Chương 168: 165. Divine-Stone

"Not on my life, milord!" Feroy exclaimed with a grin. He seemed to be thinking for a moment before he added, "But you know, maybe I'll visit that school, after all. Just to keep an eye on everyone there, you know? I want to make sure nobody causes any trouble for our only teacher."

"Of course," Kivamus smirked, easily guessing the real reason. At that moment, the outer door of the hall opened and a guard walked inside.

"Milord, the two guards we had sent to escort Pydaso to Cinran have just returned back," he reported.

"Oh, that's really good to know," Kivamus said, and waved off the guard so he could return to his duties. He looked at others.

"They will ease up the workload on our guards until Hudan and the others are back from the quarry."

"I wonder how that is going," Gorsazo mused.

"There isn't any need to worry about Hudan, you know?" Feroy remarked.

"He can easily take care of any bandits there, especially since Nokozal wouldn't have reached there yet while walking on foot. I'd say the guards must be on their way back now."

"Let's hope so," Kivamus said. How he wished there was some way for him to contact Hudan immediately, just like on earth. Alas, nothing could be done about that here. Thinking about Earth made him remember meat and all kinds of meat dishes which he liked eating. But these days they were barely getting any meat in their meals. He asked the majordomo, "Are the hunters still not able to find enough animals to hunt out there?"

"For the first few days they were getting successful in catching small game like rabbits and such, since they weren't going too far," Duvas replied.

"But now that they have started going further to hunt for bigger game, it hasn't been very productive. One of the major reasons which I have heard from them is that they keep getting lost in the forests, since even this light snowfall has been enough to cover the ground there, and with the heavy clouds obscuring the sun most of these days and everything looking white on the ground, it is hard to find any natural markers, so they keep losing track of their location."

He added, "There is no real shortage of animals out there, but these days the hunting groups spend most of their time just finding their way instead of actually hunting." Kivamus thought about it for a moment. It was true that without access to any modern gadgets like a GPS locator, which would also include the function of a compass, it would be quite difficult to find their way inside the forests in winter, especially since there weren't any roads there either.

Feroy snorted, "I'd say they are just not used to going into the forests. I'd never lose my way there." Duvas shrugged.

"Well they haven't lived in the forest for years, unlike you, and with the previous baron not sending them on any hunting trips, they don't have any real experience going into the forests. And our few skilled hunters have also barely entered the forests to put some traps there for small animals. Even they barely have any experience of going deep into these forests." Kivamus nodded, "It's not their fault, but the result is the same.

We still aren't getting enough meat to supplement our diets and ease the burden on our grain stores."

"In that case, I could also go along with them from now," Feroy suggested.

"It won't really help much," Kivamus replied, "since you can only be with a single hunting group at a time, and the other groups would still keep getting lost. And we need someone trusted here to oversee the guards. Maybe we can consider sending you with one of the groups later once Hudan is back." He thought about whether there was any way for him to make it easier. If only he could make a compass here... He asked, "Do we have any magnets here?"

"Uh... a magnet?" Feroy asked in a confused voice.

"Something on which you can stick anything made of iron," Gorsazo replied. Duvas muttered while stroking his mostly-white beard, "I think I know what you are talking about, but there is nothing like that here." He added, "I've seen some of the nobles keeping something similar as a trophy though.

They show to their visitors that their divine-stone can be stuck to their swords or iron shields going against the power of the ground to pull everything down, and according to them, it proves their devotion to the Goddess as well as their rightful place as a noble." Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

The majordomo shrugged, "But even after I saw it myself in Risalis a long time ago, I didn't believe that the Goddess had anything to do with such a stone, as weird as it was, but I had no better explanation either." Kivamus gave a nod. So people here did know about magnets, which was probably obvious, but it wasn't common enough for him to get access to it easily.

He explained, "Yeah, that's exactly what a magnet is, but there are a lot of better uses for it apart from those nobles showing some petty tricks with it. And I can assure you that divine power has nothing to do with the effects of a magnet. It is often found in nature by the name of lodestone." He thought about how to explain the reason in simple words.

