, swages to melt Iron into a liquid form at, Anvils used as a flat hard surface to hammer Iron on, and sharpening stones which are used for Weapons mainly. These additional tools were easy to provide by Zar, but the Forge here took all day to make even with so many volunteers.

As for new Employees, Gustav Iron couldn't be stingy with them if this town is to reach total independence, Iron is used for everything after all. Since there is an Experienced Blacksmith broughy here in Bale Town, he can take apprentices under his wing and teach them this valued craft. So 5 Farmers were converted into Blacksmiths, this is considered a great way of managing Employees since there are more than enough farmers already to cultivate plant and harvest a winter's worth of food each year. This town needs people with more perplexed Crafts (With all due respect to the hardworking Farmers of course.).

As for the salaries, the 5 new recruits are being paid 70 Gold Coins a month, with of course having food and lumber available for free. Since this town needs to be savvy with the overall budget, the experienced Blacksmith will also be paid 70 Gold Coins a month, food and lumber will be covered for both himself here and his family in Pameres Kingdom. It's a good living since food and lumber take most of the monthly salary, plus this project is where names are made. This little sacrifice now could lead to a far greater future, with someone as rewarding as King Zar, it is unpredictable.

The shelter problem being slowly solved, setting up a stable food source is an issue they should give a lot of importance to. It desperately needs to be fixed, food needs to be stocked instead of worrying about what they will eat tomorrow. Although King Zar willing to donate even more, he still has 24 hundred people to feed and he can't provide large free shimpents for Bale Town forever. Especially when Hundreds of Kilograms are involved.

So to fix the food situation, a team of Hunters has to be set. This town originally has 2 Hunters, since now they have proper Tools to Hunt, they can keep the town quite fed. 6 Hunters kept the food supply steadier in Pameres Kingdom where there are a lot more people to feed, but at Pameres Kingdom there are other food sources, imported foods more precisely.

So Bale town can't work based on Pameres Kingdom Standards considering the lack of employees and Income. Instead of leaving Bale Town with 3 Hunters only (Along with the one sent from Pameres Kingdom to train them.), three more recruits were hired. With 6 Hunters putting in work, and a portion of imported food coming from another Domain (At this case from Pameres Kingdom, to Aid this town.), Bale Town will reach a steady food supply in no time.

Take it into consideration, Wildboards are very common, 6 Hunters will be assigned to set traps on several places each. Now let's not think about big numbers, just take it that these 6 Hunters together would managed to bag 10 hunts and bring them to the town. If those 10 hunts are Wild Boars, it necessarily equals to a thousand Kilograms of meat. Such an amount can be stretched for a long while.

All that can be achieved with 10 hunts per week, imagine if that 10 turned into 15, or 20. After there is enough meat reserved for upcoming months, some of it can even be imported into other domains as a small profit. Gaster Kingdom would sure buy it since they mostly eat Fish meat and could use something new. When King Michael hears about this town's little revolution, he is sure to help them reach financial independence by buying their products.

As for the salaries, hunting can be generally dangerous and equally tiring as well. Because once a hunt is put down, it's the hunter's responsibility to bring the hunt down the town. It's not easy to drag a hundred kilogram hunt(Or more.) for an extensive period of time. So their salaries barely differ from the Blacksmiths, they will be earning 60 Gold Coins a month with food and lumber covered in both domains. With the new Hunting tools, the Hunting will surely prove to be a success instead of a risky waste of time and energy.

The governing team managed to bring this much order in a day to Bale Town. There were already many people working hard to improve this town. But there is a lot more to do with other groups of crafts which haven't been even successfully established yet!

The Construction Workers proved useful to turn lumber into around 200 pieces of fair quality Wooden Planks, with that many Planks into their advantage now, tomorrow most of them will be able to focus on improving the Housing on the Town, while less of them will work on generating more Planks! It's a lot of great progress for just a couple of days.

A few more tasks of which Gustav Iron will need to handle tomorrow (Specifically on day 3.), would be establishing different groups of Crafts! Let's take the Lumberjacks as an example, they are very useful yes. But for the town's Standards, there are too many of them. Many, of which can be put into use in another more profitable craft.

Sure they are useful now, considering that there is a lot of Lumber needed for Planks and to bring in burning lumber too. But what will happen after the houses are repaired and summer hits? These Lumberjacks would just walk around wasting time. Given their physical advantages that Lumberjacking grants over the years, Gustav Iron talked it out with Guard Commander Delrus Aze and found it reasonable to turn them into Guards as soon as possible!

With 44 other men who have no Craft but farming, why is Gustav Iron focusing on the Lumberjacks so much? Well, he will start working on the Farmers too. As far as he saw, the Town doesn't need more than 20 Farmers to work through the farming season in order to set a steady food supply. But since farming is seasonal, they will have to put in some other work throughout the winter.