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Chapter 42: Let’s Build a Ship!

—One week later.

We of the strike force returned to our respective tribes for rest.

I also returned to the main village of the Blumunt Tribe and reported to Uncle Athos.

「So! You finally reached the sea!」

Uncle Athos was overjoyed, clapping his hands together without restraint.

I explained the situation on-site as well.

「Hmmm… I see… So the sea’s rough and the waves are high! Then a small boat wouldn’t last a second.」

Uncle Athos had worked many mercenary jobs involving ships.

He understood the situation more quickly than Rosso of the Great Lizard Tribe or Jessica of the Elves.

「That’s why… I’m thinking of building a ship.」

I decided to lay it out clearly, my intention to build one.

Uncle Athos blinked in surprise, then grinned.

「Go for it!」

This uncle of mine has always backed me up!

I’m grateful from the bottom of my heart.

「Gaia. What kind of ship are you planning to build?」

「I want to start with a ship called a longship.」

I unrolled the diagram I had drawn on parchment.

Uncle Athos leaned in close.

「Oh-ho! That’s a fine vessel!」

「It’s a ship that holds twenty-five people. It has a shallow draft, so it can navigate rivers as well. Very maneuverable.」

I had obtained this shipbuilding knowledge through an 「Information Download,「 so I had the designs and construction methods for all sorts of wooden vessels in my head.

Out of all the options, I chose the longship!

The longship was used by Vikings, yes, that kind of Viking ship.

It was a wooden vessel used around the 10th century on Earth, so it should be possible to build with Barbar’s current woodworking capabilities.

It’s seventeen meters long, two and a half meters wide, with a draft of fifty centimeters, meaning it can operate in fairly shallow water.

Longships also have a keel, a backbone-like structure, making them strong against rough seas.

And because they aren’t huge, they’re light, too.

With enough people, we could even carry one on land if needed.

Strong, lightweight, and highly maneuverable, this ship is perfect for exploring the sea we just reached!

「Hmm… Gaia. How do you plan to handle the construction?」

Uncle Athos stroked his mustache with his right hand, clearly already thinking through the logistics.

「I’d like the planks to be made across various villages. If we produce a prototype piece first, and then have each village make copies, what do you think?」

There are woodworking craftsmen in villages all over the region.

I could gather them all in the main Blumunt village, but that would likely stir backlash.

They are precious artisans for their own villages.

Plus, producing parts in parallel across the villages would speed up the process.

「Sounds reasonable. No problem with that.」

「We’ll have the craftsmen in the Blumunt main village make the critical parts. As each piece is finished, we’ll transport them to the coast and assemble them there.」

The keel and mast, for instance, would be made by the Blumunt craftsmen.

They’d need my guidance, based on the knowledge I downloaded, to make the more critical components.

We also had oak trees, plenty of them.

Oak is a durable building material, and there are forests full of it.

「Gaia! Sounds like this could work!」

「Yeah! I’m going to make sure it does!」

Construction of the longship progressed rapidly.

Thanks to Uncle Athos’s behind-the-scenes coordination and the influence I’d built up within Barbar over the last two years, no one opposed the plan.

At the newly secured coastal region, we built huts to stay in.

Just a bit away from the rocky shoreline where we first saw the sea, we found a sandy beach, which we decided to use as the shipbuilding site.

During spring and summer, we had a mercenary job and traveled to the Kingdom of Ring, but even while we were gone, the woodworkers continued the shipbuilding.

And then, at the end of summer…

「It’s done!」

The longship was complete!