“Aaargh!” William yelled as he flipped over a heavy oak table. “Everything is terrible! The roads are terrible! The ports are terrible! The city layouts are terrible!” William flipped the table back to its normal upright position so he could pound his fist onto it. “We still have too many stupid, useless forts! How did that stupid Demon King run this country?!”

Jordan stood calmly nearby, “I’m inclined to believe that he didn’t.”

William sighed, “It doesn’t seem like the lords did either. The only good roads are the ones that go directly to their manors.” William shook his head, “Alright I’m done. You can go ahead and put papers on the table now.”

Jordan started placing things down one by one, “Deeper mining has resulted in more collapses in mines. Freezer formations are failing to keep some food from spoiling, and some people are getting sick. Diseases are breaking out in a number of cities.”

Strictly speaking, there were other people to handle all of these problems. However, they still occasionally were directed to William to see if he or Lorelei could think of any simple solutions to the problems. “We still need to come up with standards for structural support in mines… and the miners need to be taught basic magic control. It shouldn’t be too hard to make something like stone arches even with natural stone... “ William pointed to the next one, “People are idiots and using incomplete versions of the freezer formations still. Remind them that every component is strictly necessary, especially for anything large enough for people to enter.” William shook his head, “Diseases… sanitation and sewer systems are barely adequate. Make sure nobody’s dumping anything into rivers. Come up with a large fine to let them know I’m serious if they are.”

William frowned as he went over more things. Worker safety and good practices were nearly myths. He supposed it wasn’t as bad as it could have been, but some parts of the country were especially terrible. Overall the human countries did better- not that they were without their own flaws.

The thing William needed to do the most was make people realize the value of treating their workers well. If they worked for a long time without getting injured or were better trained to begin with, they could do more. Mining was faster and cheaper without safety procedures- but that was only until mines collapsed and they had to spend a long time digging out the area or give up on the mine. Training new workers was also a lost of efficiency, something important to even those who didn’t particularly care about the lives of other people.

William knew he wasn’t going to make most people make any large social changes over night… but sewage and mining sludge in rivers was an easy step to take. He couldn’t make everyone wash with soap, even if there was enough soap to go around- but he could require it of doctors who hadn’t already realized better.

Some doctors were at least used to rinsing their hands- doctors knew sick people made other people sick, so washing off anything visible was a step in the right direction. Since gevai didn’t necessarily die of old age, there were some very experienced doctors. Even if they didn’t get everything right, most of them took the time to try to improve. If they didn’t… they were the sort who would die of old age. Not everyone could afford to visit doctors- but that was a bigger problem William also wanted to fix.

William was morbidly happy that only about a third of the lords had survived- less than a gross. That had taken care of most of the worst ones. He supposed there had probably been some decent enough lords that ended up against him, and he knew some of the decent ones on his side of the war had died… but it would be better for the country- and the world- in the long run.

Currently, there was a rapid increase in the number of wizards in the human countries… which didn’t surprise William at all. During the final war with the Demon King he hadn’t managed to destroy as many souls of wizards as before. With the human population growing again, they should be returning to something like the standard density of wizards… whatever that actually was. That might still take many generations, but as long as more souls weren’t being destroyed it would theoretically level out. Eventually.

William wasn’t worried about humans getting too many wizards. At most, that would bring them on par in that area. With Lila’s enthusiasm for education, there would be enough gevai wizards to saturate any battlefield.

William shook his head. While wars might be a concern, he shouldn’t consider them first. There were many better things that could be done with wizards besides going around throwing fireballs. While it could be used to cause harm in ways nothing else could, it could also be used constructively in ways nothing else could achieve. Without even considering magical formations, William thought about his parents tilling the soil with magic. That was something all farmers should learn how to do.

William considered mandatory education, but there were several issues with starting that. The cost of starting it would be significant- even though the benefits would outweigh it later, he had to make sure it wouldn’t just fail. Another important factor is everyone needed to know different things. While there were some basics such as reading and arithmetic that everyone should learn, not everyone needed to know farmer’s skills.

That also came to another question- should it be taught that magic didn’t need specific chants? Even if William didn’t consider people he didn’t like being more efficient with magic, there were still a few reasons it mattered. People experimenting with new magic could accidentally do something unfortunate like messing with their own brain. While magic worked of both knowledge and intent, people who didn’t know what they were doing could still cause something. Perhaps magical training should start with safety courses in any case. That could start before telling people- especially gevai- how easy it was. William knew ‘easy’ was somewhat relative, having gone from exactly zero magical ability to a significant amount, but he’d also seen random soldiers pick up simple magic in a few minutes once they were told how it worked. Humans might have to train to see mana… but that wasn’t William’s issue to deal with anymore.