Preparing For The Festival (6)

"Ah, Astra~! You received my letter then?"

Dismounting from the Geri, I nodded before bowing to the Duchess, gesturing for Sari, Aethisia and Kalia to do the same, my two daughters and wife coming along to help me with something that the Duchess and I had discussed before.

"I did indeed, Duchess. The materials finally came in, correct? For the storage shed. Now we just need to build it and make sure everything's set."

"Correct. I had the wood shipped in - all of it has been pre treated with magic, and the planks are all of uniform length, around ten by two per plank. Additionally, I bought logs as well should you need custom pieces, but beside that..."

Gesturing to the pile of materials resting on a large cart, the Duchess smiled at us as she said "Everything is here and ready to be utilized. And I see that you brought some materials of your own..?"

"Indeed. I brought stone and clay, though the main thing I was transporting were these barrels; I need to make sure that the shed can hold a certain amount of barrels, correct? Besides that, these are filled with wine as well, so you can taste some of the newer flavors we brewed. The names are engraved onto the lids."

Her sky blue eyes glittered beneath the sun, whilst her lips - coated in a layer of subdued red - curled into a smile as she nodded, looking at the cart that we had pulled over and saying "That's a pleasant surprise~! Well, I think it'd be best to keep out of your hair for this, no? I'll be inside; in an hour I'll come out with some refreshments and sandwiches, as well as some glasses for the wine?"

Giving us all a brilliant smile, the red haired, blue eyed beauty curtsied slightly before turning and walking away, her wide hips swaying - and almost hidden completely - beneath her simple emerald dress, which contrasted her hair and complimented her eyes.

As soon as she walked inside of her house, Sari let out a low whistle and approached the planks of wood, looking them over and whispering "I can see why you are so interested in her, my prey... Just feel like that's a rather insurmountable mountain..."

I smiled wryly as I stood beside her, taking in the various materials we had available before looking towards the area that she had marked out against the side of the hill, surveying the land available to us as I replied "I still want to try, all things considered... Well, let's get to it. To start, I think we should dig out this area here; we want to make it into a hidden storage area, after all."

"I might not have Earth Magic like Dama Rhefia, but my Nature Magic should do well enough to hold everything back, right? But... what are we going to do with the excess dirt? Where is it going to go?"

"Those extra barrels in the other cart? We'll fill them up and plant something inside of them, use them as decorations and storage at the same time. As for the rest, we can always come back with some more containers and transport it home. Alright, grab a shovel and lets get digging~!"

Like we had observed before, the Duchess' land was on a hill, with the house being at the top near the back and the rest sloping down towards the river, meaning that anything we wanted to do would be built on a slope, so in order to work around that, I was going to do a mix of things.

Obviously, with the Duchess watching over us from her house, I couldn't utilize my System to its entirety in fear of her discovering my abilities prematurely, but I could still use it somewhat, though I would primarily be utilizing this worlds building techniques.

To start, I decided that the best thing for this project - which would be a lot of work, but very much worth it - was to dig out the shape of a cube for our building area, meaning we were excavating the side of this slope by a good amount.

It would take a while - especially since the area was ten by ten - and would displace a lot of dirt, but with Kalia's help and the muscles of the two futanari, it went by smoothly, but still rather slow.

When the cube had been dug out, I went ahead and began to pack the dirt together tightly, before taking the stones I had brought over and placing them into the dirt to create a foundation, which was then filled in with a layer of clay.

Sari's Fire Magic heated everything up and hardened it, but only after I went ahead and created holes for the support beams, which were in all four corners.

Aethisia carved them out of the raw wood and carried them for me, before placing them into their designated areas and helping me hammer them down, after which Kalia used her Nature Magic to wrap thick roots around their bottoms, securing them even more to the earth.

That was when Sari heated all of the clay, hardening it and creating our foundation, and we managed to get that all done just as the Duchess came out, the red haired woman wearing a surprised expression as she looked at the progress we had made in just a single hour.

"That's impressive. Quite quick too, even with magic! I guess building your own house has made you and your family rather good at this, hm? Ah, and that cabin near the walls, right?"

I nodded, my veil helping to keep me cool and keep the Duchess from seeing my blush as she stood beside me, her sweet scent washing over me and sparking my lust, which had been contained during this entire session, something that both Sari and Aethisia seemed to find amusing as they managed to restrain themselves far better than I did - all while Kalia smiled on from the side, the Dark Elf having taken a step back from indulging herself ever since we went into the city...

"Ahem... Yes, I guess you could say that, Duchess. It's not too much of an eyesore, is it? Too large?"

"No, no it's alright. It needs to house some barrels, so of course it'll be large. Though... are you going to just stack the barrels, or..?"

"Oh, I was thinking of building them into the back wall and sitting them upright on the sides? So long as we engrave them with their names, we'll know what is where."

She nodded, before smiling at us all as she gestured to the basket in her arms, saying "Well, enough working for now. Come, eat, drink~! You still have more than enough time to finish this~!"