Chương 417: 412. The Third Longhouse Block - I

The village craftsmen had also been hard at work as usual. Cedoron had sent someone in the morning to tell him that the second steel-making furnace had been baked fully and had cooled down, so the blacksmith planned to put in a fresh batch of iron rods in it today. Apart from that, the third furnace for steel-making had also been shaped from clay, and that would also be put to start baking now.

It would take around a week for it to be baked fully and to cool down, and then they could put in a third batch of iron to make steel in that one. The best news was that the first furnace was already cooling down the steel, And in around 10 days, the bars of iron would be ready to take out as the first batch of Made in Tiranat steel. Then the blacksmith would start to make scorpion parts again—with steel this time.

On the other hand, Darora had been busy making more and more crossbows until yesterday morning to give to the guards, but now he had returned to his usual task of crafting the wooden parts for the second scorpion. He would only assemble them once he had all the steel components available, but it would make it easier to make multiple scorpions when the steel was ready.

The coke-making oven had also cooled down for the first batch, and the blacksmith had started using it for his usual tasks to improve efficiency, and had also put a fresh batch of coal in it to bake again. Of course, the major improvement from coke would come when they started smelting iron ore here and made a blast furnace, but that was for the future. The single beehive oven for making coke would be enough for the blacksmith's usual tasks for now.

Taniok had also been working to make the first triphammer for the last week, and this morning he had reported that it was finally done. Cedoron had taken over the triphammer's operations, and would use it for forging iron and steel. It would free up a lot of manual beating of the hot iron done by his apprentices, which would speed up the tasks throughout the production chain of everything built of iron or steel.

Taniok's apprentices had also supervised the construction of the third longhouse properly and had ensured it got ready as soon as possible. Fitting the two layers of bunks on each of the floors had been done rapidly this time, with the sawmills producing the planks at a breakneck pace. With the third longhouse block now ready, the apprentices had started stocking up timber to make the losuvil processing encampment in the eastern hills.

The sawmills were producing plenty of timber these days, although a shortage of log-movers was still severely limiting their output from what they could produce at full capacity. Still, it was quite enough for their current uses, and for the next few days needed to gather enough timber for the encampment, Taniok would work on the second triphammer, which was planned to be used for making paper at a larger scale.

The old carpenter expected that with all the required parts for the second triphammer already stocked up, he just had to assemble it, and it should be done by the time he had to leave for making the encampment. After that they could shift the full process of making paper to the eastern bank of the stream at the dam. The plan was for him to leave when they had around half of the construction material ready, and the guards had returned from the counter raid.

The transport wagons would then come back to the village for taking another batch of construction materials to the encampment site. After that, all the timber from the sawmills would be used for making the fourth longhouse block. that would also be double story and taniok's apprentices would oversee the construction again. The trench surrounding the village walls had also been completed recently, and the recent rains had filled it with water, making it look like a proper moat.

Now they just needed to put some alligators in it.... He chuckled, thinking about whether those animals were even present in this world, but if they were, or if there was something even remotely similar, he would try to put them in the moat—just a nice surprise for any would-be raiders. Soon, he saw the majordomo walking towards him. He looked at the guards.

"Duvas is coming. Let's go." Once the majordomo joined them, they left the manor grounds.

"Finally," he grinned.

"It's always good to see a project to completion."

"Indeed," Duvas nodded.

"It'll be more comfortable for the villagers now that we can use both the floors of the third block. We can allot a bunk to nearly all the villagers from today. I think there will still be a few dozen people who'll have to sleep on the floor and the number will increase every week, but that's still far less crowded than having hundreds of people sleeping down there."

"That's for sure. It's a miracle we didn't get an epidemic here with so many people living in close confines. At least spending so much gold on buying a lot of soap every month has been helpful."

"Yeah," Duvas nodded.

"But we'll have to buy more soon. Madam Nerida was saying we only have enough stock left to provide a couple of times to the villagers along with their weekly provisions." This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

"Don't worry," Kivamus grinned.

"We can afford it now even with our regular coal sales." Duvas snorted.

"I have no doubt you will find another way to spend even more money soon enough." Kivamus laughed.

"How did you read my mind? Actually, I've been thinking of something."

