I finished locking the net into the anchor, a small mithril ring attached to a larger steel one, and slowly began tightening. Tightening the threads hadn’t been so bad initially, but with each new link the space I had to work with shrank. There was so many of them now that the gap between the hair-thick threads was barely a foot wide.
And a foot of space wasn’t a lot to work with when you’d seen these threads cut through a hunk of pork just by gently brushing against it.
Quilly informed me while giggling that, with my insane health, I’d survive hitting the steel spikes on the walls. Even at speed. But the threads would kill me. That’s why the harness’s max length was just short of where my body could touch the net. That wasn’t as reassuring as it sounded because installing the threads required enough length be left on the harness for me to lose my arms below the elbow. So I worked slowly and carefully, taking as much time as I felt I needed to get the job completed safely.
It took several hours.
I put my hands on the board and climbed to a standing position. The board rocked under me as I clutched the railing. “I’m coming up,” I shouted.
After a few seconds, the harness rope pulled tight, and some of my internal tension eased. I made my way to the ladder and started climbing.
Along with the expensive net, I had to pay to have this scaffolding device constructed. It was a real headache, but Quilly promised me all of this would be worth it.
Well, she hadn’t promised me. She’d said I’d be a fucking idiot not to listen to her and that I would cream my…basically, she had said a lot of disgusting things until I gave in.
At the top of the ladder, I climbed onto the narrow walkway near the edge of the pit inside the barn.
Jeric, Lenlin, Manson, and Pel stood to the side while Quilly managed my harness. The four of them had come far in the past few weeks. I trusted them enough to put all of the traps together and work them effectively. Not that they could until I passed through my threshold. But even though they couldn’t, it was reassuring to have skilled people around who sped up the process.
Quilly scowled as I stepped off the walkway. “Took your fucking time, didn’t you.”
“Shut up, Quilly. I’m not in the mood. It’s in place like you asked, so show me why I spent all this money.”
Quilly grumbled to herself as she walked over to the deer carcass. “I could have done it in a tenth the time. But no, you had to do it yourself. Pain in my ass, boss. Why the hell did I leave Melgrim?” Quilly picked up the dead deer and walked to the edge of the pit. “You all better be watching. I’ve only got a couple of extra goats. I’m not going to go back to the village to get another deer because you didn’t pay attention.”
Everyone closed in around the edge of the pit. The sun was high, so there was plenty of light to see the bottom.
“Toss it,” Lenlin said, grinning.
Quilly gave a small grunt and the deer went over the edge. It takes more than a second for something to fall forty feet. The deer tumbled end over end, building up speed. I expected the deer to hit the net and break into pieces. It didn’t. It passed right through like the net wasn’t there, only breaking into chunks once it hit the bottom ten feet below the net.
I stared, dumbfounded.
No one said a word. And then a goat went sailing past. And then another. Each time you couldn’t tell the carcass had hit the net until after it struck the ground.
Then Quilly threw a six-foot-long, inch-thick steel pole over the side. It came apart too. Clusters of bones the size of watermelons and a random assortment of household goods went over the side. No one spoke as we watched object after object be cut into pieces.
Somewhere around the twentieth object, I waved at Quilly to stop. I shook my head. “Okay, you win. The mithril nets go in all of them.”
Quilly grinned. “I fucking told you.”
Jeric offered me his hand as I climbed out of the pit. Another two weeks had passed. The first order for the mithril thread nets had arrived, which meant I had the fun job of installing them.
Not every pitfall had the mithril threads, but the ones in a barn did. I’d been caught out with escalating numbers too many times and fought against too many insane monsters in the arena to cheap out when there was something this effective. The pits could now kill more than a dozen ogres without losing any of their effectiveness. It would require a small army to get through any of the barns.
The others still couldn’t help install traps because the system didn’t see them as part of my farm, yet. I still had to pass through my threshold and linked them in as farmhands. But even if they could help, the nets weren’t something I was comfortable having them install. They were dangerous. Far more dangerous than anything else I would have them do. I trusted Quilly to do it, but Ranic and Adoya were certain I wouldn’t get the farmer experience if she installed the traps.
They were also certain that the traps would give off the threat aura which all trapsmith-installed traps did. It would make monsters wary of approaching the barns. Apparently, because my class wasn’t combat-orientated, this didn’t happen to the traps I installed, which was why monsters never hesitated before following me into my barn.
My urge to protect the others had nothing to do with the fact that the nets had the potential to generate the most trapsmith experience and that by setting them up myself I would receive all the experience. No, this was about their safety, even though I'd already safely installed 15.
Okay, I lied. The potential experience had a lot to do with me installing them alone.
Jeric pulled me away from danger and clapped me on the shoulder. “That’s the last one for today. Quilly just said she had an epiphany and thinks her final blueprint will be ready in a few days, so we should be able to finish setting them all up in another month. If everything goes to plan, we should be done a few weeks before the reservoir is finished.”
Quilly grinned manically, small eyes bright and feral. “I can’t bloody wait.”
