A New Life In The Beast World-Chapter 105: A Bit Of Progress

Serena roamed around the giant boulders near the river, looking for some decent rocks to use for her wheat grinder. It was late afternoon by then and she had just managed to finish collecting more cotton and a bit more wheat after they were done with lunch.

Now it was a matter of finding some good rocks to carve into her grinder. Theo and Kiro were with her, however, the cub seemed more interested in throwing small stones into the river than looking for rocks.

Which had Serena constantly keeping her eye on him as she looked for rocks, trying not to stray too far from him. The river may look calm on the surface, but it still had a strong current that could take out a cub.

And while she was a decent enough swimmer, it didn’t mean she’d make it in time to save him if she strayed too far from him.

A part of her did want to stop him all together in fear of him being swept away, but Kiro did promise her that he would not move from his spot. So, she had to trust him a little. After all, he generally did do whatever he said he would do.

"What about this one?" Theo asked, picking up a large grey rock.

Serena glanced at it for a moment, making sure to keep Kiro in the corner of her eyesight. She pursed her lips as she took in the shape of the rock. It was quite large, about the size of a small boulder.

It was quite tall too with a bit of a curved top. However, the bottom was mostly fat and exactly what they needed for a base. If they got it right, they could probably split the rock in half and make it into two parts.

Then they’d just need one more part. Of course, they were getting more rocks than that considering their track record with carving rock.

"It looks good." Serena finally said, turning to look back at Kiro. Only to see the cub edging a little too close to the water for her liking. "Kiro!"

The young cub froze at her warning yell, straightening up. He then ran over to her and showed her a smooth, grey pebble he had found.

"I was just trying to get this stone... Please don’t be mad, Sister." Kiro pleaded, giving his sister puppy dog eyes.

Serena narrowed her eyes at the cub before turning her head slightly. "The river is dangerous and you shouldn’t stray too far from me... Even for a nice stone. No more throwing stones okay. You have to stay by my side now."

Kiro pouted, not liking that he couldn’t play anymore, but Serena wasn’t moving an inch on her words. She’d rather he was upset with her than have to pull his lifeless body out of the water.

The thought made her shut her eyes for a second, taking a deep breath to willed away the images in her head. She then opened them once more and went back to searching for more rocks.

After searching for two more hours, they found several more large rocks as well as a few smaller ones. Serena decided to try her hand at making some smaller tools first to get the hang of carving.

Then they could try working on the bigger rocks. Plus they’d get some useful tools for the garden and perhaps a stone knife from this. Her bone knife was beginning to wear out and it was only a matter of time before it broke.

And while she did have claws to defend herself, in her mind Serena could never have too many weapons. Having a few in her subspace would be good and she’d be able to leave her bone knife in the hut.

Theo carried one of the large rocks back to the village while Serena took some of the smaller ones in her basket. They made two trips like this before Theo went by himself to grab the last two rocks.

The sun was getting quite low in the sky, so Serena decided to take Kiro to one of the canals to get some water to wash up. They’d begun boiling water two days ago, it getting a bit too cold to go washing in the river.

At least that’s what Theo thought.

He was worried that Serena or Kiro would catch a cold washing in cold water late into the day and suggested they start boiling water if Serena was so keen on washing up everyday.

Serena wanted to remind the tiger beastman that they were both snow leopard beastmen and were used to surviving the cold mountainous climates. But she decided it wasn’t worth the fight.

They would eventually land up boiling water and washing up this way during the cold season, so what was the harm in starting a few weeks earlier. It was getting colder and while Serena’s internal temperature ran higher than normal, it didn’t mean she was completely immune to the cold.

Besides, having to wash up with warm water was definitely much better than cold water. She just did it for the convenience of it. Once they got the water, they headed back to the hut and Serena started a fire.

While that was going, she got some dinner going, making use of some of the leftover meat from lunch time. She roasted a few brown roots. When Theo got back, he washed his hands and took over food and boiling water.

As he was doing that, Serena took this chance to check on the wild birds. They were roaming around the ground as usual. Serena checked the coop and refilled the water bowl as well as made a note to clean the coop again.

She checked for any eggs, but none had laid any. Not that she was too surprised by that. It would take some time before the wild birds began laying eggs again.

Serena just had to make sure they were eating well and the coop was clean.

When she returned, the water had boiled and Serena went inside the hut to wash up. When she was done, she tossed the water onto the grass around the hut.

They did sometimes use the dirty water on the garden, however, with her water having soap in it, she wasn’t sure if it’d be good for the plants. So, she was experimenting on the grass first.

After dinner, Theo tried his hand at carving some of the smaller stones by the fire along with Serena. Kiro wanted to try too, but Serena quickly put a stop to that.

She was not about to have him accidentally cut himself on a sharp edge or bash a finger. Of course, the cub landed up sulking and soon went to bed.

It was only when the fire was beginning to burn out that Serena and Theo decided to call it quits for the night. Some of their carvings had been successful while many other stones lay in broken pieces.

Still, Serena was happy to see that they were finally getting somewhere.

She waited until Theo was sleeping before entering her subspace. Liz was inside the subspace as usual, napping on a bunch of wheat stalks. Serena shook her head at the sight, but otherwise ignored the blue snake.

Instead, she went to gather her stack of books and notebook to work a bit more on her several projects. At first, she wanted to just get the city design out of the way and leave the farming part mainly to the Council since they were more knowledgeable on plants.

However, she was beginning to realize that what they planned to grow on a large scale could definitely affect how the city was structured. Different plants and food or drink made from said plants had different ways to be stored.

Things like granaries, warehouses, cellars and so on needed to be considered. Along with places that processed the plants into food. Like how she needed a millhouse to make flour on a large scale.

Additionally, she was going to need clay jars to store things in and cloth to help seal those jars. Thus she’d need to work on developing a kiln and method for making cloth. 𝘧𝓇ℯ𝑒𝓌𝑒𝑏𝓃𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘭.𝒸ℴ𝓂

Which she also planned to trade along with food. Serena bet she could make a killing by introducing a new type of fabric in this world and the rabbit village would be the only ones to have the knowledge to produce it.

But for now, she wanted to focus on the farms themselves. From what she read in her farming guide, her best bet was to split each section of farmland into four. Three would be used for planting while the last would be left alone.

And every year there’d be a rotation of the plots used as well as the type of plants grown. That way she’d prevent overwhelming the land and reduce the risk of plants failing to grow.

She opened the book where she’d left on, trying to get recommendations for plants. Grain seemed to be the important one but there were other types of plants Serena needed to consider too.

As she read through it, she couldn’t help but think that perhaps it was time that she visited the Council again.