Rise Of The Ussr In Another World - Volume 1 Chapter 5 The Weismann Territory's Problems
Add spent most of the night trying to formulate plans to solve the crisis he was facing as the Lord. He was a person who knew his own limits. The idea he had was very promising, but to make it into a reality would be harder than anything he had faced till now. Firstly, taking the example of the ideals of communism and socialism, if he began the outright preaching of power to the masses and overthrowing of the monarchy and nobility, he would be soon charged of treason and sent to the gallows. Lenin had the support of millions of people , and the time he lived in was much advanced in technology and society as a whole, as compared to the present times of Iseria. Another important fact was that the October revolutions had only been successful because of the armed struggle, the civil war, had been won by the Bolsheviks. The sentiment and support of people were no doubt undeniable, but the military strength of the Bolshevik party was the key to winning the civil war.
But Rome was not built in a day, and neither was the Soviet Union. Add knew that to become a true power in this world, he would have to develop both the economy and the military powers of his territory. But that was much easier said than done, and it had to be done one step at a time. The royalty of this world was divided into many ranks, starting from the Emperor and Empress at the top followed by the Kings and Queens, Prince and Princess, Duke, Duchess, Marquis and Marchioness, Count and Countess, Viscount and Viscountess and the Baron and Baroness at the lowest. People beyond that were treated as common folk. Rudolf Weismann, his grandfather had been bestowed the hereditary title of Marquis, and that title had been passed on to his son Henry and subsequently his son Adolf, that is now Add.
The territory given to the Weismann family showed this rank, as it was larger than any other territory, not even the Dukes of the kingdom had so much land. But then again, this land was just too barren in terms of agriculture. The main produce of this era was wheat, which served as the staple food all over the Northern Subcontinent. But it turned out that the soil here was not very suitable for growing wheat, as the yields were usually low, no matter how hard the farmers tried. Added to that the remoteness of the region and the threat of monsters and bandits, the productivity of this place was low to say the least. Overall, due to these various reasons, the Weismann family were only able to bring 1/8th of their official territory in their control, even after 30 years of hard work.
The only saving grace was that there were many mines in the hills nearby, and the sale of the ores mined from them constituted the bulk of the territory’s trade. Aside from that the people here also collected wild herbs, wood resins etc from the forests which added a little to their income. Every once in a while monster corpses hunted by local would also appear which fetched moderate prices. The closest city from Rigel, was over 200 kilometres away and the only way the local produce could be trade was through travelling merchants who visited the territory a few times in a year. The merchants had to pay certain taxes when buying these items which formed most of the income for the Weismann Family.
Walter had given him a detailed account of the family’s financial situation. All in all, the treasury had a sum total of a little over 2000 gold coins. Now across the subcontinent the various countries used a single currency. It had been so from long back, as a measure to simplify trade and commerce. The currency used here was divided into four types of different coins. It went as follows :
100 copper coins = 1 silver coin
100 silver coins = 1 gold coin
100 gold coins = 1 White gold coin
To put some perspective, a regular loaf of bread cost around 5 copper coins. That would seem to make 2000 gold coins a lot, but in all honesty it was barely enough to run the expenses of the town at best, not to mention that of the entire territory. Walter also expressed his concern about the wanton spending by The original Adolf in the past two years, which had again significantly reduced the reserve money. It should be mentioned that even most well to do Baron ranked nobles, had tens of thousands of gold, while higher nobles had it in over hundreds of thousands. In simple comparison, Add was dirt poor in terms of nobility. His father and even Martha and Walter had tried their best to develop the territory and make it more prosperous, but alas, some things were just beyond their control. However, now that Add had appeared in this place, things could not continue like this; he would not allow this.
He made a simple plan to improve the situation. First he had to boost the agriculture of the region, as that formed the backbone of any economy. This meant increasing food production and also diversifying the types of crops grown. Growing only one type of crop was not enough as if somehow that one crop failed, it would doom the entire system. Next he also could develop the mining sector currently the mining methods used by the people here were very crude and inefficient. They could not even smelt the raw ore and had to sell it for very cheap prices. After all this was done he would have to focus on the trade sector as well. The people had long been complaining that the traders were paying them too low prices for their goods, and making large profits at the expense of the hard work of these people. Add would have to ensure that such practices ceased for good. And lastly, he also had to grow and strengthen the military.
All nobles were allowed to have their own private army, whose size depended on their rank. The Weismann house being a Marquis household was sanctioned to have a strength of 50,000 troops, but actually had, laughably, only 400 troops and 20 guards who guarded the Weismann mansion. And even calling them a militia was stretching the term, much less an army. The reason was that they were poorly trained and equipped. It was not that Adolf’s father and grandfather didn’t want a proper army under them, they simply could not afford to maintain a larger force, due to the expenditure. Both Rudolf an Henry had been excellent oldies, but they had commanded the armies directly under the king, and had no personal followers of their own. Add would have to solve this a well. For now he kept his focus on these four main areas. After he had stabilised these, he could delve into other sectors.
