One week after establishing the toll road, and Hunter was learning that success came with its own problems. The kind that arrived with thirty-two armed cultivators and expectations of tribute.
The settlement had grown comfortable. Too comfortable, really. Forty-eight people had fallen into routines like they'd been doing this for years instead of weeks. Morning training where the panic trio failed spectacularly at basic formations. Marketplace activity where refugees traded goods with passing merchants. Construction projects that actually looked professional now. The refugees built better shelters. The Shadow Legion pretended to be a functional military unit with increasing success. Money existed in Qiu's ledgers for the first time since anyone could remember.
Comfort made people forget that comfort was temporary in a world where power made law and winter approached with patient inevitability.
