"What do you mean by that?"

After everything that Heila told me about the Saint and the ruins, I knew there was some kind ritual and the fact of choosing someone to protect their folk in the times of need, but it was the first time when I heard about any kind of curse!

"My lord, this is nothing more my the opinion of my father. He used to tell me the stories about the history of our tribe, but whenever I wanted him to tell me more about the heroes… His face turned sour. But if I may ask, what I'm about to tell could be considered a heresy for the others, so if your lordship would be generous enough, I would prefer to explain myself in some… More private place."

Thinking about this, Gabriel's request was actually pretty sensible. With how Heila acted towards me, I doubt that she would intentionally withhold this kind of information from me, meaning that it wasn't something that everyone openly knew about.

"Okay then, let me finish the matters here, and I will fetch you then."

While curious, there was no way I could just get him and go away while the people still continued to come inside the place. I still had to check how would the energy status of the stronghold change after everyone's arrival, delegate the tasks… Just thinking about everything that had to be done in order to lay out the foundation of efficient cooperation made my head hurt. Bothering with yet another big problem of the curse could be put aside for now!

After all, there wasn't any set time at which I had to get back to the island in order to check those ruins out!

Just as I thought that my problems would be gone, leaving me free to deal with the current problems, the reality once again showed its ass right into my face. This time, it took the form of those two attentive girls, grabbing both of my arms from each side and snuggling to me.

"Hey, how about we get to work right away? The sooner you will grant us a child, the better!"

Barely able to hold back my annoyance from showing up on my face, I somehow managed to twist my lips into what I hoped to look like an amiable smile, before escaping from their clutches.

"Stop it. We don't have time for this. Even if this place is safe and nice, we still need to organise housing, fields, pastures, not to speak about picking a leader for you guys or declaring the basic laws. I might find some time when I get back from my next journey to your island, but for now, we need to focus on the matters at hand!"

No matter how much I wanted to appear as a reliable figure, even if all of those people were confident in my strength - after all, I could easily stand up to their former overlord - when it came to organising things, voices of dissatisfactions were bound to appear. Just by putting me and Gabriel side to side, I was certain that the majority of the newcomers would think of him as the better choice for the leader if I would ever give them the choice to do so!

"Everyone, don't just stand idly like that. Drop the canopies to the side and gather around. No matter how much you like this place, I need you to learn its rules!"

Even if this kind of invite sounded like the necessary bit of salt added to the wholesome soup of the paradise they just discovered, it was necessary to do so. If all of them scattered around in awe of this land, just counting them would pose a hard task, not to speak about relaying my orders to them!

Seeing my struggle, Gabriel and his helpers jumped into action, forcing everyone to act according to my words. Thanks to their help, in just a few moments, all the baggage was thrown into one big pile of carved wood, with everyone already present in this subdimension, gathering in a single group beside me.

Thanks to this, as more and more people came, just a single look at the situation was enough for them to understand their tasks. In just five more minutes, the last person finally entered the place, allowing me to gauge how much the dimension grew.

From just a single kilometre in diameter, this dimension grew by about three meters, per every person that entered it. Using this as a rounded-up base, it would mean that from slightly above three kilometres squared, it grew to more than five and a half! With no way to check how much land one person required to sustain their livelihood, I could only hope that anyone who came up with this addition of my stronghold creation tool, took the food needs of its inhabitants into account!

With everyone gathered inside the small world, I took a quick peek at the current energy limit in order to get a rough idea how the number of people influenced this place, only to almost trip on my immobile legs and choke on the air!

Yes, with all those people using up the energy in the air to drive their bodies, the usage of the energy from the pool increased by an astonishing one thousand and three hundred… But the overall capacity jumped to an over eight and a half thousand!

This was fucking insane!

Sucking all the energy from this entire island, only brough about three thousand worth of mana points in the energy pool of the core, yet bringing mere hundred people to lead to an increase of nearly five thousands?

Does that mean that I could sustain the hibernation chamber with just the population of five alone?

Wait, I can't think about it in this way. What if the initial growth was hampered by the needs of the core? What if it required some insane amounts of energy to change its form and settle in this place in order to let me create my stronghold?

With countless questions that made me dying for their answers, I almost forgot about the fact, that I was standing in front of the entire crowd od people, waiting for me to issue orders for them, and explain what I meant by the rules of this land!

"Ekhem, I hope everyone can hear me properly because I'm not going to repeat myself."

Buying some time for myself with those words in order to clean my thoughts and organise what I was going to say, I coughed twice while watching everyone closing in as if scared by my warning.

"Listen up. I saw how the Overlord's town was built, and I think I can safely assume that your village was either on a similar level or even worse. First thing first, you need to accept the fact, that I will lay out and divide the land according to my own will, in order to create a clean and easily expandable environment for everyone to use. I know how valuable the land in this place is, so to prevent you from fighting over it, I will be the one to decide who will be granted what part of it. And that's just the first and most basic measure of the ruling I will implement here. But you need to understand one, insanely important thing."

With that said, I had to drop the bomb, that I could guess, no one expected me to announce.

"I'm not going to stay here with you for long. As soon as everything will work in the way I want it to, I will decide on the local mayor, who will be responsible for governing this place while I will be absent. Even if the end decision still belongs solely to me, if you have anyone you wish to appoint at this position, feel free to hit Gabriel's here up, to pass him the news. That's it for now. First thing first, I need all the women to dig a pit, big enough to contain the amount of soup for everyone here to fill them up. When you will be done, you can call me up. As for the men…"

With my hand hovering over poor Gabriel's head, I looked at the remaining people gathered nearby.

"Come with me. I will tell you where we will locate the village, and how I want you to build your future houses there."