“Of course,” Garrik said. “Working from designs as good as this, I’m sure I can make all the scorpion parts in, I guess… two weeks, assuming I use all my apprentices for this.”

  “Just a week to ten days after getting the steel is long enough for me to forge all the metal parts as well,” Coltan added. “So yeah, we should be able to make it in two weeks.”

  “Two weeks?” Alden repeated. “No, that’s way too long... And this is with you using all your apprentices? Who will make the crossbows then?”

  Garrik shrugged. “Even making a crossbow is intricate work, milord, not to mention how much more it will be for a scorpion. Every single piece of wood we work on has to be cut down from one of the surrounding trees. Then we chop it into smaller parts, before an apprentice cuts it into the approximate sizes needed for each part. Then I and one of the apprentices who is really good at his work, start crafting and shaping each individual piece. Carpentry is time-consuming work. And I have given you a conservative estimate. It might take longer if there are any problems.”

  Alden sighed. Doing everything manually was going to be the death of the village if he didn't do something about it…

  “Fine,” he said. “I’ve already been working on a solution for this, but I guess that'll have to take more priority now. Keep working on the crossbows for now, and I’ll have the design of the lathe also ready in a few days. The steel we will receive at that time can be used for the lathe instead of making scorpions. That will allow you to work much faster, since it is like a much, much more effective version of the bow drill you use.”

  Garrik looked curious. "I can't wait to see the design of this lathe thing..."

  "Soon. Keep these blueprints with you in the meantime,” Alden said. “You both should come and meet me again when you have the next crossbow ready. I should have the design of the lathe completed by then.”

  “As you wish, Milord,” Coltan said, before he and Garrik stood up. "We'll also come with a price estimate for the scorpion when we meet next time."

  "Good."

  Roderic hollered for a guard. When the young man entered the room, the captain tilted his head at the craftsmen. “See them out.”

  Once the carpenter and the blacksmith had left with the guard and the door had been closed again, Alden looked at the majordomo and the captain. “I’ve been thinking about something else. Making enough crossbows and scorpions will improve our attack noticeably. And with Daelus present here in the coming winter, we won’t have to fear anything less than large monsters, which are rare enough. But on the other hand, our defenses are still very flimsy right now. The palisade walls which surround the whole village can be broken or eaten through in a matter of hours—probably even faster—if even a pack of smaller monsters attacks in the night. So we have to do something about it.”

  “That makes sense,” Vusato nodded slowly. “Those log walls are strong enough for defending from the monsters which come in the warmer months, but they are no better than paper against the monsters which will come in winter.”

  “What do you have in mind?” Roderic asked curiously. “As much as I’d like to have stone walls built around the village—like Garitus city—it's simply not possible. I understand that much.”

  “I know,” Alden agreed. “We neither have the manpower, nor the funds, to arrange transportation of that many stones here and build a wall like Garitus. But what we can do instead is make another parallel wall surrounding the whole village. As it stands, if a single small-sized monster broke through the wall, it could kill a dozen people before we could kill it. If it’s a whole pack, it might cause unimaginable deaths before the guards locate and kill them. It would also be very difficult to repair the walls in the winter because of the constant monster threat. So this is the best time for that. We will make another wall, but this will be a brick wall, as well as a series of bigger watchtowers, also made of brick. Then we will mount scorpions on them. And to build all that, I’ve decided to stop iron mining for now.”

  Vusato frowned. “This will go against your father’s wishes... He never even reduced the number of iron miners even if our finances didn’t allow it, just to make sure everyone had enough coin to buy food for their families.”

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  Alden shook his head. “And look where that has got us, with our nearly empty strongbox...” He smiled. “Don’t worry, I know what I am doing. And we are not going to stop paying them.”

  Roderic raised his eyebrows. “What? But how can you do that if we don’t mine iron? What would even be the point?”

