Chapter 95: Break Ground

By sunrise, the eastern outskirts of Althoff no longer looked like empty land. Hundreds of people covered the thawing ground beyond the old settlement, as survey stakes were driven into the soil.

Ropes stretched between markers in long straight lines, crossing fields.

Trees carried bright cuts of paint, while others bore different symbols showing they were to remain. Construction crews stood in organized groups beside carts loaded with shovels, picks, axes, ropes, measuring rods, and baskets.

Farther ahead, Ormond’s surveyors checked elevations while Mara Kest moved between crews with rolled plans beneath one arm. Raymond stopped on a low rise overlooking everything.

Today, finally, Althoff was going to build. Around him, workers waited beside tools, wagons, ropes, and timber, ready to turn months of planning into reality.

Lily stood beside him in a light spring cloak, staring at the forest of stakes spreading across the landscape.

"Are all those roads?" she asked.

Raymond smiled.

"Some of them." Her eyes widened because the marked lines extended far beyond the current town, disappearing over gentle rises and through cleared strips between trees.

Behind them stood old Althoff: cramped houses, repaired roofs, muddy lanes, workshops pressed against residences, warehouses placed wherever previous generations had found space, and the castle overlooking everything from its higher ground.

It had survived famine, winter, refugees, and the Beast Tide, but nobody looking at it could mistake it for the city Raymond intended to create. He waited until the nearby workers moved farther away, then quietly focused his thoughts.

A familiar translucent interface unfolded across his vision.

[ Family Authority Activated: The Lord’s Eye ]

[ Althoff City Master Development Blueprint Detected ]

[ Integrate Blueprint With Territorial View? ]

[ YES / NO ]

Raymond selected yes.

The world changed. Ghostly lines spread outward from old Althoff, flowing across the ground like an enormous architectural drawing laid directly over reality.

Roads appeared first, broad avenues cutting through the future city before dividing into secondary streets and smaller residential lanes. Beneath them ran faint channels representing drainage, sewer routes, and water distribution lines.

Public squares opened where empty fields currently stood. District boundaries unfolded farther outward until Raymond had to turn his head to follow them.

The existing settlement suddenly looked absurdly small, a dense knot trapped near the center of something many times its size. He had seen the overlay before, but standing among hundreds of workers transformed the experience.

This was no longer a beautiful impossibility floating over barren ground. Men and women were already hammering its first lines into the earth.

The old settlement formed the Historical Core, preserved around the castle and oldest streets wherever practical. South of it, the future Administrative District spread across higher, well-drained ground where the Administrative Hall and other government buildings would eventually rise.

Beyond that sat the Central Commercial District, positioned where major roads would converge around broad market squares. Residential districts expanded east and southeast in planned neighborhoods instead of the tangled growth of the old town.

The Artisan District occupied land close enough to markets for craftsmen to sell their work without placing noisy workshops among homes, while the Industrial District sat farther downwind with space for furnaces, sawmills, processing yards, and future manufactories.

The Warehouse and Logistics District connected directly to major roads, while the Military District occupied defensible ground with room for barracks, training fields, armories, and future expansion.

Farther outward, the Agricultural Processing District formed the bridge between city and farmland, intended for mills, granaries, livestock facilities, food processing, and storage.

A future Noble District appeared on elevated land west of the core, largely empty for now because Raymond had exactly zero interest in building luxurious estates for nobles who did not exist.

The planned outer defenses enclosed everything with enough room left inside for years of expansion. Gates aligned with the principal roads.

Future expansion corridors deliberately remained open beyond several districts so later generations would not have to demolish half the city merely because someone had built a warehouse in the wrong place.

Raymond slowly exhaled.

The Master Blueprint did not simply show buildings. It showed how a city could grow without strangling itself.

Mara approached with Lucan and Talia while Raymond dismissed the visible System interface, leaving the layout fixed in his memory.

Their physical plans were copies and adaptations Raymond had spent nights producing from what The Lord’s Eye showed him, refined by professionals who understood how to turn ideal lines into structures workers could actually build.

