Chapter 13: The Rammed Earth and The Yellow Smoke

The chaos in the village square had finally subsided, replaced by a tense, heavy quiet inside the walls of Elara’s inn.

In a small, dimly lit room on the second floor, the wealthy merchant Balthazar lay unconscious on a straw mattress. His shredded arm was heavily bandaged, the bleeding stopped completely by the flawless arterial ligation. But the real danger was his chest.

Kaguya stood beside the bed, his face an unreadable mask of cold concentration. The hollow reed still protruded from the merchant’s chest between the second and third ribs. It had saved Balthazar from immediate suffocation, but leaving an open hole into the pleural cavity was a death sentence; the moment the pressure equalized, the lung would collapse again.

He needed a continuous, one-way pressure valve.

“Boy,” Kaguya said softly, not looking away from his patient.

Leo, the fourteen-year-old son of the innkeeper, jumped slightly. He had been standing in the corner holding a basin of boiled water, watching the terrifying stranger work with wide, fearful eyes.

“Y-yes, sir?” Leo stammered.

“Bring me a clay jug. Fill it halfway with the boiled water. Then bring me the longest, thinnest piece of hollow reed you can find, and some tree sap,” Kaguya ordered in the simple common tongue.

Leo scrambled to obey, returning minutes later with the supplies. Kaguya moved with mechanical precision. He carefully attached the new, long piece of hollow reed to the short piece already embedded in the merchant’s chest, sealing the joint tightly with the sticky tree sap so no air could leak out.

Then, he took the other end of the long reed and submerged it deep into the water inside the clay jug.

Water Seal Drainage System established, Kaguya noted internally. Gravity and fluid density will now act as a mechanical barrier.

He stepped back. Balthazar took a weak, ragged breath in. The water in the jug did nothing. But when Balthazar exhaled, a stream of bubbles violently popped out of the submerged end of the reed, rising to the surface of the water.

Leo took a step closer, mesmerized by the bubbling jug. “Sir… why did you put the breathing stick in the water? Won’t he drown?”

Kaguya looked at the peasant boy. Usually, he would ignore such questions, but they were in a new world. Information was survival. He decided to test the boy’s baseline intelligence, keeping his vocabulary intentionally simple.

“His chest is like a sealed leather pouch,” Kaguya explained, pointing to the bandages. “The wolf claw poked a hole in the pouch. Bad air leaked in and crushed his lung. I put the stick in to let the bad air out. But if I leave the stick in the open room, the air will just rush right back inside his chest when he breathes.”

Kaguya pointed to the bubbling jug. “By putting the end of the stick under heavy water, I made a one-way door. When he breathes out, his chest pushes the bad air down the stick. It pushes through the water and makes bubbles. But when he breathes in, the air in the room cannot swim down through the water to get back inside his chest. The water blocks it.”

Leo stared at the jug for exactly three seconds. His brow furrowed in deep thought.

“Oh,” Leo said softly, his eyes lighting up with sudden understanding. “It is like the blacksmith’s bellows! When he pushes the bellows, the air blows out the front pipe into the fire. But when he pulls it open again, there is a leather flap on the back that slaps shut. The smoke from the fire can’t get sucked back inside, only fresh air from the back.”

Kaguya completely froze.

The clinical detachment shattered for a fraction of a second. A fourteen-year-old peasant, completely uneducated in fluid dynamics or human anatomy, had just perfectly analogized a thoracic water-seal valve to a one-way mechanical air pump.

Kaguya turned to face the boy fully. Spatial reasoning, mechanical comprehension, and analogical mapping are extraordinarily high, Kaguya analyzed rapidly.

“What is your name?” Kaguya asked.

“Leo, sir.”

“Leo,” Kaguya said, pointing to the red, inflamed skin around Balthazar’s arm wound. “Soon, that arm will grow very hot. It will swell, and he will get a terrible fever. Do you know why?”

Leo shook his head. “A curse from the forest?”

“No,” Kaguya said flatly. “When the skin breaks, tiny, invisible bugs get inside the blood. The body knows they are there. So, the body makes the blood very hot to burn them. And the body sends millions of tiny soldiers in the blood to the arm to fight the bugs. That is why it swells. It is a battlefield.”

Leo didn’t look scared. He looked fascinated. “Tiny soldiers in the blood… so a fever isn’t a curse. It’s his body fighting a war.”

Kaguya let out a slow breath. To conquer the diseases of this primitive continent, he could not operate alone. He needed hands. He needed minds.

“Leo,” Kaguya said, his voice carrying a strange, heavy warmth. “Go tell your mother you are no longer sweeping floors at the inn. You are going to stay in this room with me, and you are going to watch the water jug. You are my apprentice now.”

✽✽✽✽✽✽

Outside, near the open gates of Dian Village, the blood trail from the merchant’s cart painted a stark, dark red line against the dirt.

Vane, Lydo, and Napari stood staring at the blood. The three hunters gripped their spears and bows tightly, their eyes nervously scanning the dense edge of the Zephyr Forest just a few hundred yards away.

“The pack will come back tonight to finish the job,” Vane said grimly, breaking the silence. “They know there is fresh, injured meat behind these walls now.”

“We should board up the gates,” Napari suggested, his voice tight with fear.

“Boarding the gates won’t stop ghosts,” Lydo muttered, shaking his head. “They walk right past the guards without making a sound. We can’t fight them.”

“They aren’t ghosts, Lydo,” a calm voice interrupted.

Inori stepped up to the hunters, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose. He reached into his rough tunic and pulled out a heavy leather pouch.

