"Not many, Your Highness. During the Months of the Demons, there will only be two or three of these monsters, otherwise Longsong Stronghold would be in big trouble."
"Very good, you have observed very carefully," Roland ordered the hunter to stand up, "What's your name? You don't look like you're from Graycastle. "
"I have half Mojin blood in me, the people in the town call me Iron Axe."
Mojin, the people of the desert in the southwest of the kingdom, said to be the descendants of the sand giants. Roland searched his mind for relevant memories, he didn't use the clan name, but used the title, obviously he didn't want to have anything to do with the people of the Sand Nation. As for why he came to this remote place from the southwest border, it was estimated that there was a series of bitter stories.
But those were not important, Border Town didn't care about one's origin.
Roland clapped his hands, "Today's questions will end here, Carter, reward each of them with ten silver royals, take them away."
"Thank you, Your Highness, for the reward," the three said in unison.
After taking them away, Carter Lannis returned, "Your Highness, you asked these questions, do you want to stay here?"
Roland didn't express his opinion, "What do you think?"
"This is absolutely not possible, Your Highness!" The Knight said loudly, "According to the hunter, the wild boar type of demonic beast is very difficult to deal with. If the crossbow can't shoot from fifty steps away, then we have to wait until forty or thirty steps away to shoot again, this can only be done by the elite soldiers of Longsong Stronghold. Coupled with their large numbers, without a strong city wall to rely on, if we only rely on the local guards to stop them, I'm afraid that the casualties will exceed ten percent. "
"Before we met the witch, you also said the same thing, can't you think of everything in a positive way?" Roland sighed.
"This … although the witch is evil, but Anna … Miss Anna doesn't seem to be so, as your Knight, I must be realistic."
"Really, what if I give you a city wall?"
"What?" For a moment, Carter thought he had heard wrong.
"I'll give you a city wall, between the foot of the Northern Slope Mountain and the Redwater River," Roland said word by word, "Although it won't be as majestic as the walls of Graycastle King's City, it should still be enough to block strange beasts."
"Your Highness, do you know what you are saying?" The Knight was so angry that he laughed. "There's a limit to messing around. If you don't leave when the time comes, I'll have to forgive my rudeness."
"There's still three months, isn't there? According to the records, the first snow usually comes at the end of February after winter. "
"Three years isn't enough! Building a city wall required a large number of workers, starting from the foundation with compacted earth. It had to be tamped down every one to two feet. Otherwise, the pile would collapse if it was too high. This is only the simplest earthen wall, "Carter shook his head," Brick and stone walls are even slower, it requires hundreds of stonemasons to cut the stones into squares, and then build them one by one. Your Highness, every city wall is built this way, there has never been an exception. Making a city rise from the ground between day and night, that's a story that only exists in myths and legends. "
Roland signaled him not to say anymore, "I understand. You don't have to jump to conclusions so quickly, if there's no reliable city wall, I'll evacuate with you to Longsong Stronghold. I don't intend to lose my life in this damned place. "
The Knight knelt down on one knee, "I'll protect you with my life!"
*****
In the castle garden, Roland took a sip of bitter ale, looking at Anna who was concentrating on eating cream pastries, his mood recovered a lot.
He had decided to stop the demonic beasts in Border Town – if they couldn't even defend their base camp, how could they talk about farming? If they wanted to build a wall connecting the North Slope and the Redwater River in three months, they would have to use a reasonable plan and a new era of technology.
Roland didn't suddenly come up with this idea, he had already checked the surroundings of Border Town (although he didn't go there personally), he still had a clear picture in his memory – the North Slope was only six hundred meters away from the Redwater River, it was simply a natural pass. And because the North Slope Mine had been mined all year round, it was surrounded by rocks and gravel mined from the cave.
These gravel had a grayish white surface, it was rich in calcium carbonate, after grinding, it could be used as limestone. And with limestone, it was equivalent to cement.
That's right, this hydraulic material, which changed the history of human construction, had a wide range of raw materials and was easy to prepare, it was one of the best farming tools.
Roland calculated in his mind, he didn't want to make concrete, it wasn't that he couldn't do it technically, but the amount of cement consumed was too large, he wasn't sure if he could calcine so much cement powder in three months. In addition to the poor toughness of concrete, it needed to be matched with steel bars to become a complete body, so it was obviously not realistic to make a concrete wall.
To maximize the amount of cement, but also to use existing materials, then the self-weight rubble wall was the most appropriate choice.
The so-called rubble, was a stone that hadn't been polished, it had a natural appearance when it was just mined. Because of the irregular shape of the stone, it couldn't be built directly, it needed a stonemason to process it into the shape of a brick. The rubble wall, on the other hand, used cement as a binder, no matter how strange the shape of the stone, it could be piled up, the gap between the stone and the stone would be filled with cement, not only saving cement, but also not picking materials.
The general direction was set, but the actual implementation, I'm afraid I still have to do it myself. Roland thought. Whether it was calcined cement or rubble wall, they were all new things. Except for himself, no one had seen these things, and no one knew how to do it. I'm afraid the next three months will be very busy.
"Look."
Anna's crisp voice came from behind.
Roland turned his head, he saw a small cluster of flame quietly appeared in her palm, there was no wind around, but the flame was moving up and down, as if it was nodding to her. She shook her finger, the flame was like a toddler, slowly moving to the tip of her finger. Finally, it stopped at the tip of her index finger and calmed down.
"You did it."
An incredible scene, Roland exclaimed in his heart. This was not a magic trick, nor was it a chemical trick, but a real supernatural power. But this was not what attracted Roland the most — what was more dazzling than the flame was Anna's expression.
She stared intently at her fingertip, her lake-like clear eyes reflected the dancing flame, like an elf sealed in a sapphire. The traces of torture left on her body by the prison had faded, although she still rarely smiled, her face was no longer lifeless. The tip of the girl's small nose was oozing a little sweat, her white and rosy cheeks were exuding vitality, even looking at it would make people feel happy.
"What's wrong with you?"
"Ah … nothing," Roland realized that he had been staring at her for too long, he looked away, coughed twice, "then, try to use it to melt the iron."
In the past few days, besides eating and sleeping, she would practice repeatedly in the shed, that hard work made Roland feel ashamed — even when he was facing the college entrance examination, he didn't work so hard.
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