Chapter 23: Chapter 23 - Opportunities For Growth

Even Daniel seemed surprised by the outcome.

You need to keep in mind that the last time he wanted to make suggestions, it didn’t go quite as planned.

"Really?" Daniel asked.

"Yes, any chance we can get to improve Lofie village needs to be taken," Worick nodded.

"Okay, well let’s start with the ownership of land." Daniel began.

"If anyone can just build whatever they want wherever they want, whenever they want, there is no control in the growth of the village, and in the end you’ll have a hodge podge of a village that makes certain important functions almost impossible to implement."

"Important functions?" Worick asked.

"Yes, two of which are the delivery of emergency services, and the defense of the village." Daniel nodded.

"And then there is the problem of land acquisition, and that no one owns the empty plots of land, which means that anyone can simply start building there." Daniel continued.

"The problem with that also links up with the first, and then also that if the village were to sell that land to whoever wants to build there, not only would it give the village the funds to improve other functions, but also prevent the problem I listed earlier."

It seemed like Daniel was starting to get completely lost in his thoughts.

"The governance structure you have might seem perfect in its freedom and taxes to your citizens, but there are a lot of problems with it."

"The largest and most immediate problem would be the defense of the village."

"If you had any sort of taxes, or other way of making money for the village as a whole, you would be able to have a standing guard, or small military force, which would have made defending yourselves from that tiger a lot easier."

I could see that Worick wanted to find a way to get a word in, but Daniel was on a roll now, and he didn’t even notice Worick trying to say something.

"Then there is the problem with infrastructure," Daniel simply continued.

"With more money for the village, it would have the cash to improve infrastructure, which in turn would improve trade, which would mean more money for the village."

"If you pair that with some hospitality or tourism spots, you would start making tourism an industry of the village also, which would lead to a massive boost in income or the businesses, which would also in turn lead to more money for the village, that could be used on even more improvements."

And like that Daniel kept listing off problems and improvements that would come from the village simply starting to charge taxes to its villagers.

After every problem he listed, and then immediately listing the solution, Worick’s eyes would widen to another degree.

By the time Daniel was done, Worick looked like he had met an absolute genius of finance and politics.

Which of course Daniel would say he had.

For a few moments after Daniel had finished his speech, there was only silence.

Worick only looked at Daniel with wide eyes, and a slack jaw.

Completely upending his image of a handsome and composed elderly elf.

"So you’re saying that all of that can happen, simply because we start to tax our villagers?" He finally asked.

Daniel only nodded at these words.

"It definitely could, but it would need to be managed correctly."

"There would need to be steps taken to audit the finances of the village each year, this would prevent corruption from taking root."

I could see that Worick had something to say about that, but before he could even get a word out Daniel had seen where he wanted to go with it.

"I know you think that would be unlikely, that no one here would steal from the village, but by doing this you can also be open with the villagers on how much money the village has taken in, what it was spent on, and how much is left for the next fiscal year."

"A... fiscal year?"

"Right you guys won’t know about that would you?" Daniel whispered.

"A fiscal year would be a predetermined time of year where what we would describe as the financial year, starts and ends." Daniel answered.

"But, like I said, the absolute most important key to this being successful, and not upsetting the villagers would be to be open about all the income and expenses of the village, and that they can actually see the improvements happen."

"Why do you say this is the most important?" Worick asked.

And I wanted to know as well, because I would have thought that the most important thing would be to ensure that everyone actually paid their taxes.

"Because if people can actually see that the taxes they paid improve their village, and their lives, whether that be directly or indirectly, they tend to not have much qualms with paying their taxes." Daniel answered.

This time it was both Worick and my eyes that widened.

Instead of forcing people to pay taxes with threats of violence or imprisonment, like most kingdoms do, like I had become used to where I was from, we would simply show people the good their tax money was doing, and how it improved their lives?

That suggestion actually made sense in a weird and unexplainable way.

"Now I will give you some time to process all of this, and think of an amount the village would charge for the plot of land I was asking about, in the meantime I need to go and prepare for my shift at the bar." Daniel said, as he got up from his chair.

I watched as he left the room, and made his way up the stairs again.

Across from me Worick was still sitting in deep thought.

"What are you going to do?" I asked him.

His eyes snapped up toward me.

"I’m going to start implementing his suggestions as soon as possible." He answered.

"However, I don’t think I’m the right man for the job."

"I think he would make a much better leader for this village than I ever was."

"Not only did his suggestions all make sense, but even though he was talking about a much more controlling governance structure than we have now, I could still tell that the structure he was talking about always put the good of the people first." Worick finished.

I knew what he said was absolutely true, but I also knew another thing.

"He’d never agree to it." I said.

"Why not?" Worick asked, he seemed stunned by the idea that a man would pass up the opportunity to become the leader of the village.

"Because his dream is to live a simple life, own a business or two, and just relax. Leading a village would definitely not be a simple life." I answered.

"That is unfortunate, he would make a fantastic chief. With him leading us, we could grow into something much larger than we are now."

I knew all of this, and I also knew that Daniel thought he wanted to have a simple life, but if that was truly the case, he wouldn’t be this focused on all of the problems and solutions to Lofie’s governance structures.

"There might be a way for us to get around this problem though." I said, as I leaned closer to Worick.

***

And that was the moment that Worick and I came up with the perfect plan.

A plan to make Daniel the chief without him even knowing he was the chief.

Obviously I would like the specifics of that plan to be a bit of a secret for a while longer, otherwise I would have told you about it.

Well if I didn’t manipulate things behind the scenes you wouldn’t have been where you are now, now would you?

Daniel sometimes gets a bit upset when he hears about some of the steps I took behind his back, but the man really didn’t know what he wanted, so I just had to nudge him along the right path every so often.

Anyway, apparently I’ve hogged the spotlight for long enough, and Daniel wants to tell you about his first shift in the bar in the next session, so I guess this is goodbye from me for now.