The Heatwave, Part 2
"Ugh, the sun is absolutely brutal again today."
The day after successfully grazing the target with an arrow, Chester and Monia returned home after checking their fish traps and snares as part of their daily routine.
Back at the shelter, Monia fanned herself with a piece of tree bark, looking thoroughly exhausted. Chester nodded in agreement as he took a long draught of water.
They had only gone out to check the traps, yet both of them were already drenched in sweat.
Although they had taken a quick shower under the waterfall when they visited the river to check the fish traps, the sheer volume of sweat they were pouring now rendered that completely pointless.
Since sweat attracted insects, Chester and Monia had to scoop water from their aqueduct to splash over themselves and wipe away the grime, even though they had washed only a short while ago.
Of course, even after washing, the water dried almost instantly, leaving behind a sticky, unpleasant residue that made it impossible to tell if they were covered in humidity, sweat, or leftover bathwater.
"Once the heat lets up a bit, let's go chop some firewood if you feel up to it."
"Alright. Oh, shouldn't we be gathering more bait for the fish traps soon?"
"Ah, right. The stuff we found on the beach last time worked really well, but..."
Walking along the sandy beach in this weather? Chester looked down at the footwear he and Monia were wearing. Their makeshift shoes were far too flimsy to protect them from the scorching sand.
We'll be lucky if the soles of our feet don't get completely blistered and peeled off from burns.
He had repaired his leather shoes by reinforcing them with hardened tree resin, but that didn't mean he wanted to drag himself across a burning beach. Especially when it wasn't strictly necessary.
"We can't go to the beach, so we'll have to make do with animal entrails instead."
"Ah, so we really can't go?"
"I mean, you can go if you really want to."
"No way. If I go out in this weather, my feet won't survive."
"Exactly. Is there anything else we need to restock?"
"Smoked meat?"
"We have plenty of that. The real issue is that we're running low on berry paste."
"What? Already?"
"We had to eat it every time the traps came up empty."
Chester fell into thought for a moment. Should we start farming? As the sudden idea took root, he decided to bring it up to Monia.
"What? Farming?" Startled by his sudden suggestion, Monia looked up from staring intently at Chester's palm, where his fully healed wounds had left faint scars.
"Yeah."
"Farming... Can you even do that?"
"Well, I was a hunter's son, but I used to help out with the farming in our village. The soil back home wasn't great, though, so our fields weren't very large."
Monia tilted her head at his words. "Is there actually a difference in what makes soil good for farming?"
"Yes. If the soil is bad, even the hardiest plants will wither and die. In my village, there were very few crops we could actually grow, and even those weren't worth much. We only cultivated them because we had to, just to keep from starving."
The only reason his village's conditions had eventually improved—and why they had been able to import fertile soil to reclaim the land—was entirely due to Chester's financial support back when he was a butler.
"But this island is different. Vegetation is lush everywhere you look. The soil is incredibly rich. Anything we plant here should thrive."
Monia simply listened, her mouth slightly agape in fascination.
"The weather is our biggest hurdle, but since the local plants have already adapted to this climate, they should be fine."
If they were going to start farming, there were plenty of plants he wanted to cultivate. But first, we need to prepare the plot. Fortunately, the water issue is already solved.
Water was always the greatest challenge in agriculture. To grow crops in large quantities in one place, a massive amount of water was required.
I'll dig a drainage ditch where the aqueduct empties out. That way, the water will naturally flow right into our cultivated field.
The second challenge was the soil itself. You couldn't just throw seeds onto bare earth and hope for the best. The ground had to be tilled and nurtured to make it easy for plants to grow.
To be honest, I don't fully understand the exact science behind tilling.
Chester was, after all, a hunter's son. He had only assisted with farm work; he had never been formally trained in it.
But there must be a reason why everyone does it. Rather than making assumptions and skipping it just because we're on an island, it's better to follow the methods of the farmers who have passed down this wisdom for generations.
Water and soil—the two essentials for farming. They already had water, and they could take their time preparing the soil before the heatwave broke.
It would be great if it works out, but there's no rush. And even if we fail, we won't really lose anything.
"Alright."
"Huh? What is it?"
"Now that we've decided, let's get moving. First, we need tools."
"Wait, excuse me? What about the farming? You were just talking about the weather, and now you're making all these decisions by yourself!"
Monia protested, but Chester had already vanished into the workshop.
"Oh, seriously! What is wrong with him?!" Monia grumbled, her legs twitching slightly as she hurried across the bridge to follow him.
The storage-shed-turned-workshop was packed with a variety of stored items, but the most eye-catching of them all was Monia's jewelry hanging in a corner.
Three bracelets, a necklace, and two rings hung there, looking completely out of place in the rustic environment.
They were pieces of jewelry Monia had always worn, but as the intense heat caused the metal to grow scalding hot against her skin, she had finally given up and taken them off.
Directly beneath where the jewelry hung was the spot Chester and Monia had designated as their workspace.
