Chapter 275 - Overpopulation?

There is a lot going on in the high mountains, there is absolutely no doubt about it. But what about the events going on in the lowlands? Well although progress has been steady on the triangle of Domains, they are even managing to pile up sack after sack of gold. However, something out of the usual tipped the bucket and got King Zar up on his feet, thankfully it wasn't anything bad.

May (The fifth month.) has recently struck and since many deliveries are handed and payment is recieved by the end of each month, a special letter arrived for King Zar from the King of Lav Kingdom himself and its contents indeed proved interesting.

As he opened the letter, it stated. "King Zar, I've come to you with an offer that will for sure benefit us both considering your set of attributes when it comes to business and for as far as I've been told, managing people. See, we have ran in a bit of an overpopulation problem, Zameria holds over 3 million people so of course such problems tend to become common considering the amount of big domains we in general have available, they are scarce.

However, we have tried to tame this overpopulation over the past three months by giving people jobs and housing to in exchange for tax. But the more we seem to provide, the more people appear in our Kingdom as if it was a sick joke by an over powered Wizard.

Well, humour aside. A portion of these people who are aiding this overpopulation, are homeless. They've came in Lav Kingdom from three towns higher in the mountains for a more stable life as much as my assistants told me, those towns are fairly big.

We gave jobs to those who have skill, most of which included Lumberjacks and clay sculptors. As for the rest they don't identify with an Official skill or experience which makes it hard to get them a job, the positions are already full and it would tend to mess with my Kingdom's economy if I hire more people than we need, we already have too many apprentices and not enough housing.

These homeless people count 247 at the moment but might increase if they figure out that a new life can be offered to them far out of the Continent, they are rather desperate. Word of warning, there are elderly and children who won't prove as help when it comes to running a business. My most favoured assistant did some calculations and these specific portion of people count as 24% all together, meaning there are exactly 49 elderlies and children all together who can't work.

It would be easy to just not include them, but that way their children and grand children wouldn't even set foot on the ship which will mess up all of this damage control. So I recommend you to take them all, because I think it would be easy for you to hire at least one of their children or grand children for that matter, and attain tax from the same house. It is a win no matter which way you put it, however some elderlies don't have children and can't work either. So I think you need to open your heart and accept them, I tried to do it here but there isn't a single available house.

I think this is a good opportunity for you as a King, your Continent in general suffers under population and I think they will prove useful to attain stronger defences, you mentioned a war earlier so this will just aid you further. If not in the battle field, you might need new apprentices on different crafts, may I suggest in Blacksmithery? The more gold you have the stronger your defences can be.

As for the Travel expenses, you don't need to worry about it. We will ship them all there, I think three sh.i.p.s would do it so the expenses for my domain are affordable. The only thing you need to worry about is to pick them up from the port and take them to your Kingdom, I can't help you with that part because I would need to transport over 30 Wagons there to do so.

Please get your answer ready for the captain to pick up by the next month, and hopefully we will get these homeless people there in the 7th month. If for some reason you can't afford to have these people in your domain, rest assured that I won't mind if you send them to another Domain. Just give them a place they can feel happy to call home."

As King Zar took a peek through this letter, he found its contents indeed interesting. "This isn't a deal for me." He spoke out as he read the two sided letter and got Seer a bit confused. King Zar never refused an offer from the Zamerians, this is rather unusual.

So he asked, "Why so? What did Lav Kingdom offer us this time?" Even as a personal assistant, if the letter is meant for the King he is educated enough not to open it. That at least proves that Seer deserves his position furthermore and his 500 gold pay as well.

"They say that there are 247 homeless people in their domain, they want to get those people here in Pameres Kingdom!" As he answered in a short detail, he started rubbing his forehead to think of an idea. Where exactly can he put 247 people to work on.

"We just fixed the overpopulation here in February, do we really need more people?" Specified Seer right away since he has been the closest to Maleesa and saw the employee count quite often.

"We don't. That's the problem, but it still isn't a bad idea to get them here in Ignis if not in my Kingdom!" King Zar instantly stated, they need as much people as possible if they wish to not be dominated from what's left of the ill.u.s.tratian Alliance who might or might not shoot desperate shots.

"How about King Michael? Sure they don't have many people employed but they still just have a bit over 300 people in total!"

"Indeed, grab a Messenger and make him send this letter to King Michael. Attach another one to it stating, "Just take it as he is talking about Gaster Kingdom and write me a Parchment back telling me what you think, we need to answer him in the next delivery."

"Will do Sire." Seer answered quickly, grabbed the long two sided parchment and reached for another parchment nearby to write what he has been ordered too.

As for housing it won't neccesarily prove troublesome, the second housing project has officially started over a couple of months ago and there are nearly 40 houses constructed with an aim of 100. They are located below the previously built houses, outside of the Kingdom walls standing on the right.

By the time when these homeless people arrive here, there would be enough houses to fit them all and even have nearly half of the houses to spare. So housing isn't a problem at all, what is an issue is the rate of unemployment the Kingdom would face if 247 more people will arrive in town, 198 of which can become apprentices!

Through some calculations a couple of days ago, they figured out that Pameres Kingdom has already hired over 500 people, even though most of them are male it is still a huge number. But where does the problem stand? Well after setting the elderlies and children aside, there still are 1,000 unemployed people in this Kingdom.

Sure no one would starve to death since each and every house is paying a monthly tax, which neccesarily means that there is at least one individual in each house that brings gold home but the unemployment rate is still large.

He would put more of them in the army since they require their defences to become indomitable without a Fire Controller present, but now the Guards/Soldiers aren't paid with free food but gold instead.

The Army is already eating up over 20,000 Gold Coins each month, if Pameres Kingdom so much as doubles their Guard/Soldier count they won't even be able to break even. They would start losing gold, it would be a bad idea considering that they just managed to gain a total of 220,000 so far. Pameres Kingdom would have a lot more but it did raise the triangle of domains in their feet and the Weaponry costed a hell lot as specified on Volume 4.

"Ready?" Asked King Zar after a minute, becoming a bit impatient and wanting this task to be over with asap even though they have a month's time to figure this all out. Well considering the travel distance they can get all of this done and still have a week of time.

"Ready Sire. I'll get our most skilled Horseman so we can get this task done with before the deadline."