Chapter CX – No catgirl can manage two horses.

4th of Autumn 5859
Imperial Highway №04-030, Casamonu

There was a procession of yellow out in Casamonu. An observer far away wouldn’t be mistaken in mistaking this for a procession of giant newborn chicks, from the way they waddled and wobbled all together en masse. However, most unfortunately for some, giant chicks were not a thing in Casamonu.

“Move out people, these roads aren’t fixing themselves!” Ayomide was on a donkey which was carrying along a cart of provisions on its back. The cart was making hellish clattering while on the road. An absence of regular maintenance had certainly hit the highway hard. On the road Ayomide had seen missing milestones, some knocked over and most looted. In place were the corpses of pack animals and the occasional person who had perished during the chaos in Casamonu.

“What a dismay this sight is. Poor people…” Rabanowicz had made herself a spot on the cart. She was holding a small notebook filled with notes. In front of her was a spread out a map of the area, a somewhat crude one detailing and numbering all the roads, on a crate of food.

“Believe me, enslavement was a whole lot more of a dismay.” Ayomide scoffed. Her mood certainly wasn’t better when she had been travelling on a bumpy road with a donkey.

“I wasn’t saying that your situation was any better, Madame Ayomide. One can care about and feel somber over more than one matter at once.” Rabanowicz looked around, spotting a milestone. “We should stop here: we’re at the part that the Republic will be responsible for fixing.”

“Aye aye, captain. Everyone, set up camp!” Captain Ayomide stopped the donkey. Everyone else in the yellow procession stopped alongside her. She hopped off the donkey, and Rabanowicz followed with papers in hand.

“Ahem. If I may have your attention, gentlemen.” The National Guard gathered around Rabanowicz. “Imperial Highway №04-030 is a critical connecting point between Zon’guldac and Casamonu, one which has fallen into disrepair over the years. Therefore, the Council has authorized the use of the National Guard in this emergency situation to repair infrastructure. You’ll of course be paid and fed during this assignment.” There was yawning coming from the crowd, though they weren’t complaining about getting to sit down after all that travel. “Thanks to Madame Whitebeard, we have gotten the details on dwarven road laying techniques. I’ve manufactured all the measurements we’ll need to properly construct these roads…”

Ayomide poked Rabanowicz, and then pushed her aside. “Basically, we’re repairing this road, it’s important, and we need your help. Do as Forewoman Rabanowicz tells you to, and Casamonu, along with you all, will prosper. Got it? Now get busy setting up camp, and then laying the road. After you’re done, we have drinks for you to enjoy.” Much to Rabanowicz’s dismay, the road workers were a whole lot more enthusiastic when faced with the simple and quick explanation. Especially the last part, which caused clapping and shouting in suitably celebratory fashion.

Work quickly started on the camp as the donkeys and their carts were emptied. Out from the empty carts sprung beds, tents, and even a wagon fort. Not as quickly as the League would have done it, but Ayomide still found herself pleased by the performance.

“Ahem. If I may have your attention, gentlemen.” Rabanowicz took out a ruler, on which there were no marks except for on the very bottom. It seemed to be way oversized for its purpose. “Do you see this mark here? We’re to dig this deep.”

One of the workers protested “But miss, that’s no deeper than the tip of my finger! Won’t the road just turn into mud?”

“Yeah, I’ve been called upon for corvée work at another highway a few times, and they made us dig pretty deep. Something about water needing to drain out with the rain.” replied another worker.

“Yes, we’ll be digging up soil from around the road to raise the surface of the road by a similar amount first. Basically, make sure that the center of the road is higher than its edges to ensure what the dwarves call ‘drainage’ After that, we’ll start with a layer of crushed stone, and then a thinner layer of even finer crushed stone. You’ll be hammering the stone in the carts and weighing them on the scales I brought along to make sure they’re the correct weight and size.”

The former roadworker from before protested once more “That’ll somehow make a good road? I believe the dwarves may just be making fun of us. That sounds way too simple.”

