Vusato scratched his white beard. “Out of about 600 people living in the village outside the manor, nearly 360 men—including many women—go to work as miners. The rest of the people are either too young or too old to work at the mines, so they help out at home, or work as merchants, craftsmen, deckhands on our sailboats, and so on. I think you can safely re-allot the iron miners, but I recommend not taking workers off from other tasks. Those are too important for the village’s day-to-day needs.”

  “Hm…” Alden began. “Then let’s allot 200 iron miners to make the firebreak from tomorrow. Roderic, you will go with them and mark out the place they need to cut. In fact, I’ll come with you as well to—”

  “Absolutely not!” Roderic immediately cut him off. “It’s dangerous outside the walls. You saw it yourself when we went to the river last time. We simply cannot risk your life for something like this. It’s already going to be hard enough to make sure those laborers remain safe with our limited number of guards—I can’t possibly protect you at the same time. Just leave it to me and I’ll make sure the measurements are done properly. I’ll also put some armed guards there under Kirol's command to ensure the safety of the villagers.”

  Alden exhaled. “Fine. Then we’ll send another 140 workers to dig clay at the river. We'll allot all the wagons used in iron mining to transport clay from tomorrow. Roderic, send some guards there as well."

  "I will," the captain agreed, "but this will need me to use nearly all the off duty guards too. That'll be fine for a few days, but it will become a problem once the guards start getting tired when they don't get enough time to rest. If someone starts to nap on duty, it can mean a monster reaches close enough to kill a few people before the guards realize the danger.

  Alden put up a hand. "Just give me a minute, and we'll deal with that."

  Vusato noted everything down in a small writing pad he carried with him everywhere. “That still leaves out 20 workers.”

  Alden nodded. “We are going to need a lot more digging and cutting tools in the coming future, both for digging clay and later for the wall foundations. More wagons too. And certainly more weapons—swords, shields, spears, daggers and so on. So we will tell the relevant craftsmen to hire more apprentices from tomorrow, and will assure them that they will have regular orders from us throughout the winter. Those 20 remaining iron miners will be absorbed in their workshops. Make an announcement that anyone who is interested in becoming a craftsman's apprentice can let you know so you can send them to the carpenter, blacksmith, wainwright or any other relevant person."

  The majordomo gave a nod as he kept writing.

  Alden continued, “As for the number of tools we'll need... Let’s give an initial order of 10 new wagons to the wainwright, and as many digging and cutting tools as the blacksmiths and the carpenters can make until we tell them to stop. That includes axes, shovels, both one-man and two-man saws, and whatever else the diggers and loggers will need, as well as uh... 50 of each of the standard weapons I mentioned.”

  Vusato scribbled more in his writing pad. “I assume this order is not for Coltan and Garrik—who will continue to work on your crossbow and scorpions...?”

  Alden nodded. "Yeah. Once they are done with that I'll have even more new things for them to work on, so let the other craftsmen deal with the regular orders." He looked at the captain. “How many guards do we have? In total.”

  “Thirty-three including me,” Roderic replied. “That number also includes the men we send with the sailboats.”

  “Alright…” Alden thought about it. “Then you have a target to recruit uh... 39 more guards—27 men and 12 women. That will take the total strength of male guards to 60 men, along with the dozen women. We'll certainly need to hire even more guards once the winter is closer, but this will have to be enough for now or it will start to affect other things we need to do in the village.”

  "That's true. I was already thinking of asking you permission to hire more men anyway," Roderic nodded. “We are going to need all the guards we can get in the winter. Wait—women too? Why do you want me to hire women?”

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  “For watchtower duties,” Alden replied. “We don’t need swordsmen for that, do we? We can put women up there with crossbows, and they can also operate the scorpions by themselves in the future. I made their design keeping that in mind, making it easier for a sole woman to load it—although I plan to eventually post two women on each tower to make reloading faster. But for now, we can still cover all three shifts in the four watchtowers with those 12 women. That will free up the male guards you put up there, so they can now protect the villagers working outside the walls. Along with the 25 new male recruits, you'll now have enough of them to protect the clay diggers and the loggers.”

  “I guess it makes sense…” Roderic nodded slowly. “I’ll put out the word in the evening. We shouldn’t have any problems in getting enough male volunteers. Becoming a manor guard is always a highly sought-after job in Sarnok—especially with its higher wages—although I’m not sure if any women will apply to become a guard. Their families also wouldn’t allow them to risk their lives like that.”

  Alden sighed, knowing the gender norms were quite different in this medieval world. “Everyone will be risking their lives anyway if we can't protect the village... Still, tell them that for now, the female guards will only be put on duty at the watchtowers, and wouldn’t even have to leave the village. That will take care of some of their concerns and should allow the women to join up. We will reconsider this when we have more crossbows in the future, but for now, it should make it seem safe enough for them that their families wouldn't put too many objections, especially after seeing the higher wages they will get. Once the fact that women can also work as guards starts feeling normal to the villagers, we will recruit more of them for watchtower duty.”

  “I’ll send a man to make an announcement in the market street,” the captain shrugged. “How many women apply after that is not in my hands though. Once I have selected the recruits, I’ll start training the men in spears and sword fighting. As for the women… uh... I’m not sure what to do...”

