Chương 20: Digging for Water

Sadly, the Bloodclaw settlement had no well. More precisely, the tribe had no stable source of water. Karath had questioned several adults who regularly traveled beyond the settlement. According to them, a large river lay five or six kilometers away, far enough that someone leaving in the morning would arrive around noon. Building the settlement closer to the river would have been convenient, but settling near a river in this forest would have been suicidal. Almost every living creature required water to survive.

As a result, countless forms of life regularly appeared along the riverbanks. In the monster-infested forest, those countless forms of life were countless monsters. Settling near the river would have forced the tribe to wage war against monsters almost every day. For the sake of survival, the settlement had been established far from the water. Because of that decision, the Bloodclaw Tribe had only two ways to obtain water. Whenever rain fell, they collected it in pottery.

When their stored water ran low, they risked death by traveling to the river and returning with filled containers. Both methods were temporary, inconvenient, and dangerous. Karath had considered constructing a well for some time, but he had never been able to attempt it. He lacked the tools necessary to dig deeply into the ground. No matter how physically powerful the orcs were, there was a clear limit to how far they could excavate with their bare hands. Now, however, they possessed three shovels.

If three orcs dug at a time and rotated regularly, they should be able to reach a depth suitable for a well.

"What is a well?" The older boys had never heard the word before and tilted their heads in confusion.

"It is a hole that produces water."

"A hole that produces water? Do those exist?" Karath did not tell them that they were about to create one. Instead, he offered a suitably vague explanation.

"If you dig deeply enough, you can find a hole where water emerges."

"Well, if Karath says so, then it must be true." Fortunately, the adolescent orcs had begun following his instructions blindly and asked no further questions. In reality, digging into the ground did not guarantee that they would produce a well. This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon. A well worked by reaching an underground stream, and Karath had no way of knowing where such water flowed or how deeply it lay.

Still, attempting it was better than doing nothing. There could not have been a better day for that attempt. Rain had poured relentlessly for three days. Much of that water should have seeped through the mud and entered the ground, creating a considerable flow of groundwater beneath the settlement. Their chances of finding an underground water source should therefore be much higher than usual. The groundwater would probably flow in the same direction as the river described by the adults.

After questioning several tribespeople, Karath had determined the river's direction. He had ordered the third squad to dig along the route leading from the settlement toward it. The recent rain had also transformed the ground into soft mud, making it ideal for excavation with shovels. Even if they failed to reach the groundwater immediately, it would not be a serious problem. The forest was still in the middle of the monsoon.

Although the rain had stopped for the moment, it would probably begin again that evening or the following day. The hole intended for the well would therefore fill with rainwater. That could potentially contribute to flooding, but Karath had chosen a site outside the settlement and farther down the slope. The possibility of water flowing back toward the village was extremely low.

"Begin working!" The moment Karath gave the command, the first three orcs took the shovels and began digging.

"What should the rest of us do?" The boys who had not received shovels stood beside them and asked for instructions.

"Move the excavated soil over there." A flood caused by the dirt removed while digging a well would have been absurd beyond words. After leaving the third squad in charge of the well, Karath returned to the younger children in the first and second squads.

"You need to smooth out uneven places in the ground like this!" Once again, he demonstrated the task before explaining it. The adults had already leveled the settlement several times while the storm raged, but the ground was made of soil and had become saturated with rain. It had quickly turned uneven again. They could not simply ignore the problem during a monsoon, when flooding could occur at any time.

If Karath allowed the children to play hide-and-seek or tag as usual, they would undoubtedly transform the ground into a complete disaster.

"Pick up any loose stones or pieces of wood and throw them over there!" Karath guided the children as they removed debris washed into the settlement by the rain, including medium-sized stones and broken branches. They also cleared leaves and other obstructions from the drainage ditches. The work would have been easier with the adults, as it had been during the downpour, but every adult already had separate responsibilities.

The storm had prevented proper hunting, gathering, and fruit collection for three days, so most of them had left the settlement that morning. As always, Karath had been left to serve as the children's caretaker. Since matters had already turned out this way, he decided to use them as laborers. No, he was merely helping the energetic children exhaust their excess strength. He was certainly not exploiting them.

Once Karath confirmed that the younger children could continue working without constant supervision, he returned to inspect the third squad's progress at the well. Had he seen his expression in a mirror, it probably would have looked ridiculous. The sight before him was difficult to describe. With only slight exaggeration, it seemed possible that the objects he had given them were not shovels but excavators. Or perhaps the enormous boys themselves were the excavators.

Karath did not think he had been away for very long, yet they had already created a hole large enough to bury an orc completely.

"Damn it! Another rock!"

"Pull it out!"

"You idiot! If you pull it out like that, the dirt will collapse again!" While Karath stared in disbelief, the orcs digging at the bottom encountered a large stone. They appeared to have already experienced some difficulty with a similar obstacle while he was away. The boys climbed out of the hole, then widened it in moments through an astonishing display of shoveling.

"Krahahahaha!" Using their tremendous strength, they ripped a boulder the size of a human torso directly from the earth. Karath could only stare. Had ordinary humans possessed physical abilities like these, perhaps civilization would never have invented the excavator. Shovels alone would have been more than enough. Another thought occurred to him. The pyramids were often considered one of the world's greatest mysteries. Perhaps the ancient Egyptians had been part orc.

That explanation seemed sufficient to solve the mystery.