Day 14 Stranded on a Deserted Island: Fence Work

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Day 14 stranded on a deserted island, 06:30

"おっはよー！ 幸運の女神ルカちゃん、朝から降臨だよっ！

(Good morning! The Goddess of Luck, Luka-chan, has descended first thing this morning!)"

I opened my eyes to Luka's gyaru-style reveille.

Clatter, clatter.

When I wondered what the noise was, I saw her shaking a toy made of cans and seashells tied to a string.

Mmm…

Since Seoyun had clung to me yesterday, saying she was scared, I'd ended up short on sleep.

To begin with, did we really need to get up this early on a deserted island?

"Mmm. Just a little longer…"

But when I first saw the Assistant Manager acting worn out and whining like a kid to her mom, it was kind of amusing.

Because she was the one who'd set our schedule so we could wake up at this hour.

"Come on, Luka. Don't be so hard on her. The Assistant Manager is exhausted after standing watch last night."

"Why? It was the cushiest second watch shift!"

"That's true. Heh."

The Assistant Manager had heard us talking, and with a groan, she managed to open her eyes.

"Good morning, Assistant Manager."

"Getting up after sleeping a second time makes my body feel even more exhausted…"

"It's not easy, is it?"

"No… I was already up half the night because of that wild boar… Ah."

The Assistant Manager suddenly remembered something and looked at me, embarrassed.

"If you knew, you could've said something when we were deciding the watch order, Mr. Kim Woojin."

"It was funny."

The cool breeze felt wonderful.

And this was a chance to coax the Assistant Manager.

Kang Seoyun must be tired, too.

"The weather's nice. How about we sleep in?"

"Mmm… But I made a rule for once, and asked Luka to wake me at this hour today. If I don't follow it myself…"

"Come on, this isn't the military. Are you going to make us do morning roll call, too? You can sleep a little longer. We still have food, and it's not raining."

Heh heh.

I didn't mind the feeling of slowly corrupting Assistant Manager Kang Seoyun into a lazybones.

I gently egged her on.

"That's right, that's right. Big Sis Kang works way too hard. You can sleep in today, okay?"

Luka joined me in playing the devil's tempter.

"Then just a little longer…"

The Assistant Manager half-closed her eyes and crawled back under her blanket.

Curled into a ball on the platform I'd made, she soon fell asleep again with a soft, even breath. It was kind of cute.

All right, shall I get up and do some work?

"Why aren't you sleeping, Oppa?"

"It looked like it'd be fun."

What kind of expression would the Assistant Manager make if she woke up after sleeping in and saw me working?

Heh heh.

For some reason, I could feel the dopamine kicking in.

'Fun' was what beat laziness.

"I'm going to cut some wood. If anything happens, come get me over there."

"Okay!"

Butchering the dead wild boar should normally have been the most urgent task, but now that I'd cast Preservation on it, I could put it off until the afternoon.

With the food problem taken care of at our camp, what mattered was building a barrier to keep out wild animals.

I'd been aware of the need for one, but had put it off because it was a pain.

After all, finding food had always been the most urgent problem.

Once I came back from getting food, I'd be too tired to even think about taking on construction work.

If I was going to do it, today was the day.

The odds that tomorrow's Kim Woojin would want to be a magical construction worker were extremely low.

I used detection magic to find some good-quality wood and stood in front of it, thinking for a while.

My first idea was a log palisade.

There was plenty of lumber lying around, so I could carve logs and plant them in a row to make a fine wall.

A wall no wild boar or person could get over.

But who was going to make it?

Me.

'Shit. No.'

I couldn't grind my body down doing that kind of insane backbreaking labor.

Even with magic to help, making a wall by planting logs in the ground was far too brutal a workload.

The thought of digging and tamping the ground, then dragging logs around to do that damn thing made me shudder.

Could I get it done in a hurry before noon?

For now, I decided to think about it while carving the wood.

Whatever I did, carving the lumber was essential.

The simpler the process, the better. Cut grooves, sharpen the ends───

The finer the details, the longer everything took.

First, I called the Glyph of Wind into being above my hand.

Flow, pressure, rotation, sharpness.

The Glyph of <Change> was essential to imbue all those properties.

