Necromancer: Kingdom Building with My Legion of Undead Knights

Chapter 163: The Cost of Livestock Construction

And they had resources too.

Well... not resources in the traditional sense. They didn’t have stacks of timber sitting around waiting to be used. They didn’t have livestock ready to fill the fields. They also didn’t have warehouses packed with materials, no stockpiles of stone or iron and no carefully preserved supplies left behind by previous Barons.

The storage rooms that should have been full of useful things were mostly empty, swept clean by years of decline and desperate sales.

But they did have something almost as important.

Money.

A lot of money, at least compared to where Percvale had been just a few months ago. Back then, even a few silver coins had felt precious. Now they had gold, enough gold to make things happen. Enough gold to buy what they needed instead of hoping someone would donate it.

Darion didn’t have the timber right now. He didn’t have the cattle. He didn’t have the goats. He didn’t have the chickens. But that didn’t really matter. Because he had enough gold coins to acquire them all. That was what wealth actually was, after all, not necessarily possessing everything immediately, but having the ability to obtain it when needed.

The coins in the storage room were potential energy. They could become timber. They could become livestock. They could become whatever Percvale needed, as long as he spent them wisely.

Of course, having money and spending money were two different things.

Darion had no intention of becoming reckless. The previous Barons had managed to bury Percvale beneath mountains of debt through terrible decisions, laziness, greed, or some combination of all three.

He wasn’t interested in joining that list. Just because he had access to more coins now didn’t mean he would start throwing them around carelessly.

Every purchase would need a purpose, and every expense would need a reason. If he could continue making sensible decisions, if he could avoid doing anything stupid, then maybe he could actually pull this off.

Rebuilding an entire Barony wasn’t exactly a small task. Yet somehow he had already come this far. He just hoped he wouldn’t mess it up.

The discussion soon shifted back toward construction.

Darion, Garren, the carpenters, and several senior knights spent the next stretch of time discussing what would be needed for the project.

The conversation covered timber requirements, construction plans, measurements, material quality, and overall scale. It was the kind of detailed, technical talk that made Darion’s head spin if he thought about it too hard.

The carpenters explained things in far more detail than Darion fully understood. Different structures required different amounts of wood.

Some areas needed stronger support beams: the cattle shelters, for example, would need to withstand wind and snow, so they required thicker timber.

Others needed more fencing, like the goat pens, because goats were escape artists by nature. Certain buildings would require thicker timber where weight rested on the walls, while others could make do with lighter materials for non-structural sections.

The discussion went back and forth for quite some time. Darion mostly listened. Occasionally he asked questions whenever something sounded particularly important — "How much stronger?" or "What happens if we use thinner wood there?" — but for the most part, he let the experts talk. They knew more about this than he did.

By the end of it, one thing had become very clear.

They were going to need a lot of wood.

Not just a few wagonloads. Not just enough to patch together some pens. They needed enough timber to build structures that would last for years, fencing that wouldn’t collapse, shelters that wouldn’t leak, coops that would keep predators out. The scale of the project had grown beyond simple repairs. This was construction in the truest sense.

Eventually Darion nodded. "Then there’s no point guessing."

The others looked toward him.

"We’ll check the prices first."

That was the sensible approach. There was no reason to sit around discussing costs they didn’t actually know. They needed real numbers. Real prices. Only then could they decide how much to purchase and how quickly construction could begin. Everything before that was just speculation, interesting maybe, but not useful.

"Agreed."

Garren folded his arms. "The nearest markets should have timber available."

"Then we’ll find out." Darion looked toward him. "I want accurate pricing. Not estimates. Not rough guesses. Actual numbers from actual merchants."

Garren nodded immediately. "Understood, my lord."

"If the prices are reasonable, we’ll begin purchasing immediately. If they’re too high, we look elsewhere. But we don’t decide anything until we know what we’re dealing with."

That seemed to satisfy everyone present. There was no arguing with that logic.

---

The carpenters returned to discussing layouts while several knights began preparing for travel. Garren would not be waiting.

If they wanted construction to begin quickly, there was no reason to delay the process. The sooner they knew the cost, the sooner timber could start arriving.

The sooner timber arrived, the sooner the livestock facilities could be built. And the sooner those were built, the sooner Percvale could begin expanding again.

Preparations were already being made. It seemed they would be leaving almost immediately: gathering horses and supplies...

For a moment, Darion found himself wondering just how expensive this entire project was about to become.

Then he decided he would rather not know until the numbers were actually in front of him. Worrying now wouldn’t change anything. It would only make him hesitate, and hesitation led to second-guessing, and second-guessing led to doing nothing at all.

Unfortunately for him... those numbers were coming very soon.

———

Seren had only taken two knights with her.

Just two.

One rode at the front of the group while the other stayed at the rear. The archers occupied the middle, with Seren positioned among them. Eleven archers total, including herself, spread out in a loose formation that allowed them to see past each other without getting in each other’s way.

If someone had heard her tell Darion that she would be taking "a few knights," they probably would have imagined four, five, maybe even ten accompanying them into the forest.

That wasn’t the case at all.

The truth was that Seren had originally planned to go without any knights. After all, this was a hunting trip, not a military operation.

The archers weren’t marching into enemy territory. They weren’t expecting a fight. They were simply hunting for food and practicing against moving targets. Bringing knights along had felt like overkill at first, unnecessary, even wasteful. Every knight who left Percvale was a knight not training, not working, not available if something happened back at the barony.

But after thinking about it, Seren had eventually decided bringing a small escort was the smarter choice.

Forests were unpredictable places. Most of the time, nothing happened. People walked through the woods for years without ever encountering anything dangerous.

But sometimes something did. A wild boar defending its territory. A wolf separated from its pack. A territorial beast that had decided this stretch of forest belonged to it and no one else, like the Bogarts.

Or something worse, something that didn’t have a name but still had teeth and claws and the instinct to use them.

The problem wasn’t necessarily defeating such creatures. The archers were good. They had proven themselves in battle. Given time and distance, they could put arrows into almost any target.

The problem was reaction time.

An archer needed distance. Time to draw, time to aim and time to fire. A dangerous creature charging from behind a bush rarely gave people those luxuries. By the time you saw it, it was already moving. By the time you reached for your bow, it was already halfway to you. By the time you nocked an arrow, it was already close enough to smell.

A normal person might freeze in that situation. Or hesitate. Or simply react too slowly, their brain still processing what their eyes were seeing while their body remained frozen. And by then, the creature would already be on top of them.

That was where the knights came in.

Their role wasn’t really to hunt. Their role was protection. If some dangerous beast suddenly burst from the undergrowth and charged the group, the knights would be the first line of defense.

A knight could step forward. Intercept the creature. Stop its momentum. Maybe not completely, some beasts were far stronger than ordinary animals, stronger than men in armor.

A charging monster could easily force a knight backward, knock him off his feet, send him crashing into the trees.

But even a single second of delay was enough.

Because while the creature was focused on the knight, while it was biting or clawing or trampling, the archers would be drawing. A dozen bows. A dozen arrows. A dozen chances to kill it. One volley. Two volleys if necessary. And whatever had decided to attack them would quickly regret that decision.

Which was why Seren felt comfortable with only two knights accompanying them. They weren’t mainly there to win battles. They were there to buy time. A few seconds. Just enough. That was all the archers needed.