Translator: Kazumi
Editor: Kabur & Silavin
The Six Marquises gathered at Wahid’s side.
A survey that had been ongoing since the Six Marquises came under Crown’s umbrella, had finally been completed.
A survey of the land of the 5th Floor.
Even if they were to increase the amount of farmland, as long as there was the threat of monsters, their crops would be quickly destroyed.
Therefore, it was necessary to survey the land beforehand and develop it in a way that it could be easily protected from monster attacks.
The Six Marquises have accumulated a lot of experience in this field.
All of them were gathered because they finally had the results after much careful examination.
It wasn’t just the Six Marquises and Wahid here, there were also the main members of Crown and members of the government, like Alec.
It had been announced earlier that this would be an important discussion that would determine the future of the town on the 5th Floor.
There was a large table in the center of the room where they were gathered, and on that table was a map.
It wasn’t just one map, but several maps that had been put together to create one big map.
The map had various things listed all over the place.
Inside, it contained detailed information about the area.
“Oh, I see. This is wonderful. I can’t believe you were able to fill out so much detail in such a short period of time.”
It was Alec who exclaimed in admiration.
The others nodded in agreement, as did Schmidt.
On the other hand, it was Gazeran who was tilting his head.
“Heeh. Is this really that important?”
Royce, one of the Six Marquises, replied with a wry smile.
“Oh, I’m sure it doesn’t look like much to you, Gazeran, after all, you’re an adventurer.”
There was a reason why Gazeran was tilting his head.
“In the first place, most of the information written here was gathered by adventurers.”
Collecting from natural resources, materials from monsters, and so on was part of their work.
For adventurers, obtaining such information was essential.
The higher their rank, the more they understood the importance of information.
That was why Gazeran tilted his head at Alec and Schmidt, who were impressed.
“I knew that adventurers had the raw information. Nonetheless, Iit astonishing that you can show it to us so clearly on a map.”
Alec said.
Information on a map was classified as military information for a nation.
That was why accurate maps were rarely available to the public.
Not only that, but it would not be unusual for a country to arrest a person possessing a detailed map.
Only peddlers would normally use maps that have approximate routes written on them.
“I see.”
Gazeran nodded in agreement.
No one had asked the stupid question of whether it was confidential here.
The only reason to keep map information secret in the first place was to warrant the caution of other countries.
In the Towers, where there was no reason to be wary of other countries, it would be more beneficial to make the map information public.
However, no one here was considered to release this information to be public at this point in time.
This was because the information would be changing day by day as large-scale development progressed in the future.
Even if the map was released to the public, the information would be outdated several days later.
So, it was decided that it would be better not to release the map to the public until things settled down.
“So? What was the status of the perimeter?”
Wahid asked the Six Marquises.
“Well, it’s nothing short of wonderful. To put it bluntly, I can’t think of a more ideal place to put a farm.”
The level of monsters that appeared around the area was recorded so it was much easier to manage their threat.
“Does that mean that we can proceed with the development to a certain extent?”
“I suppose so.”
“That’s right, but what do you think, Alec?”
It was Alec who was next to be questioned.
Of course, he was being asked as part of his role as the head of the administration branch.
The administration was involved in the development of the city.
“To put it bluntly, I don’t know what’s going to happen to the city, to tell you the truth. Likely, the supply of buildings won’t keep up with the influx of people.”
The current town on the 5th Floor had more than 10,000 permanent residents alone.
Of course, this was aside from those who moved from town to town, such as adventurers.
Those who decided to settle in the city, that was to say, those who purchased a residence, were required to register at the government office.
The same applied to apartment complexes.
This made it easier to keep track of the number of permanent residents.
On the other hand, it was very difficult to keep track of the number of adventurers who stayed at places like inns.
Of course, the transfer gates were controlled by them, so it would be possible to strictly control the number of adventurers, but Kosuke believes that it would be better to spend more time on managing the influx rather than controlling it.
The others who heard this also agreed with him, without any objections.
The town in the 5th Floor would continue to grow in the future.
However, if the farmland was destroyed piece by piece to keep up with this growth, there would be no hope for a stable harvest.
“How about we divide the development area by direction?”
It was Dulles who was looking at the map.
“Hmm. What do you mean?”
“According to the map, this town is more to the northeast. Rather than expanding the farmland to the northeast, where there is no hope for future growth, I thought it would be better to expand it in the opposite direction?”
“You mean expand the town to the northeast?”
“No. We won’t do that because expanding in one direction makes it hard to develop, but the town only needs to be a certain size… Unless you want to build a city where more than a million people live.”
Everyone laughed at those words.
When the town reached a size where it could build a city of a million people, that’s when it would be the most populous city in the world.
The first thing they needed to do was to be able to produce enough food to sustain such a large population.
For now, it was still a dream.
“Even though it’s agricultural land, we can’t just develop it vertically, can we?”
“We only need a certain amount of space to build a city. Why don’t we avoid that and make farmland?”
“What do you mean exactly?”
“If we set a target population for the time being, we can have a rough idea of the area needed to be developed as a town, right? We can use areas that are not suitable for farmland development for that.”
At Dulles’ words, the people involved fell silent.
They were probably considering whether it was feasible.
However, after waiting for a while, no objections were raised.
“Well, it looks like that’s the safest way to go.”
Wahid interjected, and now they moved on to specifics.
“What’s our first target? I think 100,000 is reasonable, don’t you?”
It was Alec who said this.
This kind of talk was Alec’s specialty.
“And that’s assuming that there’s adequate food supply?”
One of the Six Marquises said to him.
“Mm… What are your specifics?”
” Well, if the surveillance around the farmland is accurate, we’d be able to feed not one hundred thousand, but two hundred thousand with just the initial development?”
“You’re going that far…”
Alec pondered the answer he hadn’t expected.
“But with such a rapid increase, will production be able to keep up?”
Alec’s question was answered by another Six Marquises.
“We’ll probably have to supplement from Kennelsen until production is established here anyway.”
” Will that be a problem?”
” I don’t see it as a problem.”
Another of the Six Marquises assured, and Alec didn’t ask any more questions.
“Then the rest of the problem is the adventurers’ problem.”
Developing farmland would be meaningless if it couldn’t be maintained.
In this world, securing farmland was synonymous with securing adventurers.
“That’s not a problem. After all, the monsters around this place are at the right level for those who are struggling to grow in other towns. As long as they’re paid at least as much as Kennelsen’s surveillance work, we’ll be able to attract people.”
“Then it sounds like we’re in good shape, if that’s what you mean. Now, we just need to make sure there are no other loose ends?”
Alec confirmed, and everyone in the room agreed.
He didn’t expect to be able to make all the decisions right there.
In just one day, they had already decided the direction they were headed for.
In that sense, they had already achieved a lot.
The direction of the future town of the 5th Floor was established based on the discussions of this day.