Chương 17: The Commander Takes Charge

There was no way to stop rain from falling from the sky. At the very least, however, there were ways to prevent the torrential downpour from destroying the settlement. To put one of those methods into practice, Karath swung the tool he had spent the past several days making from wood and the armadillo-like monster's shell. Gripping a long, thick, sturdy wooden shaft with both hands, he drove it into the muddy ground. Thud! A broad, durable plate made from joined pieces of the creature's shell pierced the soil.

Karath lifted the tool and flung the accumulated dirt aside. He had made a shovel. For some time, Karath had believed that the tribe needed shovels, both to prevent flood damage during the monsoon and to perform various kinds of construction. The problem had always been finding suitable materials. A shovel required something thin and hard enough to penetrate packed soil. On Earth, the blade would normally have been made of metal, but there were no convenient lumps of iron lying around a primitive settlement.

Even if Karath somehow obtained iron, turning it into the shape of a shovel would require many things the tribe did not possess. The armadillo shell was inferior to metal, but it was far stronger than stone or wood. Although the creature was absurdly larger and tougher than an ordinary armadillo from Earth, the shell possessed similar basic properties. When heated over a fire, its surface became sticky and gelatinous, much like roasted pork skin. Karath had taken advantage of that quality.

By heating the individual shell plates over a fire, he had fused them into something resembling a shovel blade and attached it securely to a sturdy wooden shaft. He was working beneath the moonlight in the middle of the downpour when several adults discovered his strange behavior.

"Karath!" They approached through the rain while shouting his name. Raising their voices in the monster-infested forest at such a late hour would normally have been suicidal, since it could attract nearby monsters. Tonight, however, they had little choice. The rain was so deafening that they had to shout simply to make themselves heard, and the roar of the storm would prevent their voices from carrying beyond the settlement.

"What are you doing?" Delina forced her way through the downpour and called out to him, worry filling her voice. Karath continued shoveling as he answered calmly.

"I am making a path for the water to escape!" Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more. That was why he had come outside to dig in the middle of the night. He was constructing a drainage ditch. During the two years Karath had spent exhausting himself in the United States Army in his early twenties, he had learned the first rule of setting up a field camp. When it rained, dig drainage ditches.

During his first field exercise as a private, he had been unable to understand why his commanders ordered everyone to put on rain gear and start digging while the rain was already falling. Later, when an improperly constructed ditch allowed water to seep into his tent, he finally understood why the work mattered. He had completely forgotten that lesson after leaving the military. Once he reincarnated here, however, the memory had inevitably returned. Water had entered his home during every monsoon.

In truth, saying that water entered the hut was far too mild. The old shelter had been closer to a half-basement than a proper house, and its roof had consisted of little more than interwoven leaves and stems. Every rainy season, the hut underwent a transformation impressive enough to rival a giant transforming robot and turned into a swimming pool. Why had Karath not constructed drainage ditches before now? Until the previous year, there had been no point.

The houses had been fragile huts that collapsed or flooded whenever the monsoon arrived. A drainage ditch would not have saved them. That was also why every orc in the settlement had awakened and rushed outside in the middle of the night. In this place, saying that the rainy season had arrived was the same as saying that their homes might collapse at any moment.

Even when the huts remained standing, rain leaked endlessly through the roofs while water flowed into the sunken interiors because there were no drainage channels. Every monsoon, the settlement transformed into a homeless encampment that could rival Skid Row in Los Angeles. The Bloodclaw Tribe now possessed earthen houses far sturdier than their old huts, but decades of habit had driven the orcs from their homes the moment the downpour began.

Now that they finally had houses capable of surviving the monsoon, it was time to dig drainage ditches and prevent the settlement from flooding.

"A path for the water to escape?" The adults seemed fascinated by the sight of Karath digging alone beneath the moonlight. Before long, they had gathered around him.

"Water flows from high ground to low ground." Karath paused and looked at the adults surrounding him. There was a limit to how much of the settlement he could protect by himself. Even with plenty of time, digging every drainage ditch alone would have been difficult. With rain already pouring down, it was impossible.

"Does it?"

"You idiot. When you pour water out of pottery, it flows downward."

"Ah! That is true!"

"As expected of Karath. You are so clever to know even that." A sigh rose all the way to Karath's throat as he listened to the adults exchange their empty-headed observations. He barely managed to swallow it.

"Anyway, water flows from high ground to low ground. That is why we need to make paths for it! If we dig channels lower than the settlement, the water will flow there instead of toward our houses!"

"Oh!"

"Keh heh heh! So there was such a method!" True to their nature as orcs, they exclaimed in amazement as though none of them had ever considered the possibility of a drainage ditch. Karath swallowed another sigh that threatened to escape.

"So please help me dig! I cannot do all of this alone!"

"Krahahaha! We only need to dig lower than the settlement? That sounds simple!" Once the adult orcs understood the situation, they began digging according to his instructions. In the past, they probably would have dismissed everything he said as the nonsense of a child. Perhaps their willingness to obey came from the things he had accomplished. Perhaps it came from Garlik's prophecy.

Whatever the reason, the sight of adults following the orders of a nine-year-old digging in a midnight storm represented remarkable progress.

"Use these!" Karath handed the helpful adults the three additional shovels he had brought with him. Over the past several days, he had joined enough armadillo shell plates to make three shovels. About half the shell still remained. Had the monsoon arrived later, he could probably have produced six or seven.

"Chief, take four others and begin digging from that large tree toward the side of the settlement! Grandfather Jark, go over there and begin from..." Karath distributed the three shovels and assigned the tribespeople to different locations.

"The person holding the shovel will dig. Everyone else should clear away the soil and pull out any stones or tree roots that appear underneath!" Once the roles had been assigned, Karath raised his voice over the rain.

"Begin!" At his command, the orcs moved toward their designated positions and began constructing the drainage ditches.