“In the end it’s all about money. To develop these lands, I would need a lot of moneythe question is how can I get that much money.”
He thought for a long time and finally his thoughts went to the system which was his greatest strength in this life. He knew that the system shop had everything he would need from massive weapons of mass destruction to even a toothpick. However to get that he needed CP, lots of CP. The problem was if he wanted to obtain all that CP by himself, then it would take him years of continuous hunting and killing monsters, which was very impractical. As he was wondering how to obtain more CP in lowest amount of time possible, the system promptly rang out.
[Ding! New Mission received !]
[ Mission : Reach Level 10.
Details : Prove your determination and will to excel. Reach level 10 to obtain excellent rewards.
Time Limit : 5 days
Rewards : 20,000 CP and two summoning tokens.
Penalty : None
]
As if answering his pleas, the system dropped a sudden mission. His mind immediately began spinning, to raise his level up to ten in 5 days would require some dedicated hunting and killing of monsters. But it was definitely doable. The reward was too tempting to lose. He had no idea what a summoning ticket did and the system didn’t say either, but he believed that it must be something useful. Recalling that he had levelled up once, he quickly opened his status. As expected there were now two stat and two skill points to allocate. After a brief consideration, he allocated one Stat point to Strength and one to Stamina. His other attributes looked stable for now. He further added one skill point each to [Body Strengthening] and [Accelerated Healing] raising both their levels to 2. His status now looked like this :
_ _ _ _ _ _ _
STATUS
Name : Add
Race : Human
HP : 100/100
MP : N/A (Locked)
Level : 1 | Experience Required : 0/142
Class : N/A
Subclass : N/A
Title : N/A
Passive Skills :
[Unarmed Combat Mastery Lv. 20 (MAX)]
[Knife Mastery Lv. 20(MAX)]
[Firearms Mastery Lv. 20 (Max)]
[Body Strengthening (Passive) Lv. 2/20]
[Accelerated Healing (Passive) Lv. 2/20]
Active Skills :
N/A
Special Skills :
[Calm Mind (Passive) Lv. 20(Max)]
Credit Points : 2,750
ATTRIBUTES :
Vitality : 2
Strength : 2
Agility : 1
Defence: 1
Intelligence : 4
Wisdom : 4
Stamina : 2
Charm :3
Magic Aptitude : N/A (Locked)
Stat Points : 0
Skill Points : 0
_ _ _ _ _ _ _
After dealing with this, he took a short nap, daybreak was a few hours away, as he had spent most of the night thinking his plans. The next day he woke up early had his breakfast and once again set out for the hills, much to Martha’s displeasure. She had thought that the young master would now take things seriously, but it seemed he still wanted to indulge in his impulsive ways. He had taken the same four guards, of which Edward was lucky enough to be a part of again, and felt like crying. His impression of the young master was apparently very nice. Reaching the same spot as yesterday, Add again borrowed Edward’s sword and delved into the forests alone, leaving the four poor guards in tension once again. This time though Add planned to get some bigger prey. He had no intention of chasing rabbits around in the forest. He had some idea as to what monsters were usually found in these hill forests and he wanted to see if he could hunt some.
_ _ _ _ _
In a part of a forest which is a few kilometres away from the guards.
The midday sun shone upon a dense growth of foliage, which consisted of mostly tall trees spreading their branches all around forming a thick canopy, while on the ground, dense shrubbery was covering the forest floor, trying to get what little light passed through the dense canopies. Most of the sunlight was stopped by the tall trees, making the forest somewhat dark. The forest floor was littered with dead and rotting leaves, branches and fallen trees. These coupled with the light drizzle of the morning dew, formed the unique smell of a forest.
Amidst the thick undergrowth, on a small tree, a pair of heterochromatic eyes was looking over the surroundings with great concentration. The eyes belonged to a figure that was clutching a gun and sitting absolutely still. The spot it was at had a perfect blend of cover and shadow, making him almost undiscoverable to others. The figure vigilantly looked on, as many small animals scurried about in the undergrowth while occasionally a few large ones would also pass. He saw a group of [Horned Rabbits] and two [Maned Boars] pas through as well, but did not attack them, he was looking for a more numerous prey which frequented these forests. The cacophony of the millions of insects gave life, to this otherwise quite forest. This figure was of course Add, who had, carefully chosen this spot relying on his experience as a soldier of the Spetsnaz.
