Fish guts

I've been speaking to the crowd about various small things for roughly an hour, letting them know what I needed them to do for the next moon or two and finding who was out of work and what skills they had

As another round of hands go up looking to ask some questions, benjen the woodsman returns riding his borrowed horse with a small sack over his shoulder and approaches to make his way through the crowd.

I notice him and gesture for him to approach with his bounty of requested soil, and he speaks up as he hands over the satchel.

" I have returned with a chunk of dirt as ordered m'lord, the boy I sent for the north shouldn't be more too much longer"

I don't answer him and grab the satchel he presented and without much of a warning and to the confusion and mild horror of the small folk I take a handful of dirt and plop it straight into my mouth…

Hmmmm, decent on nutrients but seems to lack a little nitrogen….good thing we're near the ocean then…..some blood and bonemeal should be able to bring up the soil quality a fair bit and increase yields but a good amount…

So while everyone's still reeling from the fact that their new lord just ate a fistful of dirt like a toddler I try to explain.

" listen I know that me eating dirt would have some of you confused, and without going to much into it let me just say one of my many talents is I can identify things by taste, and judging by what I just got from the sample I was just handed, the soil around here is decent…..but it could be better, so from now on I want all the fish you catch to have their blood, guts and bone saved, dried, powdered and then stored…..and no I will not be taking questions on this"

Oh yes, this is the part where they start think I'm a mad man and how their life is going to be so much harder, I can see it in their reluctant faces.

" we'll be using that stuff on the farm lands to get the soil even better than it currently is….I could give you some long winded explanation that none of you would understand but I'm not going too, just do what I asked and the results will speak for themselves"

The kid benjen sent to the north arrived not long after with his sack of dirt and it proved the same…needs more fish guts….

I dispersed everyone but held the blacksmiths back to discuss setting up a temporary workshop as this little town didn't actually have a blacksmith.

Luckily the smiths brought most of the essential tools with some to start a new smithy up…all we had to do was build them a forge to start pumping out some rough but function farm equipment….they also brought a decent batch of iron with them just in case…I'll show them how it's done, it won't be to hard for them to pick it up.

I'm kind of rushing things as these two haven't even had a chance to really settle after the journey, they pretty much got straight off the wagons into the Q&A session i held with the town folk.

But this was more for showing them where I'll be setting up their temporary workshop….there's plenty of stone around outside of the village and near the coast…I'll probably be able to jerry jig up a functional forge in a night.

Luckily the fuel we would use to power the forge is in abundance as all we need really is wood and charcoals.

The people I brought with me are sorting out lodgings or simply setting up their tents for the night and possibly a week or so while I sort out what we are all doing… I'll have some guys build up some temporary shelters for those people.

There's just not enough housing and as a lord it's basically my responsibility to see to it that's these people are sheltered and fed….which should be easy enough…

So while picking out a place just on the edge of the village because I want to get this place up as fast as possible so I'll work through the night and don't want to keep everyone awake and also due to winter just breaking and farming season about to be in full swing, I wanted to take advantage of that to hit the ground running with the farm equipment.

The smiths were happy enough with the location but thought I was crazy telling them I'll get a forge and workshop set up by this time tomorrow…little do they know that a poverty stricken space marine with some motivation can accomplish anything he sets his mind too.

I ask them to bring the cart over with all their gear so I can unload it and use the cart to gather materials faster…they just agreed and head off to grab the cart.

I just stand in place looking over the area and doing some eye math on the size of the workshop and what I'll need to build it…

It's going to be a basic log shed with a bit of size going for it and clay laid walls with a sloped roof and dirt floors, I'll carve out some windows and doors and fit them with some shoddy wooden hinges.

It won't be much to look at by any means but it will be built fast and very practical.

I'm probably going to rip down pretty much every building in this town within 6-8 months to completely rebuild this hovel into a much nicer town….I'll have to find somewhere I can get some decent clay to forge bricks because building with rock is just too impractical…I'll go with some Roman cement as it's pretty easy to make and I'm sure I can pretty much get everything I need around here.

Not to mention I'll need to draw out a sewage system as I'm not having my people shitting in pots.

I have so many problems to deal with but at the same time I have a solution to everything, it's just going to take a little work…I'm kind of getting pumped to do it though...literally building a city with my own hands.

I'm not even worried about a place for my self yet as I don't really need one, I'll be working nearly 24/7 for the next few months getting this place off the ground.

But when I do build one for myself….it's going to be fancy….oh right it has to be a castle huh?….well That's a problem for later I suppose.

Just as I've started to wildly swing off topic in my mind of the workshop I was planning to build in a day, the blacksmiths return with about 10 more people who said they wanted to help build then smithy.

They were mostly people who traveled with me as the towns people think I'm a crack pot most likely, but as much as I appreciated the gesture they would just slow me down.

So I helped them unload everything and asked them to unhook the horses, and they did..

I just grabbed the connection to wagon that the horses are normally hitched to and started to pull the wagon with one hand at a moderate jog toward the rocky area just outside of town….gotta build that forge after all and bringing back all the rocks at one was quicker than running too and from.

It still amazes the people i traveled with at just how strong I actually am…and one thing I noticed is I'm actually quite a bit stronger than I was as a regular spacewolf….but it's not that big of a surprise considering this body was made by a genuine god and without any unstable gene seed shenanigans making me genuinely more powerful.….

But before long I was amongst the rocky outcropping and grabbing stone after stone and chucking them into the wagon, it wasn't long until I had more then enough and was on my way back to the build site where a few people were still waiting around and talking.

I was only gone for about an hour so I guess it makes sense….and the people who were from the village were gawking with jaws nearly on the ground as they saw me pulling with no effort a wagon filled with rocks that two horses would struggle to pull.

It did take my caravan awhile to get used too, but I'm sure they will adapt eventually as well.

I didn't stop to speak and quickly dropped off the wagon and started sprinting toward the forest for lumber.

It took about 10 minutes at a full sprint at make it into the forest before I started sizing up trees and felling them with a few swings from my shiny new valerian steel axes.

I can pretty much do most of the building with a hammer I'm borrowing from the smith and my axes, as I don't plan on using any nails for this smithy shed….just build it like those old Korean builders do, like a big jigsaw puzzle that all fits together….I can carve out the groves with my axes

I strip the trees of branches and carry 3 trees under each arm and start sprinting back toward the village, it takes a little longer as its awkward to run with logs under arm, but it's a good start.

I'm back to the build site with an hour of leaving, and now there's many more people waiting there for some reason….

Turns out me pulling an impossibly heavy cart full of rocks had drawn some attention and my claim at having a smithy built within a day has drawn some interest…and some doubt from a few neigh sayers but by the jaws hanging open at me carrying logs it would take multiple men to carry seemed to have quieted down those of little faith.

I just ignore everyone again, drop the logs and run off for another trip.

Normally lords don't manual labour kinds of work as it's beneath them but I don't really care about appearances at the moment, I'm on a small time crunch and this shit needs to get done….so I'm going to do it….