With the battle of the starting town dam won came the hard part.  An inconvenient truth is that dealing with the aftermath of a conflict is always more difficult than winning the conflict itself.

 

First off, they had injured prisoners to sort.  Several of the warriors caught in the pincer attack became lame from their wounds.  Luckily nothing was life threatening. With the help of some awkwardly quiet tribe people they were able to put them on a ox-drawn cart and bring them back to the camp.

 

“This is really uncomfortable.” Alex squirmed.

“How so?” Ki smiled.

“Well, didn’t we just hurt them and ruin all their stuff? You’d think they would hold a grudge.” Alex explained to the green-haired nymph.

Ki hummed, “I don’t see why.  Wouldn’t it be hypocritical for what they did to you to be okay but when you do the same thing to them it is not okay?”

Alex boggled at Ki’s explanation. “That is a really weird way of thinking.  Raiding your neighbor is okay?  You’d think it would escalate into a war.”

Ki chided him like he was a child. “Now you are just being silly. Who would want to risk their people by constantly escalating a conflict when day to day survival is not assured.”

Alex still didn’t get it. “I don’t get why burly warriors would have any respect for a little girl.”

Fufi, who was listening to the conversation, chuckled at the slip.

Alex backpedaled. “Not that I’m a girl, it is just I’m wearing this frilly dress and have a high voice. And I was dancing with dolls… The point being you’d think they’d look down and bully me.”

Ki spoke slowly like a mother explaining something to an ignorant daughter. “Why do you think that I wanted you to join in the fight against the chief?”

“Because you were worried about Merumeru?” Alex guessed.

Ki shook her head. “No, you’ve got a lot to learn.  Merumeru had that fight won.  She didn’t need any help. You have to understand the culture of these nomads to work with them.”

Alex furrowed his brow, still not getting it. “I still don’t get it.  How would fighting against their leader not make them have bad feelings towards us?”

Ki sighed. “Okay, let's make this simpler.”

“Huh?” Alex tilted his head. His hair ruffled around a bit as he did so.  It had grown at an alarming rate for the month and a half that he’d been in this world.

“How do you think they pick a leader?” Ki asked, her voice full of kindness and patience.

“They take a vote?  Or maybe representatives vote?” Alex guessed.

“No, that is wrong.  It is by battle.  The chief is the one who can defeat the previous one.” Ki corrected.

Alex’s eyes widened.  “It can’t be.  They don’t think we are the new tribe leaders, do they?”

Ki shook her head. “I don’t think so, afterall a tribe is a group related by blood. There would likely need to be some kind of consummation involved in joining the tribe. You know, joining bloodlines and all that.”

“Don’t just say something like that. You skipped the whole part about meeting developing feelings of love then overcoming obstacles to stay together and form a family.” Alex facepalmed.

Ki laughed. “What you were not actually considering were you?  I was just kinda guessing there anyway.  The point being is that except for the meat heads, Chief stone ax was not liked.  But because no one was stronger than him he got his way.  He even left that Handverk guy behind when he fled. There is a power vacuum in the group that got abandoned.  Then magical girl Alex shows up with a dose of justice.  If you were in their shoes, who would you think better of?”

“Okay, okay, point made. What should we do now?” Alex conceded. 

“Well, this once was a human town.  Unless there is a need to drive them off into the wastelands to get picked off by harpies, maybe they could give settling down a shot?”

Alex nods.

“What do you think Fufi?” Alex asked.

“It is worth a shot.  If they prove to be like chief stone ax then they can just go and join him outside the woods.” The flamingo agreed with Ki.

 

The plan set, Ki and Alex explained how things were going to go from then on. 

The tribespeople agreed to stay and rehab the town.  

Handverk agreed to lead the crafters.  Most of them were left behind.

Merumeru fixed the plumbing problem in the adventurer’s guild and helped get a sink, bath and shower set up.

Alex and Fufi explored and cleaned out all the rest of the ruined houses over the course of a couple weeks.  He was able to salvage lots of useful things just by cleaning them off.  Weapons, tools, furniture were all restored with several dustings of the feather duster.

The nymphs were surprisingly willing to allow logging.  Alex expected that they might have some really strict restrictions like only cutting down one tree per year.  But seemed open to sustainable logging practices.  This included avoiding clear cutting and replanting.

 

The population of the new town was barely over a hundred so they couldn’t harvest trees quickly anyway.

Merumeru kept vanishing for long periods of time but seeing how busy everyone was it didn’t bother anyone that much.  She did agree to restore the bath house.

 

Ki pointed out the ruined building and explained what it used to be.  The building was a rotten pile of wood.  However the foundation and the stone lined pits in the ground were still there.  

Merumeru did her magic in getting the drainage working again.  She set up some faucets too so they could fill the tubs.  The original bath house had a well and they could heat the water with firewood.  But all of the the metal barrels for heating water had rusted into dust who knows how long ago. 

