"What are you thinking?" Matthew asked as he looked at this new friend of his, just staring deeply at the inn.
Micheal shook his head. "I'll tell you later." He said, as there were still plenty of things they had to explore before studying them deeply.
The trio proceeded to walk along the beautiful pathway, coming across another small park along the way. "The territory seems to be very conscious about greening."
Fred nodded. "At least 20% of the built areas were green, and this is not even including the farm areas and the pure forests near the edges."
The ginger sighed dreamily as he said so, "This was lovely, back in Terran very few cities could do it, I always dreamed of living in those places. Now here I am!"
The two nodded, agreeing. In Terran, because of the damage to the environment, less than 10% of the forests were left in the end. In terms of area, that was less than 0.1% of the entire planet.
The trend of richer cities was to create 'green cities' but the initial and maintenance costs were exuberant, most people couldn't afford to even rent a small unit in these cities.
(It had to be said that Garan and Althea were still pretty lucky to live in an orphanage not far from a forest. This was only possible due to conservatory laws, so it could be said that the two still lived an ironically 'luxurious' life as orphans, even if they were often hungry.)
In any case, it was a pretty novel experience for all Terrans to be transferred in this world made predominantly of rich forests.
But the dangers quickly slapped reality onto their faces and their focus shifted purely to survival. They didn't even think about the issue of sustainably and just built where they could.
They just thought to keep some patches of forests inside for the resources, just enough for the current population, and that was it.
"Are the farms open for visit?"
"In a sense, yes, but only at the edges." Fred said, "More accurately, only to a viewing deck. Only owners of farms and their personnel are allowed inside that zone."
"Of course! Come with me."
They walked along the avenue to the center, seeing more and more stores and people. They also saw a lot of their own people shopping around, hands already filled with food only half an hour into the tour.
Passing through here, they went northeast to see a winding path climbing up the mountain.
"We're going up the Mountain?"
"Yes. I've mentioned we can only go to a viewing deck…"
The two lords looked at each other and shrugged, following their patient guide along the path.
It was a well-maintained trekking path, designed for hikers. It was designed according to easy trekking paths back in Terran. There were wooden benches every hundred meters or so, and they saw about three gazebos so far.
Internally, the two lords sighed in self-pity.
Really, they were still struggling, but someone was on the way to make a mountain resort…
They took about half an hour to reach a certain height to a small building with a large deck. It was surrounded by various plants, and there were even some Terran flowers like lavender.
"Most of the farms are private land, but the territory built this small view deck for those who wish to gain a better view of the territory. It is also near the farmlands, so I decided to take you here."
The two reached the view deck—lined with cut stone and balusters—and headed towards the railings to look over the edge. They had yet to study the entire sight, but their hearts were shocked to the core almost instantaneously.
The entire city was extremely well-developed, themed, and organized. The roads and streets took an organic but relatively gridiron form, with the greenery plenty and uniform.
It was shocking. Dozens and dozens of hectares of crop-filled land shook their souls.
There were rice, wheat, orchards, tubers, herbs, and others—plenty of them. This was a scale they wouldn't even be able to imagine to achieve in less than a month.
It was not that they didn't consider farming, but the local plants and their methods of growing were unfamiliar. Not to mention, the refresh rate of the forests made this issue a non-priority.
Well, obviously they thought too little.
It took them a while to shake themselves off the mental blow, enough to observe the rest of the territory.
From their location, they could see the large warehouse-like buildings some hundred meters away.
Matthew pointed at them and asked, and Fred answered happily.
"Those are factories: Some were rented by Baron's party, many by Ms. Althea's, and a few occasional teams are also reserving the ones being constructed."
"Yes, there are woodworking factories, herbal medicine factories, food processing factories, ceramics-making factories, fabric-making factories, and many others."
They were shocked by the scale of farming and industry in this territory. They should have taken up nearly half of the current land, right? Wasn't that too generous?
However, it could be seen that it worked. Whoever the Lord was, he knew very well how to use the talents of his citizens and maximize them to the degree they didn't know they could emulate.
Of course, the condition for such development of talent was that people would feel safe enough.
After all, they first needed to feel safe enough not to worry about the basics, and safe enough to be able to explore a higher sense of existence.
The two looked at the tall walls, sentry towers, and the level 2 Village center, knowing in their hearts that this condition was met, and more.
What an enlightening trip…
The two really can't help but admire the wisdom of the lord here.
Ideally, they would have wanted to learn more from the sage himself, but for now (since the lord here obviously didn't want to be disturbed) they'd have to settle with studying his product.
But they excused themselves, they were only inexperienced young men after all. The Lord here must be a seasoned old man.
Althea-the-old-man: "..."