“We know,” Jeric replied drolly. He gave the signal for the three holding my rope to let go and changed to the winch frame connected to the ladder. The ladder began to rise.
The new installation method I’d demanded Quilly create was far easier, simpler, and safer than the previous. It didn’t take nearly as long to set up and install either.
Quilly didn’t let Jeric’s tone dampen her mood. Actually, she’d let nothing dampen her mood since I agreed to use the mithril nets. She was getting more and more excited with each passing day. Soon her aggressive form of cheerfulness was going to be impossible to be around.
We dismantled the ladder as it came up and then did the same to the winch system. Quilly locked the revolving trapdoor into place over the pit and we all walked out.
Unlike my old trapdoors, I felt perfectly comfortable walking over hers. They didn’t make that unsettling creaking sound. And it helped that Quilly had dropped a tonne of granite onto one to prove how sturdy they were.
“You nervous?” Jeric asked as we walked away from the barn.
I pretended to look off at the other automated barns that were still under construction. I needed time to frame my reply. Like ants on a hill dozens of carpenters and masons swarmed over the new construction sites, building the barns at two-hundred-yard intervals along the edge of the village zone. They were as close to the tree line as we could get them. They were all identical and ready to be set up like the one we had just left.
Quilly had upgraded most of my trap designs already. The one we were waiting on was just the finishing touch. It would allow the swinging axes to reset five or six times before they stopped working. It was kind of scary thinking about how dangerous these new automated barns were. They were 50% bigger than the old barn I burned down. And they already held twice the traps before she’d even finished her designs. When everything was complete, they would be terrifying weapons, but not nearly as terrifying as the manual barns.
I didn’t like the idea of everything
being automated. There was still a chance that a smart monster might turn up. If one did, it might be able to recognise the traps and circumvent them—which was why we were building five manual barns to go along with the others. They were three hundred yards farther back from the boundary, with much wider spacing between them than the automated barns.
Those barns were much bigger and stronger, with faster and more deadly traps that we could trigger when we chose. My hope was that the automated barns closest to the forest would draw in whatever was around and take it out without anyone having to risk their lives. The ones farther back were for situations where there were too many monsters or if the first barns failed to attract their attention.
Call me overly cautious, but I didn’t like having to put all my eggs in one basket. It didn’t help that Salem’s daily reports were growing scarier and scarier. There were more and larger monsters moving into the forest all the time. The giant had only come about a mile closer since we had been out, but we both knew that could change within a few short weeks.
I’d originally thought that two hundred yards apart was sufficient for the automated barns. Now that I had seen what it looked like in person, it was much too far for my liking. I think a hundred yard gap would be safer, but we were already going to struggle to set up and maintain the ones we had. Doubling the number was impossible until I could have more people under me. For that to happen, I’d need to pass through my second threshold or find a few farmers who’d passed through their first ones. And that wasn’t going to happen anytime soon.
“Yeah, he’s nervous,” Lenlin said before turning to spit.
“I’m not nervous,” I said. “Honestly, what’s there to be nervous about? All I have to do is plant a seed and then I’m through my threshold.”
“Well, there is the small matter of performing the planting ritual,” Jeric said, trying to wind me up. “If you don’t execute that correctly, then the heritage seed won’t get the bonus experience and level, which will weaken the boon you receive, ultimately making your future farm less effective. You also don’t know what sort of apple this heritage seed will produce. It might be fantastic or a complete dud. You might have the beginning of a great orchard or have to purchase another heritage seed and try your luck with a different crop.”
“Exactly,” I said. “There is nothing to be worried about.”
They all chuckled.
Then Lenlin, Manson, and Pel waved their goodbyes and promised they would be at the orchard before sunset to drink the free booze I was supplying for my threshold party. They turned and headed in the direction of the newly-built hamlet to the south of the village. For the foreseeable future, none of the land on the eastern side of the village was going to be developed. There was enough undeveloped land to the south and north that leaving it open, for safety reasons, wasn’t much of an issue.
That would have to change at some point, but hopefully by then I would have come up with an even safer method for trapping monsters.
After a few minutes of walking, Jeric spoke up. “Is it just me or is Arnold’s Hill getting bigger?”
“You’re imagining it,” I said, not bothering to look.
Constructing the reservoir had created a dirt issue—an eighty-foot deep dirt issue, to be exact. That much dirt had to go somewhere. You couldn’t just spread it on a few fields, and we didn’t need that much to raise the roads. Fortunately, the problem had given Ranic an idea for luring the giant where we wanted it to go.
So at the start of the project, the miners had dug down to granite in a small area and carved out blocks similar in size to those used to construct the pyramids. Those blocks had then been moved a quarter of a mile farther east towards the border where they were used to form a ring. After that, the dirt had been transported over to fill it in.
Arnold’s Hill was born, built up layer by layer, until the excess dirt left behind from the other projects filled a fifty-foot raised area the exact dimension of the reservoir.
It was a massive undertaking.