Ayomide interjected “Either we go with the traditional method of making roads and dig deep like you’ve said, or we go with the dwarven method and you all do less work. Either way you’re getting paid and fed the same, right?”

“Yeah…” All the workers around the protestor seemed ready to beat him up if he protested and made them do more work.

Rabanowicz continued “Not to mention, Captain Brown has stated that he’s seen similar methods used back home to make roads. In fact, he was the one who pushed the dwarven delegate to cooperate on this infrastructure project.”

“The old man loves his infrastructure, maybe as much as he loves his sheep” added Ayomide. “Enough talk, it’s time for work!” She took out a shovel from one of the carts, and the National Guard followed their provisional captain in breaking ground. Work went swiftly, with a strip of raised earth about eight centimeters tall making its debut soon enough. Then the strip of raised earth lost its defining quality with only its edges remaining raised while the rest of it was dug down twenty-five centimeters deep. Shovels were exchanged with hammers as workers broke down stones into fashionably small chunks smaller than eight centimeters in diameter. After the first twenty centimeters of road was filled, the workers switched to even smaller stones no more than 2 centimeters in diameter.

Thus lay a strip of road, a meter wide at the moment, that defied the conventions of roadbuilding in Gemeinplatz. It was a whole lot shallower, and a whole lot simpler than the layers and layers of rock and gravel that the original imperial road beneath it was.

Ayomide looked at the road beneath her feet. She didn’t understand infrastructure one bit, but she did find the road suitable for walking on. What she understood was that it was getting dark, so she shouted “Alright everyone, from tomorrow on get yourselves busy with continuing to upgrade the Imperial highway until Casamonu.” She breathed a sigh of relief. Tomorrow she’d return back to Casamonu now that her job, enlisting a bunch of National Guard members for the infrastructure project, was done.

Soon the wagon fort was set alight with a fire in the middle as the tired workers began to cook their meals and make merry with beer. Talk centered around what they’d do after they were paid generously for their work in the National Guard. “You know, my neighbor has been doing a terrible job with his shop. I think I’ll have saved up enough to buy his place out.”

“Eh? You’re no fun. I’m going to hit up all the nunneries in Casamonu with his money!”

“All those nunneries will hit you back if you do that. Ever heard of syphilis?”

“No, what is it?”

Ayomide had escaped to just outside the wagon fort for a walk. It was pitch dark, but thankfully her eyes could see in the dark just fine. It was quite nice and breezy, the smell of wet earth still fresh, definitely a much better time than summer. All was quite, save for the clopping of hooves… clopping? Her ears perked up. It wasn’t coming from the direction of the wagon fort. In fact, those clops were coming from the opposite direction. Looking through the dark, Ayomide saw two horsemen. They both had fur hats with a metal band on top, supported by a metal lamellar cuirass backed by a thick fur coat. To Ayomide they looked strange, and alien to the usual horsemen she saw in Gemeinplatz. She couldn’t identify their colors, which was in the shape of a simple blue-red tabard on top of their cuirasses. Clearly, they came from somewhere as all people do, but from where? Not with good intentions, Ayomide thought to be most likely, for the pair were approaching the wagon fort in the dark with their recurve bows in hand. Still, she got within magic distance, and hailed the cavalry “Halt, who are you? I come in peace if you do so too.”

The cavalrymen were startled, and drew their bows towards her direction. Two arrows came towards Ayomide, but deflecting them with a bit of wind was no hard work for her. The two riders immediately turned to gallop, thought not before Ayomide shot a gust of wind strong enough to knock one rider down. She chose to focus on the one she downed, taking a dagger out and pinning the man down. “Yield.” Her enemy said something incomprehensible, and lacking a weapon, he had no choice but to stop struggling and surrender.

“I’ve got someone here! Help me take them back!” shouted Ayomide towards the wagon fort. Her voice was heard as clear as day in the deadly silence of the night, and soon a few of the National Guard arrived to help carry their guest back.

It seemed that Ayomide now had a surprise return gift for the people back in Casamonu.