Chapter 16
Chapter 16
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 16
Chapter Title: The Miracle of Bricks
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Bricks don't just appear overnight.
With our current level of technology, preheating alone takes a full day.
Without any additives, it was a finicky process where we couldn't recklessly crank up the fire.
On the first day, we had to build the fire very slowly.
That way, we could minimize defects like cracks or splits.
The real work began on the second day.
We switched to larger logs and fed them alternately into the two fireboxes.
The fire had to be kept steady, so when I wasn't around, Quick Hand and Slow Foot would assign people to tend it through the night.
On the third day, a metallic clanging echoed from inside.
That meant the fire was sharpening the bricks from within.
From then on, we spared no wood.
An enormous blaze.
I suspected I'd achieved temperatures hot enough to melt metal—the first in human history.
On the final day, we cooled it slowly.
After a total of four days, with the sun high overhead, the outer clay felt merely lukewarm to the touch.
We peeled away the kiln clay and carefully opened the vent.
A warm, earthy scent rose up.
As the moment arrived to extract the bricks, tribe members dropped their tasks and gathered around.
"Can Whirlwind really make stones?"
"Don't doubt him! Whirlwind is clever! He's a different kind of being from us."
"A different being...?"
"Yeah! A different being."
Eagle's Eye appointed himself cheerleader without being asked.
Everyone still wore skeptical expressions.
By this era's knowledge, creating solid stone would mean transcending human limits.
I peered inside.
The edges were pale pink, the centers deep pink, and a few near the ceiling took on a slight purple hue.
I nodded at the sight.
"Perfect."
"Really...?"
"He actually made stones!?"
We removed the bricks in reverse order of stacking.
I pulled one out first and tapped it.
A clear ring echoed out.
It was fully fired through to the core.
I dropped another into a puddle.
If the edges slowly absorbed the water, it was evenly and densely baked; if it foamed up instantly, the inside was still porous.
We sorted the finished products from the rejects.
The good ones would go to houses, the flawed to kiln blocks, roads, and drains.
All told, we'd extracted about 800 bricks.
"Finally..."
It was a moment of pure awe.
Bricks changed the level of our civilization.
I'd have loved to produce lime mortar too, but we lacked the means to finely grind rock—and the manpower—so it was a pipe dream for now.
Even so, this alone vaulted us several stages ahead.
And if...?
If our population kept growing steadily to the tens of thousands?
With abundant labor, we'd develop mines, procure bronze and lime, and birth a civilization without rivals in this age.
The kiln made such temperatures possible.
My chest swelled with emotion, my body trembling—while the tribe members simply marveled in wide-eyed wonder.
"Stones that are perfectly square!"
"We can build something with these!"
"Whirlwind is great!"
"Great Whirlwind!"
"Woo-ah!"
Now, people began perceiving me not as human, but as some other 'something'.
The first-generation members, like Black Stone, had testified that I survived a spear through the gut—but no one believed them.
No human could live with their belly pierced like that.
Even granting a miracle that avoided infection, self-repairing punctured organs without surgery or antibiotics was impossible.
Combined with the abilities I'd shown so far, my superhuman strength, and knowledge that leaped eras, deification began to stir.
Bricks would pour out steadily from here on.
With labor and a kiln, there was no reason we couldn't produce them.
Now that we had chamotte—crushed brick powder—we could make even sturdier ones.
Though crushing bricks required massive labor, of course.
After the first successful firing, I immediately set a production cycle for steady output.
The officials had grasped the principles enough to systematize it.
Dry raw bricks for two days, then load them.
Three days firing, one for cooling and sorting, and one for kiln maintenance.
The uses for the bricks were many and varied.
Houses went without saying, but we reinforced the walls with them too.
For drain gutters at road corners, we built U-shaped brick frames and capped them with flat stones so people could pass over.
This was when carts came into play.
Primitive carts lacked wheels—a concept we hadn't conceived—but making them wasn't all that hard once we did.
Villages sprawled everywhere, and without carts for hauling back and forth, the drudgery was immense.
