Someday Will I Be The Greatest Alchemist?

Chapter 89: The Journey of a Thousand Miles Starts With a Single Step

Having been commissioned by Margrave Volton with the establishment of the reclamation village, I started by securing large quantities of stones in preparation for it.

While I’m getting the stones from the rocky mountains at the savage lands, Sophia and Maria started the construction work of the highway with Titan and Laeva guarding them. Working hard as my guard was Kaede.

「Oooh, you’ve made considerable progress. You guys sure did your best.」

「Yes, I prepared the terrain with Spirit magic, and Maria worked on the finer details.」

「Takumi-sama, I did my best!」

「That’s amazing, Maria. Good work too, Laeva, Titan.」

Collecting the stones took me 2 days, and during that time, half of the highway was completed with Sophia and Maria’s efforts.

Once I joined them, the work speed became much quicker and on the next day, a highway stretching 100 km from the town of Volton was completed. The width of the road is wide enough that large carriages can pass each other by, and the surface was 20 cm thick stone prepared with Earth Magic. Also, that surface was processed to make it difficult to slip on.

「So it’s here, huh. There’s definitely a river and a spring.」

The location we arrived at was a small hill with a copse surrounding it and a flowing river close by.

「If you look at just this, it would be the ideal location to make a pioneering village, wouldn’t it?」

The reason Sophia said this was because when we’ve been using Enemy Search since we arrived and we discovered there were twice the amount of monsters inhabiting here compared to the outskirts of Volton.

「The density of monsters should have been lower here, but this is low right?」

「Indeed. As one would expect of a land untouched by any country.」

With breaks in between, I made the curtain walls[1] using Earth magic to enclose the town-to-be.

Gogogogooooooooーー!!

The curtain walls towering at 15 meters with a thickness of 3.5 meters rose, and outside of it, I made a moat 5 meters deep and 10 meters wide. The earth was changed into hard stone, and 『Harden』 was applied to complete the strong, high walls.

I drank mana potions to replenish my magic power as I single-mindedly built the curtain walls. Maria established districts inside the walls. Connecting to the small hill were main streets going in the four cardinal directions.

Tsubaki, who was in high spirits from evolving to a Dragon Horse, went hunting together with Kaede for monsters that drew close. Titan manipulated the earth as he built an aqueduct that would draw river water.

I finished enclosing the town 2 km east to west and 3 km north to south in 10 days. It took another 3 days to erect two guard towers at each junction of the curtain wall

At this point, in no way is it a pioneering village anymore, but if it is utilized as a fortress, then making it at such a scale from the beginning is worthwhile. The extra 1km on the south side was arranged to be for agricultural use.

Having finished the curtain wall, I worked with Maria in the construction of the sewage system and septic tanks, excavation of water wells, as well as digging the waterway for the aqueduct water to flow into the interior of the curtain walls up to the agricultural lands.

I entrusted Laeva with the installation of the magic devices in the septic tanks while I installed the hand pumps on the water wells.

I’ve built high walls around the small hill, and I plan to construct a castle on that hill. Once the first phase of that construction was done, I asked Sophia to go to Volton to start the transfer of the pioneering people.

「Sophia, can you please go to Margrave Volton to request the transfer of the pioneers?」

「Understood.」

Sophia got on Tsubaki with Kaede as their guard and headed to Volton.

Before the pioneers arrive, I had to make houses using stone. When I finish the houses of the pioneers, I will then build the barracks for the stationed soldiers. I erected the buildings and Laeva installed Toilet Purifier DMs in the houses and barracks.

By the time the pioneers, adventurers, and soldiers that will be stationed arrived from Volton, I had just finished clearing the grass and mixing fertilizer made from synthesized monster innards into the soil.

Coming in from the drawbridge over the moat, the pioneers, adventurers, and soldiers, all of them were dumbfounded with their jaws dropped.

「「「「「…………………………」」」」」

「……W-what is the meaning of this?! Iruma-dono!」

「Ah, it’s you, Dorn-san. Everyone of the pioneering people and escorts, thank you for your hard work.」

Quick to recover, the Knight Leader of Margrave Volton’s territory Dorn-san demanded an explanation from me.

「Yes, first I surrounded it with curtain walls and a moat in preparation for monster attacks, so I think it will be safe unless dragons attack. The curtain walls have been completed to some extent, so a castle was built for the land readjustment and administering government affairs. Houses and barracks were constructed for everyone of the pioneers and stationing soldiers. Lastly, the agricultural land has been prepared to some extent. Well, the soil in the agricultural land is not my specialty, so I’ll leave the rest to someone else. Ah, also the sewage system and drainage systems in this town have been completed, and each house has a Toilet Purifier DM installed.」

「No no no, please wait, Iruma-dono! This fortress town, in this short amount of time, was completed by this number of people?!」

「No, it’s not complete yet. The buildings constructed are minimal, and there are many areas that I want to revise. As expected, the time wasn’t enough.」

We drank mana potions as we worked, but even then, we have our limits. Our levels went up and magic power capacities increased, but making a town in 1 month is still impossible.

We went out in rotation to suppress monsters to relieve stress so there just wasn’t enough time.

「No, this is plenty ridiculous. Together with the pioneering villagers, we brought craftsmen and materials for the town’s construction. We were surprised by a completed town comparable to Volton when we arrived, No, I think it might be stronger than even Volton, the sole fortress town in the borderlands of Valkyra Kingdom.

It seems we overdid it. It’s too late to downsize it now, but it’s not a bad thing.

The eternally noisy pioneers were guided to the houses, and the stationed knights were led to the barracks.

「Dorn-san, I will guide you to the castle.」

「…………please do.」

Dorn-san seems to have abandoned his thoughts.

I left the guiding of the pioneers to the girls and showed Dorn-san and a portion of the soldiers to the castle.

***

Footnotes:

1. High walls, curtain walls, etc are types of walls. All of which enclose the castle and the its buildings. More information on them here. In my case, I used curtain walls for the most exterior walls. High walls / castle walls will be for the hill.