NOVEL WEB Chapter 18: Road Construction
Kevin and Luke had been studying road construction plans nonstop for five hours, and with every passing second, new ideas about road structure, road lighting, and similar topics began to emerge.
After being revised four times, the plan finally took its final form, and it was agreed to include markers indicating the road's ownership, as suggested by the young elf boy Cain.
It was a clever suggestion.
After all, the north was dangerous, and there was a high risk of the magical stones obtained from the magical creatures planned to be used for lighting being stolen.
Luke had realised that he could definitely use the symbol of the Hiera flag—the Full Moon and the Star within it—as material to draw and engrave on the Moon Stone.
Indeed, even the greatest thief would not be foolish enough to confront the Hiera family. Such a person would need to possess immense power, like the esteemed Pope of the Holy Empire.
However, it would not be reasonable to say that there were no foolish people. After all, every living creature in the world had its own will, and in the end, there would certainly be people who would try to steal something, even if it belonged to the Hiera family, simply because they thought they could get away with it.
After all the plans, process information, material selections, architectural renderings of the construction areas, and the vast boundaries of the village's processing zones were fully completed, Kevin left the tent directly.
Following Luke's orders, the old man had been assigned to mark the architectural areas with plan markers, or more accurately, to place marker sticks where the plan markers would be placed.
The reason, of course, was to ensure that no one stumbled when construction began.
Despite the blizzards occurring almost every day, these marker sticks—or rather, marker poles, as they were long enough to be called such—glowed brightly.
They were made from a special alloy.
The first phase of the construction stretched exactly 740 kilometres from the village towards the mountainous region—a place Luke did not wish to reach, at least not in the next few days.
Beyond the mountain, or rather the mountain range, lay another four thousand kilometres before reaching the beginning of the Wirgo Duchy's territory.
The fact that the empire owned the entire continent and that the continent was truly vast had, of course, ensured that the village Luke had inherited from the previous emperor—that is, the region's borders—were extremely large.
It was a border so large that it could have been the borders of a major city on other continents.
Almost five thousand kilometres of border.
Of course, Luke wouldn't use every part of this border, as it was impossible for him to do so. His low life force and mental capacity couldn't handle it.
He only wanted changes within the border and a solution to the transportation problem that would affect this region, which would eventually become a town and a larger part of the empire.
With Kevin's departure, Luke had directly loaded 50,000 gold coins, 100,000 silver coins, and 40,000 bronze coins into the shop panel, and with that, he had filled his inventory with thousands of tons of stone, iron, and, of course, Moonstone.
At the same time, he also bought the necessary protective equipment for marble and security reasons, namely the parts that would protect the horse-drawn carriages.
After half an hour of shopping, he gathered everything he needed to gather, and immediately afterwards, he stepped outside the tent and realised he had forgotten to do what he was supposed to do, so he snapped his fingers.
When he saw that Cain had gone with Kevin, Luke immediately headed towards the elves' area.
After entering the area, he noticed that many of the villagers were also there.
When everyone bowed respectfully, Luke calmly asked, "Is there anyone among you who has a gift related to horse care, that is, for riding purposes and to look after them?"
A few of the elves immediately raised their hands.
When Luke saw each hand raised in the air, he was honestly surprised that five people had such a gift and ordered them to gather, saying:
"From this day forward, you will be responsible for the region's mount care. The elf region of the village will become one of the main pillars of the region in the future. The back side of the human settlement was an animal farm, but this will be a farm focused on animals, specifically mounts like horses."
Along with these words, Luke took a few elves who could use fire elemental magic to the back of the settlement and asked them to melt the snow in a specific area and dry out the region.
Immediately after that, he purchased a sketch covering an area of only five hundred square metres from the shop panel and created this area in five different places, creating several horse stables and five separate houses connected to these stables.
In addition, he purchased dozens of cold-resistant horses and the transport devices that these horses could pull from the shop panel.
Everything was now ready. There would be no issues starting construction the next day.
After working all night to finish the job, Kevin saw the sunlight begin to shine on the snow once more, and the plan was set in motion.
Every elf capable of working, along with Callum, Kevin, and Luke, had gone to the area where they would begin construction—the entrance to the village's surrounding walls.
The excavation began quickly.
Using Luke's inventory to help everyone, a one-kilometre-long area was excavated to a depth of three metres after calculations. This took exactly half an hour.
The elves continued digging the remaining areas according to the construction plan and blueprint, while Luke threw dozens of iron ingots into the excavated area from his inventory. Kevin melted the ingots, and despite the extremely cold weather of minus forty degrees Celsius, the melted iron ingots solidified in a very short time, though not instantly.