A New Life In The Beast World-Chapter 65: The Village’s Future (1)

"I suppose using wood doesn’t make much sense, but it has its uses." Elder Samuel murmured. "The village occasionally needs to be expanded and having a wooden perimeter allows for us to expand much quicker."

Serena could see the logic in that. It was easier to tear down a wooden wall and expand further into the forest before rebuilding the wall back up.

Not to mention, it would take less time lowering the risks of danger getting into the village. But even then, it did lead to more questions.

"Why not just expand the village by a much wider radius to account for future growth?" Serena asked. "Surely that would be much easier than constantly tearing down and rebuilding the perimeter. You’d be able to build a much better perimeter too."

"If only it were that simple." Elder Samuel sighed. "Big development tends to attract a lot of.... attention."

It didn’t take a genius to figure out what he meant by that. It would certainly attract others to what they were up to and she doubted all that attention would be good.

Expanding bit by bit would draw less attention than redoing the whole village. But surely, the pros of expanding just once outweighed the cons.

Unless it was about drawing the attention of a specific group that had Elder Samuel worried.

Rootless beastmen? No. The village could simply get protection from the Forest City while redeveloping. If she remembered correctly the city had an alliance with all the tribes and villages around the forest.

Her eyes suddenly widened as she figured out who exactly Elder Samuel was afraid of.

"It’s the Forest City, isn’t it?" Serena exclaimed.

The Forest Alliance, as it was called, looked great on the surface. The tribes, villages and Forest City worked together, exchanging resources and protecting each other from trouble. Territories were marked and they didn’t go over them.

The Forest City held the central power within the alliance as the one with the most resources and power. They protected the villages and tribes from issues outside the alliance’s territory.

They dealt with other cities and tribes trying to expand their territories into the forest. The other cities around the continent likely had similar alliances with their tribes and villages. It was a way to protect scarce resources.

And Serena wouldn’t have been surprised if the cities had alliances amongst each other. It would mean less fighting among each other for resources and territory.

Of course, even then resources were limited and were divided based on strength with the Forest City getting the most. Which likely didn’t always sit well with the tribes and villages.

Especially the weaker villages like the Rabbit Village which got barely any resources from the alliance. Logically speaking it would be better for them to develop more to become a stronger village.

But that would threaten the Forest City’s power if any village could strike out on their own and get resources they relied on the city for themselves without any help. It would perhaps give other tribes and villages their own ideas.

And the Forest City would lose the delicate power they hold over the forest tribes and villages.

So the solution - crush villages or tribes trying to develop. Nip the problem at the root before it grew too powerful for them to solve and use it as a warning to other villages and tribes.

It was quite scary really. It reminded her of the empire she served back home having the military destroy any planet trying to gain power away from the empire.

"It’s best not to speak of such things in the open." Elder Samuel coughed. "There’s no point in causing unnecessary trouble."

"I understand..." Serena nodded her head. She paused for a moment before adding, "Still, I think we should discuss this more... Even if it’s somewhere quiet."

She knew it would be dangerous to try to develop the village into something larger, but at the end of the day the village would be better off that way. They couldn’t keep relying on the Forest City.

It wouldn’t benefit them in any way. They’d just keep losing more.

The problem was how would they develop in a way that wouldn’t catch the Forest City’s attention. At least until it was too late. Trade maybe?

That could work. Controlling trade was a kind of power the Forest City wouldn’t want to mess with. Losing resources they gained from trade would harm them more than the village.

Not to mention being some kind of trading post would draw stronger beastmen to live here. Which would give them the power to protect themselves. Ambition wise, they could grow as big as a city.

But for that she’d need to understand how the trading routes worked. From what she remembered from the novel, Serena knew there were beastmen clans which were nomadic and basically acted like traveling merchants, exchanging goods between cities and large tribes.

She doubted they would travel here though. The village lacked the resources to spend much on exchanging goods. To those merchant clans coming here would be a loss to them.

That was unless they created a route to a much bigger market and acted like some kind of resting point. Serena doubted the Forest City would go after the Rabbit Village for developing in such a way if they were going to reap benefits from such a development.

At least that would be what it looked like on the surface.

"I know this may be strange coming from me, but I don’t think we should neglect the village’s future out of fear." Serena added, sensing Elder Samuel’s nervousness about the topic at hand. "I have an idea... but we’ll need to discuss it beforehand. I require some more knowledge on the topic."

Elder Samuel gazed at her silently for a moment before he finally sighed, "I’m not sure what you’re up to, but I guess we can discuss this... You don’t seem like the type to let things go."

"You’re right." Serena murmured. "I won’t let this go. Not when it’ll benefit this place a lot."