TALES OF A WITCHER - Season 2 Episode 25

“Where’s the person who sent it? Any classification statistics?” Roland asked.

“Yes, please refer to the bottom,” Barov pointed to the bottom of the scroll and said. “A total of 1,100 have been sent to Border Town. They are mainly farmers and they were placed outside of the town as per your request. 35 of them were craftsmen that were placed under Karl’s command. Their residences have been prepared in the New Civilization District.” Barov clumsily pronounced the name. “However, is this okay, Your Highness? I remembered you were initially preparing it for the witches.”

“The guards whom I sent to spread the rumors haven’t returned yet, and the progress has been slower than I thought. Just let the craftsmen and their families have the houses, and we can always build more.” The entire Border Town would need to eventually be refurbished in Roland’s plan. The cottages built with the wood and mud shall be replaced with brick houses and they shall leave room for a spacious street at the same time, unlike the current alley which only allowed two people to pass side by side.

“Yes,” Barov nodded and said, “Your Highness, I heard that there would also be cattle and sheep being delivered?”

“Yeah, but not now, I specially asked them to deliver them a few days later along with the shepherds. There’s a grassland between the Misty Forest and the Impassable Mountain Range west of the city wall, it should be good for pasture. We need to blow out two openings in the city wall for the people to pass first. After all, it’ll only be used during the Months of Demons.”

Now that Roland had both men and wealth, the development limitations of Border Town had temporarily disappeared. Roland could finally put the town to good use.

He asked the bodyguard outside the door to come in and ordered, “Go and get Karl from the Administrative Office, I guess you’ll find him in the wooden shed area outside of town if he isn’t in the mine.”

After an hour, Karl walked into the office, bowed and said, “Your Highness.”

It had been half a year since he met the member of the Mason Guild, and he could be considered as the busiest officer since he was hired to work in the City Hall of Border Town managing the repair of the city wall, model houses, and those of the wooden shed temporary residential area. He was currently 35 years old with several white hairs showing on both of his sideburns, his skin was slightly tanned but he looked a lot more energetic than when they first met.

It was true that the environment could quickly change a person. Six months ago he was a Mason Guild refugee who was carefully concealing his identity. Now he was an experienced project commander and managed the engineering projects all by himself. Now he possessed the stature and gestures of a superior. However, what Roland most admired was his willingness to give.

Roland smiled and nodded. “Come and sit by the table.” He handed the sketches he had just drawn to Karl and said, “Take a look. I’ll need you to build these new things.”

“This is the warehouse. Uh, the bottom part of it is built-on stilts. That could effectively prevent moisture issues.” Karl quickly finished scanning through the first sketch before he flipped to the second sketch and observed for quite a good while before asking. “This is… a stove?”

“Indeed, you’ll need to build more than five furnaces on the border of North Slope Mountain to incinerate the cement and burn the clay bricks. We’ll need an open space, and considering the transportation channels and the yard position, more furnaces will be needed after it has been expanding to a larger scale.”

“Yes.” He turned to the last page of the sketch and frowned. “This… looks like a drain? No, it has a roof and parapet on top… It looks like it has a pond behind it. Your Highness, I don’t understand.”

Roland smiled. “It’s a lavatory and it’ll be your highest priority.”

“Lavatory?” Karl contemplated for a while and said, “Your Highness, where are you planning to build it? There are commodes in your castle, and the attendant would handle them regularly. As for the villagers, they normally wouldn’t need this kind of thing, they would resolve directly outside of their houses. So do the farmers, they just need to release themselves into Redwater River and the river would take the filth away.”

Thus, he could smell the strong stinky smell when he came ashore today. Roland shook his head, intending to disperse the unpleasant memory. “Exactly, we need to change that bad habit.”

“Uh… Bad habit?” Karl did not seem to quite understand.

“It’s of course hard to understand for the people who’re accustomed to defecating anywhere. How beautiful the world would be if a casual stroll wouldn’t risk stepping on stools.” Roland silently criticized in his heart. “Anyway, you just need to build it according to the sketch, and I’ve roughly marked the measurements. It should be located around the wooden shed area. There should be at least four to be built, and they should be built side by side on a two-by-two basis. Other than the ditch in the middle, it’s to be built with bricks, the sheds, roofs, and partitions outside should be built with wood as it would save a lot of cement.”

“Your Highness, you’re trying to gather them together to… that,” Karl paused as he obviously felt that he was degrading the dignity of the royal family by discussing such a filthy subject in front of His Highness. “What if they don’t go in?”

“I’ll issue an order for them to follow. You can go ahead and organize staff for the implementation.”

“In that case, I’ll follow your order,” he nodded and said, “Your Highness, I have one more thing to report to you.”

“Go ahead.”

“Since the Mason Guild was forced to dissolve, there were a lot of people, just like me, that chose to leave the king’s city. I’m thinking of writing a few letters inviting the members of the Mason Guild of whom I know to Border Town. They all have their strength, such as Lesya who’s very good at the furnaces you mentioned. Your Highness, I’m not sure…”

“There’s no problem at all,” Roland quickly said, “and you invite all of them here and rebuild the Mason Guild. The pay shall be calculated according to what was paid at the Mason Guild, and the experienced ones can be inducted into City Hall.”

“Thank you for your generosity.” Karl bowed with gratitude.

After the mason left, he started to compose the serfs management and title removal system.

The population of Border Town would soon reach a peak. If the town continued to depend on food importation, the town would be in danger if there was any sort of disaster or if they were cut off from business. Therefore, other than the industrial sector, the agriculture sector would need to be quickly developed as well in order to achieve food self-sufficiency as soon as possible.

Prince Roland believed that as long as there was a promotion, the serfs would soon transform into active farmers. In addition to the improved seeds by Leaf, the farmland beside Redwater River would soon turn into an ocean of golden wheat in summer.

Regarding his request to prioritize the lavatory construction, that was to prepare for the agriculture development coordination. After having the men, land, and seeds, all that was needed was the fertilizers.

Of course, Roland knew that using the fertilizer of humans and animals was very troublesome. It required regular cleaning of the storage pool and needed manual composting which was not as convenient as a chemical fertilizer. However, he did not have a clue how to make chemical fertilizer and so he could only substitute it with the natural organic fertilizer. At least the human and animal fertilizer was tested over a long period of time, and the traditional fertilization could still be seen in some rural areas in the twentieth century.

The people of this world knew very little about fertilizer, and most of them thought that feces was something filthy, other than being used to disgust others, there was no actual use of it.
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