Today he had a special target insights. From his father’s study he had got a map which showed the outline f theses hills behind the town of Rigel. It was not very much detailed, but the information was enough for him to make his way quite deep into the forest. Today he was looking for a monster called goblins. From what he had heard from the guards, after his random questioning, was that these creatures often roamed these forests in groups and caused a lot of threat o humans. Goblins were E ranked monsters, among the weakest of them. They are humanoid monsters and normally they are about half the size of a normal human. They have crooked and hunched bodies with greenish wrinkled skin, and giving off a foul stench.
These, monsters usually hunt in groups of 3 to 10. Sometimes, though rarely they form large groups as well which may contain tens of goblins, led by a Goblin King, an evolved goblin. They are active mainly at dawn and dusk and spend most of the daytime in their caves or shady places. Although their eyesight is average, their sense of smell is very strong. Those sc.u.m love to abduct human women to produce offspring since the number of female goblins tends to be much lower than males. Who knows how many women have fallen prey to their vulgar l.u.s.t. They use crude weapons like stone daggers, clubs, and wooden spears, however some evolved goblins and experienced ones also use weapons stolen from humans
Ordinary goblins are only as strong as a ten year old child, however they are very agile and always attack in groups. Now there are many types of evolved goblins as well. Goblin archers, Goblin Swordsman, Goblin spearman are the common ones. They know how to use weapons and are quite troublesome if they are more in number. Then there are Goblin Champions and Hobgoblins. They both are taller than the average human and also much stronger. They know to use weapons efficiently and pose a high amount of danger. The hobgoblins are D ranked and the Goblin champions are C ranked. Lastly, there are the Goblin Kings. They are the strongest type of goblins; usually one appears among a thousand normal goblins. They are also C ranked but their strength is greater than champions and also have leadership abilities. Spotting a goblin king means that a big attack is going to happen soon…
Although individually, goblins are quite weak, they make up for it by their numbers much like ants. Even veteran warriors can be killed by an ambush by goblins, and they are by no means, an easy picking. One has to be very careful and properly prepared in dealing with them. After Add had gathered all this information, he had began formulating some ideas to deal with these pests. Hunting humans was the speciality of his unit back on Earth, but hunting monsters, he had never done before. Finally after he entered the forest he went quite deep inside and began searching the area for any tracks and trails. He didn’t have to search for long and found what seemed to be a forest path which looked quite fresh. Once he had found the tracks, he looked around for a suitable place to wait in ambush of his target. He soon found a short tree which was pretty well hidden in shadows of the tall trees and hid in its branches, and there he was, waiting patiently.
“It would be so nice if I had a sniper rifle…*Sigh*….”
He looked at the AK 47 in his hands and sighed. It was never built for sniping purposes. Still the cheapest sniper rifle was costly, at around 5,000 CP. So for now, he had to make do with the Kalashnikov.
“I have to be swift and attack their vitals. Hopefully, since they are humanoid, they should have the same weak points as humans.”
After over two hours of waiting, Add finally saw his target for the first time. They were green skinned creatures with short and bent posture, crooked noses, drooping pointy ears and a few coarse hairs here and there on their bodies. They wore some rags which were probably animal skins and were covered in filth and dirt. Goblins. Add had seen them for the first time in both his lives, and although he heard about them from the guards, but he was already very disgusted by their appearance.
There were 5 goblins; four were holding thick wooden branches, which probably functioned as clubs while one which appeared to be a bit stronger than the two was carrying a makeshift wooden spear. The goblins were holding some large rats, and walking along making ‘gigigi’ noises, which was probably their means of communication.
The group was less than ten metres form Add, but he didn’t move. He wanted to confirm if any more goblins were nearby. The group passed by, right under his tree and as per plan, the leaf paste covered his scent. As soon as they advanced a few metres from him, and there were no signs of any more appearing, Add decided to take action. He aimed his rifle, at their heads, the iron sights of the AK perfectly aligned with the head of the leader of the group. He set the fire selector to semiautomatic mode, confirmed his shot, and then pulled the trigger.
*BANG!*
A strange explosion like sound echoed in the forest as a 7.39 mm round tore through the air followed by the characteristic sound of an AK, and drove right into its target. The goblin suddenly collapsed, having no idea as to how it suddenly died. There was only a small hole on the back of its head where the bullet entered, and a large hole from where it ripped out of the goblin’s head. Its four companions were stunned and stood rooted on their spots, giving Add the time to gun them down as well. Four more shots were fired, and four more dead goblins appeared.
[Ding! You have killed 5 Goblins. You have obtained 500 Exp. and 250 CP!]
[Ding! You have levelled up!]
