Chương 26: Winter Cabins

Jack carefully rolled the parchment up. He tied a thin piece of leather cord around the center of the scroll to keep it closed. He leaned back in his high-backed wooden chair. The room was warm and silent. But as Jack stared at the rolled-up blueprint on his desk, his mind began to drift away from architecture and engineering. He looked at his own thin, pale hands. A sudden, deeply unsettling thought crossed his mind. Just a few days ago, he had stood on his balcony and ordered his skeletons to kill.

He had watched Bones crush the chest of a young Fire Mage. He had ordered Rusty to snap the neck of an older Wind Mage. He had thrown screaming bandits off the high stone walls to fall to their deaths in the snow. In his old life, Jack was a corporate logistics manager. The most violent thing he had ever done was yell at a careless forklift driver. If he had seen a man die in his previous world, he would have been traumatized for months. He would have had nightmares. Here? He felt absolutely nothing.

He felt no guilt. He felt no remorse. The only emotion he had experienced when the bandits died was a profound sense of relief. They were a threat to his supply chain, and the threat was removed.

"Why?" Jack whispered to the empty room, his brow furrowing in deep concentration. It was highly suspicious. A normal man from a peaceful modern world simply did not adapt to brutal, medieval slaughter in the span of a few weeks without breaking down mentally. Was his mind merging with the original John Frost-Grip? The young noble had grown up in a harsh world where peasants and bandits were often viewed as mere numbers. Was that aristocratic detachment bleeding into his modern consciousness?

Or was it something else? Jack placed a hand over his chest, right where his Grey Core was located. The death mana was a cold, swirling energy. Did the constant channeling of death magic numb the human soul? Did the Grey Arts strip away the natural human aversion to taking life? And the biggest question of all: why was he even here? Transmigration did not seem like a random accident. The timing was entirely too perfect.

The exact moment the original John Frost-Grip succumbed to his mana-burn, Jack's modern soul was inserted into the body. It felt deliberate. It felt like a calculated move on a massive, invisible chessboard. As these impossible questions multiplied in his mind, a strange sensation washed over him. It was not the physical exhaustion of using his magic. It was a sudden, overwhelming wave of darkness that seemed to press directly against his consciousness. The edges of his vision began to blur.

The warm orange light of the fire in the hearth seemed to stretch and distort. The room began to spin slowly. Jack tried to lift his hand to rub his eyes, but he couldn't move his arms. He could not move his fingers. A deep, unnatural darkness rushed in, swallowing the light of the room entirely. His thoughts instantly disconnected, and he fell forward, his head resting on his crossed arms on the wooden desk. He was engulfed in a deep sleep. Knock. Knock.

"Lord Jack?" Jack blinked. The darkness shattered instantly. He jerked his head up from the desk, gasping slightly as if he had just been pulled from deep underwater. The room was bright. The morning sun was shining through the gaps in the window shutters. The fire in the hearth was nothing but ash.

"Lord Jack?" The voice was outside his door again. It was Karen.

"Are you awake? I brought your morning meal." Jack rubbed his face vigorously with both hands. His mind was incredibly foggy.

"I am awake, Karen," Jack called out.

"Come in." The door opened. Karen stepped inside, carrying a wooden tray with a steaming bowl of porridge. She set the tray down on his desk, her eyes glancing at the charcoal stains on his hands and the rolled-up parchment.

"You worked through the night again, My Lord," Karen scolded gently, though a fond smile was on her lips.

"You must eat while it is hot. Giles is already down in the courtyard organizing the men for the day." Jack looked at the bowl of porridge. His stomach gave a loud rumble.

"Thank you, Karen," Jack said, taking the spoon.

"Tell Giles, Barnaby, and Old Miller to wait for me in the courtyard. We have a new project." An hour later, the winter air was sharp and clear in the castle courtyard. Giles, Barnaby, and Old Miller were gathered around a large, empty wooden barrel. They were wearing thick coats, their breath pluming in the cold morning air. Jack walked toward them, leaning on his brass-headed cane. He held the rolled-up parchment in his hand.

"Good morning," Jack said, stopping at the barrel.

"Morning, Lord Jack," Giles replied, taking off his cap.

"The men are ready for work. What are we building today? More defenses for the walls?"

"No," Jack said, his expression completely serious.

"We have a much more dangerous enemy inside the walls right now. Old Martha confirmed it yesterday. The Stone-Sickness is spreading in the Great Hall." The three men froze. The color drained from Old Miller's face.

"The sickness?" Barnaby muttered, his hands clenching into fists.

"It killed over a hundred of us over past years. The Great Hall is too crowded. The air is foul."

"Exactly," Jack nodded.

