Akira woke up early to the sound of several other people noisily cooking breakfast.
He stayed under his heavy fur blankets not wanting to leave the warmth of his bed.
“Chief you up? Breakfast is ready if you want it. You better hurry or it will grow cold. If you wait too long it might even freeze,” joked a guard that was in charge of guarding his tent.
“I’m getting up!” said Akira as he removed his covers and shivered from the cold air assaulting him.
He knew what the guard had said was a joke, but if he did wait long enough the food really would freeze.
A few moments later he stepped out of his tent fully dressed and ready to take on all that had to be done today, but first, it was time to eat some food.
Luckily the food was still somewhat warm it was hard to keep food hot in such a cold place without overcooking it.
He washed it down with some warm wine to help energize and warm up his body as he looked out over the large lake that was covered in a low misty fog as the warm water and cold air continued to battle each other.
The sound of snowbirds could be heard in the distance as they chirped and sang to each other.
The morning sun was slowly rising into the sky slowly lighting everything up. This view was worth thousands, no, over a hundred thousand in gold! It was just too breathtaking. He was glad that they had found such a place to build the village.
There was no need for another meeting in the morning as everything had been settled the night before.
Varbu and his guards along with half of the warriors went into the woods to start looking for logs that could be used for building the houses.
The rest of the warriors were split up between Akira and Klyn who was being helped by princess Gobalina. The two quickly left after eating and entered the forest to start their gathering of Winterberries, nuts, and rabbits.
The warriors and guards that stayed behind looked to Akira waiting for his command on what they were to do.
“You guys can rest for now. I have to report to the Grand elders before we can do anything,” said Akira.
He motioned for Audun to come with him to his tent so they could talk privately.
“Please inform the Grand elders that everything is going according to plan and we will begin building the log cabins today or tomorrow. We’ll message them again and let them know when they can join us.”
Audun nodded and made preparations before becoming still and started to communicate with his counterpart at the campsite near Jerora.
Several minutes later he opened his eyes and after taking a swig of warm wine he replied, “The Grand elders are happily surprised at the quick pace you are moving at. They had expected for the process to take at least a few more months before you would find a suitable place. They will take care of the coalition matters while we work on the settlement. They wanted me to warn you not to be in such a haste that you end up doing a sloppy job.”
“They don’t have to worry that I have a proper blueprint that I made last night. Everything will be alright,” said Akira.
Audun raised his left eyebrow as he had seen Akira’s drawing skills before. He had even seen a piece of scrap paper that had many scribbles and the only thing legible on it was the words ‘city blueprint’.
‘Although he may be skilled in fighting and commanding the warriors in battle… let’s just leave it there. There is no need to insult him.’
“You can stay here and rest for now. We’re not going anywhere dangerous,” said Akira.
“I can not accept that. I was given the task by the Grand elders to keep you alive. This little fatigue is nothing,” said Audun as he ate some food and took another swig of warmed wine.
Akira did not argue with him and let him follow him out of the tent.
“Everyone gather up! I need you to bring ten of the sleds and all the reindeer out to the front of our encampment!” said Akira.
The warriors had no clue why but they just followed his orders.
While they were gathering the sleds and the reindeer Akira began to pull out several large metallic pieces from his bag as well as old shields that he had picked up from fights and had not sold.
When the warriors returned Akira had already finished pulling everything out and was piling everything into ten different piles.
“What’s that for?” asked one of the warriors who could not hold in his curiosity any longer.
“Were making plows!” said Akira as if it was a no brainer.
“Plows?”
“Yeah, how else are we going to clear the land of snow and other debris so that we can start building. You don’t want to do it by shovel, do you? Or are you one of those crazy M’s?” asked Akira as he looked at him suspiciously.
“No way! I definitely want to use a plow, not a shovel!”
“Good choice M,” said Akira, giving the warrior a new name.
“How did my name become something like that!”
“Everyone, come take one of the piles and attach it to the front of the sleds. Well, have to double the reindeer for each sled so that they can still pull it without any problem.”