Talia pointed toward old Althoff. "We’ve finished the first incorporation survey. Most of the northern core can remain almost untouched. Several lanes will need widening eventually, but there’s no reason to destroy sound homes simply because they’re old."

Lucan nodded. "The castle, old market square, temple structures, and many stone buildings integrate well. Some can be renovated later."

Raymond looked toward the crowded town. "Good. We’re rebuilding Althoff, not erasing it. People lived there before I learned how to draw straight roads. I don’t want history flattened for symmetry."

Unfortunately, some structures stood exactly where the future city needed critical infrastructure. A row of deteriorating houses blocked the route of the first major avenue.

Several abandoned sheds sat over the planned drainage corridor.

Two workshops occupied land required for a public square, while a cluster of temporary winter shelters had been built across the future water network.

Public Works had marked each affected structure individually rather than drawing a giant demolition zone. Mara explained that thirty-seven occupied households would need relocation during the first phase, along with twelve workshops and several communal structures.

Nobody would be thrown into the street. Temporary housing had already been prepared from repaired refugee buildings and unused communal quarters, while every displaced household would receive priority placement in the first completed residential blocks.

Workshop owners would receive temporary operating space where possible.

Raymond had insisted on that policy personally. A city plan might show buildings as shapes, but people did not experience demolition as shapes disappearing from parchment.

They experienced someone arriving at the home where their children slept and telling them it had to come down.

Compensation records had therefore been prepared, property claims verified through the Civil Registry, belongings moved using Logistics wagons, and residents given written documentation guaranteeing replacement housing or equivalent recognized property. Not everyone was happy.

Raymond did not expect them to be. One elderly man had spent forty years in a house blocking the future avenue and had loudly informed Mara that no road needed to be that wide.

Raymond had visited him personally, listened to twenty minutes of complaints, and eventually promised that stones from the man’s old foundation could be incorporated into his replacement home.

The old man still complained, but he had agreed to move.

By midmorning, the scale of activity had drawn spectators from across Althoff. People crowded along designated safe areas, children sitting on fences and shoulders while merchants abandoned stalls long enough to see what was happening.

Refugees who had arrived during winter stood beside families whose ancestors had lived here for generations. Soldiers kept pathways clear without pushing people away.

Raymond walked down from the rise toward the first demolition zone as Torren inspected a timber house already emptied the previous evening. Its doors, shutters, reusable beams, roof tiles, iron fittings, and furniture had been removed.

Nothing useful would be wasted. Salvage crews waited with carts to sort timber, stone, metal, and materials for reuse.

Even demolition had become organized production.

Torren rested a heavy sledgehammer against his shoulder when Raymond approached.

"Ready, my Lord?"

Raymond looked beyond him. Survey stakes ran straight through the space where the old building stood and continued toward the horizon. Along that line would eventually run one of Althoff’s principal avenues, broad enough for wagons to pass in both directions without turning the street into an argument. Beneath it would run drainage and water infrastructure.

Houses would rise beyond it. Shops would follow. Thousands of people who had never heard of Althoff might someday walk that road without knowing a crooked timber house had once stood in its path.

Raymond glanced back toward the spectators, then toward Mara. "All residents cleared?"

"Confirmed."

"Utilities and nearby structures secured?"

"Confirmed."

"Salvage crews ready?"

Torren grinned. "Waiting for you to stop asking questions."

Raymond stepped aside. "Then break ground."

Torren swung.

The sledgehammer crashed into the weakened timber support with a crack that carried across the silent crowd. Workers immediately moved in. Axes struck wood. Pry bars tore boards loose.

Ropes tightened as another crew pulled down a marked wall.

Farther south, a second demolition team began dismantling abandoned sheds along the drainage route, and moments later hammering erupted from another designated section near the future commercial district.

Dust rose above old Althoff as thousands watched buildings come down not because the town was dying, but because it had finally outgrown what it had been.

The rebuilding of Althoff had officially begun.