Allen didn't waste time on pleasantries. Crisis management 101: when a P1 incident hits, you skip the small talk and start triaging. He walked to the center of the village, the red countdown timer burning in his peripheral vision, and cleared his throat. His voice was steady, sharp, the tone he used to kick off emergency sprint meetings when a server crashed at 3 a.m.—calm, decisive, unyielding.
"All of you. Gather here. Now."
Geralt looked up, confused. Tilly paused mid-stir. Brok glowered, but pushed himself to his feet, his good hand closing around the rusted hammer. They shuffled toward him, slow and unenthusiastic, like employees dragged into a mandatory all-hands meeting they knew would solve nothing. Allen didn't blame them. Hopelessness was a cultural problem in failing organizations, and this village was drowning in it.
He focused on the system interface, tapping the [SKILLS] tab. Only one skill was unlocked, grayed no longer—bright, clickable, labeled with the cold efficiency of corporate software.
[Skill Unlocked: Territory Appraisal (Common, Passive/Active)]Effect: Map all local resource nodes, quantify stockpiles, identify infrastructure vulnerabilities. Cooldown: 24 Hours. Current Use: Available.]
"Activate," Allen muttered.
A soft blue pulse radiated outward from his body, washing over the village, the farm plot, the nearby treeline, the collapsed forge. The system interface updated instantly, a detailed resource map popping up, nodes marked with small icons—lumber, food, scrap metal, ore. It was a live inventory dashboard, exactly like the asset tracking tools he used in his past life.
[Resource Inventory – Fallen Stone Village]
Lumber: 12 Units (Stored in Hut Corner, Near Collapsed Palisade)Food: 8 Units (Dried Grain, Root Vegetables, Stored in Tilly's Hut)Scrap Metal: 3 Units (Rusted Nails, Broken Tools, Buried in Forge Debris)Fresh Water: 1 Unit (Small Stream 50 Yards West)Harvestable Resources: Wild Berries (2 Units, Treeline North), Dry Branches (Unlimited, Low Yield)
Allen's eyes scanned the numbers, and his project manager brain calculated the burn rate before he even thought about it. Burn rate— the rate at which a startup depletes its cash reserves—was a term he'd lived and breathed for years. Here, it was food burn rate.
8 units of food. 3 people. Minimum daily consumption: 1 unit per person. 3 units per day. 8 divided by 3 was 2.666.
72 hours.
Three days. Even if the goblins didn't attack, the village would starve to death in three days. Negative cash flow, negative resource flow, total operational failure. This was a terminal case, the kind of startup you wrote off in a post-mortem and moved on from. But he couldn't move on. This was his now.
He turned to the three NPCs, his gaze sharp, assigning roles in his head before he spoke. RACI matrix—Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, Informed—the framework he used to keep projects from falling apart, the backbone of agile team management. It was universal, even in a fantasy village on the edge of collapse.
First, he locked eyes with Geralt, the farmer. "You. Geralt. You are Accountable for food production." The word felt foreign on his tongue, but the system translated it into a concept the villager could grasp: ultimate ownership, no excuses. "I need you to gather every edible thing you can find—wild berries, roots, anything that won't kill us. You don't stop until I tell you to. Food is our top priority asset."
Geralt blinked, then nodded slowly, a flicker of surprise in his eyes. No lord had ever spoken to him like this—no demands for tribute, no threats, just a clear, assigned responsibility. "Aye, sir. I'll find what I can."
Next, Tilly, the cook. "You are Responsible for food rationing and storage." Responsible meant execution, day-to-day delivery. "We have 8 units of food left. We eat one unit per day, split between all three of you. No exceptions. You control the stock, you measure portions, you report waste. I want a daily inventory update every morning."
Tilly's shoulders straightened, just a little. For the first time in months, she had a clear job, a purpose beyond stirring empty pots. "I'll see it done, sir. No food goes to waste."
Last, Brok, the injured dwarf blacksmith. Allen didn't miss the way the dwarf's left arm hung useless, or the bitterness in his stare. He couldn't swing a hammer, but he knew metal, knew tools, knew construction. That made him invaluable. "You are Consulted for all tool repair and defensive construction." Consulted meant expert input, critical guidance for technical decisions. "Your knowledge of smithing and building is the only thing that can keep us from being overrun. I need you to tell us how to fix what's broken, how to build what we need, with the scrap we have. Your advice is non-negotiable."
Brok's scowl faded, replaced by shock. No one had asked for his opinion since his arm was crushed. No one had treated him like a expert, just a broken dwarf. He grunted, crossing his good arm over his chest. "Fine. I'll tell you how to nail a board straight. Don't expect me to swing a hammer for you."
Allen nodded, satisfied. The RACI matrix was set. Roles were clear. Accountability was assigned. The first step of operational recovery was complete.
"One more thing," he said, his voice firm. "Starting tomorrow, we hold a Daily Standup every morning at first light. Ten minutes, no more. Each of you tells me three things: what you did yesterday, what you're doing today, and what's blocking you. No complaints, no stories—just facts. It's how we stay aligned, how we fix problems before they blow up."
The terms were alien, but the intent landed. Daily check-ins, transparency, accountability. The building blocks of a functional team.
For the next hour, Allen led a resource inventory sprint—fast, focused, no wasted motion. He followed Geralt to the treeline to mark berry bushes, checked Tilly's food storage to confirm the 8 units, dug through the forge debris with Brok to recover the 3 units of scrap metal. He cataloged every stick of lumber, every rusted nail, every edible root, updating the system dashboard in real time.
The countdown ticked onward: 4:12:37.
Brok leaned against the collapsed forge, staring at the scrap metal in a pile at his feet. "We got nothing to build a real wall with. Twelve units of lumber is enough for a flimsy palisade, nothing more. And my arm—can't hammer posts deep enough to hold."
Allen didn't flinch. He'd dealt with resource constraints his entire career. Scrap metal, limited lumber, a broken expert. It was a classic constraint-driven project. "We don't need a perfect wall. We need a minimum viable defense." MVP—minimum viable product, the core of agile development. Build the smallest functional version first, then iterate.
"A fence that slows the goblins down. A line of sharpened stakes. A way to force them to cluster, so we can pick them off one by one." He tapped the system interface, already drafting a rough construction plan in his head. "Sprints. Two-hour sprints. We work in short, focused bursts. No burnout, no wasted time. We build what we can, as fast as we can."
Brok raised an eyebrow. "Sprints? For building a fence?"
Allen smiled, a thin, humorless smile. "In my world, that's how we win. Fast, focused, iterative. And right now, winning is the only option."
The village was still dying. The food was still running out. The goblins were still coming. But for the first time since he woke up, Allen had a plan. A resource plan. A team plan. A defense plan.
It wasn't much. But in agile survival, it was enough to start.