Chapter 2015: Metteo Town’s Situation (Part 1)

The next day, the two woke up midday, embracing each other. They decided to use the remaining day before heading out to explore the place a bit more.

They only went to a few streets before, after all, and a town in this world—especially a level 2 one—was not small. If one compared sizes to Terran’s, the size would be a small city already.

One of the things to study in a new place would always be the resources. Towns could become towns because of prestige, and it was mostly attributed to both military and economic strength.

The fact that Metteo was the only town in the immediate area said a lot about its development. 𝑓𝘳𝘦𝑒𝑤𝑒𝘣𝘯ℴ𝘷𝘦𝓁.𝑐𝑜𝑚

Resources were finite, especially in a place like this, and to grow this big meant that they had—at some point—managed to monopolize a good portion of it.

One, they had probably secured the nearby forests, even if they weren’t as lush as those far from the desert. Rather, because the forests here were not as lush, they naturally had to occupy far more land area than the more fertile territories.

Another, there was an underground water source tapped.

For basic resources like water, there were system wells available for everyone, but there could only be so many built. Each territory could only build a few, increasing by a bit every expansion. The water itself was also not unlimited. They would need time to regenerate.

For a place with less moisture and high temperature, the need for water was higher, and what would be an ample amount of wells might not be enough here.

And it so happened that each water source was heavily controlled by the leading party.

Alterra had this too, but the difference was that the charges for getting a gallon of water were at least 10 times more than what most territories charged.

From what Althea knew, regardless of where one was, the cost to the Lord was the same.

Other than the wells, the main party also controlled the lone natural water source, which was a deep aquifer, and they also controlled the access outside of the territory.

Apparently, the source was located a few kilometers away from the wall and was discovered by other citizens unrelated to the Lord. They hid it for years, which allowed a group of people to survive well without having to be so dependent on the Lord’s party.

They simply took the water in their space and filled up their own private tanks. It started with a group of people and their families, expanding to a few trusted friends and relatives through the years.

But how could something like that be kept secret for long? As more and more people knew about it, the news eventually reached the Lord’s ears. Even if it were outside the territory, the Lord believed he had claims in all surrounding land, and was therefore offended by the ’rebellious’ act of hoarding.

When it was found out, that group was massacred.

That water source was then taken over by the Lord’s party, and the people had to pay the same exorbitant amount.

Of course, any noble aligned with the Lord’s party could have some access to the water sources, and this was the main source of power of the Lord.

As for food, it wasn’t much better than many villages in the fertile area. In lusher territories, even if people couldn’t afford the restaurant food, they could go to forage in the forest or hunt beasts.

Here, not only was the forest not as rich, a good portion of the beasts attacking came from the desert areas. This meant that a portion of the attackers were either Undead or poisonous monsters like the Purplescorpion, and none of those could be eaten safely.

The skewers they had the previous day were more expensive than the restaurant, but the restaurant wasn’t cheap either, especially when they asked around and found out how much the average person made.

Many people who could not go out to fight would only be able to afford restaurant bread after they worked their backs for a whole day inside the territory.

Speaking of System Restaurant, it really was one of Holt’s entries to the [Sanctum of Constructs], though their charging was definitely not as high as most territories show.

The [Basic Restaurant] was the most basic food, using one of the universally common crop, the Flute Plant, as base material. Such a magical effect as automatically making food without a person naturally had its limitations, too, and one of these was that the number of recipes a construct could actually learn.

Even if the basic restaurant could only create one type of food, it could also create more edible content than others for the same amount of raw material. A single bread could really fill the stomach for a day, which was why it remained valuable despite not tasting very good.

In many cases, like in disasters and beast mob attacks, the people’s only food source could be the Restaurant.

Knowing this, many Lords, including this place, added a lot of mark-up, forcing people to work extra hard for a few bites to eat.

Of course, as always, this only applied to the lower class. In fact, the place also had another resource, spices, but those were made available only to the elite.

A third of their farms were dedicated to these plants, and there would barely be a trickle leaking out to the market. Even if there were, they would be insanely expensive.

Through Josef, they found out that they had a spicy powder and a spice that tasted a lot like cumin.

Alterra had alternatives to these, but she was still interested in getting copies of the plants. Unfortunately, they were highly controlled, and she could not yet access the seeds. At best, she could obtain a small packet from Josef to study.

She was also planning on studying them more to figure out if they had other uses.

Even if it were just for the taste, it would be no loss to dedicate a farm or two for them (assuming she could get the seeds). Her people would probably be able to whip up a new dish or two.

Of course, these things were an issue for later. They still had a mission to finish, after all.