Chapter 52: Chapter 52: Forgive My Sins
The village’s population is too large, and the available pottery has become inadequate.
Lynn called Kuisi over and had her arrange for people to continue using the previous earthen kilns to produce charcoal and pottery.
Not only that.
The village’s public facilities also need continuous improvement.
A single communal kitchen is simply not enough for twenty-two people to use.
Often, two pots need to be cooked for everyone to eat at the same time.
Moreover, Lex is now fully devoted to the brewing workshop and doesn’t have time to cook for everyone.
Lynn found a female villager with Level 2 [Cooking] to handle the cooking specifically.
Apart from this, there’s the well!
Lynn realized a well had to be dug.
After the last spring rain, Lynn noticed the water of the Acadia River had turned yellow.
The silt in the river hadn’t settled for days.
If it weren’t for the few water tanks that had been made earlier, they would have had to cook with silt-laden water.
The most crucial thing is that the yellowing of the river water would affect the brewing workshop.
Additional outhouses also need to be built.
Lynn found long queues in front of the outhouse doors several times in the morning!
The warehouse also needs to start construction immediately.
Several hundred pounds of barley from before haven’t been finished, and now there’s an additional four thousand pounds.
The kitchen is almost filled to the brim, necessitating a dedicated granary for storage.
Under Lynn’s leadership, wooden houses were built one after the other.
The village’s facilities gradually improved, finally taking on the semblance of a village.
Only the well remained unfinished!
Other than the brewing workshop, Lynn stopped all other work.
Leading a dozen people carrying cross pickaxes and other iron tools, with baskets on their backs, and driving cattle carts, they set off toward the mountain ridge more than an hour away.
Lynn needed stones for reinforcing the well wall and paving roads.
The area around the wooden houses is clear land, yet still muddy paths.
Under the regular sunlight, the mud paths remained hard, but after a spring rain, all the roads became muddy!
Sticky shoes, slipping, causing unnecessary physical exertion and significantly affecting work efficiency.
At least one road with gravel suitable for passage by ox carts and horse carts, stable enough for transporting compost, is needed!
As for the road leading outside, there isn’t enough labor for now.
Clang!
Clang clang!
Clang clang clang!
Lynn grasped the cross pickaxe with both hands and struck hard against an irregular piece of limestone, producing a sound that vibrated the eardrums.
The reaction force of the pickaxe on the stone numbed Lynn’s arms.
[Collection Experience +1]
[Collection Experience +1]
...
Crack.
A sound of shattering followed as the limestone fractured into several dozen pieces of various sizes.
The surrounding villagers used iron shovels and hoes to gather all the surrounding rock fragments into baskets and then carried them back to the village.
Mining stones is inherently a laborious, slow-yielding, and lengthy task.
But for a village’s development, if you want to get rich, first build roads, which is always correct.
Nearing noon.
Lynn had someone set up the brought pottery pot over a fire to prepare lunch.
The journey is quite distant; making a round trip wastes too much time.
So Lynn simply had them move the pottery pot over.
Along with it came several dozen pounds of barley and half a smoked wild boar from the smokehouse.
As Lynn continuously chopped with a knife, chunks of wild boar meat the size of palms were thrown into the pottery pot.
He added barley and some leaves to season and remove the gamey taste.
As Lynn kept adding dry kindling, the pot released a fragrant meat-scented steam...
[Cooking Experience +1]
[Cooking Experience +1]
...
The villagers still collecting and digging stones couldn’t help but swallow their saliva upon seeing the wild boar and barley porridge brewing in the pottery pot, their bodies filled with energy.
Lynn never hesitated to provide meat.
With such high-intensity work daily and so much sweat, without sufficient meat intake, they wouldn’t replenish the salt required by the human body.
Insufficient salt intake would result in exhaustion and weakness the next day, affecting work efficiency.
After days of continuous stone mining.
A stone-reinforced well was finally built in the center of the village.
A ready-made winch was installed at the well’s mouth, with a bucket tied to a hand-twisted grass rope.
A simple wooden shelter was also constructed above the well to protect the water quality during rain!
A layer of moderate-sized gravel was laid on the open space in front of the village’s wooden houses, transforming the dirt paths between fields into gravel roads.
At this moment did Lynn call off the stone mining project.
It was too labor and time-consuming!
Lynn had wanted to pave cement roads or red brick roads entirely, but conditions were limited.
Relying on cross pickaxes and hoes for mining is too challenging.
Plus, producing cement and red bricks requires coal mines.
Without coal, just burning wood or charcoal can’t reach the necessary temperature requirements for firing!
Let alone coal mines, even finding a salt mine, Lynn feels, would allow them to take off!
Be it coal mines or salt mines... finding any mineral source would be a symbol of wealth!
Of course, it would also become a target for many lords.
But if one can hold onto it, that would lead to a rapid rise in power!
...
As night fell.
Guy found Lynn and led him to his wooden house.
Inside the wooden house.
A white wild wolf cub and a scrawny black wild wolf cub were slowly moving around the walls.
Their steps were slow, their bodies swaying slightly as they walked.
Awooo!
Awu!
Their soft, mewl-like howls echoed intermittently from their mouths.
Lynn raised an eyebrow.
He had truly forgotten about these two wolf cubs amidst all the business arrangements.
Surprisingly, Guy had really managed to keep them alive.
[Malnourished Wild Wolf Cub]: In cub stage, tiny and cute, possesses no attack power, etc.
Guy explained helplessly, "Master Lynn, since I truly couldn’t find any milk, I fed them some wheat flour... it’s surprising they survived..."
Lynn nodded, "From now on, you can feed them some meat, preferably minced fine meat..."
Guy nodded in understanding.
Lynn felt that Guy’s [Animal Affinity] talent was indeed useful.
Not just for the wolf cubs.
In the nearby pigsty, two wild boar piglets were also growing rapidly.
In a few months, the wild boars would reach maturity and then reproduce...
An endless supply of wild boar meat and leather seemed not far away!
...
The next morning.
Lynn just woke up and walked out of the wooden house.
Red appeared before Lynn, dragging Valentine with his right hand.
Perhaps out of extreme panic, Valentine knelt directly in front of Lynn.
Before Lynn could inquire, Valentine began to plead.
"Oh, Master Lynn, please forgive my sins... I will never dare again!"
Lynn frowned and asked, "What happened?"
Red explained, "Valentine wanted to leave the village, and I caught him."
Upon hearing Red’s words, Valentine hurriedly explained.
"Master Lynn, I wasn’t trying to leave the village; I wanted to bring other villagers over..."
Lynn raised an eyebrow, "Other villagers?"