At this time, Finn was unaware of the happenings in the town. He was busy improving his inn and its chances of being found by customers.

Wiping sweat after a few hours of manual labor, he went to check his inn dashboard.

[INNKEEPER DASHBOARD]

Inn Name: The Wanderer's Refuge

Inn Level: 1

Inn Status: 32 Cleanliness, 25 Ambiance, 28 Comfort

Reputation: 74

Current Guests: 0

Number of Staff: 3

Rooms: Basic Bedroom x 4, Toilet x 2, Kitchen x 1, Living Room x 1, Dining Room x 1, Front Desk x 1, Barrier x1, Cellar x 1

Barrier Type: Basic

Barrier Health: 10000/10000

Active Functions: None]

"Hmmm…" he mumbled, looking at the improvements over the past week.

First of all, their reputation had a major spike. He was fairly sure that it was a few dozen scores lower than this yesterday. He wondered what happened?

He also confirmed that adding a few outdoor furniture added [Comfort] and [Ambiance] stat to the inn. Adding pathways should, as well.

But…they were only a few people. How long would it take to make enough bricks or tiles?

"Well, start small, start small," he said, after a thought. "Perhaps we can start with adding pathwalks within the inn territory!"

He climbed a tree within the barrier and looked over his lot, mentally making a plan. The rear lot was dedicated to his plants, so naturally, that was the last priority for paving. He considered adding more to the side, but it'd get wasted if the building expanded.

So, for now, the pathway was from the entrance to the edge on a straight line.

As for the path, he was next to a mountain, so theoretically he could quarry, but who'd actually do that when he was surrounded by monsters?

There was also a karst mountain a less than a day away, and that could mean limestone, which could mean concrete, but that was too much work for him, especially since monsters were denser (and stronger) in those parts.

Besides, he was not an engineer nor was he an architect. He didn't know how to handle those things at all. He just happened to know what a karst mountain was because one of his customers back on Earth owned land that was full of them, and he had been discussing with his advisor how to maximize the value of the land.

The best option for him would be bricks, since it was another DIY his dad used to make back then. His parents were stingy and poor (except when helping others, apparently), and they opted to make their own things instead of buying them.

He had studied the soil composition on the land around, and while there was a lot of organic stuff (well, it is a forest), there was also a lot of clay.

It was just that there was a lot of topsoil he had to remove. Topsoil was great for planting, but not very much for brickmaking. He'd have to dig a bit deeper, at least 30 to 60 centimeters. He knew this because he had been farming, of course.

Then he could just add plant fibers to act as reinforcement, and then he'd also fire for durability. The kitchen oven was large, and it should be able to double as a little kiln. He could even do small pottery there.

The exact ratio and duration would call for some experimentation, though.

Also, it'd probably be time-consuming since the batches would be small. Thankfully, he had staff to pass this over to. Hehe.

That said…actually making bricks was cumbersome, and manually gathering the soil was another. "If there's only an efficient way to gather soil into shape…"

"Sadly, soil isn't like water," Durgan mumbled beside him.

"..."

"..."

He jumped down from the tree and knelt down on a patch of soil. He grabbed the dagger from his space and stabbed the ground below him.

[Sticky Soil]

Finn's eyes sparkled. For now, he could use his liquifaction skill to create earth blocks, and then he (or the staff) could heat them up in the kiln. It might not be strong enough for the outside, but it's a start!

…

The process was fairly straightforward except for some troublesome stuff. Fortunately, he wasn't alone, and he couldn't help but remember the time when he was lonely and couldn't even eat meat. Ah, how far he has come!

Tumble made a large multi-level mould for efficiency, wherein each level was in the shape of a shallow brick.

For now, since they'd mostly be used for the interiors and maybe some beta testing on the outside (to see if it'd get destroyed by awakened-level monsters stepping on them), he did not bother to make an excessively big operation.

Anyway, he didn't want to create random holes around the territory or even outside of it. Monster legs falling in and getting imbalanced would be convenient, but what if a person broke their necks?

To summarize, he'd liquify the soil for a few seconds, and the mold would enter while this was happening. Durgan would then use brute strength as a toughened person to lift it up. The goblins would be in charge of the kiln.

They took about a day to shape about a hundred or so, but the actual drying and firing would take much longer than that.

He looked at the rows and rows of bricks being sun-dried. His arms were crossed as he looked at them with a smile. He had to set aside time to absorb cores, too, but somehow this type of manual labor felt a bit better to do.

That said, it would be great if they had experts— or at least an earth mage or something, but alas. This willhave to do for now.

.

.

Aa-choo!

Some hundreds of kilometers away, a certain Earth mage sneezed. It so happened that he was eating something.

"EWWW!!" Marcus groaned, wiping his face and then looking at his food. "You're disgusting!"

"Be thankful it's not the Innkeeper's food or else I'd have challenged you to a duel right now!"

Even Leiah and Nona had the same look on their faces.

Micc raised his hand awkwardly, but he was kind of curious, too.

What kind of food is it?

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