This is strong. It doesn't need a structural rewrite—just tight continuity edits so it matches the established canon from the last consistent chapter:
What needs fixing for consistency
Population: keep 421 (matches your Tier II status + earlier chapter).
Active combatants: earlier you had "maybe a hundred fighters." Keep it close: ~108 combatants is fine.
Credits: you ended the last chapter at 9,740. Here it jumps to 9,940 (+200 salvage)—that's believable if you mention today's salvage explicitly (you already do). Good.
Stability: you had Core Stability 90% in the last status panel. Here you start at 87% and jump to 91%. Easiest fix: start at 90% → 91%, and keep the later "92/93" bumps modest and tied to reporting compliance.
System tone: your "Remark/Commentary" lines are on-brand. Keep them, but don't make the System sound too human too often. One line per pop-up.
Below is a full rewritten version of your chapter with those numbers corrected and a few micro-edits to sharpen flow, keep Alina's arc clean, and make the System unlock feel earned (not random).
Chapter Rewrite (Numbers + Consistency Locked)
Morning found Haven awake before the sun. The forges breathed low and steady, the vehicle bay ticked as engines cooled from a night of tuning, and the smell of boiled grain and river tea threaded the air. No alarms. No screams. Just work.
Ethan walked the spine of the inner wall, hands clasped behind his back, letting the town speak to him.
On the parade ground, Marcus had a double line of Titan Bloods running shield drills in their bronze-green bugskin. Out by the river, Keith's crocodile ferried barrels toward the cistern while the hawk and eagle traced lazy circles in the brightening sky. In the south yard, children carried baskets to a table where Tina and Lena divided fruit and dried strips of meat by the dozen.
Everywhere Ethan turned, he brushed against purpose.
It felt good. It also felt like standing on the lip of a map whose edges he didn't know.
They'd built, fought, survived—and now the numbers mattered more than the heroics. Food didn't care about speeches. Water didn't listen to orders. You could only lead what you could count.
He stopped at the door of the old record hall without meaning to.
The building had been a library once, then a sleeping barracks, then an overflow ward during the siege. Now its windows were open and voices murmured inside—steadier than a sickroom, sharper than a bunkhouse. He pushed the door with two fingers.
Tables had been dragged into a long rectangle beneath the rafters. On them: jars labeled in chalk, bundles of paper strapped with twine, stacks of resin slates scavenged from broken devices and smoothed flat. A single working screen glowed from a jury-rigged stand by the wall—Maria's gift, cracked edge taped and bolted to a frame.
Lines of pale gold text marched down it in neat columns.
Alina Voss stood at the head of the rectangle, sleeves rolled, dark hair pinned back in a simple clip. She didn't notice him at first. She was bent over a ledger, lips moving as she counted, one hand keeping pace on the paper while the other directed a young helper toward a bin.
"Ration mark blue for children, twice weekly," she said. "Red for elders, daily unless we drop below ten days store. No one goes hungry without my knowing it first."
The helper nodded, scribbled, fled, returned with a stack of small cloth flags. Alina finished her count, blew chalk dust from her fingers, and only then looked up at Ethan.
"Captain." She said it like a rank. Not a title. Not a challenge.
"Alina." He tipped his head to the room. "I thought we'd have to build this from scratch."
"You did," she said dryly, gesturing around them. "You just forgot to count it."
A smile tugged his mouth before he could stop it. "That's why I'm here."
She tapped the ledger's spine with one nail. "What do you need?"
"The truth," Ethan said. "Food. Water. People. Materials. What we can spend without bleeding."
Alina studied him for a beat, eyes measuring more than his face. He was still in half-armor, dust on his boots, the green shimmer of his bracer dulled to an ordinary band. The man who dragged families out of burning houses and the man who signed off on wall thickness were finally the same man.
"Good," she said, pivoting to the screen. "Then we stop guessing."
She raised her voice. "Everyone—quiet a moment."
The room obeyed. Outside, Haven's work didn't stop, but in here the air seemed to lean in.
"Ravi's numbers gave us a spine," Alina said, "but a spine doesn't walk without muscle. If this is going to be a town, we need to know it the way a body knows itself. No more barrels labeled 'grain' and 'less grain.' No more spears that belong to whoever is closest when a bell rings. No more empty beds we don't know we have while families sleep in hallways."
