Chapter 102 - 101: The People of Velaris
The realization from the previous day stayed with Iris as she walked through Velaris the following morning.
Velaris was changing.
It was not a dramatic change. There were no crowds flooding the streets or rows of shops opening their doors. Most of the settlement still looked much the same as it had the day before.
But people were moving with more purpose.
A few residents were carrying bundles of wood toward the Village Center. Others had gathered stones and were sorting through them before storing them away. Some people were returning from the outskirts with plants they had collected, while others were talking among themselves about what they had found.
It was small.
Almost ordinary.
And somehow, that made Iris happier than she expected.
Yesterday, she had looked at Velaris and wondered what it needed.
Today, she wanted to know what the people inside it could bring.
She slowed as she passed a small group gathered beside one of the houses.
Two men were arguing quietly over a bundle of branches.
"Those are too thick."
"They’re wood, not noodles. They’ll burn."
"That’s exactly why they’re too thick. We need smaller pieces."
A woman standing nearby sighed.
"You two have been arguing about that for ten minutes."
Iris almost smiled.
They were arguing about firewood.
It was hardly an important matter.
Yet it was the kind of argument people had when they had started thinking about tomorrow.
Iris continued walking.
She had already learned that simply giving people something to do was not enough. If Velaris was going to become a real settlement, she needed to understand the people living here.
What could they do?
What did they know?
What had they done before the apocalypse?
And more importantly, what could they become if they were given the opportunity?
Iris opened the Lord’s Panel.
The familiar interface appeared before her.
She went directly to the section containing the territory’s people.
The list was not enormous.
That was one thing she appreciated about Velaris.
There were only eighty-seven people within the territory at the moment. Not all of them had chosen to become residents. Some were still visitors, people who had entered Velaris for safety but had not yet decided whether they wanted to spend their resources on residency.
Of the people who had actually registered as residents, some held permanent residency while others had chosen temporary residency.
Iris understood why.
The apocalypse had made people cautious.
Even in a place as safe as Velaris, committing resources to a permanent home was not something everyone would do immediately.
She did not blame them.
If anything, she preferred that people take their time.
A forced sense of belonging was not what she wanted.
She scrolled through the list.
Name.
Level.
Residency.
Occupation.
Elemental Affinity.
Other basic information.
Iris paused at the Occupation column.
Most of the entries were blank.
At first, she thought that was strange.
Then she remembered something.
Occupation did not mean someone’s current job.
That distinction had become clearer the more she looked through the panel.
Someone could have spent twenty years repairing machines and still have no Occupation listed.
Someone could have worked with wood their entire life and still have nothing beside their name.
The System was not simply recording what people did for a living.
It was recognizing something more.
Iris continued scrolling.
Then she saw one.
Occupation: [Master Carpenter]
The words were displayed in green.
She stopped.
"Master Carpenter?"
Iris tapped the entry.
The panel displayed additional information about the Occupation.
She read through it carefully.
The System’s recognition was based on mastery.
Not employment.
Not experience alone.
Mastery.
Someone could be a carpenter for years without receiving the Occupation. But if their skill reached a sufficiently exceptional level, the System could recognize it.
Iris looked back at the list.
There were a few other green tags.
Different skills.
Different people.
Different areas of expertise.
She had been looking at those people as survivors.
The System was showing her something else.
They were also skilled individuals.
People who could contribute to Velaris in ways she had not considered.
Iris leaned back slightly.
"So I don’t have to build everything myself."
The thought was almost embarrassingly obvious.
She had spent so much time thinking about buildings, walls, roads, resources, farms and systems that she had forgotten the most important resource in any settlement.
People.
She continued through the list.
Some had skills that were immediately useful.
Others had abilities that were harder to categorize.
Some had occupations recognized by the System.
Others had none.
That did not mean they were useless.
It simply meant they had not reached the level required for the System to recognize their mastery.
