Meanwhile, the folks in the town were continuously talking about the incidents John did which helped them previously.
One of the Villager spoke to one of his friends, "I believe John will be a better Baron for us at North-frontier town and since he is Grandma Melanie's Disciple I am sure he will improve and help our town just like how Grandma Melanie helped us at times of need when we were in need of Medicine but we were short of it."
Another guy added, "That's true, even my father was full of praise for John according to him John was the one who solved the problem of Barren lands in the town and a lot of work for this year. It was also confirmed by Chief Sam and all the representatives who attended the meeting last month for the problem of Farms."
A third guy added, "Plus he has also prioritized in hiring people of our village and this has solved the problems of unemployment in the town. My elder brother already works in his Rose soap factory and from what I know, the pay and incentives there are too good. When John recruits next month for his factory, I am already applying and join up with my brother. The unemployment over the years has caused many of our mates from the village to migrate to cities where they can find work and this is also one of the reasons why our town never populated after a certain point."
One of the guys added with a depressed tone, "Yeah many of them got slaved in cities due to high debts."
To console his buddy one of the guys added, "However his actions prove that he has the best of interests of our village, he has already reduced the taxes to the minimum in our kingdom, it will be very helpful to all the villagers and this might make all the villagers who left the village comeback. If anyone leaves the village for travel and meets an acquaintance from the past, they should be at least be made aware of the current situation in the village and we can help them free up from their slavery if we earn enough."
"However convincing them to come back will be hard since many don't like our borders as it is always unsafe against monsters. However, we can still try and to do our best and persuade them."
"It is still better than nothing when Baron never protected our village. It was always us who funded and defended the territory for our lives meanwhile he only squeezed us for our taxes."
"Your words hold true, its better than that baron defending us and since the village chief and other leaders are in support of John then there won't be any problems with others as well."
A lot of people heard the conversation between these young men and many could even relate themselves from the events they were speaking and hence they choose to believe the leaders of the village. Later on, the commotion in the village was settled.
After all the commotion was settled, everyone arrived at John's Mansion to discuss the future plans and on how to tackle future problems.
Arriving at the Mansion John was quite surprised to see Vlad's and Diana's. Eric then arrived and explained it to both Joseph and John who later understood the reason for their presence.
Eric was already waiting for them for a few days after he arrived at North-frontier town.
Today Tornwall was accompanied by Eric. Eric already had orders from Joseph previously to accompany Tornwall to John's Mansion because he would one of the main characters during the meeting after everyone gathered. Eric was already informed by Joseph that Tornwall would be one of the main engineers who will lead the industrial base of the North-frontier under John and hence the treatment.
Everyone first decided to head towards the biggest Hall in the mansion and have a meeting there.
John started the meeting with a short speech in the Hall, " As you might all know, I have already bought the North-frontier, however, our problems still remain and we will have to tackle them efficiently from now on. I first want to hear from you guys that how do we deal with Beast invasion which will be around the corner during this Winter"
It was Jay who first proposed, " Objectively speaking, we lack men and more importantly trained men, however, we still have 5 months before winter so buying more slaves and giving them basic training can at least help us better prepare against the invasion."
Mayor Sam proposed, "Why don't we hire Mercenaries for this one Job if we pay them high enough they would do any bidding for us"
Tornwall furrowed his brows when he heard the idea of hiring mercenaries because of his gruesome past, however, he still didn't object in front of John for now.
Joseph rejected this idea and gave his own opinion on the idea of hiring mercenaries, "I object, hiring those mercenaries is easy but getting rid of them is harder if they smell any money here. Additionally, many people in this room might not know of the relation of mercenaries to various nobles. There are even various Mercenary groups which are directly controlled by nobles so hiring them would be more riskier as it would practically invite a pack of wolves into our house which would be more problematic for us."
Meanwhile, Vlad and Diana were watching the whole commotion taking place from the sidelines. They had no plans to interfere in this meeting or give any suggestions to them as it was their internal matter and it would be very rude to doubt their abilities unless they choose to ask their help.
Eva said to John, "Maybe I can ask my friends from Imperial capital to help us this time, they could be very useful to us as there are a lot of magicians."
After hearing the opinions of everyone John concluded and said, "I know, what you all are thinking right now, I would have thought the same since I know we don't have enough soldiers to protect our borders so this time I wanted to show you guys one of my finest blueprints. This is a blueprint of a Ballista Cross and a catapult that I have personally designed and it can be started for production after the Forge is built in the town, so this time our main focus would be on building the forge and then produce Ballista crossbow. Meanwhile, we can already start the production of catapults. The main focus of you guys will be to train slaves and warriors in archery and Jay will be one of the main instructors of archery."
John continued as he gave out reasons for precaution, "For reasons of precaution, you won't be able to see the precise designs of these blueprints but a prototype will be made for a demonstration for all the people in this room and see for themselves later on."