I gave the scattered air direction, then infused the directed flow with force.

A small whirlwind formed in front of my palm.

Whoooosh.

At first, it was just wind spinning around. A vortex that might blow away a leaf or two.

I made the gentle flow rough, and the round rotation thin and fast.

I turned a breeze that brushed past into one that scraped away.

Kiiing!

The air above my palm changed.

An invisible disc spun above my hand.

I couldn't quite see it, but I could sense it from the sound.

The wind grinder was complete.

If I kept feeding it water, the dust from the material would definitely fly around less.

I didn't need to know the scientific principles. That's how you develop tricks of the trade…

I'd called it a makeshift waterjet, but it couldn't hold a candle to a real industrial waterjet.

Even so, it was a tool so good it felt luxurious on a deserted island.

I didn't have to maintain a separate blade, and its size and power could be finely adjusted to match my senses.

Kiiiiing.

All right, let's get to work!!

Carpentry with a magical tool was more fun than I'd expected.

The first thing I had to make was stakes.

If I made them big enough to rival a fortress wall, they'd offer great protection, but I'd have to work too hard.

So I decided to compromise with myself and make a mini version.

I'd make several log palisade sections that came up to below my waist once planted in the ground.

I carved the ends to a point so they'd go into the ground, and made two holes in each stake for the crossbars to pass through.

It would've been a pain to do by hand, but drilling them with a wind drill was easy.

That was all the detail the mini palisade needed.

Kiiiiiiing.

The wind grinder, made by combining three different glyphs, stripped off the rough bark in an instant and revealed the yellowish wood beneath.

The sawdust immediately turned into wet wood shavings and fell to the ground.

The end of the stake gradually narrowed at an angle, like a well-sharpened pencil.

That should be enough to get it into the ground.

I stacked a few of the finished stakes beside me as I made them.

Hmm, I'm working faster than I expected.

'Have I gotten better at woodworking?'

Haha.

Now that I thought about it, this was what I'd done most often since learning magic.

I regularly made good firewood, so processing lumber had become one of my familiar chores.

Thanks, tree!

At first, they were just chopped-up pieces of wood, but one by one, they began to take on similar lengths and shapes.

They were made well enough that they looked strangely reassuring.

I carried the stakes back to the settlement.

The back is blocked by rocks and the waterfall, so I just need to fence off the outside.

I estimated the distances by eye and started planting the stakes.

First, I used a Water Pocket to trickle water onto the soil and moisten it.

Not enough to turn it to mud, just enough to let the stakes go in.

"……"

Luka tiptoed over so she wouldn't get in the way of the work, then squatted down to watch.

Was she keeping her mouth shut because I was concentrating?

…Cute.

I planted a pointed stake in the wet ground and twisted a thin stream of wind into it.

Thud, thud, thud-thud-thud.

The soil and stones shifted to the sides, opening up a small hole.

I stood the stake in the hole and pressed down on it with the Glyph of Wind.

Thump!

The stake went in about a handspan.

Once more.

With enough force to kill the wild boar!

Wham!!

It went a little deeper.

By the third push, it wouldn't budge even if I shoved it with my hands.

Done!

The height… just below my waist. Exactly what I wanted.

"What's that?"

Luka finally peeked her head up and asked.

"It's a fence. To keep wild boars from getting in…"

"What if they jump over it? Like a trained dog?"

"Hmm…"

It wouldn't be easy for one to jump with that body.

But it could charge into the fence and knock it over.

In fact, this palisade wasn't all that strong as a defense.

A person could simply jump over it, and a wild boar could knock it down if it charged with enough force.

But the goal wasn't perfect protection.

"It's just to make them think twice before coming over."

"Think?"

"This is the boundary we've set. If something finds it in the way, it'll usually be easier to go somewhere else."

"What if it still tries to cross it?"

"Then it can't complain about whatever happens to it."

If it went out of its way to put up with the inconvenience and cross the line, it couldn't complain if it got attacked.

This should be enough for wild animals.

Around the time I planted the fourth stake, Seoyun walked over to me with an awkward look on her face.

"Ahem. I see you've been working, Mr. Kim Woojin."

"Yes. I've been working hard while you were asleep, Assistant Manager."