Calling it a workspace was a bit of a stretch—it was merely a couple of cushions made from dried moss that had been sterilized with fire and smoke—but it was more than enough.
"Look, suddenly telling me to make something is just absurd!"
"It's not like I'm asking you to make anything complicated."
"Well, yes, but..."
Sitting there, Chester and Monia were grinding suitable stones against a flat slab to fashion a hoe.
"For now, just grind it down the same way we did with the axe head."
"Understood."
Scritch, scratch, scritch, scratch. The only sound between the two was the rhythmic scraping of stone against stone.
Whenever the stone slab seemed to dry up, Monia poured a fresh splash of water from her canteen before resuming her work. Meanwhile, Chester, having ground his stone into a rough shape, blew the dust off the surface out the window and inspected his progress.
"Not bad."
"By the way, isn't a hoe that thing? The tool livestock use when tilling fields."
"..."
Chester stared at Monia in silence, dumbfounded that she had just referred to peasants as livestock.
Monia found his silence odd, but she continued speaking with her usual nonchalant expression.
The brainwashing of one's upbringing truly runs deep.
As a commoner listening to this, it was a mindset he desperately wanted to correct, but he had no idea where to even begin.
Hundreds of years had passed since the founding of the kingdom. The aristocratic worldview had been passed down through generations, deeply entrenched.
That perspective, forged by the environment, culture, and history of the nobility, penetrated and stained the minds of innocent children as heavily and deeply as the history itself.
Occasionally, an "eccentric" noble would emerge who broke free from this mindset through personal success or innate goodness. However, any creature that stood out too much within a pack was deemed a threat to the collective and was swiftly eliminated.
Such eccentrics never lasted long.
"Hello? Are you listening?"
"Ah, right."
"A hoe is for tilling the soil, right?"
"Yeah."
"Then how are we supposed to make it? If we try to wedge the blade into a wooden handle like we did with the axe, the wood will have to be incredibly thick..."
"True. We could carve the handle thin only where the blade attaches, but that would make it structurally weak."
But leaving it thick would make it too unwieldy. We could grind the hoe blade thinner instead.
Even if the blade was thin, it would still be capable of breaking the earth. There was no strict need to make a wide, flat blade like a professional hoe.
However, since Chester had plenty of time on his hands, he wanted to do this properly.
...
A way to drill a hole in stone without shattering it. Should I use a hand drill?
He could certainly do it if he invested enough time, but Chester quickly shook his head. No, that's not ideal.
The energy efficiency compared to the output was too low. Chester wanted to do a proper job because he had time to spare, not because he wanted to waste his energy.
Since he might need to perform a similar task in the future, he wanted to devise a truly efficient method.
But a hand drill is a good starting point. Under our current circumstances, it's the most reliable way to bore a hole in stone.
If so, he should keep the hand drill as his baseline and build upon that idea. What resources did he currently have? Chester scanned his surroundings.
The workshop was stocked with various items he had hoarded for potential future use.
Firewood. Bamboo segments. Ropes and cords. Various plant leaves and roots hanging by the window to dry.
Different types of bows Chester had crafted for practice to improve his skills. A harpoon they no longer used. The snare pole and club Monia had made. And a drill fitted with stone bits of various sizes, kept ready for any occasion.
"..."
Chester picked up the drill and spun it back and forth in his hands. Watching the rotating bit, a certain toy suddenly came to mind.
...Hmm. A spinning top.
Hmm... It would certainly spin much faster, longer, and with far less effort than using bare hands... but it would still be tedious. A little more...
A spinning top. Speaking of tops, he remembered a kid in his village who had once brought a wooden top weighted with a stone.
That thing spun for an incredibly long time... The other kids complained it was cheating and banned it, but when we met up for a top fight the very next day, everyone had shoved stones into their own tops. It was hilarious.
"Hmm..." Chester sank deeper into thought.
A top. A stone. A stone-weighted top. Rotation. Cord. What did we use to spin them back then? A hand drill. I need to bore a hole in stone. To do that, I need something that rotates rapidly and continuously. Ah, right. A flywheel. We used to play with flywheels we bought for pennies from a traveling merchant who visited the village. A flywheel...
Come to think of it, a flywheel was all about rotation too. ...Rotation, rotation, rotation.
Instead of looking at the various elements before him individually, he began to combine them. No matter how absurd the idea seemed, the mere act of conceiving it was what mattered. That was the first step forward.
The key was how to adapt that wild thought to reality, transforming it into a practical, ingenious, and brilliant invention. Whether that first step remained a mere footprint or became a path for others to follow depended entirely on execution.
"...Perfect."
"Huh? What is?"
Chester immediately set to work, his hands moving rapidly to bring his sudden flash of inspiration to life.
"???" Monia stared at him in utter bewilderment as he abruptly tossed aside the stone they were shaping into a hoe blade and began working on something else entirely.