Chapter 182: Tymon Comes Through
With the Rogues, and fifty thousand points worth of gear, headed out the door, Kalli took a moment to send a message to Professor Tymon, just in case he had managed to come up with a plan for the city’s new buildings.
[I’ve sent you a 3D sketch of the basic designs and layouts that I wanted to advocate. If you like them, you can start on them while we wait.]
The Professor’s text response was accompanied by a couple of data files which had clearly been made on a tablet using basic 3D modelling. But they were more than good enough for Kalli to see what he was going for.
She would adapt them to the building styles that she had available for now.
The buildings were the sort of high density mixed use building designs that under normal circumstances would be considered an Urban Nightmare by anyone who wasn’t from a hive city. Thousands of people who could live, work and shop all in one building without ever needing to leave.
However, with literal monsters at the gates, and limited building space, Kalli had some hopes that people would be more forgiving of the designs.
Compared to the areas where she had lived in the Hive City back home, these were luxury condos. Even compared to the majority of Marimgar, they were incredibly luxurious, just not overly large on floor space.
That did make her wonder what happened to her savings.
The Hive City was strictly segregated by social status, and most of that was determined by bank balance. While she got paid well, trying to move up in the world was not an easy feat, and she had been saving for years to try to qualify for a rental in a more desirable area. It wouldn’t be any more expensive, but it was more exclusive, and luxurious.
She could have gotten a nicer place near her office, because of her job. But they were horrifically expensive.
It was better to save up enough to qualify for a new part of the city.
That wouldn’t be an issue here in Marimgar for some time. They didn’t have enough buildings, or enough people, for the same issues to happen here.
In fact, there might not be enough humans left on the planet at this point to fill the city she had come from.
That was a depressing thought, so Kalli shoved it aside to focus on something that she could actually control. The new buildings for Marimgar.
Most of the layout was just a rough grid that the Professor had designed based on the old streets that no longer existed, but the basic idea was there, and Kalli quickly found a version of the modern buildings from her world in the System Store that would make for better housing than what this world offered.
There was even an option to militarize them.
Not armour, which was unfortunate, but it offered four light lasers on the edge of the roof. They could target anything trying to land on top, or shoot down at crowds gathered at the base of the building.
They also had a large area stun, that was used for riot control. But Kalli suspected that they wouldn’t need that setting any time soon.
It wasn’t nearly as good as the air defence battery, but it would be excellent against the flying hordes that got too close to the city. That would keep the gunners safer, and every little bit counted these days.
Kalli placed the first building, and nodded in satisfaction as the building seemed to build itself from the ground up, right where she wanted it.
{Points Deducted} 16,750
{Upgrade to Furnished Residential Suites for 500 points per residential floor?}
{Points Deducted} 15,000
That building would house six hundred families, at twenty units per floor, with room for businesses on the first five floors, and a greenhouse on the top level. In her old world, many of these buildings actually used algae farms, as they could be used to scrub carbon dioxide from the air, and allow for minimal outside air to enter, which kept air quality high compared to the industrial pollution and poorly terraformed atmosphere of the outside world.
Compared to that, the air in Marimgar was wonderful now that the ash had settled.
Following the plan that the Professor had set, Kalli placed three more identical buildings, and watched her points fall. Furnishing the floors cost nearly as much as what building them did. But Kalli could see from the building information that was added to the city plans by the System that they had everything that the new residents would need.
Much like an executive apartment, where you weren’t expected to bring anything but clothing.
They even came with heated toilet seats and bidets with dryers. Very fancy, though they weren’t counted as "Luxury" apartments by the system.
Putting up the buildings, including the top-level greenhouse planters, came to nearly a hundred thousand points, which smashed through over a third of Kalli’s stored points in one go. That had to be enough to deal with the influx of points that she was going to get at the end of the morning’s battle, and it would give somewhere for many of the residents in the Arks to stay.
Expanding the city was definitely going to be the greatest point sink in the near future.
Trying to get enough proper housing for everyone that would want to move into the city would drain Kalli’s points faster than any number of heroes could conceivably replenish them.
Compared to that, even arming a local police force would be reasonably priced.
Actually, it would only cost her about three points per cop. One for the uniform, two for weapons. The real cost would be in the upkeep, as paying workers was not cheap. Though, if they were all chosen from the level 0 members of society, their shifts would pay for themselves with the quest completion.
So, some things in society would work out well enough on their own.
It was finding the raw resources for everything that was about to become the problem, unless they started finding new and creative ways to process tuber plants and other organic materials.