"We cannot keep all those people crammed into one stone room. We must spread the families out. We are moving them back down to the village." Giles shook his head violently.

"We can't, My Lord! You know the condition of the village huts. The walls are single planks. The wind cuts right through them. If we send the families back down there, they will freeze to death in their sleep."

"They will not freeze," Jack said. He unrolled the parchment and spread it flat across the top of the barrel, placing two small stones on the corners to keep the wind from blowing it away.

"Because we are going to rebuild their homes. We are going to build Winter Cabins." The three men leaned over the barrel, looking at the charcoal sketches. Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

"What am I looking at, Lord Jack?" Barnaby asked, his finger tracing the lines.

"A shelter designed specifically to fight the cold," Jack explained, tapping the drawing of the walls.

"Look here. The walls are not single planks. They are double-timber walls. A house built inside a house, with a six-inch gap between the inner and outer planks." Giles immediately frowned, his practical carpenter instincts kicking in.

"Lord Jack, double walls mean using twice the timber!" Giles argued.

"We don't have the wood for that. And even if we did, that six-inch gap between the walls will just become a freezing wind-tunnel. The cold air will get trapped in there and freeze the inner planks anyway."

"It would be a wind-tunnel if we left it empty," Jack countered smoothly.

"But we are not going to leave it empty. We are going to pack that gap completely full of dry sawdust, ash from the forge, and dry pine needles." Giles blinked, looking at Jack in confusion.

"Insulation," Jack explained, using his modern knowledge.

"The cold cannot pass through dense material quickly. By packing the walls with dry ash and sawdust, we trap the dead air. The heat from the inside cannot escape, and the winter chill from the outside cannot get in. It forms a perfect barrier." Barnaby let out a low whistle, his eyes widening as the logic settled in.

"Like packing sand around a hot iron casting to cool it slowly," the blacksmith muttered.

"It traps the temperature."

"Exactly," Jack said. He moved his finger to the center of the drawing.

"And this is the heart of the cabin. A central stone hearth, just like the one in the greenhouse. But instead of heating dirt, the hot exhaust will be channeled through shallow stone paths directly under the wooden floorboards. The floor will also become warm. It will require only a tiny fraction of our coal to keep the entire cabin sweltering hot." Old Miller stared at the blueprint, his hands trembling slightly.

"A house with a warm floor? And walls that keep the wind out completely?"

"Yes," Jack said firmly.

"We will build them large enough to hold four families each. It will give them enough privacy, clean air, and absolute warmth." Giles looked at the drawing again, his carpenter's mind rapidly calculating the logistics.

"It is a brilliant design, Lord Jack. A masterpiece. But my objection still stands. We simply do not have the timber to build these double walls. The ruined stables are already stripped bare from building the greenhouse frame. To get this much wood, we would have to march into the forest and cut down fresh pine trees."

"Fresh pine is wet," Jack pointed out.

"Green wood warps when it dries, and it is terrible for insulation. We need old, seasoned, dry wood."

"Then we have nothing, My Lord," Giles sighed heavily. Jack rolled the parchment back up.

"Bring your men, Giles. Let us take a walk down to the village." The walk down the mountain path was slow. Jack led the group of human workers toward the abandoned settlement at the base of the castle hill. The village was a depressing sight. There were nearly eighty small, wooden huts scattered across the snowy landscape. Because the population had dwindled so massively over the last few years, more than half of the houses were entirely abandoned.

Their roofs were caved in from previous winters, and their doors were hanging off rusted hinges. Jack stopped in the center of the muddy, snow-packed street.

"You are looking at a forest of seasoned timber, Giles," Jack said, sweeping his cane toward the ruined houses. Giles looked at the abandoned huts, his eyes widening.

"You want us to tear down the old village?"

"The old village is a death trap," Jack said bluntly.

"We do not need eighty freezing huts for forty people. We need five massive, perfectly insulated Winter Cabins. We will dismantle the ruined houses, salvage the dry planks, and use them to build the new foundations." Giles nodded slowly, a wide grin breaking through his frosted beard.

"The wood is already cut and aged. It's perfect. We can pull the iron nails and reuse them."

"We need to be efficient," Jack said, stepping fully into his element as a logistics manager. He turned to the men, pointing his cane to assign tasks.

"Old Miller," Jack commanded.

"Gather the women and the older children. I need barrels. I want them to sweep out every cold hearth in the village. I want them to sweep the castle fireplaces, and Barnaby's forge. Collect every ounce of dry ash and sawdust you can find. We need mountains of it for the wall insulation."

"Right away, Lord Jack," Old Miller said, hurrying off toward the castle.

"Barnaby," Jack said, turning to the blacksmith.