She pointed to the leftmost slate where columns had been etched by three different hands and then corrected into one.
"Population: four hundred twenty-one living souls," she read, calm and precise. "Forty-seven under Level Five—most children, some elders. Active combatants: one hundred and eight. Healers: seven. Crafters: fifty-three. Farmers: thirty-two. Water team: fourteen. Armorers: nine. Engineers and mechanics: eight—plus Maria, who counts as three."
That won her a handful of quiet laughs. Maria, leaning in the doorway with a rag over her shoulder, saluted with it and went back to turning a bolt between her fingers.
"Food stores: twelve days at current ration. Nine if we add daily meat to fighter allotments. Water stores: twelve days with filters at current flow. Material stockpiles: iron sufficient for two major builds; chitin plate low; resin moderate; wood low; cloth low. Medicines stable for three weeks if we don't take a hit."
Ethan felt something in his chest loosen. It wasn't relief.
It was shape.
He caught Alina's eye. "Say the thing you're holding back."
She didn't flinch. "At this growth rate, Captain, you can't carry this alone. Even with Marcus, Maria, Keith, Ravi—daily you are being asked questions that belong to a ledger and a schedule. If you want to lead, stop answering them."
She lifted her chin, clean and direct.
"Let me."
A year ago those words from this woman would have been flint struck on steel. Now they were water on a hot blade.
"Good," Ethan said. "Take it."
A ripple of surprise moved around the tables. Not because Alina hadn't been working—everyone knew she had. Because the weight finally had a hand to carry it.
"There are conditions," she said.
He raised his brows.
"Transparency," Alina continued. "Weekly reports to you, Marcus, Maria, Keith, and Ravi. Tallies posted for the town. A clean path for people to retrain without going to war with their foreman. And when I say we can't afford something, you listen before you spend."
Ethan nodded. "Done. Add one of mine. When I say we spend anyway, we do."
She met that square. "Then we write the cost on the board so nobody pretends we didn't pay it."
The screen blinked. For a second the lines fuzzed, then straightened with a soft crystalline chime. Gold script layered itself over Alina's columns—not replacing them. Confirming them.
[Settlement Subsystem Unlocked: Administration]
Accurate reporting increases Efficiency, Stability, and Production.
Role Assigned: Logistics Steward — Alina Voss
Core Stability: 90% → 91%
Efficiency Modifier: +8% (scales with compliance)
The room breathed out together.
Alina inclined her head once toward the text—acknowledgment, not worship. "Then let's start."
She moved like a river that had found its banks.
"Soren—south store. Re-weigh grain by sack and lot. Mark everything with date and color. Maris—water drums. I want a flow log every four hours. Tash—housing. Every bed, every leak, every latch that sticks. Leave nothing that can be fixed with a hammer unfixed."
The room emptied and filled again like lungs.
Outside the window Ethan saw Darren in the yard, the twin crescents of his polearm cutting arcs that made the air look measurable. He moved easier now, scars pale under sweat, bandage gone, breath and swing aligned like music only his body could hear.
Ethan leaned his knuckles on the table. "One more thing."
Alina looked back, pen between her fingers.
"Bring me the ugly," he said. "Work injuries. Bay accidents. Casualty tallies from raids. I don't want the good without the cost."
Her expression didn't change, but something in her gaze approved. "We'll make a column for it."
"Put it at the top," Ethan said. "So we can't ignore it."
Alina nodded once. "Agreed."
—
The day turned into a ledger of movement.
Hunts departed in threes and fours instead of one mass: a morning team with Marcus beyond the northern cut to clear boar packs from the bracken; a river sweep with Keith and Ellie setting the crocodile to push driftwood away from the intake while Vyre tasted the current for anything with too many teeth; a lighter salvage party with Kira and Sofia to the east where the old highway cracked into gullies and weeds.
The rule was simple: every able adult raids at least once every two days, more if they choose. The town was safest when everyone learned the world's edges with their own eyes.
Casualties still came in. Sometimes with their own feet.
A Speed fighter staggered back from the east trail with an arm flayed to the bone—Ethan met him on the steps of the hall, threads spinning before the man could fall. A farmer turned an ankle in a field hole Aria's ants hadn't shored yet; she clicked her tongue and sent a hundred workers to web the ground with resin until it set like lace. A mechanic burned a wrist on a hot coil—Maria dunked it in water without looking, swore like a poem, and went back to tuning the core.
