CH 233

Aahyaahhh! I’m so bu-uus-sy….!

This is impossi~ble! It’s in~sane! The work isn’t going down~!

Since Charlottenburg’s development started, I honestly don’t even have time to sleep. Even at school, I ignore classes and process work documents instead. What will I do if my grades drop because of this…? Well, sometimes I pay attention and listen to glimpses of the lessons, but it’s all things I already know, so it might not be that much of a problem…

Anyway, since the Charlottenburg development started, I’ve been so busy every day that I feel like I’m getting dizzy. When the morning routine is over, I go to school, and when the class ends, I leave the royal capital and head to the construction site in Charlottenburg. Until the sun goes down, I work on the construction site and supervise the work, and once it’s dark, I go home, bathe, eat, and sleep! I’d love to say that but that’s just too idealistic.

At night, I go through a nightly training routine, and after finishing it, I do paperwork. I have to handle school as well as the endless paperwork. It’s a constant question, how many hours do I sleep in a day…

“Ah~~~! Geeze!” I yelled, scratching my head.

“Are you alright? Miss Flora?” Katharina asked.

Right now, I was on a carriage heading from the royal capital to the construction site in Charlottenburg,.

“This highway is too terrible!” I yelled. “Even our latest horse-drawn carriage can’t do its job if the road makes it shake like this!”

I can’t waste time from the royal capital to the construction site. I’m doing paperwork in the carriage, but even when I try to sign anything, the shaking is so bad that I can’t write properly. This latest carriage has the most suspension and shaking mitigation ever, but it still has its limits. The roads are fundamentally so bad that no matter how much the performance of the carriage is improved, it is impossible to write beautifully while riding in a carriage.

“… -tion,” I grumbled.

“Pardon?” Katharina asked.

“Add road construction!” I repeated. “Lay a straight wide road from the capital to Charlottenburg! Lay a flat and unshakable road now!”

“Ye-Yes!” Katharina said. “Understood. I’ll send instructions along immediately!”

The original plan was to complete the construction by connecting the road to the original highway that runs closest to Charlottenburg. But I can’t go through such a narrow and rickety highway. In the first place, it’s not a road to Charlottenburg, so it’s not a straight route, and it’s a little bit of a detour.

That’s why I’m going to build a new road over here without permission. It is a direct highway that connects to Charlottenburg in the shortest straight line from the royal capital. In any case, it will be necessary to transport personnel, materials, and goods for construction. Even if there is an unsanctioned highway, it is not a problem.

Since this is originally the territory of the royal family, laying roads is also the job of the royal family as its owners. I don’t know when I’ll be able to do it if I leave it to them, and the road surface is too bad. If such a rickety road is laid out, let me replace it with my own.“

But… I can’t just do that now…

“I’m sorry Katharina…” I said. “I lashed out at you. Please forgive me.”

“Ah……” Katharina gasped.

I gently hug her and snuggle up. Feeling the warmth of Katharina’s body and her heartbeat calmed me down.

Frustrated, I yelled at Katharina. It’s not Katharina’s fault that the road is bad or that the carriage is shaking. Laying the road isn’t Katharina’s responsibility or part of her work, is it? And yet, I ended up saying that to Katharina. I’m the worst.

“No… not at all!” Katharina said. “It’s fine! You have no fault, Miss Flora! That’s my job!”

Katharina’s words sink into my heart. My troubled conscience is soothed.

“Katharina……”

“Miss Flora…”

We separate slightly and look at each other. Katharina’s face was flushed and her heart was pounding, I could feel it as our chests touched from the hug. Our faces seem to naturally move closer to each other…

“We have arrived, Miss Flora,” the coachman said.

“Hyaii!” I squealed.

Our faces were so close we almost kissed, the coachman’s voice snapped us back to the present and we separated. Oh no, oh no… I almost kissed Katharina in the heat of the moment.

“Tch!”

