The dust of the goblin raid had barely settled on Fallen Stone Village's rickety palisade when Allen Thorn's administrator instincts kicked back into high gear.
The village had survived, yes. The urgent DEFEND ASSET quest was marked complete, his class had upgraded to Junior Administrator, and his Logistics Aura now hummed with a faint blue glow that boosted the team's efficiency. But a post-mission audit told him the cold, unvarnished truth: their victory was a stopgap, not a solution.
Population still hovered at four—himself included. Food reserves sat at a mere 11 units, barely enough for four days of rations. The mine, their only long-term resource hope, remained sealed and untapped, its corruption leak slowly worsening. And their combat capability? Non-existent. Geralt could throw a rock. Tilly could jab a stake. Brok could swing a hammer with one arm. None of them were trained fighters.
Allen stared at his system interface, the Settlement Stability bar stuck at a pitiful 28%. A project manager didn't celebrate surviving a crisis—he planned to prevent the next one.
He issued his first orders of the morning before the sun had fully crested the treetops. Geralt would tend to the farm plot and forage for wild edibles. Tilly would ration the remaining food and mend the tattered village clothing. Brok would sort the scrap metal and assess what tools could be repaired.
And Allen? He was heading out on a perimeter scout.
His mission wasn't just to check for more goblin threats. It was a stakeholder acquisition run. In the corporate world, you didn't scale a failing startup with just the founding team. You hired talent. You brought in specialists who filled your gaps. In Aethelgard, that meant finding someone with combat training—someone who could fight so Allen didn't have to.
He activated his Territory Appraisal skill as he walked, the blue holographic map spreading out before him. The skill marked resource nodes, terrain hazards, and… life signatures. Most were small animals: rabbits, squirrels, birds. But one blip glowed brighter, humanoid, and surrounded by smaller red blips that marked hostile creatures.
Goblins. And a survivor.
Allen's jaw tightened. He moved quietly through the pine trees, his reincarnated body still adjusting to its lean, sturdy frame. The forest air smelled of pine and damp earth, a stark contrast to the sterile data center where he'd died. He crested a small hill and crouched behind a boulder, his eyes narrowing at the scene below.
A young woman was pinned against a gnarled oak tree, her back to the bark, a worn wooden bow in one hand and a single arrow nocked. She couldn't have been older than nineteen, with sun-streaked brown hair, a smattering of freckles across her nose, and eyes sharp as flint—even as starvation hollowed her cheeks. Her leather armor was tattered, her boots scuffed, and a small hunting knife hung at her hip.
A system prompt popped up when Allen focused on her.[Lina | Level 3 Hunter | Human | Status: Starving, Exhausted, Moderate Lacerations][Class: Hunter (Basic) | Skills: Basic Archery (Lv.2), Tracking (Lv.1), Stealth (Lv.1)]
She was a trained hunter. A ranged DPS. Exactly the talent his village was missing.
Four goblins—Level 1 Grunts, leftover stragglers from the previous raid—circled her, hooting and jabbering, rusted daggers glinting. They weren't in a hurry to kill her. They were toying with her, knowing she was too weak to fight back. Her quiver was empty save for that one arrow. Her legs shook from hunger.
Allen's first instinct wasn't heroism. It was risk assessment.
Four Level 1 goblins. He had no combat skills, no weapon, just his wits and his system. A direct charge would get him injured or killed. But a flanking maneuver? Divide and conquer? That was project management 101.
He grabbed a fist-sized rock from the ground, weighed it in his hand, and hurled it with all his strength. The rock slammed into the dirt ten feet to the goblins' left, kicking up a cloud of dust.
The goblins shrieked, spinning toward the noise. Their primitive brains latched onto the sudden movement, and two of them charged the distraction.
Allen moved fast. He grabbed a long, sharp branch from the forest floor, crept up behind the remaining two goblins, and slammed the branch into the back of one's knees. The goblin crumpled with a yelp. The other spun around, and Allen used the branch to bat its dagger away, then shoved it hard into the tree. It hit the oak with a dull thud and slumped to the ground, dazed.
By then, the two goblins that had chased the rock were returning. Allen didn't engage. He stepped back, gestured sharply at Lina, and yelled, "Your bow! Use that last arrow!"
