Thousand-Faced Dragon

Chapter 423 The New Lord

For the people of Radiant City, especially the commoners in the dock area, the past few months have been far too exciting.

The once peaceful days are changing every day. What has happened in the past few months could have been discussed for ten years in the past.

But for ordinary people living in it...

"How much is the rent? How much are the food prices? How much are the taxes? Is it easy to find a job? Is there anyone to help if I get sick? How safe is the city?" These are the tangible things that are most important to them.

"Our lives are actually getting better."

"There are more kinds of food, and they've become cheaper. There are more priests, and they're even willing to come to the slums to help people for free. And there are even tax reductions."

"There are so many more jobs available now. Our young people have legitimate jobs now, in addition to being gang thugs, prostitutes, and small vendors. Many factories are hiring."

"The security situation is much better now. Slave traders don't dare to arrest people randomly anymore, and the patrolling paladins are much more reliable than the sheriffs of the past. Those hired paladins are actually trustworthy."

For Rean, some things are being changed by his own hands.

Even in the worst-performing area, the dock district, rents and property prices have increased by at least 70%. This speaks volumes about the appreciation of this area's value, especially when other parts of the city have experienced a significant decline.

The reason is quite simple: the appearance of the "epic mission" in the underground ruins spread the message that "the city is about to be destroyed." Even though most people did not think this was their future, a large number of deserters still appeared.

For ordinary people, leaving is almost impossible. They are bound to the land, bound to the jobs and social relationships they have worked so hard to find. Even if there are disasters they cannot resist, they can only endure them and pray for their survival.

For nobles, merchants, and extraordinary professionals, however, there is the possibility of them leaving, and the funds they take with them and the real estate they abandon naturally cause the city to depreciate.

Especially after the takeover of the previously worthless dock area, Rean realized that more than 70% of the assets of this poorest district were actually controlled by local tycoons and nobles.

“The cheap houses that ordinary people own are not actually their own.” Most of these cheap assets are in the hands of local small chambers of commerce. Even if ordinary people happen to make a fortune and buy a house, they often lose it due to taxes, illness, and children’s education (extraordinary).

This is an invisible hand, but also a limitation of the times. Under the premise that the overall environment will never improve, it is too difficult to survive, and it is too difficult for many people to protect their real estate. Behind those small merchant guilds that buy up cheap real estate at low prices are basically large merchant guilds and church forces held by nobles.

They indirectly possessed everything. After all, this era belonged to the powerful. Ordinary merchants who acquired assets but lacked the power to protect them were left to be devoured by local gangs and larger forces.

This could be considered another form of land annexation at the end of a dynasty, a helpless but realistic situation.

The Sudar family, or more precisely, Rean Sudar's family, acquired a large number of cheap assets in these docklands. The money came from Sudar's family, and the management and acquisition personnel were also local members of the Sudar family.

"This is quite a delicate matter. I'm clearly not living off a woman." Rean knew that this was Suliman's good intention, and he couldn't refuse. Under the current circumstances, he had to take control of the dock area as much as possible.

Essentially, this is no different from other great noble families; it's just that some are optimistic and some are pessimistic.

But when a large amount of assets were in Rean's hands, he could do more. He never considered himself a good person, at best he had below-average moral character, but the local nobles were really too inhuman.

"Uh, there are absolutely no cleaning staff here. Does nobody care about sanitation?"

"Even if you don't have a drainage system, and you're just dumping all sorts of garbage into the sea, at least build some pipes! The streets stink."

By merely starting to build drainage and water supply systems and hiring some cleaning staff, Rean already seemed much more human than the previous "district chief." This standard of living, typically found only in the local area or noble districts, wasn't something that hadn't been developed for ordinary people in many other worlds; rather, it was simply something that ordinary people didn't deserve.

People in this world know that a clean environment makes it less likely to get sick, but no one cared before.

Hunger and violence are more likely to cause death than future diseases.
"Let's build a hospital, hire some doctors and alchemists, and send invitations to some pastors. If they don't come, our church can still use them."

Rean thought for a moment and shook his head.

If the hospital were actually built, ordinary people probably wouldn't dare to come in. And the income wouldn't be enough to support the value of these "high-income earners".

“Build it near the plaza, so that it mainly serves adventurers. Set up some small private clinics around it, let apprentices run them, and give them some good medicine from the hospital.”

Small clinics, unlicensed doctors, and barefoot doctors are the main medical care for ordinary people. However, once major hospitals are established, the outflow of medical resources will make these lower-level medical units more effective.

Rean's seemingly redundant action actually transformed the hospital into a "strategic facility for conquering the underground ruins," a logistical organization serving the warriors who went to the underground ruins. That meant he could use local taxes, merchant donations, and expenditures from the city or even the kingdom to build it.

In this era, if someone spends a lot of money building public facilities, others will think you're crazy or stupid. If you hire priests to treat ordinary people, some people might even feel it's an insult.

But from another perspective, if it's "to serve the gods" or "to save the city," then everything seems acceptable.

"These days, even being a human being is so difficult."

At this moment, Rean unexpectedly received some news: it turns out that the monk profession also has certain knowledge of medicinal herbs and medicine.

In many remote areas, those monasteries also represent a certain medical function. By utilizing qi, they can also obtain certain healing abilities, and some medicinal herbs are needed to assist in the process of cultivation.

The practice itself involves constant injuries, and various herbal remedies have been passed down through generations. Many martial monks also serve as itinerant healers.

It is said that some mid- to high-ranking monks even possess the ability to heal others, but this is entirely unrealistic, as their qi is not only limited but also primarily affects themselves.

"How about we build a monastery?" But the next moment, Rean rejected the idea. The training of a martial monk was too demanding, and living in a bustling city was even more impractical.

Moreover, the practice of monks often requires a long-term inheritance and a stable community to be mass-produced. It is impossible for one person to do it alone.

But the course of fate is often unpredictable.

While Rean was busy with his martial monk training, a group of travelers from his "hometown" came from afar.

The rarest and most eye-catching of them all is a specialty of his desert kingdom: a group of warrior monks from the depths of the desert.

One of the most obvious was a great monk with blue skin and golden eyes, surrounded by the aura of lightning. His bloodline as a desert blue dragon was impossible to conceal, and there were quite a few dragon descendants and half-dragons among this group of monks.

They were from Rean's hometown, and as for why they were in this group, the noble "Sudael" family crest on the luxurious carriage was particularly eye-catching.

(End of this chapter)