Huh?! Katharina, did you just click your tongue hard as you could right now? Where did the beautiful girl with moist eyes go all of a sudden? Right now, next to me is a scary woman with a black aura radiating from her…

Arriving at the construction site in Charlottenburg, I first tell the others what I had thought up on the way. The original plan was to connect the road from Charlottenburg to the nearest existing road as soon as the craftsmen of the Caan Knighthood arrived. But that would be too inconvenient. Above all, the road surface is terrible.

If this carriage is running on the highway of the Caan Knighthood, it will hardly shake. Compared to that, when I ran on the road of the royal capital, the shaking was so bad that I couldn’t even write. I can read if it’s about checking documents, but writing anything is difficult. It won’t work out.

“Let’s add new civil engineering workers and start laying roads towards the royal capital before the arrival of the craftsmen from the Caan Knighthood,” I said.

“That’s fine, but…” one of the experts said, “it will take a considerable amount of time to complete…”

Manpower is still fine. Charlottenburg’s development is still in its infancy and the total number of workers is small. The number of workers will increase here and there from now on, but before that, there will be no problem if we send people to lay out a highway.

Above all, if this road can be built, it will have many advantages for the construction of Charlottenburg. Once it’s done, it can be used for the movement and transportation of workers, materials, and goods. If we can create a road that is wider than the detour road that we are planning to build now and that connects with the shortest distance possible, there are many merits to constructing it. And the sooner you do it, the better.

“Then, let’s change the direction of Charlottenburg Palace so that it faces directly from this road, with the road leading directly from the royal capital as the main road!” one of the foremen said.

At that, everyone else began to agree. Or rather, there was already a plan to build a palace with a direct road from the royal capital leading to it. However, since I am the Lord, it’s my job to maintain roads in my territory, I can’t maintain roads in the outskirts of the royal capital, and the precedent is usually just connecting to existing highways.

“However, within the royal domain, we’ll have to have the royal family lay out a road…” one of the experts said.

“Don’t worry about that,” I said. “We will install everything ourselves. I will get permission from His Majesty the King at a later date, so please change the plan and design and secure the manpower immediately. Please still make a connection with the originally planned road, however.”

We gather the staff and the other foremen of the site and discuss the change part of the plan, redesign, manpower, and materials.

First of all, at the current stage, even if it is called construction, the main work is cutting down trees and leveling the land, so there is no problem at all in changing it now. There are places where excavation and foundations have begun to be dug for water purification plants and the like, but there is no particular problem with that. It’s just going to expand further.

As I said earlier, the change is to connect a huge road straight from the gates of the royal capital to Charlottenburg Palace. The front of the palace was originally planned to face the proposed main street, but it was just changed to the direction of the new highway. The town’s divisions will change slightly, but if we start reworking immediately, the start of construction won’t be delayed.

And we will also connect to the original highway. Since a temporary road has already been built, it will be used as a construction road until the new road is built, and when the new road is built, it will be converted from temporary to permanent.

It’s not that great a distance, you might say, but it would be better to have multiple exits to the highway. Even if the main traffic is between the royal capital and Charlottenburg, there should be people who want to go to the other side. At that time, if everyone can’t go out on the highway unless they go through the same road, there is a high possibility that it will be full of traffic jams.

As a countermeasure, we will continue to connect to the highway, as was originally planned. If it’s the shortest route from the royal capital, it’s the new highway, but if you want to go somewhere else without going to the royal capital, you can go through that connection instead. In the future, there will be more roads to pass through, but for now, it’s just those two places.

“Then I’ll go to the work area I’m in charge of today. If anything happens, go there,” I said. “Please change the zoning as quickly as possible.”

And with top-down instructions finished, I left the rest of the dissemination and execution to each foreman’s workstation. If I come to the site and you think I’m just sitting going to sit on a chair and pretend to boss them around, you’re making a big mistake.