"Of course you have..." Duvas shook his head with a smile.

"What is it this time?" The guards walked in a box formation around them as usual as they walked north towards the longhouse blocks, with the gravel the workers had covered the road in front of the longhouses crunching under their feet. Kivamus looked at the majordomo and lowered his voice.

"I think it is time we started making soap here." Duvas stopped walking for a moment, then he chuckled.

"Obviously you know how to make soap... I bet that's one of the simplest ideas in your mind." Kivamus grinned, since Duvas also knew about his origin, apart from his former teacher Gorsazo.

"Well, if you know, you know."

"Anyway, even the low-quality commoner's soap we buy from merchants doesn't come cheap, with the steep profit margins which Plumron's mercantile guilds charge on it. But when the guards return from the west, we'll have a full 100 of them now. So we can send even more hunting groups after that, by including women in the teams, since we are now slowly getting to the stage where we have enough crossbows for them. That'll ensure us having a steady supply of tallow.

We aren't burning any wood for heating in this weather, but we are still making lye at a small scale from the stored ash for making paper. We already have some workers trained in it, so we just need to expand its production to start making soap here."

"That's all we need?" Duvas asked with confusion.

"It can't be that easy..."

"Not exactly, and there's a proper process we need to follow for this, but it's not that difficult either. At least to make a low-quality soap. Once we have the whole setup working properly, I also have some ideas about how to make a better quality luxury soap and maybe even a liquid soap which we can sell for a high price to nobles. We can sell it in Tiranat-made wooden containers as well."

"That'll net us a good profit," Duvas grinned.

"We can also sell the surplus from the cheaper soap version to visiting merchants once we are making enough for the village, which will also reduce our expenditure by itself. Or rather, we can start selling it to the villagers instead of providing them a soap bar every fortnight along with their rations, since you plan to start paying them in coins soon. Either way, it will be profitable for us." He snorted.

"I guess that's why the guilds of Plumron keep the process a secret even if it's so easy." Kivamus frowned.

"They'll cause us trouble for this, won't they?" Duvas shrugged.

"It won't matter if we are only using the soap locally, but they won't like it once we start selling outside Tiranat."

"Hmm... don't worry. We'll deal with them once we have to." Kivamus looked at the double-story block ahead of them. Time to give a speech.

~ Widel ~ ~ A short time ago ~ It was approaching evening, and Widel was standing on duty on the watchtower in the northwest, along with an elderly villager who accompanied the female guards on watchtower duty in the day shifts. Yes, she was also a guard now. It had been unimaginable just a few weeks ago, when she and her friends and their familes—all escaped slaves—had been living at that makeshift encampment in the forest in the north. And they were free people...

How times had changed for them, and for the better. She and the others from that camp had been living in temporary shelters since arriving at Tiranat, and most of them had found some work here or there. However, she didn't want to be just another laborer or maid, so she had shown her interest in becoming a guard, as unlikely as it had seemed. And yet, the news had reached the captain of the guards, and she had been selected after some small physical tests.

She hadn't been paid anything yet—apart from the weekly food rations given to everyone—but it was only a matter of time, she had been told. She still lived in that shelter with others, because there was simply no more space to house new guards in the servants' hall within the manor. But she had still been inside the manor many times, either for daily physical exercises and basic fitness training with others, or to get orders on where she had been allotted her watch duty for the day.

So when she had seen the guards make a temporary palisade outside the manor in the east with some wooden branches and start training to assault it, while another team tried to defend, she knew something was up. The hunting groups had also been staying within the manor for the last week and had also been practicing mock-attacks on that makeshift walled compound. Only the newly recruited male guards were being put for watch duty these days, while the experienced ones only trained and rested.

Her curiosity had only been met by evasive answers, and she had realized that of course, they couldn't trust a new guard—a former slave—like her with something sensitive. However, the villagers who went to transport coal to the barns in the manor had also noticed that training, and rumors had spread throughout the village that the guards were going out to attack someone.

She had also heard that there was a bandit leader living somewhere in the west— Torhan —and he had already raided the village twice, so she hadn't taken long to connect the dots and realize that the guards must be going to attack that bastard. Good for Tiranat!