"I need iron floor grates for the central hearths, and strong iron brackets to hold the double-wall corners together. Use whatever scrap metal you have."

"The forge is already hot, My Lord," Barnaby grinned, turning back toward his shop.

"And Giles," Jack said, looking at the lead carpenter.

"Your men will begin the demolition of these ruined huts. Strip them down to the bare planks." Giles looked at the dozens of ruined houses, his smile faltering slightly.

"My Lord, dismantling a house takes time. Pulling rusted iron nails from frozen wood is hard work. We only have six able-bodied carpenters. It will take us a week just to tear down enough wood for the first cabin." Jack looked at the frozen wood of the abandoned huts. Giles was right. Human hands, especially tired, malnourished human hands, were not suited for heavy demolition in freezing temperatures.

"Do what you can today, Giles," Jack said smoothly, turning back toward the castle path.

"Sort the wood. I will handle the heavy demolition." Giles blinked, completely confused.

"You, My Lord?"

"I have my resources," Jack replied without looking back. The day passed quickly. The village was alive with activity. The women were sweeping massive piles of ash into wooden barrels, while Giles and his men struggled with iron crowbars to pry frozen planks off a single ruined hut. By dusk, the humans were completely exhausted. They took their daily wage of hot porridge and coal, and retreated to the warm safety of the Great Hall to sleep. The dead of night was quiet. Jack was in his bedchamber.

He walked over to the door and slid the iron bolt firmly into place. He did not want Karen walking in on him tonight. He walked to the corner, pulled the bear-skin rug aside, and opened the stone trapdoor to the crypts. Jack closed his eyes. His lungs were healthy, and his mind was rested. He reached his consciousness deep into the subterranean darkness, reaching for the dormant magic. He grabbed the threads. He did not just grab the Night Shift. He grabbed Rusty, Dusty, and Bones as well.

He linked his mind to twenty-one individual skeletons simultaneously. The headache was instant and sharp, but Jack gritted his teeth, forcing his core to spin and manage the load.

"Awake," Jack commanded mentally.

"All of you. To the village." The twenty-one skeletons marched out of the crypts. They moved through the lower cellar chute and stepped out into the freezing, pitch-black night. Jack did not need them to be stealthy tonight; the howling winter wind would mask the sound of their work. He marched the undead army down the icy path to the abandoned village.

"Demolition," Jack projected into their minds, pointing his will toward five ruined huts in a row.

"Tear them down. Do not break the planks. Pull the nails. Stack the wood neatly." The skeletons surged forward. What followed was a massive, silent demolition derby. Because the skeletons possessed unyielding bone strength and felt no pain, they did not need iron crowbars. Bones, the giant skeleton, walked up to a wooden wall. He shoved his long fingers directly into the narrow gap between two frozen planks. He pulled. CRACK.

The heavy plank popped free, the rusted iron nails screaming as they were ripped straight out of the structural beams. Bones tossed the intact plank behind him, where two other skeletons caught it and added it to a perfectly neat stack. Rusty and Dusty were working on a collapsed roof. They used their bare hands to pry the wooden shingles loose, their skeletal fingers moving with terrifying speed. Jack sat in his chair in the castle, his eyes closed, sweating profusely.

Managing twenty-one links was a logistical nightmare. Skeletons had no common sense. If Jack did not constantly organize them, they would bump into each other, drop planks on each other's skulls, or tear a load-bearing beam out too early and collapse the house on top of themselves. He had to use his corporate management skills to the absolute limit.

"Squad One, you are the pullers. Only remove planks. Squad Two, you are the carriers. Move the wood to the center of the street. Squad Three, you are the stackers. Sort by length." Jack organized their movements into a flawless, repeating assembly line. The efficiency was staggering. The skeletons moved in a continuous, flowing rhythm. A wooden wall was stripped bare in less than ten minutes. The structural beams were pulled down carefully and stacked.

The rusted iron nails were tossed into a separate pile for Barnaby to melt down later. The physical toll on Jack's mind was brutal, but the progress was undeniably addictive. They worked for six straight hours in the freezing dark. By the time the eastern horizon began to turn a faint yellow, the twenty-one skeletons had completely dismantled eight entire houses. The center of the village street was lined with massive, perfectly organized stacks of seasoned timber, ready for construction.

"Stop," Jack commanded, his head pounding with a severe migraine.

"Return to the crypts." The undead workers dropped their salvaged planks and marched silently back up the mountain path, vanishing into the castle cellars just before the sun breached the horizon. Jack opened his eyes in his bedroom, gasping for air. He wiped the cold sweat from his forehead with his sleeve. He was utterly exhausted, but a wide smile was on his pale face. Giles was going to have a very surprising morning.