Rain

Road construction was a massive undertaking.

In Romain's view, its complexity and difficulty were no less than those of the spring plowing.

He had to lead people along the route he had planned and carry out the initial leveling.

Romain liked efficient methods.

So the route he planned was perfectly straight—a single straight line that would make transportation and the extraction of rock salt more convenient.

This also meant they had to fell the trees along the way, move the rocks, fill in the swamps, and clear away all the shrubs and weeds. Even hills and streams had to be cut through—though there was only one hill along the route, along with several small rivers three to four meters wide, rather than hard stone mountains or great rivers.

This forty-kilometer road had to be at least four meters wide.

Since all the trees and vegetation on both sides had to be cleared away, its actual cleared width was around ten meters, giving the road as broad a view as possible.

To that end, Romain assembled numerous draft cattle, draft horses, and vehicles, relying on the strength of these large animals to handle problems that human labor struggled to solve.

He even put iron farming tools unsuited for road construction to use here, completely disregarding their wear and tear.

Once they learned why the road was being built, the farmers of Sigg Town accepted the heavy physical labor without any resistance.

Even the most shortsighted person knew what a salt mine meant.

It meant they would have salt to eat in the future, salt they could use to pickle vegetables.

Romain himself could not possibly engage in low-efficiency manual labor like those farmers sweating profusely.

He had to lead people to mine stone.

There were many stone deposits in this land, but they were worthless, and no one had any interest in them.

Mining stone required too much labor, and even the place where Mol lived consisted only of wooden houses.

Only nobles building castles would bother with it.

Romain had no plans to launch any major construction projects and waste manpower. Origin Manor was crude, but it was still passable. It would be better to devote all resources to road construction.

He knew that building a solid, durable road required earth, timber, stone, and sand.

As the saying went, where enough people walked, a road would form—but such roads were often difficult to travel.

When people ran across them, dust would fly everywhere. When it rained, they became hopelessly muddy. The ruts would be a mess, transport capacity would be greatly reduced, and wheels could even sink into the mud, suffering severe wear.

That was something Romain could not tolerate.

Even laying down a layer of crushed stone would be far better than a dirt road.

And Romain hoped to produce lime.

Humans had begun using lime as a building material many years ago.

Lime produced through calcination could be mixed with sand, loess, and straw for use in road construction.

It was not a material that would last forever, but it would certainly meet Romain's basic requirements for the road.

A flat, hard road was vastly better than a bumpy dirt track.

Romain turned all hundred-odd farmers he had brought into quarry workers.

They had only two tasks: continuously mine limestone, and continuously burn it. It did not matter if the temperature of the wood fire was unstable; if they burned it for a few more days, it would eventually turn to powder. Lime could not be ruined by overburning anyway.

Construction Experience +1

Construction Experience +1

As Romain threw himself into the work, the experience for his Construction skill continued to rise.

After seven days, Romain's Construction skill had reached Level 2.

The improvement of this skill gave Romain some basic knowledge of construction.

For example, cement, brick firing, house building, and so on.

However, none of that was directly related to the road construction he was carrying out.

Romain was not planning to build a road that could last for decades or even centuries.

His requirements were simple: it only needed to serve its purpose for one or two years. If it cracked or became damaged, he would send people to repair it.

Road construction was merely a temporary measure to begin with.

He was desperately short of funds right now. Otherwise, he would not have been in such a hurry to mine the salt deposit.

At present, a quarter of the leveling work had been completed. Everyone worked exceptionally hard, practically giving it everything they had. No one held the others back.

That was salt!

Hundreds of people continuously dug earth and filled pits in the swampy areas, striving to compact a road solid enough to stand firmly upon.

Draft cattle and draft horses pulled ox carts laden with soil back and forth.

To celebrate the improvement of his skill, Romain specifically had Seth buy four domestic pigs from farmers in Sigg Town.

The game he had brought out of the mountains had all been eaten, so now he could only buy domesticated livestock.

These domestic pigs weighing over a hundred jin were not expensive, costing between one and one and a half silver coins each. They were far cheaper than draft cattle and draft horses, only slightly more expensive than wheat.

Romain slaughtered them on the spot, set up a large pot, carved the meat away from the bones, and began cooking it all, tossing in salt as though it cost nothing.

Domestic Pig meat was more delicious than most game. Though the boars had not been castrated and the meat carried a rank smell—

—it was still a rare delicacy in this era.

At the very least, Gevra ate with great relish, making Romain feel that, like the other commoners who had endured too much hardship, the girl's taste buds had gone bad.

Yet at the same time, Gevra could tell whether food was good or bad.

So Romain could only blame her past experiences for giving the girl extremely low standards when it came to flavor.

Cooking Experience +1

Romain stewed two pigs for the road-building crew, and one pig each for the stone mine and salt mine as a reward.

The greasy, salty, meat-heavy meal greatly replenished the energy they had spent over this period, slightly improving their work efficiency for the days ahead.

Romain did not particularly care about spending money on food. All he knew was that a gold mine awaited his excavation in the future.

As he had said before, the road ahead was long and arduous.

Of course, Romain did not intend to buy all his meat. As they ventured deeper into the wilderness, they encountered wild animals more and more often, forcing him to bring along the Armor-Piercing Greatbow.

He generously chopped the wild animals he shot into chunks and tossed them into the pot to stew together.

Thus, every few days, those fools would find several chunks of unidentified meat added to their wooden bowls.

Perhaps lynx, perhaps beaver, perhaps red deer—or even hedgehog, waterfowl, or wild duck. In any case, the variety was extensive.

Hunting Experience +1

Such notifications appeared from time to time.

Cooking Experience +1

Cooking Skill increased to Level 2

Level 2 Cooking: 0\380

Milestone Unlocked: Slice Through Like Melons and Vegetables

Slice Through Like Melons and Vegetables: Obtain 500 Origin Stones

Another two days passed.

His hunting experience steadily increased, yet cooking was still the first skill to reach Level 2.

The road-smoothing work along the route had reached the halfway point.

As the supply line grew longer and travel took more time, leveling the road became increasingly difficult.

It was also on that morning—

Romain's body clock woke him automatically at around five.

Yet there was no faint glow of imminent dawn on the horizon. It remained dim and dark.

The temperature he felt was also lower than on previous mornings.

Romain stepped outside, and a fine drizzle fell from the sky, driven against his face by the slanting wind.

He looked up at the overcast clouds and sighed.

This light rain seemed to be paving the way for a heavier downpour to come.

Tale of Survival had a function that predicted the next day's weather.

Romain had known yesterday that it would rain today and had made the corresponding arrangements.

But tomorrow was still forecast to bring rain, which put him in a foul mood.

It seemed road construction would be impossible for the next two days.