Well I believe the answer is A. instead of B,C, or D,
This is because you would not need to multiply right away. The problem addresses that John buys 5 more which means to add and if you needed to multiply right away it would have said twice as much or greater to for an increasive value.
Well the way I see it is he started with 4 villager so I would see the equation to be
1.13x times 17+4 would equal the amount of villagers he could have which would be 23.21 as for the equation it would be 1.13x times 17 plus four equals the number of villagers total