When there were kills, they were recorded. When there were failures, they were written on the same slate as the triumphs.
Not shame.
Weight.
By afternoon, the rhythm spread. Foragers returned with baskets sorted by color and use. The school cohorts changed benches under the eaves; older children sanded spear hafts while younger ones traced letters with chalk and argued about whether the A in "Ant" deserved a dot because Aria's Queen deserved one.
Ethan checked the Administration panel as the sun began to sink.
Food: 12.2 days (rationed)
Water: 12.1 days (current draw)
Credits: 9,940 (+200 salvage)
Morale: High — Productive
Efficiency: +10% (compliance 91%)
Core Stability: 92%
He closed it and went to find Alina.
He found her in the lower corridor where cool air made voices echo. She'd turned a side room into an office without walls: a long table, two chairs, a string of painted stones that meant "knock" even without a door. A cup of tea sat empty by her elbow. A heel of bread had been eaten. She'd remembered to be human.
"Report," Ethan said lightly.
She handed him a sheet anyway, because words meant more when held.
"Four hundred and twenty-one accounted for," she said. "Forty-seven under Level Five. No one unassigned. Hunts met quota. Two non-critical injuries. One cart wheel replaced. Three leaks fixed and logged. Two empty dormers ready for bedding. Twelve apprenticeships assigned. Twenty-three requests for patrol retraining if the armory can spare gear."
"And food?"
"Twelve days," she said. "Enough. Not forever. Enough."
He tucked the paper under his bracer. "You just saved us more than any cannon could."
"No," she replied, unsentimental. "I counted the bullets before someone fired them."
A chime rolled softly through the corridor. Not the alarm bell. The polite System note.
Gold text unfurled:
Haven — Administrative Core Active
Compliance above threshold.
Efficiency +12%
Production +10%
Minor dispute resolution improves when logged through Steward channels.
Alina's mouth quirked—the closest she came to pride in public. "Useful."
"Dangerous," Ethan said.
"How so?"
"Now we can measure how far behind we are."
Alina inclined her head. "Then we make the number smaller tomorrow."
—
At dusk, the radio came alive.
Maria had mounted it beneath the task board, antenna patched through the rafters with resin. Static buzzed, then steadied. Echo-Nine's voice came through warmer for being expected.
"Echo-Nine to Haven. Reading you?"
Maria pressed the key. "Haven to Echo-Nine. Reading you."
"How's your day?" the woman asked—a smile in the words.
"Full," Maria said. "We built an office."
"Must be nice," the woman replied, and meant it. "Any tremors?"
Ethan took the mic. "Not today."
"Well," the man said, "that makes two of us. We saw a ruin out here—lights in the stones. Like a town forgot how to die."
Ravi's head snapped up, pencil already moving.
"We'll trade coordinates tomorrow," Ethan said. "And we'll trade something worth it for details."
"Deal," the woman said. "We'll bring stories."
"Bring numbers," Alina called without looking up. "Stories get better when they match the ledger."
The line crackled with laughter. "Understood. Echo-Nine out."
The radio slid back to a whisper. The task board glowed with chalk: Talons (7/20), Horns (3/10), Hearts (0/5), Infirmary (40%), Vehicle Bay (Queued). It looked like chores.
It was victories.
Ethan stepped outside and leaned against warm stone. His bracer sat quiet against his skin. Warden's Flow felt like a steady pressure under his ribs—present, not demanding.
Boots scuffed. Alina joined him, gaze on the memorial wall across the yard. Names dark against stone. New tokens tucked into cracks.
Someone had added a small brass plate beneath the list:
WE COUNT YOU SO WE DO NOT FORGET YOU.
Alina stared at it a long moment. "This is the part I know," she said softly. "Not the running. Not the killing. The order. My mother used to say no town fails for lack of courage. It fails for lack of a woman with a notebook."
Ethan let out a breath that might have been a laugh. "Then we're safe."
She glanced sideways. "For a week."
He nodded. Not fatalism.
Math.
Overhead, the System wrote nothing new. No warning. No prophecy. Just the quiet shimmer of the beacon threading the mist, and somewhere far out, the faint suggestion of another light answering.
Ethan closed his eyes for a heartbeat and let the day settle into a rhythm he could carry.
When he opened them, the town was still there.
Countable.
So it could be kept.