No workers have been secured at this time. Although there are some, it may not be an exaggeration to say that there are almost no reliable workers. Most of them are laborers secured in the royal capital for this construction, and to put it in extreme terms, they are people whose identities are unknown.

Of course, I did research and interviewed them. In the first place, the contacts were the families and relatives of the workers at the ranch farm, and the people who worked for Caanza Trading Firm. But even so, if it’s the first time you’re working with someone, you probably won’t trust them.

The main tasks are still cutting down trees, removing roots, digging holes, removing large rocks, and digging holes for foundations and underground installations. In the end, while working together like this, people who can be trusted will be taken in, and people who can’t be trusted or whose work quality is poor will be sent to a place that doesn’t matter, and in the worst case, the contract will be terminated.

If we were to leave it to them alone, it would take many months just to cut and level the land. So the work I’m in charge of is…

“The leveling of the 3rd construction area has been completed, so please carry out the lumber,” I said.

“Understood,” a foreman said. “We’ll send people over.”

I cut down trees with my sword, pull out roots and stumps with Buff Magic, and remove rocks by shifting the ground with magic.

By the way, if I use Buff Magic, I can carry the resulting felled trees, but then the workers will lose their jobs. If you say they have a lot of other jobs, that’s true, but it’s the same for me. Let the workers do simple work, while I quietly finish logging and clearing the land while no one is watching.

Even though I’m the top person in charge of this site, I’m the first to do the hardest work, which is incomprehensible. Well, it’s easier for me to do it, and it’s not like I opened up everything. There are some construction zones that the workers are opening up on their own, and they are maintaining the construction zones they are in charge of.

It will be a waste of time if we don’t finish leveling the land before the craftsmen and technicians from the Caan Knighthood arrive. We have to be ready to start full-scale construction as soon as we receive support from the other side. Besides, my real job isn’t here. What I really have to do is level and build a village on the plateau and a research institute/fortress.

The upper village and the fort contain secrets, so to speak, and cannot be entrusted to unreliable workers. It is necessary to proceed with support from over there and those selected from among the workers here who can be trusted.

That’s why I have to finish leveling the lower town before the support from the other side comes, and then proceed to the point where I can start leveling the upper village and the fort. The area I was in charge of was vast, and if I was slowing down, I would never be able to make it in time.

“Baron Caan, the sun is about to set,” a foreman said as he came up. “Let’s finish today’s work.”

“Yes, I think so as well,” I said. “Please tell the others.”

“Right away,” he said before he left to pass along the news.

In Earth’s medieval times and in this world, work basically ends when the sun goes down. In modern times, there are lights and everything, so you can work even at night. There are some constructions that can only be done at night, and if you’re in a hurry, I’m sure you’ll be working through the night. By comparison, this is not the case here.

First of all, it is difficult to secure lighting. Burning torches in this dark forest would need a considerable amount to illuminate everything. Firewood is also valuable and cannot be consumed in such large quantities. It’s not impossible, but it’s not that the construction deadline is rapidly approaching, so we can’t go that far now.

Accidents are also more likely to occur at dark construction sites. It’s dangerous even in modern times, but it’s even more so in a world like this. And the ultimate problem is monsters… some monsters are nocturnal, and the forest at night is full of danger. If the workers are spread out and work in small teams, some of them could get ambushed by monsters.

That’s why at this site, the work begins and finishes before the sun goes down. It’s winter and the days are getting shorter, so even if I come here after school, I’m sure there won’t be much time left.

Well, in anticipation of that, we are taking the construction period’s delay to secure a labor force. And if it comes down to it, if it’s just me, I can turn on lights with magic and work. Many of the workers are poor, so many of them have never learned magic and can hardly use it, but I can create magical lights.

If it’s winter and you can’t do the work, or if the construction period gets pushed back, magical lights go up and overtime begins.

“Then shall we go home today as well?” I asked.

“Yes,” Katharina said.

After sweating it out at the job site again today, I boarded a horse-drawn carriage through the dimly lit highway at dusk.