"I made a simple breakfast. You two should eat."

I gulped down the soup in the bowl.

Was it leftover seafood soup from yesterday? It was delicious.

There weren't many chunks, but it was a big change for us to have breakfast when we'd only been managing one meal in the evening until now.

And Assistant Manager Kang Seoyun had made it herself.

As I'd expected, Seoyun's expression when she saw me working while she was resting was a lot of fun.

"Ahem!! From now on, I'll take both the first and second watch shifts. Mr. Kim Woojin, you can just sleep."

Oh, really?

"No, no, you can't do that. I'll take the hardest shift, the first watch."

"Ngh……!"

At the words 'the hardest shift,' the muscles in Seoyun's cheeks twitched.

Honestly, it wouldn't have been strange if she'd forgotten, but the sharp and sensitive Assistant Manager Kang Seoyun was different.

She'd already figured out when I'd started teasing her and replayed it all in her head,

and she'd even reached the stage of blaming herself, thinking, 'Kang Seoyun, you idiot!'

Man, life must be exhausting if your brain cells are that sensitive.

Anyway, she was even more fun to tease than I'd expected.

Kang Seoyun carefully enunciated each word and spoke with a frightening smile.

"Then may I dare ask you to take the hardest first watch shift, Mr. Kim Woojin? Hoho."

"Sigh, Assistant Manager, honestly… I suppose I have no choice. I'll take it~."

"Ghh……!"

Hahaha. This is fun.

She looked like she wanted to bonk me on the head, but all she could do was make me breakfast and apologize, huh?

She could've just ignored that little thing.

Kang Seoyun was an interesting person.

"How's the fence coming along?"

After our short break, Seoyun asked as I started tamping down the ground again.

"Yes. I think I'll be done soon."

I'd made two holes in each stake, just wide enough for a crossbar to pass through. I planned to connect them by inserting the crossbars.

"Aren't the stakes spaced too far apart? It'd be better to bring them a little closer together."

"Because it's a pain."

"That's a very reasonable explanation."

I wanted to finish by the end of the morning. Why bother planting them close together?

Once I planted all the stakes I'd prepared and connected them with crossbars, my work would be done.

The Assistant Manager hadn't been picking a fight out of any particular emotion, either.

Just the usual WWE.

"Even this should make wild animals think twice before messing with us."

"As expected, the Assistant Manager understands."

"But what about people?"

Hmm, a sharp point.

This palisade offered no protection at all against people.

They could come in through the opening we'd left as an entrance, or easily jump over it.

In other words, it wasn't meant to stop people with bad intentions.

"In my experience, all our neighbors are good people."

"You don't know what they might do if they're starving, do you?"

"That's possible."

Honestly, what good would a palisade do if someone was determined to come in?

If someone crossed it to steal from us, they'd have to be ready to get attacked.

But…

To be honest, I didn't want to use the magic that could easily slaughter a wild boar on a person. I could already see how that would end.

There was a pretty good chance this place was a deserted island.

As for the living people, they'd be stranded just like us, so we should try to get along if we could.

"I'll talk them around and send them back. That's about it."

That was my conclusion.

Seoyun, who'd been concentrating, suddenly burst out laughing.

"Ahahaha."

"What's so funny?"

"Nothing. It's just right. This fence is just like you, Mr. Kim Woojin."

Did she mean that the fence looked cool?

Heh…

"Hmm, if I may add something, I'd set the sharp stakes at an angle, so the boar would pay for it if it charged."

"That sounds just like the Assistant Manager's personality."

"Exactly. I'm the type who pays people back when it's time to pay them back. Didn't you know?"

I knew that well.

I knew that getting on the wrong side of the obsessive Assistant Manager could be dangerous.

"A noise alarm would be perfect. It's hard to see at night, after all."

"Could you stop giving me more work when you're not doing anything yourself?"

"Ahem, it's a suggestion for improvement. An improvement. I'm allowed to offer that much, aren't I?"

"Well, I suppose you are."

A noise alarm…

I wondered where I could get something like that, when suddenly I heard a strange sound behind me.

Clatter, clatter.

Luka was playing with the toy she'd made from seashells and cans.

Oh, that…

Seoyun and I turned around at the same time and exchanged a look.