"Hurry up, you lazy bunch!"
"Bring over all that prepared mud, damn it, Sharu, move faster!"
"Alright, put all the mud bricks in, light the fire, quickly, if you don’t burn enough bricks today, you’ll be sleeping in the hut during the cold winter!"
Not far from the Dragon Nest Tribe, by a certain riverbank, a limping Kobold stood on high ground, energetically commanding a group of Beastmen to work.
Not far from the river, on the bank, beside a yellow clay hill was an excavated area, forming a square mud pit. The edge of the hill had a lot of yellow soil dug out and placed into the pit. One by one, Beastmen poured water into the pit, then several hulking Beastmen trod back and forth in the mud pit continuously.
It didn’t take long for the soil to be mixed into clumps of mud slurry. ɴᴇᴡ ɴᴏᴠᴇʟ ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀs ᴀʀᴇ ᴘᴜʙʟɪsʜᴇᴅ ᴏɴ ɴovᴇl(ꜰ)ir(e).nᴇt
Nearby, Beastmen came over, transporting the mixed mud in batches to a simple workshop not far away. Inside the workshop, mud-covered artisan Beastmen grabbed large clumps of the dough-like mud and stuffed them into rectangular brick molds made of four planks of wood, pressing hard to fill every crevice of the brick mold with mud, then scraped off the excess mud protruding from the brick mold with a wooden piece, threw away the extra mud, flipped the filled mold so that the empty side faced the ground, and lifted the wooden mold upwards, revealing a clay brick on the table.
With the artisan Beastmen swiftly working, a large number of brick prototypes soon appeared on the side.
Then, another team of Beastmen came over, taking the bricks away to an open area to dry.
Afterwards, yet another team of Beastmen placed the previously dried bricks into a nearby kiln, using wood or charcoal for firing. After burning for a day or two and then cooling them down, a kiln of red bricks suitable for construction was produced.
Indeed, the limping Kobold was in charge of directing the Beastmen to carry out the brick firing work.
Long before this, the Goblins’ manufacturing workshop had successfully fired bricks based on Austin’s description, and to prevent fire hazards, Austin ordered the Beastmen to start renovating the houses of the Dragon Nest Tribe, replacing the entirely wooden ones with mixed brick-wooden structure houses.
However, this reconstruction project consumed a tremendous amount of human resources, so the renovation work had to be progressed step by step, and the work of remodelation hasn’t completed until today.
Though the cold winter is approaching, manpower is in serious shortage across various departments. Nonetheless, constructing enough housing before the cold winter arrives is exceedingly important, hence the number of people involved in brick firing hasn’t decreased but rather received substantial support from the tribe’s manpower.
Brick firing isn’t a difficult job. Once the manufacturing workshop’s Goblins recreated this brick firing technique, they passed it on to other Beastmen, and now the limping Kobold takes charge of this domain.
"Faster, faster, faster!"
With the cold winter nearing and the Dragon Nest Tribe’s sudden increase of seven or eight hundred people, although the Dragon Nest Tribe continuously expanded, the sudden population influx made it difficult to free up enough housing for accommodation, hence the brick firing work was on a very tight schedule.
Fortunately, during the recruitment of population for constructing the Smoke Tower in the beginning, the Dragon Nest Beastmen had fired a considerable amount of charcoal on the hill where the Smoke Tower is located, partly solving the fuel issue, otherwise needing to go out and chop wood would be even more troublesome.
"Uncle Ge, our teacher asked us to bring you some drinking water."
Before long, a few young Beastmen strenuously carried over a half-person-high wooden bucket-like object covered with a lid, led by the half-person-height Kobold girl, Nina.
"Alright, everyone take a break."
Looking at the sky above, the limping Kobold felt they had been working long enough, so he announced a break.
The entire tense team then relaxed, gathering in small groups on the open ground. Nina quickly distributed wooden bowls to the exhausted Beastmen, then used a ladle to pour the soup water from the wooden bucket into them.
For a moment, the entire open area resonated with the sound of "gulu, gulu" of drinking water.
The soup brought by Nina and her companions wasn’t just plain boiled water; it contained a peppercorn-sized fruit that would release white salt grains on its surface when ripe. These fruits were called salt fruits by the Beastmen and were the main source of salt for the Dragon Nest Tribe Beastmen.
With the increasing number of Dragon Nest Tribe Beastmen, the demand for salt fruits has gradually grown, so after collecting the salt fruits, the Beastmen even removed the weeds around the salt fruit trees, cut down surrounding trees, loosened the soil, and applied some fertilizer in hopes of making them more flourishing and bear more salt fruits in the future.
Meanwhile, Vini also planned to carve out a dedicated grove for planting salt trees, but salt trees take a long time to grow, so they had hastily planted a bit, much like the red fruit seeds Austin had found at the Blood Wolf Lair, which were left unattended after planting.
Boiling salt fruits in water created a kind of lightly sour and salty water. The salt water was crucial for restoring strength.
Brick firing is labor-intensive, and it’s best for the Beastmen, who sweated a lot, to replenish with salt water.
"Little Nina, do you listen to the teacher usually?"
The limping Kobold sat on a log, taking the wooden bowl Nina handed over, and his rough hand patted her head.
In the Dragon Nest Tribe, newborn and young Beastmen were managed by a separate department because their parents had to work and couldn’t spend much time on the children. They organized the young ones together, managed by several elderly Beastwomen.
These Beastwomen not only managed the Beastmen cubs but also taught them various survival skills, basic knowledge, and the simple cultural knowledge Austin needed to spread. Of course, more activities involved practice, helping with things the tribe could use, such as leading water delivery teams as they did now.
This kind of system, unprecedented even in the entire Kawa Great Forest, had the Beastmen calling Austin those who managed the young ones, "teacher."
"Of course, I listened. The teacher even praised me yesterday. Also, Uncle Ge, could you stop patting my head? I heard kids won’t grow tall if their heads are often patted!"
Nina pouted with dissatisfaction but continued handing the wooden bowl filled with soup to the limping Kobold.
Hearing Nina’s innocent words, all the Beastmen present burst into hearty laughter, which swept away the fatigue from their earlier labor, filling the open area with joyous waves.