Chapter 11: The house is done

In the morning we started to prepare breakfast really early and before Azu went to wake up Syl, who we let sleep a little longer I went to look at the perimeter with the dogs.

"Uwaaaah~ Good mornin'…" Syl rubbed her eyes, still little sleepy.

"We better be on our guard. There seems to be monsters coming here in the night. I found footprints of a two-legged creature dragging it's tail behind and a snake-like pattern near the water."

"Those might be dangerous monsters… have you find any remnants, master?" Azu asked me as she seated Syl on stump we used as a bench. Where did my always competent elf girl went?

"Just this," I haded Azu a broken tooth.

"Hmm… a carnivore monster and I guess it's one of the bigger ones… miss Syl, what big monsters do you know in this area?"

"Big monsters~? That can only be Crystal Deers, Red Cobras, Floating Kickers, Fang Ants, Traihorn rabbits and… umm, Black bears!"

"Thank you. We can safely say that this is too small fang for Black Bear and too big for Floating Kickers and the shape does not look like that of Red Cobras fang. Given the Crystal deers and Fang ants don't have this type of teeth too, we can be sure this tooth is that of a Traihorn Rabbit."

"Wow, you know your stuff Azu. Well done."

"Thank you for the kind words master. As a crafter, I'm well versed in a lot of monster materials. For instance, if we burn this tooth to ashes and mix them with holy water, we can get substance that can heal wounds done by undead monsters."

"So undead exist in this world too, eh?"

"Yep! They are really troublesome as they never get tired, don't need to eat, drink or sleep… plus they are mindless so they usually attack whatever come to their vincinity. Some six hundred years ago one really powerful appeared between three nations on the south-western continent and massacred them in less then two months."

"And when did you wake up?!" I turned suprisedly at Syl who as if on cue returned to her usuall confident and competent self. Why is she sparkling?

"Aaah~ nothing beats morning cup of Habrew tea," Syl smiled contendly as she continued sipping her tea in relaxed manner.

"Well, let's start dicussing what we are planning today. I will make the staircase and start preparing the second floor and the roof. Azu, once you are done with preping up the carcoal tell me."

"Understood! I just have to make a pile of wood cover it with dirt and lit a fire inside so it will be done in notime!"

"Is it that easy to make charcoal?"

"Not at all. If we let the fire be too strong, the wood will burn down and we can't have the fire too weak o rit don't burn at all."

"Can you tell the exact temperature?"

"'Course I do! I'm a blacksmith after all!" Azu smiled confidently.

"Umm… do you have any work for me too?" Syl asked me pointing her index finger at her face. Damn, she's cute…

"Well, could you take the dogs for a hunt? We have a lot of meat, but a little variety could be helpful."

"Variety… I got it! I have the exact monster to hunt! I'll take some ropes with me! Let's go you guys!"

"Woof!" the boys barked in unison and run of to the forest after giving their good byes to their pregnant partners.

"What about you Yuki, won't you come with them?"

"Grrr," as she growled at me, she shot me a slightly annoyed look and lay down on blankets we hide in corner of the room.

ANY-way, let's get to the work!

I took out my carving tools and after carefully measuring the height and depth of the stairs I started putting them together.

"Nice, this is easier then I thought," smiling to myself I tested the stairs I just fixed to the wall and found no problem with them whatsoever. Stepping on the floor where only beams were marking the hight of the building, I took a look over the entire place. Up to the north, I could see monsters gathering to drink water. Predators and their prey were both drinking side by side.

"This place is really nice, huh? Oh, I forgot the most important thing!!!" as a feeling of terror washed over me, I raced down to the base floor and outside where Azu was just starting to cover a pile of wood with dirt.

I quickly grabbed shovel and around twenty meters from the house I started digging down a slope. Once I was deep enough I made a room there about three by three meters wide and two meters tall. I also dug a new, tinier, hole from above to make for ventilation. Once that was done, I took a hollowed out piece of wood I found and made a seat from it. That's right folks, I'm making a toilet! How the hell did I forget about it up until now?!

Once I was satisfied with my work, I raised four beams and by sawing holes in them in right places, I tried fix them in place without the use of nails or other limited resources.

"Hey Azu, could you come for a minute?"

"Y-yes master! What is the problem?"

"No, no. There is no problem, I just wanted your option on this thing."

