Helping with Adventurer Party Management - Chapter 369

Phew. Now we could finally continue the discussion.

Just as I was thinking that, some of the novice officials who had been listening to the exchange with the clergy spoke up.

“I didn’t understand what was being said at all,” one of them admitted.

I glanced at Sara to confirm.

“It sounded complicated! I felt like they were saying something important, but I didn’t really get it,” she added.

Fair enough. The conversation had been rather theoretical.

“Alright then,” I said. “Let’s explain it with bread making, like usual.”

The officials looked puzzled, as if wondering what bread making had to do with anything. Seeing their confusion, I explained further.

“Turning a territory into a prosperous place is a lot like baking the perfect loaf of bread. Right now, think of us as discussing how to bake delicious bread — as if we’re learning to become good bakers. Does that make sense so far?”

The officials, still unsure about the bread-making analogy, nodded anyway, so I continued.

“Now then, what exactly is ‘delicious bread’? If we focus only on that question, we’ll end up in endless debates about personal taste. That’s why we first need to agree on what we mean by ‘delicious bread.'”

I rephrased the discussion about governance principles in terms of defining what makes bread delicious.

“Yeah, I get that,” Sara said, and the other officials nodded too.

“So, we decided that ‘perfectly delicious bread’ would be defined as bread that people eat and say is delicious. From there, we recognized two different approaches.

“One approach is to imagine there’s a kind of ‘God of Bread’ — someone who embodies perfection in bread making. If they say your bread is delicious, then it’s considered perfect. This is like dedicating your bread to the God of Bread.

“The other approach is to aim for a loaf of bread that most people in the world find delicious — bread made for people to eat. Can you follow those two perspectives?”

This analogy illustrated the difference between relying on divine law and faith as a standard versus grounding decisions in human activity and measurable outcomes.

You can’t count a god, but you can count people.

Once they understood that difference, the rest would fall into place.

“Got it. One loaf for the Bread God, and one loaf for everyone else,” Sara said with a nod. Bread really seemed to make things click for her.

“Both methods aim to create delicious bread, but the training process differs. In the ‘Bread God’ method, the training is grueling. Every day, you experiment and serve your bread to the God of Bread. But each time, the response is, ‘No good! Terrible!’ — over and over again. Yet you persist, enduring this harsh training path.”

“Sounds tough… and such a waste of bread!” Sara muttered.

“In the method aimed at pleasing people, you first let people who aren’t too picky — or just really hungry — try your bread. If they say it’s good, you move on to people with stricter tastes. If they like it too, you keep repeating that process.”

“I like that one better! Sounds like you’d get to eat lots of bread!”

“Exactly. By watching people’s faces and listening to their feedback with each attempt, you can learn to make delicious bread faster.

“That’s the method we’re adopting for territory management. In other words, to create a prosperous territory — that ‘perfect loaf of bread’ — we, as the bakers, need to watch the faces and listen to the voices of the people who live in the territory.

“And just like how you measure flour and water and keep track of how many times you knead the dough, we need to create measurable indicators to manage the territory. By recording these details, we can develop a system that allows us to build a thriving territory — one that could still succeed even if we expanded to other lands.”

“When I was told to become an official, I didn’t feel very confident… but if you say it’s like becoming a baker, I feel like I can do it!” Sara’s eyes lit up as she smiled brightly.