With carts, transport felt palpably easier.
We paved the workshop district floors with bricks, cutting down on lingering smells and making cleaning a breeze.
Next to the communal fire pit, a domed oven took shape.
We ringed the well mouth with round brickwork to prevent edge collapse, and capped the warehouse mushroom stones with thin bricks like tiles to keep rain out.
In fishing, we stacked brick weirs along the riverbank to bolster the fish traps, and built brick smokehouses in place of smoky huts—increasing our smoking capacity at once.
Bricks were nothing short of an architectural revolution.
After this total-mobilization grind, it was time to kick off farming.
In the autumn fields, we sowed wheat and barley separately, and planned orchards along the edges.
We set field width to a single plow pass, bundling three such widths into one line—enough work for four people in a day.
For wheat, we mixed slightly sprouted seeds with ungerminated ones and scattered them over winter.
A handful every three knots, then lightly raked over.
Even children didn't play in this era.
Labor was in absolute short supply, so to survive, we borrowed every small hand available.
The kids guarded the fields from birds while making crude scarecrows or stringing freshwater mussels to dangle and ward off invasions.
Barley went into shallower, drier soil—we scratched shallow furrows and sowed densely.
Fertilizer was under research.
Producing that would shock the era into stunned silence.
The principles were straightforward, so I predicted success by year's end at latest—or within a few years.
The extra orchard went on a gentle alluvial slope.
A spot backed by river winds, with long sun exposure.
The place least prone to late frosts.
This drew fully on our era's elders' knowledge, of course.
We gathered wild plums and damsons, small pear trees with a sansho-like scent, and riverside willows for grafting trials.
Success would reveal itself later.
Rabbits had surpassed 100.
As bricks came online, we built stone bases to block moisture, then framed with wood and leather netting.
To expand livestock, we captured about 10 goats.
Success taming wild goats would lead to antelope, pig-like beasts—the possibilities abounded.
As work piled up, manpower allocation grew critical.
Construction, farming, livestock, hunting, gathering, crafts, brick production, fishing—eight fields in all.
I bundled them into a rotation.
Eight days at your specialty, the ninth for communal labor.
And the tenth—a day off.
Rest itself was a luxury in this era, leaving the primitives utterly shocked.
Peaceful days rolled on.
Civilization advanced at a blistering pace, surpluses beginning to stack in the warehouses.
For now, communal production and distribution ruled—but as population swelled, classes would emerge, along with wealth accumulation.
That moment would be pivotal.
Letting wealth and power inherit at 100% would breed massive ills, demanding careful control.
Women's numbers had surged so much that proto-families were forming.
White Flame and Wise Flower often sandwiched me in petty skirmishes—which I welcomed heartily.
"Why do you keep hovering around Whirlwind?"
"I've joined the smart crew for work. Ends up, we cross paths often."
"Not scheming to snuggle up to Whirlwind?"
"Waiting to receive his seed."
"I'll have the first child!"
"I know. That's why I'm waiting."
"......"
Just listening made my face burn.
Such brazen love rivalry...
But.
A positive sign.
No love, no jealousy.
Mornings meant basic military drills; after work (sunset), free time was granted.
Time seemed to flow smoothly—until you remembered: this was the primitive era.
Smooth sailing? Never.
-ROOOOARRRR!
One day, an earth-shaking bellow rent the air.
Panic erupted.
"Hairy tiger!"
"Should we run?"
"No worries. Hairy tigers can't cross the river."
Hairy tiger.
In other words, a mammoth.
Mammoths were herbivores by nature, and should have gone extinct after the mid-Paleolithic anyway.
This was the transition from Paleo to Neolithic.
Primitives calling mammoths 'hairy tigers' and fearing them meant history was off-script from the start.
But considering this was a game world made real...
Mammoths patched with aggression, raiding tribes and devouring people? Not strange at all.
'A mammoth, huh...'
This was an 'event' I had to join.
In game terms? A primitive-era raid boss.
The rewards?
No need to spell 'em out.