 

Trying to find a supply of metal was going to be a huge problem going forward.

No one else seemed to mind but it bugged Alex.  The demons had forced humanity back into the stone age.  He didn’t think it was all of humanity because vassal states to the demon empire were a thing but the free humans.  

Free humans’ culture had digressed to barely better than chimpanzees.  It said something about human grit to not just throw themselves groveling at the mind controlling demons’ feet for security.

Alex postponed trying the dungeon again because he thought getting a roof over everyone’s head took priority. 

With everyone’s help they got half a dozen log houses built along the fountain square.  They restored the second floor of the adventurer’s guild.  After that they built a wooden roof on top of it.  

Handverk and the other crafting classers didn’t have much experience with making buildings but they were quick learners.  Most of them had skills that related to their nomad lifestyle, things like repairing equipment, maintaining wagons, or building simple tools.  Most of them were better at woodworking than Alex.  

He didn’t mind.  These people could use all the help they could get.  If someone could use a saw and a skill to make planks out of a log as quick as a mill then it just meant they could get everyone housed quicker.

 

The adventures’ guild building had a second floor like one would expect for such a building.  There was a main hallway with dorm-style rooms with a pair of bunk beds on either side of the room. The bunks had cloth mattresses filled with straw that Alex sewed himself. Locks were not a thing so the doors to the rooms could be boarded shut from the inside.  There was an end table up against the wall and wooden shutters on the exterior of the building. Glass windows would be nice but Merumeru was only one slime girl.  

Alex didn’t feel right asking her to create dozens panels of glass.  One of these days they could try to make a glass smelter but that would have to come later.  The priorities were food shelter and cleanliness. 

 

Alex really hated how badly the barbarians stank from body odor.  He couldn’t give them proper soap but cold water and scrubbing was a start.  It especially bugged him to see the tribe's women with matted hair and dirt encrusted skin. In what kind of world do girls get the right to make themselves look pretty taken from them?

 

The last thing on the second floor was a big room that Alex claimed.  It was part office, part workroom, and part meeting room.  It has several windows and cabinets lined the walls.  They didn’t have much paper to speak of.  Some of the crafters could make parchment but none of them could make ink. So writing consisted of using a piece of charcoal to write things down.  

Alex didn’t like it.  It always made his small fingers blackened with dirty powder.  Ink was another thing on the list to reintroduce to humanity.  Instead of resorting to this dirty method of keeping track of the town, Alex used his phone to keep track of important things from meetings.  

 

After one meeting discussing progress and barriers Alex sat at the desk looking dejected. Ki was standing beside him.  Fufi was roosting on a cabinet.

 

“Ugh, this sucks.  I feel like I ended up as a mayor somehow.” Alex complained, looking up to the ceiling.

 

 “Don’t worry, unless you have the mayor class, no one will consider you a real mayor.” Ki unhelpfully added.

 

“Can someone with a mayor class take over? We’ve been doing these building and stockpiling projects for weeks and I want to just run away back to the farm.” Alex ran a hand through his green-black hair.

 

“You remember how people get classes in this world right Alex?” Fufi sounded a little annoyed at Alex’s complaining.

 

“Yes, they ask the gods for them.” Alex answered.  He knew this one.

 

“Well, you see, the stone ax tribe gets classes through their shamans.  They set up a tabernacle and people can do the ritual there.  But shamans that have experience in those rituals all went with the chief’s group.  Also, the gods that give shaman classes tend to shun civilization.” Fufi explained.

 

“So we can’t get anyone new classes? What about Luna?  Can she give someone a class of mayor?” Alex asked his familiar.

 

“Remember, she is the goddess of cuteness.  Only the cute parts of civilization fall into her domain.” Fufi replied.

 

“So what?  If someone was found worthy to get a mayor class from her then her skills would be focused on making the town cuter?” Alex wondered aloud.

 

Fufi nodded.  “Or make the town's inhabitants cuter.”

 

Alex pondered. “That actually might be really useful to magical girls.  There would be some good synergy.  Say a tailor could make a dress that gave cuteness+1 then if she did it in cute town with the mayor’s skill helping everyone with their cute creation it could maybe be a cuteness+2 dress instead?”

 

“Now you are getting it.  Behold the importance of cuteness!” Fufi cheered.

 

Alex rolled his eyes. “This world is so weird.  But I guess we have to roll with it.  Oh, Ki do you still want to try to ask for a class?  Maybe we could take a break from all of this for a couple of days and visit the grotto and see how they are coming along.”

 

“Merumeru and the nymphs finished it up a few days ago. I bet you’ll be impressed with how cute it looks.  It has lots of lovely flowers.  My sisters really overdid themselves on gardening.” Ki beamed proudly.

 

“Merumeru was there?  I thought she was hanging around here.  Oh well, I’ll try not to think about the fact that she apparently can be in two places at once.  I’ll get a headache.” Alex sighed.