Demon's Virtue

674  Improvements in the City of Monsters

Eiro flew around the Monster city, deeply inspecting every part of the circuit to make sure that everything was working correctly. And, to his delight, there were no issues anywhere at all. That being the case, it was fine to let everyone move back around the city as normal. Well, close to normal, at least.

Over the past few weeks, as Eiro was here regularly every couple of days, he made sure to help out where he could in regard to the management of the different monsters wandering around the city.

The trolls were already acting a lot better than they used to, the harpies were becoming more mindful of where they lived and did their business. Eiro also already ended up gathering a few slimes and spread them around the city, helping them multiply so that they could be used to keep everything clean from grime even in places that were hard for the monsters to reach.

Meanwhile, the Molemen already started with the canalization's construction, creating vast underground networks that some other mages only had to come and strengthen later on. Of course, these were all held completely separate to the Molemen's actual tunnels, of which a more refined construction also recently began, so that they didn't have to continue digging everywhere and could instead simply walk through the tunnels like everyone else did. This specific construction was, for now, focused more around the places where accidents could happen, such as right next to the sewers, so that the Molemen didn't accidentally dig into the pipes and damage them. Otherwise, they also made sure to avoid certain more fragile places, such as too close underneath certain buildings or too close by specific parts of the newly installed circuit.

For a while now, this city was growing and changing rapidly, as were the monsters living within it. They were becoming more civilized, learning to live alongside each other more. They spend more time with other races instead of just with their own, mingling and making friends. Eiro actually spotted a few of them mingling in ways beside friendship, though he would have to see where that went. He doubted it would cause any issues, but you never knew. Some of the combinations of monsters could cause... peculiar issues. For example, if a Moleman and a Troll had a child, it would be possible that the kid had all the habits of a Moleman, but the size of a Troll, which means the city would need to accomodate for that and expand the Moleman tunnels. Though luckily, any of these concerns were still quite a bit off in the future. Even if he was slightly excited to see the monsters truly living like this and enjoying the situation more and more as time went on. They settled in and began to develop some rather unique cultures.

Amongst all the monsters, there were of course quite a few that were talented in manners of 'creation', like craftmanship, art, or even academics, rather than manners of 'destruction' like combat-related talents. And due to those monsters' unique physiques, the environment they now lived in, and the fact that they were often taught by monsters with completely different physical limitations than them, a ton of interesting techniques were being created. The city's architecture was slowly changing and coming into its own, pieces of art were being created here and there, and there were a ton of monsters that were actively doing research into how to make it easier for them all to live alongside each other. Whether it was by learning each others' languages and teaching it to their fellow monsters, or helping out in the planning and development of the city. Everyone was getting involved, and it was only a matter of time until this place thrived far beyond what Eiro could have ever imagined. It made him happy and incredibly proud to see something like this happen. It all started with a minor gang of Mountain Goblins that he stumbled upon on accident after noticing a weirdly large amount of mana gathering near the mountain path.

Eiro landed in front of the city hall, stepping inside. The only ones who were currently here were Boju and Gobo, the ones in charge of all the planning for the city. The others had been assigned their own jobs in regard to this, helping out with construction or managing their group of monsters.

"My Lord," Gobo immediately walked up to the Demon, excited, "We noticed the shift in the air earlier. Did you finally activate the array?"

Eiro smiled proudly, "That I did. This city will be many, many times safer now. Not only will it be many, many times harder for others to find this place at all, if you do still end up attacked, you will be able to handle it much more easily than before."

"That is perfect! I've been reading through the instructions that you wrote down for us, Gobo and I were planning on taking a look at every sector of the circuit later. Do you want to join us?" Boju asked excitedly, though Eiro wasn't particularly sure if he was excited about the circuit or just happy to be getting a break from all the paperwork and reading that he dedicated himself to dealing with on his own.

"I'm sorry, I really, really have to get going now. I would love to join you, I just don't have the time. I need to prepare matters for classes at the academy, not to mention, I have to work on the circuit at said academy as well," Eiro said, trying not to let the two in front of him down too much. Though, they seemed to understand it without any issues.

"That old stag told me how much work the Academy is going to be, so I understand," Gobo pointed out, glancing out of the window at the perked up antlers of a certain deer waiting outside, "Ah... not you, Lugo... sorry."

Lugo slowly lowered his head again to continue napping, and Eiro walked toward the door, "No need to get back to sleep, bud. We're heading out anyway," he pointed out, looking back at Gobo and Boju again, "If anything is wrong, or you need my help with something, anything at all, contact me immediately. Even if you think you can handle it yourself. I do not want a repeat of the Cavern Ants, understood?"

"Yes, my Lord," Gobo said with an embarrassed nod, "We will let you know if anything happens from now on."

Eiro smiled as he climbed onto Lugo's back, lightening himself with gravity magic so that the stag didn't complain too much about the extra steel-weight Eiro gained earlier, "I'm not saying this because I don't believe you can handle it yourself. I know you can, and I trust you more than ever after seeing your success against the Cavern Ants. But fact is... there are forces at play here that even I cannot fully predict or face off against. If a powerful army is brought here, even if you end up winning, you won't come out of it unscathed. You all got your hands on some well-deserved peace as well as a chance at a new future for all monsterkind, and I don't want anything to jeopardize that."

"Thank you," Boju smiled at the Demon as he began to ride off on Lugo's back, as the Orc and Hobgoblin stood at the city hall's entrance, seeing their lord off. While he was here a lot lately, unless anything happened, it would probably take another few weeks for him to show up again.

Boju and Gobo already made a few plans for what they wanted to do to surprise Eiro while he was gone, to show that his efforts hadn't been wasted. They knew exactly what Eiro's plans and hopes for this city were, plans that they were more than just dedicated to live up to. Of course, that was easier said than done, but they knew they could manage it. The city was growing at a rapid pace, and they were no longer alone. There were a lot of smart and skilled monsters stepping up every single day, prepared to do their part.

The two waited for a while, until they could make sure that Eiro was completely out of reach. They had a rough idea of how far the Demon could hear at this point, and he should already be well around the foot of the mountain now.

"Alright, so what will we work on first?" Gobo asked the young Highland Orc next to him, who opened his notebook excitedly, "First, we'll expand the animal husbandry. The harpy scouts found some large poultry and cattle that we can bring in. The cattle apparently has thick wool, like sheep, that we can then can bring to the craftsmen to make clothes or light armor. Apparently the harpies even found some large freshwater fish, so those might be good for the Mermen to take care of."

"Okay, right, and then once we got a good amount of animals, you said we can work on the other industries, right?"

"Right," Boju nodded, "We can have the cattle pull wagons so that we can set up some lumbermills. Then we can start making ships, wagons and crates, supply our own wood for construction and expansion, as well as produce our own paper. That's one of the bigger things we're running low on, especially high-quality, clean paper for letters."

"And you say that all of that is enough?" Gobo asked, crossing his arms, uncertain, and Boju smiled with satisfaction, "Definitely. That is going to be our first stepping stone toward contact with the people of this world."

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