And without the magic that governed this world, it should have taken years with their technology level. Instead it only took weeks.
Ranic believed the tower would attract the giant. Over the last few months, he’d read up on them nearly as much as I had and was almost certain that the massive beast would see the tower and climb to the top because it was the highest point in the area. Ranic had ordered a bunch of warding poles with troll and ogre skulls to be placed at the top. If a troll got up there, it would be scared off, but a giant would just get angry. Once it was angry, hopefully it would see the village gate straight ahead and charge towards it.
Ranic was going to throw in a few more warding poles on that way and put some on the tower in the middle of the reservoir pitfall instead of livestock. He was relatively certain the angry giant would head straight for the warding poles and tear them down. The goal was to get it so angry it saw red and didn’t realise there was a trap until after it was falling.
I honestly didn’t think it could be that easy, which was why I was spending every morning practicing running and focusing on overcoming my fear of the beast. The fearless mark I’d received helped enough that I’d stopped having to drink to keep the trembles at bay. But I was looking forward to passing through my threshold. The extra charisma would help to boost my bravery and fortify my character, so I could do what needed to be done.
As an afterthought, Ranic had also told me that he wanted my farm manor to be built on top of Arnold’s Hill once I passed through my second threshold. I’d only had to go up there once to agree. I wasn’t a materialistic sort of person, so building the manor in such a hard-to-reach place had seemed wasteful to me, but the view of the forests and the fields had been lovely enough to validate the cost. I was looking forward to sitting on the veranda and watching the sunset. It would almost make living in Blackwood worth it.
“No, I don’t think I am,” Jeric said. “There is a new layer of stone up there.”
I turned and counted the layers of stone blocks. Each was five feet high, so there had only ever been ten. I counted eleven.
I stifled a groan. More and more changes were taking place without my input and I was beginning to get annoyed enough to do something about it. “I’ll talk to Ranic and see what’s going on.”
Chapter Forty-Two
SCHEMES WITHIN SCHEMES
Taking ownership of Ranic’s house of scholars opened up all sorts of possibilities for Blackwood. The crown reimbursed Jeric’s purchase of the buildings slot through the village interface, so the village had money to spare for the first time in decades, no longer having to rely on Jeric’s and Isabelle’s stipends for funding. Along with new roads, Isabelle had ordered the old log wall be replaced with a new thirty-foot granite one constructed from the village’s tax portion of the granite pulled out of the reservoir.
So the closer we got to Blackwood, the more traffic clogged the streets. People were everywhere. A steady line of miners and builders entered and exited the inn. Gretel was so overworked she’d had to hire staff from the nearby village of Brinkdale. Labourers were visiting the Broken Anvil or the guild smiths to have tools repaired. And wagon after wagon was transporting goods.
Every building I owned that had been boarded up since I arrived in Blackwood was now someone’s living space. I liked it. It reminded me of living in the city. It wasn’t chaos, but it was a level of busy the village had never experienced.
Jeric and I parted ways at the square and I went to find Ranic. The old man rarely left his house of scholars during work hours. Every time he turned his back, the royal architect tried to simplify Ranic’s design to something more traditional. With the king paying the bill, Ranic was putting in everything he’d ever thought a farming house of scholars would need.
The builders didn’t care one way or the other. They were working for reasonable money, so they weren’t trying to make more by cutting corners. From their perspective, the longer the project took, the better
. It was only the architect that was causing trouble—and it wasn’t that much trouble. It was more a disagreement over the aesthetics of the building.
Ranic wasn’t listening and was using the opportunity to add details whether or not the architect liked them.
Apparently, constructing magical buildings correctly mattered, because when they leveled they physically grew, like the house of scholars in Weldon had done when Ranic had passed through his third threshold. What they grew into was entirely dependent on the building that was there to begin with; the nicer the building, the nicer the upgrade. Therefore, every piece had been shipped in rather than sourced locally, and every detail Ranic wanted had to be added, not because of what it was now, but because of what it could grow into.
I made my way through the village square, waved to Brill, and kept going to the next street where the construction was taking place.
Ranic’s house of scholars was now more than half complete. The outside walls were all made from a stone called royal marble. Each piece was selected for beauty, intricately carved, and then polished to a kitchen counter finish. The roof was on, and window frames were ready for glass. The internal walls weren’t finished, but the second floor was down and polished to the point where I could see my reflection.
The building was smaller than the one in Weldon, but that was because it would grow as it leveled. As far as magical buildings went, a house of scholars was kind of mundane. The only genuinely magical thing about the building was the virtual training ground in the basement. It was like the arena, but it didn’t allow you to train against monsters, only train to grow crops. You could go through the whole process of farming a specific crop in a few hours instead of days and weeks. Apart from that, all the building did was give village-wide buffs that grew stronger and more numerous the higher its level grew.
I wandered through, no longer surprised to see blocks of stone and planks of wood change in size as they were laid down. You see one plank of wood widen by an inch to fill in a gap, you’ve seen them all.
Oh Great! I was Reincarnated as a Farmer Page 48