"It's… a toilet, right?"

"Yep."

"What will we do when the waste builds up?"

"Incinerate it?"

"That's probably the only way to go around with it with our resources."

"I wonder, how do you deal with waste?"

"To best of my knowledge, when I was in the slave trader's clutches I believe they were using some kind of bug that feeds only on waste of other living beings, but they easily overpopulate so I heard that jobs for exterminating them was usually hadled by slaves meant for disposal, as if they died down there, it would be of no consequence."

"Those piece of shit slavers…"

"Well, I escaped such a fate, so I'm fine… should I test it?" Azu asked with slightly red face.

"Uh, if you want… I will return to building the roof and the first floor."

"Okay…"

I quickly made my escape and started working on the walls and roof. Maneuvering in such high places was a first for me, but never the less, I managed do it and even prepare holes for windows. Not too shabby, if I say so myself. We don't have glass, but it's not like we can't at least place bars and some shutters in there.

As for how the house looks. After entering it, you have stairs on the right side with small storage space bellow them and big storage space on the left side. This big storage space have no windows but Syl installed magic lamps she made previously with magic stones. Then last room is in the back which I designated as dining room with doors leading to outdoors kitchen area. Now that I think about it, I should build a wall around it for protection from the wind.

Onto the first floor. This place is designated as our sleeping quarters. My bedroom is above the main entrance with Syl's right next to it and Azu's behind hers. Also, behind the stairs is another storage room. Well, it will be. The first floor still needs to be build.

As I had the roof frame standing up, I used another beam to hold them together and started placing planks on them to make the roof.

"Heeeeeeey~ I'm baaacck~"

Looking down I noticed that Syl has returned with the dogs and around twenty deers.

"What did you bring here?" I asked as I used rope to get down from from the roof.

"There are called Spice Deers! They live here in the forest and their horns can be used in place of spices!" Syl smiled happily and tied the deers to a pole Azu prepared for her while I was getting down.

"Hmmm, and how does that work? If we break them off, in how long will they regrow?"

"Their horns regrows every two weeks if they have enough food. All five types eats practically the same type of food, so we should be okay on that front."

I looked at the deers, shaking as they were frightened by the wolves.

"Isn't there a chance the taste of the spices will weaken if we broke off the horns too many times?"

"Actually no, as long as the food they recieve is nutrient rich, they will have no problems with anything like that."

"And what do they usually eat?"

"Anything from wild grasses, seeds and leaves of trees and some other things."

"I see… in that case, let's place them to the place we take wood from. I left some trees there so if we separate that area from the rest of the forest and bring water to it, they should be somewhat selfsufficient."

"I have nothing to add… but how will we bring water?"

"Hmm… that is a concern… I would like to bring in a canal, but it's too hard of a task for just three of us… if we had more hands it would be much easier."

"So it is possible, right?"

"Well, yeah, but it will take time. I still have to make new batch of abodes for the first floor and finish the roof."

"Um! Leave the abodes to me!!" Azu waved her hand enthuistically.

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah! I watched you yesterday so I know how to do it and I think I even know the perfect proportions!"

"Okay, should I leave you with some forms for the brick forming?"

"I'm good on that part!"

"Okay, in that case, Syl can I ask you to cut the branches lying over there for the enclosure's fences?"

"Yeah, leave that to me. I maybe can't use magic, but I'm still fast with my fingers," Syl pumped up with her fists.

"Okay, I will dig out the water reservoir and a chanel for it. Let's get to it, guys."

""Yeah!""

In the end it was just as I said. Syl managed to finish one wall before dusk while Azu prepared only about one tenth of abode bricks we would need for second floor. I did managed to dig out the reservoir good one and a half meter deep, but as far as the canal, went, I only managed to dig around ten meters. I was constantly stopped by tree roots, but what would you expect from a forest. In the end, I got slightly angry and used spirits to uproot the trees in my way, dry them and cut them in managible sizes. Their leaves, and occasional bird nests were stashed into our composter. Weird we didn't find any eggs. There were egg shells, yes, but they were old. Most likely the birds using the nests migrated somewhere else.

With the path now cleaned, I wanted to finish the chanel as soon as possible, but as I was about to do that, Syl called me back for diner. And say whatever you want, but if Syl orders to go eat you have to go eat, even if you were holding the sky above your head. That is just how delicious her cooking is.