Akira spent a half-hour helping drill holes into the various metal so that they could attach it to the sleds. Another half-hour passed as they worked on converting the ten sleds into temporary snow plows.
“Alright let’s go down there and I’ll see if I can mark the corners of where we have to clear the land,” said Akira as he walked down the hill with the sleds following behind them they had the plows raised right now and would only be lowered until they were in position.
Akira opened the blueprint he had made the night before. But this time instead of seeing the opaque map a whole large village popped up all around him giving him such a fright that he fell on his butt in shock.
“Chief! Are you okay? Did you slip on something?” asked a guard near him as he helped pull Akira up onto his feet.
“I’m fine..fine..,” mumbled Akira still in shock from the sight. It seemed that no one else saw the several hundred houses neatly laid out with roads and outhouses for each four of the cabins.
How is something like this possible… as he thought that he started to feel his mana and energy-draining slowly as he stood there staring at the projection.
‘Ah! That’s right I have to mark the corners. Looks like it needs to do this quickly before all my energy is drained,’ thought Akira as he woke up from his shock.
Using the phantom blueprint as a guide he ran to the very edge of the bottom left that was closest to him and the hill.
He stabbed a pole into the ground and tied a yellow ribbon onto it so that they could see the end of the area. He quickly ran to the three other corners that were far away from each other. The four poles created a large curved rectangle the size somewhere between a village and a small town.
When he closed the blueprint and the drain on his energy and mana disappeared. He was now breathing heavily and flopped down onto the snow to take a rest for a few seconds.
“Chief are you okay?” asked several of the guards worriedly as they looked at the exhausted Akira.
‘I have been hearing that a lot this morning haven’t I,’ thought Akira.
“I’m fine, I just didn’t sleep enough last night,” said Akira as he stood up.
With a wave of the hand, he motioned for the warriors that were in control of the sleds to position themselves one after another.
All of the plows on either side of the sleds could be raised or lowered with the rope attached to it allowing them to choose where the show would go. For clearing this area out they had been instructed to push the snow all the way to the edges and to the right.
The sleds did not all move at once they waited for the person on their left to pass ahead of them first. In this way they could cleanly clear the land by picking where the last sleds plow stopped making it so that there was no need to come back for multiple passes on the same spot.
The plowing was going rather smoothly until they turned around and made their way back towards the opposite end where they were stopped by the large snowbank just outside of the markers. They could not move snow any further forward which left an even larger pile of snow in the area that was still in need of clearing.
“What now?” asked Akira to no one in particular as he walked up to the large snowbank and tried to kick some of the snow away to see what was blocking the plows.
“&^*%,” Akira started to hop around on one foot as he held his other foot that was now throbbing in pain.
“Are you okay chief?”
Akira muttered a few more choice curse words under his breath as he tried to regain his composure.
He bent over and brushed the snow away from the solid object that he had just kicked.
It was a large rock!
No, it was a pile of large rocks that looked to have been purposely placed in a large pile.
“Who puts a large pile of rocks up in the middle of nowhere and covers it with snow!” grumbled Akira.
“You guys continue plowing the rest of the area if there is any place that needs extra attention just skip it and we’ll take care of it,” said Akira pointing at himself and the rest of the warriors that were not driving the sleds.
“Let’s move these rocks out of the way,” ordered Akira.
In order to lift the large rocks, they were forced to transform and have two warriors carry one of the rocks. It took them over half an hour to transport the majority of the large rocks away from the pile and out of their way.
The only rocks left were all smaller in size and did not require them to be transformed.
“Chief there’s a problem!” shouted M.
“Whats up M?”
“Water is coming out from under the rocks!”
Akira hurried over to the rocks and saw a small amount of water in the cracks between the rocks right now it was not flowing out.
As he placed his hand near the rocks he could feel the warmth coming from the water.
“So the rocks were here to cover a hot water spring?” asked Akira.
“Seems so,” said M.
