Wu Yao clicked on 【Labor】 first.
It was divided into four main categories: construction, agricultural production, processing and manufacturing, and defense duty, with each category further broken down into specific projects.
How many people to assign to Farmland cultivation, how many to sentry tower duty... Next to each project were plus and minus buttons, allowing her to add or remove people one by one.
At the bottom of the interface was a colorful bar chart showing the current available labor, assigned labor, and the overload warning line.
【Current Supervisor: Unassigned.】
With the territory's current population, she obviously didn't need to worry about labor management yet, so she clicked directly on the adjacent 【Taxation】 tab.
What came next was even more absurd. The moment the interface expanded, she thought she had opened some kind of financial spreadsheet.
Resident tax, commercial tax, agricultural tax, import tax, export tax... Each item was followed by a draggable tax rate slider, and next to the slider was the real-time calculation of projected revenue.
【Current Tax Collector: Unassigned.】
Wu Yao studied it carefully and discovered that taxes weren't automatically collected into her pocket by the system.
On a seven-day cycle, the lord could open this interface, drag the tax rate sliders, and confirm a new collection plan.
As for how the taxes were actually collected?
Either she had to go door-to-door demanding them, or she had to assign a Tax Collector to do the dirty work.
Wu Yao closed the 【Taxation】 interface with a blank expression and clicked on 【Satisfaction】.
She didn't have to worry about the Satisfaction system itself; written in the most prominent spot on the interface was: “Automatically settled daily at midnight, no manual operation required.”
There was even a helpful pie chart next to it, clearly breaking down the proportions of various factors like housing, food, safety, healthcare, and fairness.
Keeping Satisfaction above 80 would yield 1 point of territory Prosperity, which was a necessary requirement to unlock public buildings. Keeping it above 80 for seven consecutive days would even grant an extra reward.
Public buildings were fantastic things—like public baths, libraries, training grounds... Each one carried enticing buffs, but every single one of them was locked behind a gray lock labeled “Insufficient Prosperity.”
She had wondered before how to obtain Prosperity; it turned out this was where it was hidden.
But the question was, what actually affected Satisfaction?
Wu Yao's gaze swept over the list of influencing factors on the right, and she immediately felt her temples begin to throb.
Excessive taxes would lower Satisfaction, overworking residents would lower Satisfaction, homeless residents would lower Satisfaction, insufficient food rations would lower Satisfaction, and even unfair rewards and punishments would lower Satisfaction...
How did this game even simulate the psychological balance of its residents?
She hadn't even considered this many variables when writing her thesis.
With so many items, such detailed divisions, and so many operations, she felt her Mental Strength draining away just by reading through them once.
No player would ever willingly deal with something this troublesome.
It was time to recruit Eleanor.
A talent with Level 13 Management—I choose you!
Wu Yao happily closed the Resident Management interface and casually tapped the territory thumbnail a few more times.
She had plenty of Moon-Silver Wood anyway. Purifying a batch every day allowed her to accumulate a massive stockpile of timber, and it was just sitting there in the warehouse. She might as well build a few more houses.
Maybe she would even kidnap a few young witches back in the future...
At that thought, her fingers tapped rapidly, placing the construction blueprints for eight more Moon-Silver Wood cabins on the empty space in the residential area in one go.
Combined with the two she had built for Tiechui and Tongque, there were exactly ten, neatly arranged in two rows, looking exceptionally pleasing to the eye on the territory thumbnail.
Silver-white light lit up the sky over the territory once more, and the outlines of the eight cabins materialized simultaneously.
Tiechui and Tongque hadn't even recovered from their previous fright before they were stunned silly by this even larger-scale construction.
By the time they finally managed to calm down, Wu Yao was no longer there.
She was walking out of the territory, activating both the Lightweight Spell and Wind Wings at the same time as she swept toward the depths of the Moon-Silver Wood forest.
Although there was plenty of Moon-Silver Wood, she still needed to be thrifty. Purifying a batch of Moon-Silver Wood daily to stockpile more timber was the only way to meet future construction demands.
It couldn't be helped; she was just that responsible as a lord.
Tiechui and Tongque squatted on the ground for a long while, only daring to slowly stand up once the scalp-tingling wave of energy had completely dissipated.
Two Moon-Silver Wood cabins stood side by side in front of them. The silver-white wooden walls gleamed softly under the moonlight, with faint silver runes flowing along the corners of the structures.
Tiechui carefully reached out her hand, her fingertips stopping an inch away from the wooden wall.
“Should we go in and look?” Tongque whispered behind her.
Tiechui took a deep breath, and her fingers finally made contact with the Moon-Silver Wood door.
The two goblins poked their heads inside at the same time.
The cabin wasn't large, looking to be around twenty-five square meters.
The entrance led straight into the living room, where a small Moon-Silver Wood table sat with two chairs. To the left was the bedroom, with a wooden plank bed set against the wall, large enough for four goblins to lie flat comfortably.
Further in was a separate bathroom and kitchen. Though called a kitchen, it was really just a simple stove and sink.
A one-bedroom apartment layout with a living room, bathroom, and kitchen. The structure was perfectly square. There was no bedding on the bed, nor a tablecloth on the table; the entire cabin relied solely on the natural luster of the Moon-Silver Wood to serve as decoration.
Tiechui and Tongque inspected both cabins thoroughly.
“They're identical,” Tiechui said as she walked out of the second cabin, gesturing helplessly to Tongque, who was waiting at the door. “Only the direction of the wood grain is different.”
Tongque nodded. “After all, it was built by Her Excellency Wu Yao herself. It's bound to be extraordinary.”
The two goblins chose the cabin on the left and pushed open the door. Tiechui set her backpack on the floor and pulled out a roll of bedding.
It was standard equipment for a goblin merchant—waterproof and moisture-resistant. The outer layer was tanned from subterranean rock-lizard hide, feeling slightly rough but extremely durable, while the inner layer was filled with compressed rock wool, which was warm without taking up much space.
Rolled up, it was only as thick as an arm, but unrolled, it was large enough for two goblins to lie side by side.
Tongque unrolled the bedding onto the wooden bed in the bedroom, then pulled out two small pillows from her backpack, fluffing them up and putting them in place.
Tiechui couldn't wait any longer. Shedding her traveling robe, she collapsed straight onto the bedding, her ears drooping softly onto the pillow.
“Two days and two nights...” her voice was already slurred. “If I don't sleep now, I really am going to meet the Earth Mother...”
Tongque folded the traveling robe and placed it at the foot of the bed before climbing in and lying down beside her older sister.
The bedding wasn't very wide, so the two goblins huddled close together, shoulder to shoulder, their ears brushing against each other.
“...Her Excellency Wu Yao is so kind,” Tongque said with her eyes closed.
“Mhm...” Tiechui was already too sleepy to speak in complete sentences.
“We must repay her well,” Tongque continued, her voice growing lower and lower. “We'll manage the territory well so she doesn't have to worry about these trivial matters...”
Tiechui didn't reply.
She was already asleep, snoring softly, sounding like the purring of some small animal.
Tongque rolled onto her side and pulled her curly hair out from under her sister's arm to avoid having it pinned down.
Having gone two days and two nights without sleep, now lying flat in the Moon-Silver Wood cabin, sleepiness rushed over her like a tide, swallowing her consciousness within seconds.
The moonlight shone through the window, casting a hazy silver glow across the bedroom floor.
Rate on N.U.
