Herald of Steel



Once the group finished inspecting the apartment complex, they soon returned to the carriage and made their way to the center of the city.

And while on the way, Pasha Farzah asked a few more tidbits about the houses, particularly, "So what's the cost of these buildings?"

And Alexander would admit these houses were not cheap.

Each apartment needed 250 tons of cement which cost Alexander 75 ropals a ton.

Around 1500 tons of bricks were needed which was 60 ropals a ton.

Each of the workers working there demanded 300 ropals a month, double that of a peasant's as they were much more skilled.

And then there were aggregates such as sand, gravel, and water, and furnishing such as doors and windows.

Taking all this into consideration, it came to around 200 to 250 thousand ropals per housing.

This was certainly not cheap.

And worse still it was an amount Alexander was never likely going to be able to recoup.

Because even assuming he could charge each of the 32 families living there a monthly rent of 30 ropals, it would still take him around 18 to 22 years to make his money back.

And this was not even considering the maintenance costs, such as sweepers to clean the buildings, repainting it once in a while, and conducting other repairs.

Alexander would likely have to set up a small council of around 100 to 150 men just to oversee these buildings.

All this combined meant that Alexander would likely be able to maybe recoup half of the 200 to 250 million ropals he planned to spend on the 1,000 buildings over the next decade.

"A lot! Close to a million." Alexander quadrupled his costs when he answered Pasha Farzah with a helpless smile on his face, saying, "That's why I will only build a few for now."

Hearing the costs, and being well aware of the cost of building structures in general, F surprisingly found the cost to be reasonable as he nodded gently.

The reason was because he compared the concrete buildings to comparable stone ones, and since stones were much more expensive than bricks, and the mortal had to be prepared using much more expensive process, he estimated the buildings to be around 800,000 to 1 million ropals using his own experience.

Which led to his next question.

"So why are building such expensive homes for the peasants, my lord? I don't think they will be ever able to pay them back." But this was not asked by Pasha Farzah.

Instead, in a rare case of occurrence, it was done by Nanazin, who chose to open her mouth for the first time since the journey started.

And Alexander turned to look at the beautiful woman who was wearing a full-sleeved, high-collared black dress that covered her entire body except the face and hands even on this hot summer day.

This was in much contrast with the other two women, who wore much looser, even somewhat revealing clothes, their half-sleeved gowns starting much below the collarbones, and even showing a bit of cleavage.

And it was not like Nanzan had worn it because she preferred it, as she was clearly uncomfortable in it given how Alexander would see small beads of sweat trickling down her cheeks, and how she would regularly swing her hands around a bit, in a sort of an attempt to fan herself.

But she had still chosen to wear it due to reasons Alexander would easily guess.

"Yes, Your Highness is right. But it was never about the money. I built them because I wanted to help the peasants," Pushing those thoughts away for now, Alexander gave this reply, as he then chuckled in a self-deprecating manner, "Hahaha, what can I say? Being once a peasant myself, I just could not leave them."

This reminder made the four remember once again that Alexander was in fact not one of them.

At least not by birth.

A fact they would easily forget once they started talking to him.

Because Alexander's mannerisms were really not likely a peasant, which was crude and crass.

But instead, he was very clean, refined, and charming in his conversations.

And this was not something a peasant was capable of, no matter how expensive clothes he put on, or how much perfume he drowned himself in.

And it was a phenomenon one could see in the modern age as well.

Such as if a relative visits from the village or rural areas, they just have that bumkin aura to them.

But Alexander did not have that.

And that was what the people had thought Alexander of until now, as a refined, smart man.

But that impression changed with Alexander frankly revealing that he was wasting so much money on a deadbeat project.

Even the competent Pasha Farzah saw no point in providing free housing to the poor peasants when they could easily be living in small huts and doing the same thing.

After all, peasants were called peasants because they were cheap, abundant, and disposable.

So there was little need to look after them outside of the basic necessities.

Hence the old man was of the thought that after Alexander had looted the Grand Temple, he had more money than sense, and so was wasting them in such frivolous endeavors.

And this made him internally shake his head.

But he did not speak out against it, or offer some advice.

Because it was Alexander's decision and felt it would not be right for him to comment.

Besides, he also felt mistakes were a good way to learn.

And this was this last thought that made the Pasha not form a bad impression of Alexander.

After all, the old man had seen enough of life to know that all people had something they were bad at.

And all people made bad choices or wasted money on poor investments at some point in their lives.

He himself had made the mistake of underestimating Alexander and had to pay the price.

And so the aged man let Alexander carry on.

While it was Lady Inayah who broke the almost uncomfortable silence that had descended after Alexander's altruistic answer,

"Haha, Lord Alexander is truly magnanimous. Zanzan is lucky to have a lord like you," She lightly smiled the answer.

And though it appeared a very polite answer, it was actually diplomatic code for calling something or someone 'not so smart'.

Because a lord being praised as competent or skilled or a military veteran was praise.

But a lord being called magnanimous meant he was actually a sucker who was loose with money.

Alexander was of course aware of the thoughts of the people around him, if not fully, but at least partially.

And surprisingly, he would agree with them...if the price he quoted was correct.

A million ropals for a building was too much for him no matter how good his financial situation was.

If it had been so much, Alexander would have simply discarded the project.

But the 250,000 price tag barely made that possible.

"Yes. Magnanimous." Pasha Farzah spookily repeated, before regretfully shaking his head and saying,

"If only they were cheaper. I could have built them in my cities, and they would be immune to razing."

The aged lord had the smarts to figure out that these cement buildings would be pretty impervious to fire, which would give a defending force a great advantage, for they would be able to fight inside the city without any trouble and even use the buildings as obstacles to break up the attacking force, enabling the defenders to pick them off one at a time.

And the reason why it was not possible currently was because an attacking army could simply set fire to the wooden and thatched houses, turning the city into a smoking ruin and cooking the enemy inside.

That's why in ancient times, the battle tended to end once the city walls were breached, unlike in modern times.

Alexander silently praised the old man for his insight, while the carriage at last entered the central district, which frankly had nothing much to see.

"This place is currently empty. But I intend to build all the administrative buildings here," Alexander lightly said as the carriage went past a bunch of workers busy in construction.

Currently, they were being ordered to build the senate building, as Alexander wanted to move his meeting there as soon as possible.

Following this the carriage turned north to the market district, and it was here Alexander intended to show some of his new inventions.

And as the carriage entered this section of the city, the roads started getting narrower, and the buildings shabbier.

"We have not had the time to develop this part of the town," Alexander gave the reason for its current state, and when they reached the mouth of the open market, he lightly smiled and said,

"After the war and the spring harvest, the markets are just starting. So it's not much,"

Though looking at the bustling crowd ahead of him, it was anything but not much.

In fact the market seemed to be almost spilling over.

Seeing this state, and because of the dingy, congested roads, Alexander then proposed they view the market on foot, saying, "If Your Highnesses cannot get up and close, you will not simply able to determine the quality of the goods."

And the Queen mother appeared eager to do that, as she quickly said, "Hmm, yes, let's. You cannot see anything from a carriage anyway."

And so with a large, multilayered escort, Alexander and the group slowly made it into the crowded market.