Iris did not want people believing they had no value just because they lacked a green tag.
She closed the occupation details and continued scrolling.
Then she reached Daniel Voss.
Iris stopped.
Daniel was one of the Hale family’s highest-ranking bodyguards.
She had known him for years.
He had been there through the worst parts of the apocalypse, always maintaining the same controlled expression even when everyone else was losing their heads.
She looked over his information.
Then her eyes settled on one particular section.
Elemental Affinity: Fire, Wind
Iris stared at it.
That was not unusual by itself.
Everyone who had come from Aurelion had an elemental affinity.
But something about Daniel’s display caught her attention.
She scrolled slightly upward and looked at the affinities of the people listed above him.
Gray.
Dull.
Almost as if the System had simply written the words there without giving them any emphasis.
Then she looked back at Daniel’s.
His Fire and Wind affinities were displayed differently.
There was a subtle distinction in the way they appeared.
They were not dull gray.
They seemed more vivid, almost as though the words carried a faint glow beneath the interface.
Iris frowned.
"What is that?"
She tapped the information.
Nothing useful appeared.
There was no explanation.
No warning.
No additional notification.
Just the same two affinities.
Fire.
Wind.
Iris looked through several other residents again.
Their elemental affinities remained dull gray.
Daniel’s were different.
She did not know why.
She certainly did not know what the difference meant.
Her first instinct was to ask 003.
But the System had been quiet again.
And Iris was beginning to understand that 003 was not something she could summon whenever she wanted an answer.
She looked at Daniel’s name for another moment.
There was something else she remembered.
The bite.
It had happened during the early days of the apocalypse.
Daniel had been bitten while protecting Veronica.
He had developed a fever afterward.
At the time, Iris had been terrified that they were going to lose him.
He had somehow survived.
Even the transition through the global transmigration had not killed him.
Iris’s eyes narrowed slightly.
Could the two things be connected?
She immediately dismissed the thought.
There was no evidence.
A different-looking display did not explain anything.
And she was not going to invent an answer simply because she wanted one.
For now, Daniel’s affinities remained a mystery.
Iris closed his information panel.
She looked down the street.
Daniel was not there.
The settlement continued around her.
Someone was carrying a bucket.
Two people were discussing where to store the stone they had gathered.
A group of survivors were preparing to leave the territory again, clearly intending to continue scavenging outside.
Life was still dangerous.
Velaris had not magically solved the apocalypse.
But it had given these people somewhere to stand.
And now Iris was beginning to understand that the next step was not about doing everything for them.
It was about giving them room to do things themselves.
She opened the list again.
The green Occupation tags caught her attention.
A Master Carpenter.
Someone with another recognized skill.
People who had spent years becoming good at something, perhaps without ever imagining that the System would one day acknowledge it.
Iris smiled faintly.
She had been treating Velaris like a project.
Build this.
Buy that.
Upgrade this.
Protect everyone.
Solve every problem.
But perhaps that was not what a Lord was supposed to do.
Maybe her role was not to personally create every part of the settlement.
Maybe it was to create a place where the people inside it could create something of their own.
A carpenter could build.
A scavenger could gather.
Someone who knew how to repair equipment could repair.
Someone who knew how to cook could feed people.
Someone who knew how to organize could help manage supplies.
Someone who had spent years learning something that seemed useless before the apocalypse might suddenly become essential.
Iris looked at the small settlement around her.
It still had empty spaces.
It still had unfinished roads.
It still had more questions than answers.
But for the first time, she was not looking at those things as problems she had to solve alone.
She was looking at possibilities.
Her gaze returned briefly to Daniel’s name on the panel.
Fire and Wind.
Still different.
Still unexplained.
Iris closed the Lord’s Panel.
"One thing at a time."
She turned toward the center of Velaris.
There was still plenty to do.
But perhaps the most important thing she could do now was find out what the people of Velaris were capable of.
And then give them a chance to show her.