Once he had confirmed that everything was on track, Vitus left the construction site and led the Tuna Legion back to Andravida.
More than a year had passed since the city's liberation. The once-abandoned drainage channels had been cleared, the public baths had reopened, and the population had grown to 2,700.
Leading his horse by the reins through the streets, he could clearly sense the city's slow revival. Vendors along both sides of the road shouted energetically to draw passersby toward their wares—besides everyday necessities, there were luxuries such as dyed cloth and olive oil soap.
Turning a street corner, Vitus caught the mingled scent of olives and wood ash. He looked up to see the sign Agnes had designed hanging above the workshop entrance, with its name written below in Greek and Italian—Andravida Olive Soap Workshop.
Upon entering the courtyard, he found the soap-making area on the left. The room was brightly lit, with sunlight slanting through the windows. Three enormous stone furnaces stood against the wall, charcoal burning in their fireboxes to heat three iron cauldrons.
The iron cauldron on the far left held clear olive oil. In the one on the far right, an alkaline solution of wood ash and water was being slowly heated.
Afterward, the workers poured the liquids from the left and right cauldrons into the one in the middle and heated the mixture. A worker with a headscarf wrapped around his head stood on a stool, holding a huge long-handled wooden ladle as he stirred slowly and rhythmically.
The workshop supervisor knew Vitus's identity and patiently introduced him to every stage of the process, as well as the raw materials piled up in the storeroom: wood ash gathered from the nearby mountains and forests, olive oil brought in from the countryside, and heaps