Apologies for my readers, if I've delayed long enough on this story. But this is out of story commentary; it's skippable if you don't like these types of posts. But if you're interested in giving your own feedback or critique ... well then okay.

Even though this got much further into things when posted on Royal Road [*cough* girls love scenes *cough*], in this rewrite I've also had a wonder what I forgot in terms of a whole post-apocalyptic world where far greater than a mere ninety percent of beings are ... undead.

If I 'borrow' from the Adventurer's Guild game in the forum, I'd seen some categorization in the NPC thread, about proposed power levels of the entities given. Well now. If I borrow that though for this or any other of my story worlds-

• 98% is for "commoners" or unranked and unknown anyones.
• 01% is for E ranked adventurer level.
• 00.1% is for D ranked adventurer level.
• 00.01% is for C ranked adventurer level.
• 00.001% is for B ranked adventurer level.
• 00.0001% is for A ranked adventurer level.
• and so on.

The point being ... this iteratively adds up to 99.1111% and infinitely recursive for the ones, as deep as you want to go. Nowhere near a complete one hundred percentile of the populace. Leaving a zero point eight-repeating percent left in the lurch.

In my iteration, I've upped the percentile numbers to make more sense and add up correctly. Also started out with an F rank, too.

• 98% is for "commoners" or unranked and unknown anyones.
• 01.8% is for F ranks.
• 00.18% is for E ranks.
• 00.018% is for D ranks.
• 00.0018% is for C ranks.
• 00.00018% is for B ranks.
• 00.000018% is for A ranks.
• 00.0000018% is for S ranks. (Marginally includes S+ or 'more advanced' categorizations.)
• 00.0000002% is for Godlike beings. Can be more intricately parsed, if you wanna look even deeper. Two per billion, or one in five hundred million peoples.

All of the above could in theory account for settlements, as well -- except you have to move down a row to get the right result in my book. That is, 98% of the world is ... unsettled or even unexplored in some context. For this story at least; after a few centuries of 'artificial undead' plaguing the world ... it's gonna be hell to keep world maps up to date ... few cartographers or explorers but these Unity Upon All fellows.

1.8% is for the basic encampments, thorpes, starting settlements; 0.18% is for like steady villages, and so on. D rank settlements might be like the more well defended villages, but not quite a town (by population). Which is why I had early on, on mother tell her daughter "all women are on a mission", that being the repopulation of the world. As long as people are fed and clothed and sheltered ... nothing quite trumps the need to grow the populace.

And so on, and so forth. C rank settlements are like small to midsize towns, B rank settlements like medium sized towns, and A ranks like a larger town that is likely to become a city. Beyond that, in this world ... at some point it's become a thing for people to try their hand at adventure or wealth or 'pushing back the chaos'. So by some point, the larger a city is, the more a subset of people want to press outward, to reclaim some of the world back from the undead. Aah, such arrogance, those city-zens....

... I also have a feeling I could use these percentiles in trying to factor in, how many in a horde of undead will be a problem for the main character Alemayehu and her friends. Smaller groupings, not so problematic; but step into the path of an undead warren, and ... yeah there might even be a few C ranks or even a B rank in there-

Among those who are not undead, a subtle trend of accepting all sentient, and even some monstrous, races into settlements ... as another body to defend the place or do something constructive. All have their part; even a goblinoid creature might be welcome in one of these villages, if he agrees to follow the leader's orders. (I had a chapter held back with just such a scene; not sure this would be so welcome by readers, having seen some adventurous novels go the route of mass murdering the goblins, when here they might be just another friend but smaller and greener. But gob 'culture' before this world "broke", would have followed the same line as opening chapters of @LucyLinn's "A Goblin's Evolution", featuring cute li'l Min -- just 'cause I'd read that story before writing the first parts of this one.)

