Civilization Chronicles: Rise of the Divine Creator

There was one other person in this meeting today that Lucas was seriously contemplating bringing into Project Ascension; as a matter of fact, he had technically already promised her to do just that when he first hired her.

However, unlike the orphan trio from Redwood Town, Victoria Moore, Lucas’ trusty Head Manager, was a much more complicated case to deal with.

Victoria was a former viscount and still had close ties to her old family despite having sworn an oath to serve Lucas.

She also had a much wider range of contacts in both the noble and business world, and while Lucas didn’t think Victoria would be foolish enough to betray him and his Master at this point, especially given the enormous amount of wealth and power she had acquired over the last year thanks to working for them, one could never be too cautious when it came to strong-willed and ambitious subordinates.

I’ll need to have a talk with Master before making a final decision, Lucas made a mental note before actually signaling to Victoria, prompting his Head Manager to stand up to give the final report of the day.

.....

As Lucas’ Head Manager, Victoria’s had been tasked not only with numerous specific missions, like negotiating the import of processed grapeseed and cream-of-tartar from Crystal Lake, she was also responsible for supervising all of the young boy’s many projects and their day-to-day operations.

In other words, she was extremely over-worked, a fact she complained about frequently.

Despite the harshness of her job, however, Victoria never once slacked off or half-assed things.

She would have claimed the title of ’biggest workaholic’ in Misty City, if not for Lucas’ existence.

Knowing that her boss was busier and frequently more stressed out than her was one of the things that comforted Victoria and kept her going.

In any case, because of her unique position, Victoria’s report was more of a summary of the organization’s overall performance this year. How much money they made, how much they spent, how many people they hired, how many deals they signed, how many projects they started, and so on and so forth.

Once she was done with this summary, Victoria moved on to ’big picture’ future goals, among which was one in particular that she was quite excited for.

In the spring of next year, survey work was scheduled to begin along the South-East Province’s ocean-facing shoreline. This would lay the groundwork for the construction of the Rockwell Kingdom’s first costal city.

This city was set to be governed directly by the Moore Family, and among other things, it would host a massive, state-of-the art shipyard where research into oceangoing vessels would be conducted.

The city itself would also incorporate technology and techniques that Lucas and his Urban Development Team had been testing out across the Balfour March and in the Randolph County for the past year.

Running water supplied to every home, a working indoor sewage system, properly organized streets and districts, schools, guilds, cultivation academies... it was going to be an immense challenge and expense, but both Lucas and Victoria were determined to forge ahead with the new city’s construction as it was the key to many of their future ambitions.

For Lucas, a functioning costal city with a shipyard capable of building ships that could sail across the vast open seas was the first true step he needed to take in order to reunite with his parents, returning Lady Frey and her pack of Snow Spirit Foxes to the Northern Continent, and bringing Yuki back to her mother at the south pole.

There had not been a single day since that terrible night back in Redwood Town that Lucas hadn’t dreamed of setting out to search for his mom and dad, and it had been a great point of frustration how long it was taking to even begin working towards that goal.

Now, however, he was about to make some real progress in this regard.

Of course, there were still a lot of challenges and problems left to address, but that was pretty much the case for everything Lucas was currently working on, so that wasn’t enough to dampen his enthusiasm.

As for Victoria, the new city was where her Moore Family would stage its comeback.

Ever since they were forced to abandon Port Calden, the Moores had become landless nobles, which was a painful fate for the ambitious family to endure, especially when they had been on the cusp of becoming a Count-Rank house.

Even now, the Moores were a bit scattered, with half of them residing in and around Misty City while the other half was living in Falcon’s Bend, working in the vast shipyards there at the direct request of Count Lester Randolph and General Oscar Caldwell.

Victoria knew she would never hold the position of Matriarch again, but she still wanted to see her family rise, and this was undoubtedly the best opportunity to help them achieve that.

Not that she was dissatisfied with her current position, of course.

She might complain a lot about her workload and the unreasonable requests from her young boss, but deep down, Victoria was actually quite dedicated to Lucas.

He might be nothing but the young Disciple of a Marquess right now, but Victoria had worked with Lucas long enough to know that the Rockwell Kingdom wasn’t big enough to contain him forever.

Lucas was going to go places, big places, and as his Head Manager, Victoria would naturally get to come along for the ride.

It was a future that was as exciting as it was daunting; just the kind of challenge Victoria lived for.

.....

With Victoria Moore completing her report, Lucas stood and addressed the room, ”Good work everyone. Thanks to all of your efforts, we’ve made astonishing progress this year, and we will continue to do so going forward. For now, however, get some rest, spend your year-end bonuses, and enjoy the New Years celebrations!”

Cheers went up from the gathered managers, as well as words of praise for Lucas, Victoria, Laura, and several others who had made particularly significant contributions to the organization.

Just as everyone was about to start filing out of the hall, though, Lucas remembered something rather important he had forgotten to announce and called out, ”Right! While you’re all relaxing over the break, I hope you can spare a moment to think of a name for our organization.”

”Hahaha, Boss Lucas is right,” Joel nodded, ”we can’t just keep calling it Lucas’ organization, after all.”

Many people laughed when this was pointed out, Lucas included.

He really hoped someone could come up with a good name for whatever it was he was currently building, as he felt his own naming sense was quite terrible.

And on that note, the meeting was adjourned and Lucas grabbed his coat, draping it over his shoulders as he made his way to the stables where he hopped on a horse and headed down to the docks to welcome Christina back from her long deployment in Amherst.