  Alden smiled. “Just include them in all the regular fitness training and workouts you make the men do. If any of the women are interested in fighting with a sword, you can give them a chance, but that’s not mandatory. They just need to stay extremely fit, which will be the bare minimum for anyone to work as a guard in Sarnok.”

  Vusato just shook his head, looking at Alden. “Sometimes listening to you talk about such things makes me wonder what the future of this village is going to look like…”

  Alden was going to interrupt, when the majordomo raised a hand.

  “Don’t worry,” Vusato smiled. “I am with you in this all the way. I know that Sarnok is not going to survive the coming winter if we all continue to live like we have been doing so far. Change is what the village needs right now, and I know that that is exactly what it will get from you.”

  Alden chuckled. “You have no idea…”

  Vusato looked at the notes he had scribbled. “Still, how are we going to pay for all this? Especially with iron mining stopped completely? We really cannot dip in the tax gold anymore.”

  “We have stopped mining iron,” Alden snorted, “not selling it. We are going to continue sending a small group of miners to the northern hills to bring enough ore here to load in the next sailboat which arrives. We have more than enough ore stocked up to last a whole winter of selling it to Garitus without mining more iron at all. While everyone is focusing on the fact that we have to stay here in Sarnok for the winter and all the dangers it entails, you are forgetting that it means we can also continue to sell iron ore in the winter months this time. That’s more than three months of sales, which is going to net us…”

  He paused, doing the math in his head. “Around 600 gold coins from ore, and another 100 or so from the taxes we take from the merchants. That number is before any taxes we owe to the Duke, but it’ll still be an extra 500 gold we’ll get to spend this winter after taxes. We will need to spend a good part of it just for buying food for the manor residents in the winter, but I’m going to use every single coin of that productively and to make sure Sarnok survives the winter. And that starts with what I've already ordered.”

  Vusato noted down something else before he looked up. "The villagers will keep getting the same wages working as loggers or clay diggers as they were getting as iron miners, so that won't change anything. But I’ll add up the wages for the new guards we are hiring—both men and women—and the cost for the new tools we have ordered, and have the numbers ready for you by tomorrow."

  "Keep in mind that we are going to pay the same wages to both male and female guards," Alden pointed out. "Women may not be interested to join up as a guard without that."

  Vusato frowned at that, before he scribbled something else. "I'm not sure how that makes sense if the female guards don't even have to go out of the wall while men go and risk their lives, but as you wish."

  "I told you that that's only temporary," Alden exhaled. "Anyway, you both have your orders. Let’s get to work. I also need to finish the design of the lathe as soon as possible.”

  With that, the meeting broke up.

  Hey guys! Thank you for reading the story.

  Isekai'd as a Lord of the Manor has reached 4000 followers within three weeks of launch, which is beyond fantastic. It took my first story FLTL around six months to achieve that level, but this story has been growing even faster. Thank you so much for all the love and support you have shown!

  On the other hand, it hurts to see that some people have started doing their best to harm a story which is doing so well. While those who like the story continue to wait to give it a good rating, but those who don't like it don't even waste a second in doing that, which artificially reduces the rating and visibility of the story. But as much as it hurts to see that, that was something I kind of expected, since sadly, it happens to nearly all stories in the rising star list, but it doesn't stop there. Just by chance, today I noticed that even amongst the reviews, every single good review has been downvoted many more times than it has been upvoted. (those numbers are something only visible to the author, I think).

  Coincidence? Maybe. But, most likely it's something worse. I mean, every single one? And of course, amongst the bad reviews, every single one (yes, indeed every single one) has been upvoted many more times than it has been downvoted. Coincidence again? Possibly. But I don't think so. Not anymore, after seeing a 0.5 star rating coming every other day, even from people who read all the published chapters. I mean, if those people liked the story enough to read 30+ chapters (~ 230 pages), they surely don't consider it that bad to give it a 0.5 star, or they wouldn't have spent that much time reading it. And yet those ratings come inevitably from some of those people. It certainly doesn't make any author happier to see that. Of course, those people who actually do love the story, rarely take the time to give it a good rating, and the balance tilts towards the negative, even if the vast majority of people like it.

  Now you see how it feels to the authors on this website sometimes. RR is a wonderful place where authors and readers can interact on a regular basis, which is not possible for other kinds of long story formats like paperbacks, and it's an excellent way for authors to learn and hone their craft. That helps authors become better in writing a story which people would love to read, and yet it means that some people use this opportunity to do their best to discourage the authors from continuing. You wouldn't believe some of the messages I have gotten here hinting or outright telling me that I should stop writing...

  But I will never do that because I know for a fact that people are enjoying this story. Staying at Rank 1 in 'rising stars' list continuously for nearly 10 days by now, while also staying within top 15 of 'popular this week' list (that is a list of the most popular and most read stories on the whole website), while also gaining above 4K followers in just around three weeks, indeed means that a lot of people love this story. And yet it hurts to see that some bad actors are going to such lengths to make sure the author feels too disappointed to continue it.

  I'll try not to let that affect me, though I am only human. Still, I hope those of you who are enjoying the story can show your support to it. Just taking ten seconds of your time to give the story an honest rating will go a long way towards overcoming the malicious ratings given in bad faith.

  Thank you for giving the story a chance.

  I'll see you with the next chapter on Friday. Take care.