Agriculture across this whole world has suffered; few farming cultures except within or near various villages will exist; few if any farmhouses remain standing for long, as the hordes of artificial undead rove the world's surface. And since the world's surface is mostly land, an undead creature can therefore "follow the sun" travelling one way at sunrise, and the other way at sunset. Being undead also means they will do this same thing, day in and day out, for the rest of their existence-

Therefore one of the highest demands is always food. Whether vegetables or fruits or meats ... any city will always buy foods. Which is what one of those wagon drivers was doing in the beginning -- taking valuable foods to market in a big city, and returning with various other manufactured goods or supplies.

Overall, no outstanding commercial or industrial process goes on, except within the confines of towns and cities. Very few megacorporations exist beyond a known handful who have the wealth and the drive to essentially setup their own 'guild' settlements under their own control.

... er ... well now. It's to the point of "where do I go next", after I get caught up to the chapters I've uploaded elsewhere or written but not scheduled to release yet.

One part I'm struggling with is a subplot of Girls Love. As in, I'm gonna gut this at some point, it doesn't really make the story now does it. As in too, for story purposes having anything "not straight" is a betrayal of all populations' responsibilities to once again grow in number. A GL side can be killed off and the story will survive just fine. Indeed soon enough Maya herself may be coming into contact with someone (specifically male, and specifically straight) who may or may not be her true romantic option, a loyal if not wolfish type.

A second part is ... Maya and friends dealing with the obviously remaining overwhelming undead in the world. It's gonna take a whole lotta travel, and even more time to find allies willing to leave their comfortable cities in time to build up the settlements. One way to do this, is ... drum roll please, or not ... slaves. Maya and friend could obtain slaves and assign them to join the settlements as the key residents in a place. A bit kitchy as a plot, as later even Maya will fight against the trend of using slavery as a means to an end. Which may bring on a whole long string of "I told you so" from other characters.

Another side is, in restoring the mortals' trust or belief in Chae-Won. Where exactly should Shay and Maya take this? Aside from the small things Shay might have done for them -- very few in this world really do believe in her, and less by the day. I don't have anything previously decided, but maybe Shay just doesn't have so many priests or priestesses in her name; the rest of the deities have left but have their priestly types yet here (still flipflopping on Kervan's status of being here or not though).

Maya is far more likely to try to do things on her own or with the few companions she knows, for a short while. But at a near soon time she'll be forced into 'group management' type of leadership. I got some obvious plots here, but not enough to last a coming chapters; yeah it's somehow fun and hard in thinking up dastardly dangers to throw her into. (I think initially I want to have her more like a Xena Warrior Princess type of combatant who doesn't so much stick in one place for long; but that doesn't work in this story if she's not long in one place to maintain relationships and order. It would be the current state of the world all over again, otherwise-)

Ending an artificial undead plague. Yeah that. Well so I've also thought the solution could be simpler than Chae-Won might have thought, and something that Alemayehu doesn't ask her about until later -- lol, different ways of looking at things. Though with Chae-Won being a marginal "deity" she should still have all the information she needs now to understand the nature of the undead plague. So it's not like there aren't possible solutions; maybe Shay just doesn't have the "oomph" to use her own skills or abilities to deal with it?

These settlement cores are but the first of many steps. As the settlements grow their area of effect grows; then land, objects, undead, and people can similarly be 'reclaimed' from any marginal infection rate. I do have a mild thought of everyone is to a certain extent already tainted and touched by the plague; but it stays dormant until a person has a certain amount of exposure. Makes staying within a stable city seem more attractive, except by a certain time the cities do start making opportunities for the younger or more adventurous ones to travel the world (and therefore, exposed more). It's gonna be a vicious cycle in this world.

Also tinkering with the actual settlement upgrade paths. Mostly it's dependent upon number of residents, buildings, items cleansed, and undead cleansed too. Most of these have some upper cap so a place cannot just place so many buildings too early, easing future expansion; it's gotta be tough all around because plot ... later events.

Well anyway I hope you didn't mind this meandering line of thoughts; it's all just a few points of interest I'm working on, for this story. Trust me I've got many more plots for many more stories too (even still coming up with more ideas for new stories yet). But here ya go; you wanna see more of this, well please do comment too.