"As for the reason it can attract iron, I have read in a book that there is a special alignment of iron particles inside it which gives it those powers. It is a little more complex than that, but you can easily recognise it when a piece of iron gets stuck to it." Feroy seemed to be gazing into the distance.

"I think... I know what you are talking about. I've been to a place somewhere in the Southern forests, where I had kept my sword on a small rock when resting, but when I went to lift it, it was very difficult to remove it from that rock. Some of the mercenaries along with me were thinking there was a ghost of someone they had killed hiding in that rock, who didn't want me to take the sword back from that rock as revenge. Did you mean something like that?" Kivamus nodded excitedly.

"That sounds exactly like a lodestone embedded in another rock! And there was no ghost there. Do you remember where it was? We could send someone to pick it up." Feroy shook his head reluctantly.

"It was years ago, milord..." He seemed to be thinking for a moment before he added, "I think we were somewhere near the Nisador mountain range in the South, probably closer to Girnalica. But it was just a small rock. There is no way I could find it again." Kivamus sighed. He was getting excited for nothing then. How could he expect someone to remember the location of a piece of rock which couldn't be more than a foot big, if that.

"Never mind then."

"But what would you have done with it anyway, if you had that... lodestone here?" Feroy asked curiously.

"I wanted to make a compass with it to help our hunters find the directions easily," Kivamus replied.

"Do you know what that is?" Feroy shook his head, probably having never heard of it as a commoner, but Gorsazo asked, "You mean like that costly thing sailors use to find direction on sea journeys? I've heard that they hang a small piece of a special type of stone on a string, which helps them in finding out the directions. I think it is sold in the markets of Ulriga since it is a major port, but I don't know any more than that." Kivamus nodded.

"Yeah, that's a compass alright, although it sounds quite primitive if they are just hanging a lodestone directly on a string. I was thinking that if we had such a lodestone here, and if I could provide even a simple compass to our hunting groups, it would become much easier for them to find their way in the forests, no matter whether it was covered with snow or not."

"Well, we can't help it then," Duvas said with a shrug.

"It's not like we can buy a lodestone from Ulriga right now, and that's if we even had the coin to afford it, which we certainly don't." Kivamus gave a reluctant nod. It wasn't like he could create lodestones magically. Duvas changed the topic.

"I also wanted to tell you that the first wooden wheelbarrow was completed by Taniok's apprentice today. A few servants have already tried it and it works well enough."

"That's really nice," Kivamus praised.

"Tell him to keep making more of those, since the more wheelbarrows we have here, the faster the construction of everything will go." Duvas nodded.

"I'll let him know. Apart from that, we also received six repaired leather armors from Leah earlier today from the damaged ones which we had salvaged from the bandits. She had to use up two of them to patch up the remaining six armors. So that's certainly a loss for us." Feroy interrupted, "Maybe, but getting even those six extra armors will likely be enough to outfit all of our two dozen guards with them. And we can only thank Nokozal for that."

Everyone laughed at that, before Feroy continued, "Earlier in the evening, we got three more women who wanted to work as manor guards. So after Sir Duvas verified that they were trustworthy, we hired them as well." Duvas began, looking at Kivamus, "Your idea to use the women of the manor to give a speech in the market square seems to have worked, and now we have five women guards in total, though I am still not sure about how effective they will be in a real fight.

Either way, I think we might get a few more applicants in the future, since a few more of them looked interested when I gave the speech last time." Kivamus nodded in satisfaction.

"The bandit attack might also have a hand in their willingness to join us as guards, since without any village walls around Tiranat, we were unable to prevent the bandits from reaching inside the village and everyone felt fearful that night. Also, since most of the women who are joining us are likely to be those who were living alone, the safety of living inside the manor would also have motivated them to join up as guards."

He continued, "Still, making crossbows is something I want to start as soon as I can, and today I already finished up a basic design of it, but we need Taniok to get more free time before we ask him to do this, since I don't think his apprentice can craft the intricate parts by himself. Although I think we can start giving orders to make the metal parts of the crossbows to Cedoron." He thought for a moment, and looked at the majordomo.

"Tomorrow morning, send a servant to him and ask him to come and meet me, so I can talk with him about this." Duvas nodded.

"I'll let him know." Then he frowned, "But how do you know that your design will work for sure?"