[Ding! You have levelled up!]
[Current Level 4. Experience required for next level : 98/400]
“Hmmkilling goblins gives decent Exp. If I keep hunting them, then gaining a few levels would not be too hard.”
He thought. As was evident from his recent kills, the AK-47 was more than enough to bring down a goblin. Looking in the direction the goblins were heading to, he decided to go deeper into the forest, where he could find more goblins to kill. Add got down from the tree after making sure that, no other monsters were beats were approaching him, he hid the corpses of the three goblins into the bushes, so that they don’t easily alert other goblins, and moved on for his next kill. After looking around carefully for some time, he came across another group of 7 goblins. This time he didn’t hide, rather stood silently in front of them. The goblins naturally rushed to attack him, fuelled by their ever present hate of humans, only to be filled with bullets.
*RATATATATATATA*
The AK 47 showed no mercy to anyone, be it human or goblin. They died immediately, providing Add with Exp. and CP.
[Ding! You have killed goblin x 7]
[Ding! You have received 700 Exp. and 350 CP!]
[Ding! You have levelled up !]
[Current Level 5. Experience required for next level : 398/560]
A series of notifications rang out as Add relaxed himself and checked his gains. He kept the skill points and stat points for later and then stopped for a short while, and assessed his surroundings. He estimated that he had already gone more than two kilometres inside the forest, and he knew that going any deeper would not be wise, as many dangerous beasts lurked in there.
“I should keep searching in this area and not go deeper, before I am strong enough, going too deep into enemy territory would be stupid.”
He searched for tracks and made sure that he stayed on the outskirts of the forest. It was now nearing evening, and goblins became more active during this time. Add occasionally found one or two stray goblins and killed them immediately. He kept this one for a few hours and by the time evening arrived, he had killed a total of 24 goblins. He wanted to kill more goblins but decided to retreat, as staying after nightfall would be dangerous. He had used up nearly three magazines of the AK worth 300 CP, but his gains were greater than his costs.
Once he was out of the forest he again opened his status. He had already levelled up to level 7 and now had 12 stat and skill points of which he added 4 stat points to Agility and 6 to Stamina and remaining 2 to Strength. He then upgraded [Accelerated Healing] to level 5 and [Body Strengthening] to Level 5 using three skill points each. From thereon, to level up the skill it would take 2 Skill points instead of 1. He then looked at his status.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _
STATUS
Name : Add
Race : Human
HP : 100/100
MP : N/A (Locked)
Level : 7 | Experience Required : 303/925
Class : N/A
Subclass : N/A
Title : N/A
Passive Skills :
[Unarmed Combat Mastery Lv. 20 (MAX)]
[Knife Mastery Lv. 20(MAX)]
[Firearms Mastery Lv. 20 (Max)]
[Body Strengthening (Passive) Lv. 5/20]
[Accelerated Healing (Passive) Lv. 5/20]
Active Skills :
N/A
Special Skills :
[Calm Mind (Passive) Lv. 20(Max)]
Credit Points : 3,350
ATTRIBUTES :
Vitality : 2
Strength : 11
Agility : 7
Defence: 1
Intelligence : 4
Wisdom : 4
Stamina : 8
Charm :3
Magic Aptitude : N/A (Locked)
Stat Points : 0
Skill Points : 0
_ _ _ _ _
As he looked through the status menu, he noticed something which made him frown. He noticed that the amount of exp required per level was growing very fast. As such he could imagine that when he levelled up at around hundred, he would require tons of exp to level up further.
“System, why is the Exp needed for Levelling up growing so rapidly?”
[Host, you should know that the System is in fact the most wondrous and, mystical object in existence! Its Host, that is you, has a huge advantage over all other creatures! While they have to train all their lives to get stronger, you can do so by simply levelling up! What few would be able to reach in their lifetimes, you can reach that in months! So to balance this disparity, by the Law of ‘Equivalent Exchange’, the System increases the required experience exponentially with each level. This also prevents the Host from becoming a lazy slob who can become the strongest without giving any effort!]
Add was speechless at the System’s rant as well as its usual boasting. However what it said made sense. For example taking the skills, a normal person, even with talent, would have to train for years, perhaps decades to learn a skill to perfection, yet Add could bypass that time using Skill Points and the system. This was a huge benefit, and if normal people knew of this, then they would surely puke blood. Could mastering skills be this easy!?
Add again made a small note in his mind to never let anyone know of his system. He knew the greed of people and in the face of sufficient benefits even the most intimate relations were worth less than trash. Feeling he had had enough for today, he left the forest and returned home, with some luck he would be able to level up to level 10 tomorrow. Once he got that bonus CP he could do a lot of things, which he had planned for already.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _
