The inspection stretched from morning until dusk.
The roads were little more than muddy ruts, carved by carts and rain. Houses leaned at odd angles, their stones uneven, mortar crumbling. Sanitation was a forgotten wordfoul water pooled in ditches, children played barefoot in filth, and flies swarmed where livestock waste collected.
The southern wall, the only defense against forest beasts or bandits, was a skeleton of stone and timber, sagging beneath its own weight. Moss had grown into its cracks, as though the forest had already begun reclaiming it. A few guards loitered near the gate, their armor little more than mismatched scraps, their weapons rusted.
Ethan moved among it all, silent, asking questions, but always in a way that seemed casual, so that no one realized how carefully he was measuring.
"How many guards remain?" he asked Lina as though the thought had only just occurred to him.
"Eight," she replied without hesitation. "The ones too stubborn or too desperate to leave. The rest drifted away when the pay stopped."
Eight men. Barely enough to man the walls, much less defend them. Ethan said nothing, but inside, his mind calculated furiously.
He paced through streets, counting steps to measure width. He rapped his knuckles against walls to test their strength. He crouched by the soil, rubbing damp earth between his fingers. The river to the east, sluggish but steady. The forest pressing too close. The people, tired, hollow-eyed, enduring rather than living.
At last, as the sun slid westward, he climbed the half-ruined watchtower. Its stones were cracked, the steps uneven, but from the top he could see it all.
The picture was bleak. Greyrest was a corpse of a town, left to rot.
Ethan's chest tightened. He drew a slow breath, tasting the damp air. "So this is all that was left for me," he murmured. "What happened to the late bar" He coughed sharply, correcting himself. "My father. How did he die again?"
Lina, standing a few steps below, tilted her head up at him. "From the wound he took years ago. It never healed."
"I see." He turned away, letting his eyes sweep over the broken roofs and muddy streets. "Can we go back now?"
"There's still more for you to see," Lina said gently. "And the steward will be here soon."
"Tell the steward that I'm tired," Ethan said firmly. "We'll continue tomorrow."
The inspection stretched over two more days. By the end, Ethan had mapped the town in his head: its strengths, its flaws, its limits. Each night he returned to his chamber, too restless to sleep.
The bed was uneven, the wind whistled through cracks, and his thoughts circled endlessly. If he wanted answers about this world, he needed time. And time required survival. To survive, he needed control. And control meant rebuilding Greyrest.
That realization ignited something inside him.
On the third night, Ethan lit a candle and spread parchment across the desk. His hand trembled with fatigue, but steadied once the quill touched the page. He began to sketch, not the cracked wall or the broken streets, but what could be.
A marketplace at the center, paved and open. Roads radiating outward like a star, structured and direct. Worker housing in neat rows, broken by small gardens. A reservoir drawn from the river.
At the highest point, he marked out something no one here would expect: a school. Not a fortress. Not a keep. A place for learning. A place where builders, farmers, and smiths could pass knowledge forward, where progress wouldn't die with one man.
He worked through the night, parchment filling with lines and notes. His back ached, his eyes blurred, but his mind was sharper than ever.
Architecture is war, he remembered a professor saying. You fight gravity, chaos, and time. And when you win, you leave behind a city.
By morning, Ethan had a list.
When Steward Marn entered, Ethan handed it to him without ceremony.
"Masons," Ethan said. "They'll need training in foundation pouring. Carpenters to learn proper scaffolding and trusses. Smiths to forge tools and hinges. Farmers, move them to higher ground and test irrigation. Miners scout for limestone."
Marn blinked down at the list. "Summon them all, my lord? Every craftsman? Every farmer?"
"Yes," Ethan replied. His voice was calm, but his eyes burned with resolve. "Tell them I want everyone gathered by tomorrow morning before the sun is up"
Marn hesitated, clearly confused, but bowed. "As you command."
When he left, Ethan stood at the window. Greyrest sprawled below, weary and broken.
"Greyrest is a thousand problems stacked into one," he whispered. "But it's also a challenge worth building."
The door creaked behind him. Lina entered quietly.
"Milord?" she asked.
"We start tomorrow," Ethan said, gaze still fixed on the horizon. "Meet the steward. I'll speak with the masons, carpenters, and farmers."
"About what?"
He allowed himself a faint smile. "About how we rebuild Greyrest from the foundation up."
Lina frowned. "But… how?"
"Don't worry," Ethan said. "I have a plan."
That night, as the wind rattled the shutters, Ethan lay awake again. He thought not of the car crash, not of how he had crossed into this strange world. Such thoughts led nowhere.
Instead, he thought of roads, walls, schools. Of turning ruin into order.
If I am to live, Ethan thought, staring into the darkness, it will not be by chance. It will be by design.
And design, he knew better than anyone.