Lina didn't hesitate. Her starving hands moved with the precision of a trained hunter. She loosed the arrow, and it buried itself in the throat of the nearest goblin. The creature gurgled and fell. The last remaining goblin panicked and turned to flee, but Allen lunged with the branch, tripping it before it could escape. It landed face-first in the dirt and went still.
Silence fell over the small clearing.
Allen dropped the branch, breathing hard. He turned to Lina, who was still pressed against the tree, her eyes wide with suspicion and exhaustion. She didn't thank him. She didn't beg for help. She just watched him, a hunter assessing a potential threat.
Smart, Allen thought. Survivors don't trust strangers in a post-cataclysm world.
He kept his hands raised, palms out, non-threatening. "I'm not here to hurt you," he said, his voice calm, the same tone he used to de-escalate angry clients in his past life. "I'm from Fallen Stone Village. We just fought off a goblin raid a few hours ago. These stragglers wandered off."
Lina's throat bobbed as she swallowed. "Village?" she whispered, her voice hoarse from hunger. "There are no villages left here. The goblins burned them all."
"Ours survived," Allen said. "Barely. But we need help. You're a hunter. Level 3. You can fight. You can track. You can find food."
He stepped forward slowly, not wanting to startle her. He saw her eyes flick to his system interface—the faint blue hologram only he could see, but she'd caught the glow. She knew he was a System bearer, a lord candidate.
In Aethelgard, most lords demanded fealty. They demanded servitude, loyalty, tribute. They offered protection in exchange for unquestioning obedience. Feudal hierarchy. Obligation. Debt.
Allen wasn't most lords. He was a project manager. He offered contracts.
"I'm not here to rescue you out of charity," Allen said, flat and honest. Honesty was the best negotiation tactic in a startup—no empty promises, no hidden fine print. "I'm here to hire you."
Lina blinked, confusion replacing suspicion. "Hire me?"
"Employment contract," Allen clarified. He pulled up a new system prompt, a formal agreement materializing in the air between them—simple, clear, no flowery fealty oaths. "Three full meals a day, no exceptions. We run a tight rationing system, but you'll get your full share. Ten percent equity share of all village resources—lumber, ore, food, crafting materials. Everything the village produces, you get ten percent."
He leaned in slightly, driving the point home. "In exchange, you work for the village. You hunt for food. You scout our perimeter for threats. You fight alongside us when we're attacked. Ranged support. Tracking. Recon. Your skills are the asset we're buying."
Equity. Not servitude. Partnership. Merit over loyalty.
It was a foreign concept in Aethelgard's feudal world, but it spoke to Lina's survival instinct. She was an orphan, a frontier survivor, someone who'd never had anything to call her own. No home, no food, no future. But equity? That was hers. A share. A stake in something that would grow.
Her eyes darted to the system contract, then back to Allen. She didn't see a lord demanding obedience. She saw a manager offering a fair deal.
"What's the catch?" she asked, wary.
"No catch," Allen said. "If you don't perform, we renegotiate. If you want to leave later, you take your equity share with you. This isn't fealty. This is a job. A partnership. We win together, or we starve together."
Lina's stomach growled loudly, a harsh, embarrassing sound. She stared at the contract, at the promise of three meals a day, at the ten percent share that meant she'd never have to scavenge and starve again. She'd spent her whole life surviving alone. For the first time, she could survive with someone.
A system chime echoed in both their heads.[QUEST ACTIVATED: First Hire][Objective: Recruit Lina the Hunter to join Fallen Stone Village][Reward: Unlock Hunter's Blind (Passive Food Generation), Logistics Aura Ranged Boost +5%]
Lina stared at the quest prompt, then at Allen. She pushed herself away from the tree, her legs still shaking, but her chin lifted.
"I accept," she said.
Allen felt a faint surge of satisfaction, the same he felt when closing a critical hiring deal back in the office. Stakeholder acquired. Talent added to the team. The village's odds of survival had just jumped exponentially.
He offered her a hand. She stared at it for a second, then took it, her grip firm despite her weakness.
"Welcome to the team," Allen said. "First order of business: a hot meal. Then we talk about your first sprint objectives."
Lina didn't know what a sprint was. But for the first time in years, she had hope.