Chapter 147: Barn It

"How are you going to get the animals up? Would the floor break?"

Rino listened to Aiden and Griffith play devil's advocate from the Ghost Cypress. He had to make many subtle changes that were important if he didn't want the barn to collapse. He knew that magic was a good way to smooth over most flaws, but the structural design wasn't something magic could fix. It was like trying to use sealant to mend a wrongly built vase instead of stopping a leak.

"The easiest way is to have one of us there to monitor the building," Aiden concluded, and Rino agreed.

"I have a brownie here with me but no gnomes yet. Do you think you could spare one person to assist with the barn building? Not just barn building, several other projects are coming up as well."

Looking at the duty roster, Aiden and Griffith decided that they could take turns to visit the new town while the other pygmy dwarf oversaw both villages and their projects. Most of the projects were ongoing, and there was nothing new happening apart from Kragami's research and the ladies' experimenting with new ingredients.

The meeting concluded swiftly, and Rino assured them that he would send the sky palanquin over again in a few days. In other words, the gnomes only had a few days to gather all the building materials required for their approved barn design.

When the meeting ended, Rino wanted to cuss. What was he going to do about all these animals without proper barns or pens? He couldn't leave them in the cages, could he?

Barn it all!

From above, Stephanie laughed. Rino should have thought ahead. So much for being a genius, his half-assed attempts of completing the quest landed him in this predicament, and she was going to savour every second of it.

Beside the goddess, her brother sighed at her sister. Really, was she that stressed over needing to create a new magic tree seed? It was part of her job, so the goddess of fertility and life cycle should not be complaining about additional work. In fact, Rino's progress when given more time proved to be better than when he was given no time.

Ark thought that establishing a new town was a great idea and deliberately gave Rino more time than required for simple projects like crafting a fish trap and capturing some animals for the farm. He did not know what a barn was but the large animal building that Rino thought of building was a huge project that could benefit the town.

Ordinarily, animals raised in farms were left to their devices and lacked care. The farmers only ensured that they did not starve, and if they were sick, the animals were killed before the illness spread. It was a very ineffective method that made livestock rearing difficult.

Rino's initial plan to make several holding pens for separate uses was already considered an advancement in livestock rearing methods used in the small world. However, despite the lich's claims that he had no clue about agriculture and livestock rearing, he wanted to build a more efficient system that would care for his animals and increase their population in the least amount of time.

Hence, the barn project was developed, with the only flaw being Rino's inexperience. He had no idea that weight was a limiting factor to the unlimited population growth he intended. The barn's design was rather simple. It was meant to serve as a shelter for animals and a home for healthy development.

None of the gods understood why Rino only split the barn into four sections. However, Rino was adamant that the upper floor was reserved for rabbit raising and bird breeding. Ordinarily, birds were bred outside in artificial nests. Phil was writing a tutorial for individual animal breeding projects when Rino's plan thwarted their quest progress.

Even Ace had to ask himself why Rino insisted on having no light filtering through the barn. He only asked for ventilation ducts to be added but insisted that there should be no natural light from the outside entering the barn's upper level. Instead, he wanted to link the mana web array into the barn's upper floors to control the lighting inside manually.

The barn's bottom floor design was easier to understand. Rino reserved one half for milk-producing animals even though nobody knew the machinery that Rino designed for them did. It involved some churns, barrels and even an active water supply source. They decided to wait and observe Rino's wacky innovation as the lich currently focussed on building a salt store with the wood planks he had.

There were still two days before the next quest, and the gods held a meeting. With Rino's new direction, should they continue with the quests they planned or adapt accordingly to give Rino a hand from behind the scenes?

"I think we could give him a hand in terms of time to delay the next phase," Ace voted.

Phil agreed, but Ark sat on the fence. This phase was decided between Stephanie and Phil. Even as the leader, he had little sway in what they decided. 

Stephanie pursed her lips, displeased. Rino was making everyone dance to his tune. Why couldn't they see it? As gods, they were superior. Why did they have to let a mere mortal ruin their plans and projects? She saw no issues in proceeding with what Phil originally had in mind. Her brother was already extending the time frame required for each project. This dumb barn could be done on Rino's own time after completing their projects.

Phil listened to the female god's reasoning without saying anything. While the young goddess had a valid point, he still thought that nobody should be complacent when learning new things. Rino was a genius, and while he wasn't always right, his ideas were very much needed in a dying world. Should they fail to make the small world prosperous, it would be the end of their godhood careers.

When Stephanie heard that, she was forced to take a step back and reflect. Indeed, Phil's quest was designed based on the small world's current knowledge because nobody had any archives left of Rino's old and more prosperous world. Even the best design in this small world could not compare to the superior findings and wisdom of Rino's more developed world. 

The lich might not have a perfect design, but he had a brilliant concept. Together with the gnomes and experts in the small world, they could piece together something better than a manual that Phil wrote based on successful models of the current world. The chances of success for proven models were much lesser than what Rino's half-baked design could accomplish, and Ace emphasised how Rino was learning alongside them in this new world.

"As the goddess in charge of life cycles, shouldn't you spend more time looking into the Harvesters and Rocs?"

Ace's sudden attack caught Stephanie off guard, and Ark swallowed when tensions rose around the reflecting pond. The harvesters and rocs were the main concerns of this world and the decline in population in general. Ideally, the god team who designed this small world saw promise in the cycle created. The intention was to inspire faster evolution from fear. However, they never expected the destruction cycle to run faster than the creation cycle.

In other words, the small world Ark's team was assigned after losing a profitable world was an apocalyptic one. Rino was their only hope in reviving the dying system, and he was doing a good job so far, even if the pace was slightly slow for their liking.

"You can't expect me to change the basic design of the world!" Stephanie defended herself hotly. "Besides, there is still some time before the next mating season. As long as Rino increases this town's population and develops it properly, we should be good even as the next raid wipes out sixty percent of the remaining external population on this continent."

Indeed, glancing at the small world's map, Ark could see the population ratio decreasing drastically as more native species found themselves on the extinction list. However, there was a good thing from all that. Most of these corpses could join the undead population and increase Rino's overall power if the lich knew just where to look.

"If there are no further concerns, we could alter the quests a little to focus on the end product instead of the process. What does everyone think?"

Phil and Stephanie agreed. Ark was a good diplomat and knew just how to appease everyone. Ace smirked from his spot. Things were going exactly as he planned. As long as these gods agreed, Ark would make this result-oriented main quest a chain event. In fact, Ace was the one who proposed this earlier when he visited Ark's office. For the first time since Rino's reincarnation, they would make the event a timeless quest because nobody could determine the results of creation.

Birthing new animals shouldn't be tough, but they took a long time. However, this should give Rino enough time to complete his barn, build his town and complete a series of side quests that may or may not assist him with preparing against the invasion of harvesters in a few months.