After walking out with the other elders and going home, she teleported back to the second floor of the warehouse to go back to the village center, precisely to where she stood ten minutes earlier.
Ah, the lengths she had to go through to hide her identity…
She stood in front of the summoning circle, heaving a sigh. Hopefully, this time she would be able to summon a decent NPC.
Well, ideally.
For some reason, it was getting pointedly more difficult each day to encounter a good NPC. More often than not, she just wasted her silver trying to get a good option.
Perhaps, this was the point. Maybe the first 'good stock' was there to entice them to keep trying. Who knows…
"Wish me luck." She said to the aborigines that had remained there. Althea then walked to the summoning circle without another word.
"Good luck, milord." The aborigines uttered, also looking forward to it. They wondered if they would finally get another companion to share the good things with.
To be honest, it was quite fun to watch fellow aborigines' surprised faces when they encountered things from this territory.
It made them quite proud.
It also showed that, subconsciously or not, they already felt great sense of belonging to the Territory.
Althea did not know about the going-ons in their heads, however. She simply stood on the circle, paid a silver as required, hoping to actually get a decent one this time.
Unfortunately, the first one was just a Level E armor maker. While she considered it seriously to give Clutch an assistant, she paid another silver for the next slot anyway.
The second slot was a gardener without any occupation at all. According to his description, he was very experienced in maintaining plants of the lord's castle.
Sigh.
With pursed lips, she clicked on her final chance for the day, hoping not to waste another silver.
[Name: Lenny Po
Level: D
Abilities: Production of low to mid-level clothing
Wage: 15 gold per month, food twice a day inclusive
Confirm? (3/3)]
.
.
Clothing??
She seemed to have… forgotten all about this?
It was fortunate that Terrans had been given space early on and some time to prepare. Pretty much everyone who survived had several changes of clothing.
However, after the initial suffering, a lot of clothes should've been destroyed. In time, they would really have no clothes left!!
She herself and her children had ample of clothing, enough change of clothing that could rotate a week, so she really didn't feel the problem before.
Immediately, she hired the NPC and a bright light illuminated the room, revealing a middle-aged woman with a simple, but comfortable, dress.
However, it was notable that her eye bags were big, her eyes were dull, and her whole person had a somber feel to it.
The woman was a bit surprised when she saw Althea, but quickly caught herself and saluted. "Milord."
"Call me Althea, elder, or Miss Althea. My identity is a secret here."
"...yes, Elder Althea."
Well, good enough, Althea mused before she continued speaking. "May I know how your profession differs from non-professionals?"
"The clothing I create has defensive properties."
Similar to armor makers, though armor makers could produce other accessories like gloves, knee guards, and shields.
Althea nodded and quickly assigned her a job. "Okay, I will assign you a place. How many pieces of clothing can you make?"
The woman stared for a moment, blinking. "What cloths do we have available in the territory, milord?"
"..."
Darn. She was happy too soon.
…
"So… how do you guys get your clothing?" Althea asked after a pause, looking around and facing the other NPCs as well.
The NPCs looked at each other. They also forgot about this problem.
Although on their part, while they were impressed with the fabric the Lord and the others had, they saw that the clothes did not provide any defense attribute at all. Hence, they didn't ask for fear of offending people.
"Nobles tend to call on seamstresses and clothes makers to their houses to create bespoke attires.
"Most territories have clothing stores where commoners could buy their attires. For villages, there's usually just one, while town level and above would have at least 1 store carrying products from one or two of the Cloth Cities."
"Cloth cities?"
Oslo nodded. "Well, the art of cloth-making is dominated by three cities: Cloth City, Kilpo City, and Makita City. All fabric known to humans have all basically come from there."
"Oh? Tell me more. And what are the differences in their products?"
"Cloth City is known for its extremely smooth fabrics with natural sheen. This is the favourite of nobles."
"Kilpo City specializes in highly insulating cloth suitable for cold climates. However, they also supply simpler clothing commoners used."
"Makita City fabrics were better known for its fabrics with soft pile that could create rich texture. Nobles also like this, but they're a bit uncomfortable and only worn during formal occasions.
"They also provide what we call Makita cloth, which was a type of cloth that was more accessible to commoners, albeit much more expensive than Kilpo's."
Althea listened carefully. If she were to take on similarities based on the description, it seemed Cloth city specialized in something like Silk, Kilpo with something like wool, while Makita was something like…. Velvet, perhaps?
Similarly, cheaper cloth was also available from Kilpo and Makita.
"Mine is from Kilpo," Clutch said, lifting his sleeves up. "It is a bit rougher compared to what I see your people use, milord." She looked closer and it looked a bit like hemp cloth.
"My clothes are from Makita," Brenda said, and the others (sans Oslo and Betty) said theirs were the same. Looking closer, it was very similar to linen that she also wanted to produce.
"Any idea what their raw materials are?"
Oslo and the others all shook their heads. "We apologize milord. It is a closely guarded secret by these cities."
"Indeed." Lenny said, "To my knowledge, the recipes had been exclusive to them for centuries."
Oslo's dark blue eyes suddenly turned sharp. He abruptly stood up and stared at the Althea. "Milord, are you planning on producing yourself? I'm afraid—"
He was afraid that the territory would be targeted. Don't think the level difference was so large that they wouldn't touch Altera.
There was a limit of ten attacks per year if you were an attacker. But there was not as stringent a limit in receiving one.
A territory could actually be attacked every 16 days.
That was to say, the village could get attacked twice a month if the territory was particularly attractive.
If a territory was targeted by an allied force, then they may have to experience wheel battles once or twice a month.
As very rich cities, these three cities had a lot of subsidiary territories allied to them.
"We'll cross that bridge when we get there," Althea said, taking note of his caveat. "Besides, they may not pay attention to us.
"Didn't you notice our clothing doesn't have any attributes at all?"
The NPCs nodded, and Althea continued. "Even with Lenny, the attributed clothing may have to do with raw materials."
With this, the NPCs' shoulders slumped in relief. Her lips twitched.
However, she thought, if it did come to the point she'd be targeted for producing products that would break the monopolies of powerful entities…
Althea did not panic.
She knew she just needed to make sure she was invincible at least to a territory a level above her.
She wasn't planning on tucking away their resources for fear of others.
After all… 'Altera' was meant to be 'Proud'.