Her words were completely professional, but it made Garan turn to her.
Althea felt his stare and she looked at him. It took a moment for her to realize what the heated stare was about and she wanted to pinch his cheek.
"Pregnant women can't make love for a certain number of months, apparently. It'll be bad for the baby."
Garan's face was unchanged and he nodded, "Yes, there are so many people in the territory, we should implement policies that would encourage couples to procreate."
Her lips twitched. Her husband can be very easy to talk to.
Mathilda, who was standing beside them (and watching them in amusement), giggled. "I agree with Garan. We can add incentives for couples to create families."
In Terran, plenty of countries saw declines in their younger population because the young adults simply didn't want to make families. This created a major problem of a declining workforce but an increasing number of senior citizens.
In those countries, incentive schemes were implemented, as well as some guarantees. Although not all of them were applicable in their case, Mathilda already had a few policies in mind that may mirror a couple of those policies.
For instance, they could introduce child benefits and tax breaks. They would offer financial support to families who had babies until, say, the age of 3, which should give enough time for a family to adjust.
They could also lower the costs of childcare items and the like. They would provide some monthly copper allowance for the couple and guaranteed free ob-gyn care and baby supplies.
"This is a good time to implement policies," Althea said. "We are not only among the top in our tier—which may not be the same after we upgrade to Town—but I also heard it'd be much harder to procreate after a certain level."
This certain level varied from levels 25 to level 40, depending on the individual. Gaia, Oslo's mother, seemed to have given birth to him around the latter level.
However, most people's limits were much earlier and they didn't want people holding back their own upgrades because they wanted children.
Mathilda smiled, taking it as an official instruction. "Leave this to us," she said, mentioning a few of the policies she had in mind. "I can tell you that in a few years, we would have thousands more children gracing our territory."
Althea and the others smiled at the image.
Back to the school, the first day of classes was now about to start!!
The hundred children varied in age, but were divided into three classes which would eventually have tiers should the educators deem them necessary. The three tiers were nursery, elementary, and high school.
Only Theo was in the nursery class for now, but Beany decided to enroll him anyway. When they found out about this, Garan and Althea also decided to enroll the twins as honorary students in the following days.
Despite their age and since it was only three children, it should be easy for the teacher—a lovely young lady called Evelyn—to care for them.
Speaking of Evelyn, she was a pretty girl with curly reddish-brown hair and pale skin. She was also Turbo's childhood sweetheart and quite a mild-mannered girl.
Turbo found her when he and a team of guards (as well as a few civilians training) cleared out the surrounding areas of monsters.
According to witnesses, she and a few others were unsightly, but Turbo recognized her immediately. They had just escaped from a fallen village west called Juno Village, which was taken over by aborigines.
When they bought their map, they found that the former territory was really a long way West, even beyond Fargo.
They really traveled for more than a week before ending up in their area. Her group of more than a hundred was down to about a dozen by the time they were rescued.
According to the spectators—er, witnesses—Turbo immediately hugged the woman as soon as he recognized her, not even noticing all the grime on her.
The two just cried in each other's arms while the rest cleared out the mob their large group attracted.
As for how she survived this long, she had awakened a skill similar to Horus' stealth skill, but milder and could easily be noticed if one looked closely enough. It was something that she—as someone who lived her whole life as a super-introvert—could control well.
She called the skill… 'The Wallflower' and it was practically a passive skill and required minimal mana.
This skill was pretty much her default mode, and it made Turbo's finding her so quickly even more special.
It was quite romantic, and it became another material for the puppet show writers to base on.
The titles? 'Turbo finds his Wallflower', 'Turbo's Hidden Gem', and 'Water Chronicles: Silent Heart, Loud Love'.
Anyway, Evelyn might be a very quiet and introverted lady, but she was very nourishing and motherly. Turbo would often get teased about how he found himself a perfect housewife and mother of his children.
The nursery class would comprise primarily of the basics like shapes, colors, and the like.
As for the elementary tier, this was where the rest of the 30 children were assigned. The remaining ones were teenagers aged 12 to 18.
For now, each was one class. The elementary class was held by Rosalind—the Dean of this school—herself. She would teach them basic living and literacy, while also introducing them to the world outside.
For Literacy, Terran language class would be an elective that Terran children could take if they wanted to, just to keep their old home alive, but the Xeno written language was mandatory.
Unlike Xenoan spoken language which was programmed in with the system, the written language had to be learned manually.
At this level, it would focus on their alphabet which was mainly logograms, which would take a while to teach.
Still, she pushed for it.
After all, to truly understand a culture, one must not only learn to speak its language—but also be able to read its stories.