  “Let me speak first,” Alden said. “We already have way too much iron ore stocked up which we can’t sell. So I want to put some of the villagers to work on the other things we need to do. The first thing will be to clear a lot more space around the village walls.”

  “I agree with that,” Roderic nodded slowly. “I had already been talking with the guards about it. The current empty stretch between the village and the forest is simply not going to be enough for the winter. We barely have 120 sticks of empty land there. Or, uh… around 70 meters, I think, in that new measurement you taught us.”

  “Exactly,” Alden agreed, glad that the captain was making an effort for that. “We are going to make scorpions, which can cover around five to six times the distance of the empty land which we currently have—around 400 meters, I believe—so it’s a good idea to clear enough forest to make sure the scorpions get adequate time to shoot at the coming monsters. That’s why we will have to put some of the iron miners on clearing forest instead. We will give a bulk order to the other blacksmiths and carpenters to make two-man saws and axes, so the iron miners—now working as laborers—can cut the trees and drag the good-quality logs to the village. It won’t—”

  Vusato shook his head. “We don’t have any free space within the village to keep those logs inside. But that’s beside the point. You said you want to clear five times the distance of the current empty ground? Do you have any idea how long it will take to do that? Even if we put all our iron miners just to do that, it will take months. There's no way it can be finished before the snowfall starts.”

  “I know that,” Alden nodded again, getting annoyed by the constant interruptions. “That's why we will burn the forest. For that—”

  “You can’t do that,” Vusato cut in. “The fire could easily get out of control, and we might not be able to stop it until the snow finally puts an end to it. As much advantage as a clear line of sight will give the guards, our hunters depend on these forests to bring fresh meat to the village, which is a vital source of sustenance for us without any farmland here. I agree that they only do it in warmer months, and hunting has never been done after snowfall starts, but you have to think of the next summer too.”

  Alden scowled at the majordomo for a while, until the older man started to look nervous. “Will you even let me finish talking for once...? I know that I'm new to this, and that you both have always seen me as a kid who still needed more than a decade to learn the ropes before I had to take over after my father retired. But that’s not how it’s working, is it? Just as I have had to adapt to this new responsibility, so will you.”

  He glanced at the door to make sure it was closed. “I’ve also told you both in the past that I received a good deal of extraordinary memories—however it may have happened—of a life lived in a different world, when I woke up after nearly being in a coma for so long. Call it God’s blessing if you want—” he tapped at his temple, "—but I do have a lot of critical knowledge here now. I was in my thirties in that world, so combined with the 19 years of life I've lived here, I have an experience of nearly 50 years of living, including both worlds... I'm not a kid anymore. I may be new to this responsibility of leading a village, but I do know what I’m talking about."

  Vusato’s mouth had remained open in surprise for a while now, while Roderic was looking at him with his head tilted.

  Alden took a deep breath. "I value both of your opinions, and I’m not going to order anything which is going to go against the village’s interests—you know that—but you have to at least let me finish talking! It has been like this since the very first day I became the baron. It’s hard for me to even finish speaking a single sentence before one of you interrupts me!”

  The majordomo finally closed his mouth. “Uh… Umm, I apologize, milord. It’s just that…” He shook his head. “Never mind. I promise it won’t happen again.”

  Roderic shrugged with a grin. “What? I didn’t say anything!"

  Alden snorted. "Not this time. Anyway, what I was saying earlier is that we need to clear a lot more space around the village by burning these forests. I know we can’t afford to let a fire burn uncontrolled, which is why we will make a firebreak—that is a gap of a few dozen meters between what we need to burn and what we don’t. So, we will mark the area on all sides of the village till where we need to burn the forest, and the laborers will start cutting trees beyond that. Once they have made a sufficient gap between the trees we are burning, and the forest beyond, that gap will work as a firebreak, and will not allow fire to reach from one side to the other.”

  “Oh…” Vusato muttered. “So that’s what you had in mind. I should’ve thought of it myself…”

  ***

  Also, has 11 advanced chapters available for those who want to read further ahead.