If they continued to remove the rocks then a disaster would happen. The whole bottom of the hill would be flooded making it a wet slush that would freeze during the night. This would make it impossible to build the cabins here.
Looking on the bright side of things they had found a hot spring!
‘What should we do with it? Better think about it later.’
“We’ll have to stop for now. M, you are in luck today! You get to use your shovel after all. Everyone let’s take care of the piled-up snow around here with shovels. We’ll fix the area with our pure strength,” said Akira trying to motivate everyone that was not like M and his weird ways.
“Why are you singling me out like this is somehow my hobby? I’m not an M you know?” said M.
“Don’t worry M. I understand that you may be shy about it but it’s fine even if you are a bit odd,” said Akira.
They spent the rest of the morning clearing snow as well as other certain hard to move spots in the whole area that the village would be built on later.
Some of the spots were too hard or frozen for shovels that Akira had to use his [Sword Slash] skill a few times to cut through whatever it was that was blocking them.
It was well past noon when they had finally finished plowing the land and leveling it out enough for them to build the log cabins.
“Let’s take a break for lunch,” said Akira.
Everyone slowly walked up the hill already tired from the morning’s hard work.
As they walked up the hill they could see several piles of freshly cut logs waiting to be used.
Logging and hunter-gathering groups were just finishing up their lunch when they saw Akira and the exhausted warriors return.
“Working hard?” asked Varbu.
“You picked the easy job,” said Akira.
“Hey dragging all those logs here is no easy task,” said Varbu.
Akira looked at Klyn who raised both his hands. “Hey! Don’t look at me like that. If someone were to pick poisonous plants and give it to everyone to eat we could see several deaths!”
“While we’re on the subject of plants and stuff I found several seeds for plants and other things that look like they could be useful in providing food for everyone. Also, there is a large number of winter berries in the forest. If we started to cultivate more of them we could even start to make a winterberry wine.”
“Oh that’s a good idea, I’m sure that the trade post would buy it all up at a high price if you were successful in making it. Just be sure to leave some barrels for me to buy as well,” said Burkin.
“Why such a high price? Is the winterberry wine special compared to the wine and drinks from the north?” asked Akira.
“Of course it is! The winterberry is a rare fruit that only grows in the extremely cold region of Kaldrbiod. Even if you were to sell just the berries you would make a lot of money just not as much as the wine.”
“Burkin, how long will you be staying with us?” asked Klyn.
“Ah that, Akira I was meaning to talk with you about that. Now that you have found a place to stay and are already starting to build your settlement, I really do need to head back to my clan and update them about all that has happened and give them my report on my original purpose of trade deals with Froit.”
“That’s no problem. There were several of the rowboats left behind by captain Pegleg. Who said something about never wanting to get in one of them again. We can fix one of them up so that it has a sail so you can use it on the river to get wherever you need faster.”
“Much appreciated.”
“By the way what about Kurzlin?”
“Don’t be going and jinxing and cursing me like that! I’m not running away I’m just… taking a short detour before I return to her.”
“Okay, we’ll have the ship ready for you tomorrow,” said Akira.
Everyone besides Akira and the warriors that had been working with him left to continue with their own work.
“Let’s take a 2-hour break for lunch and a nap,” said Akira mainly because he was exhausted from using so much mana and stamina.
The warriors including M, all cheered happily and wolfed down some hastily cooked food and went to their tents to take full advantage of the two-hour break.
When the rest period was over Akira gathered everyone.
“We need a bit of practice first so let’s start by moving some of the tents here and build a cabin or two before night falls,” said Akira.
They were slow at first as they figured out how to build the log cabins properly but they learned a lot during the time they worked on them.
By the time night came, there were now two long log cabins built in the center of their campsite.
Instead of staying in their tents everyone crammed into the two crude log houses well over the recommended level of people.
The log cabins were far warmer than the tents and blocked out the wind and cold air really well.
With so many people in the log cabins, the temperature was not freezing.
Akira surrounded by guards slipped off to sleep exhausted from the day’s work.