Soon after diner, the place got so dark we decided to go to sleep. We still used the storageroom on the base floor with the wolves guarding the doors to outside. Coincidentally, the deers we had here were divided by color of their horns, which also told us about the taste they produced and were now tied to several stakes in our future farm.

The next day started with early breakfast. Once that was finished, I gave Syl more branches I got from the trees I took down yesterday and went back to digging. Given the southern side of the lake was on top of a gentle hill, I did not need to worry about pumping the water at all.

I used the spirits to excavate the land and when I was about to reach the lake, I got an idea. Given it's a lake, there should be fish in it… I may be able to procure food other ways then just by hunting right now.

Taking out some planks, nails and a hammer, I constructed something resembling a table with siff like desk through witch the water could flow, but the fish could not. Before placing it in it's place, I dug a separated chanel from the place leading to a small wooden tub I crafted along the way.

This way, the captured fish would slide to the chanel and eventually get to the tub from which they could not get out. As of the water overflow, I made a small hole in the tub and used wooden channel to bring it to the originaly build chanel.

Now that that was done, I went over to the pond and checked on Azu who was hitting the walls with wooden mallet to make the walls stronger. However, on the way, I was stopped by wall Syl made for this side and had to walk around it.

"How's it going?"

"Master! I'm practically done here! Oh, and Syl wanted me to tell you that she will do the longer sides today so we should start preparing diner before her."

Oh, man! I was looking forward to her diner!

"I see, that's a bumer, but I will try my best to cook something up. Sorry in advance if it tastes a little off," I waved at her and ordered the spirits to strenghten the chanel to cut Azu some slack. If I don't give her something to work on, she will keep going after me and asking what to do… indecisive people are so hard to work with…

"I understand, master. But whatever you feed me, will be thousand times better then what the slave traders used to feed us."

"Oh? And what did they feed you?"

"When we were in towns, it was common to have hard, old bread. If we were lucky, we could get a mould one. As for drinks… water stright from barrel that was forgoten for at least a month… Now that I remember only on travels we would get fresh water, but we had to forage for food… I remember one time I had to eas dirt…" Azu's eyes went cloudy and dark, remembering her past.

"Urgh… I see, well, I will try my best…"

Leaving her to her own devices I went back to our house and placed the finished abodes in their place before covering them with planks. And in three hours, I was done. Somewhere around that time, Azu finished and went to check the charcoal to see if everything went alright.

Seeing that, I went to open the wall holding the water back. The water rushed through the siffing table and I could see right away few small fish getting caught and jumping down to the side chanel I prepared.

"Well, today's lunch is grilled fish, I guess. Hmm… did the wolves go watch over Syl? Hmm…" as curiosity got better of me, I went back to see how everything was going. Even from afar I could see Azu stacking new pile of wood meant for charcoal and some wolves with her.

"Yo, what's the status on the charcoal?"

"It went perfectly! Hm? A fish? Is it for todays lunch?"

"You quessed it. It looks little like salmon I'm familiar with so I have an idea about preparing it."

And by that I mean I'll whoop it on pan and fry it on fat I got in the city. Heheh, you better be ready for my fish cuisine, heheheeh…

"Master, your face is weird…"

"Oh, is it?" I smiled at her and went with the fish to the outdoor kitchen area.

***

The fat started sizling as I spread it evenly on the preheated pan. Once I had a respectable hight, I added meat that was sprinkler with crushed caraway seeds I got in town and coated in flour. Good thing there were some many farms around the we were in, I got the flour really cheep.

Once I placed the meat on the pan, it instantly started sizzling. The smell was good so I added remaining cuts. I also controled the fire temperature by the use of fire spirits, so I had time to prepare some potatoes for garmish. Once I cut them to managible sizes I placed them to a pot next to the fish meat, which I promptly turned around.

"Nice."

As I look over my shoulder, I noticed Azu, Syl and the wolves drolling over each other. Only one who was not drolling, and sleeping soundly instead was Yuki who promptly ate all wastes I wanted to throw away.

"You ready to eat?"

Founding my question silly, I was met with vigorious nods from both the girls and the wolves. And so, we shared the lunch in quite happy mood. Aaah, what a bliss. I certainly hope such uneventfull days will remain for ever.