“They bleed, which means they have hearts,” Inori said simply. “They track us by scent, which means they breathe. And if they breathe, they can be suffocated.”

Vane looked at the slim man. “You want to hunt them? In their own woods?”

Inori nodded, untying the pouch to show the crushed, yellowish powder inside. “I have the perfect weapon right here. We cannot wait for them to attack us in the dark. We need to go into the forest right now and kill them before the sun sets. Who is coming with me?”

Vane looked at the strange yellow rock, then at Inori’s unshakable confidence. The hunter tightened his grip on his bow. “I’m with you. Lydo, Napari, let’s go hunt some ghosts.”

✽✽✽✽✽✽

While Inori prepared for war, Takuya was stepping into a very different kind of battlefield.

Head Villager Silas pushed open the creaking door to his home, ushering Takuya inside. Takuya stepped over the threshold, his architectural eyes instantly performing a ruthless, microscopic assessment of the interior.

Absolute structural poverty, Takuya noted internally. The gaps between the rough-hewn log walls were stuffed with brittle, dried moss that did nothing to stop the cold drafts whistling through the room. There was no glass in the small window openings, only heavy, warped wooden shutters that kept out the light along with the wind. The central hearth was dead and cold—a clear sign that firewood was a precious commodity hoarded for the winter. In the center of the room sat a heavily gouged oak table, bearing nothing but a single, dented iron pot.

It painted a vivid picture of a leader who was enduring the exact same desperate poverty as his people.

“Sit, please,” Silas offered, pouring a cup of weak, watery ale from a clay jug. “It isn’t much, but it is the best I have. What your brother did for Balthazar today… you saved Dian Village from the wrath of Suebic Town. If a merchant of his standing died inside our walls, they would have cut off our trade completely.”

Takuya took a polite sip of the sour ale, offering a warm, respectful smile. “We are glad we could help, Silas. But your village has bigger problems than one merchant.” Takuya set the cup down. “When we walked through the village earlier, I saw many empty houses. The roofs are caving in. Where are the people?”

Silas sighed heavily, sitting across the table and rubbing his tired face. “Suebic Town. Farming here has been failing, and the woods are too dangerous to hunt safely. The young men pack up and walk to the town to carry boxes or sweep floors for a few copper coins. It is poor work, but it is safe. Every year, we lose more families.”

Standard capital flight caused by wage disparity and a lack of physical security, Takuya analyzed silently. To reverse a localized demographic collapse, we must artificially inflate local wages through a manufacturing monopoly and establish an impenetrable defensive perimeter.

“Silas,” Takuya leaned forward, his voice gentle but carrying an unshakable gravity. “We can bring them back. All of them. But to do that, we have to rebuild this village from the dirt up.”

✽✽✽✽✽✽

The crunch of dead leaves echoed under the boots of the hunting party as they marched deep into the Zephyr Forest. The canopy blocked out most of the sun, casting long, nervous shadows.

Lydo kept his head on a swivel, terrified that the air next to him would suddenly sprout jaws.

“Inori,” Lydo whispered, barely daring to speak. “Even if we find them… how are we supposed to shoot what we can’t see?”

Inori didn’t stop walking, but he kept his explanation grounded, stripping away the complex biology of chromatophores and light refraction.

“Think of them like a lizard that can change the color of its scales to match a rock, or an insect that looks like a leaf,” Inori said softly. “It is just a trick of the skin. It takes a lot of focus for them to do it. If we break their focus, the trick stops, and they turn grey again.”

“And how do we break their focus?” Napari asked from the back.

Inori patted the heavy pouch of crushed raw sulfur at his waist. “With this yellow rock. When you light it on fire, it creates a very thick smoke. It’s like tossing a handful of strong pepper right up a dog’s nose, but a hundred times worse. It burns the eyes and chokes the lungs.”

Vane looked at the sky through the leaves, feeling a slight, steady breeze on his face. “So we use the wind.”

“Exactly,” Inori nodded approvingly. “When we find them, we don’t attack. We wait until the wind is blowing away from us. We light the rocks, and the wind pushes the smoke right into their hiding spots. When they start coughing and choking, their skin will stop hiding them. Then, you shoot.”

The hunters tightened their grips on their weapons. Their terror was slowly transforming into grim, focused motivation. They weren’t hunting invisible demons anymore. They had a plan.

✽✽✽✽✽✽

Back in the drafty house, Takuya dipped a finger into his spilled ale and began drawing wet lines on the warped oak table.

“If we are going to make this village rich, we need to protect the wealth,” Takuya explained softly to Silas. “Your wooden wall is weak. It is a circle. If bandits or wolves want to get in, they just push against the weakest part until it breaks.”

Takuya dragged his wet finger, drawing a straight line, but then broke it, pushing the line inward to create a sharp “V” shape.

“We change the front gate,” Takuya said. “We build the walls pointing inward toward the village doors. If wolves or enemies rush the gate, they don’t hit a flat wall. They are pushed into a narrow tunnel. We call it a kill box. Your hunters stand on the walls on both sides. The enemies are trapped in the middle, and you can shoot them from the left, the right, and the front.”

Silas stared at the wet lines on the table, his eyes widening. It was so simple, yet devastatingly lethal. “And the rest of the wall? Wood rots.”

“We don’t use wood,” Takuya shook his head.

We implement Rammed Earth construction, Takuya thought, accessing his architectural archives. High mass, high density, exceptional kinetic absorption, and zero material cost.

“We use the earth,” Takuya continued in the common tongue. “We take two wooden boards and stand them up. We fill the space between them with the heavy clay from the river and lots of small gravel. Then, your men take heavy wooden mallets and smash the dirt down until it is as hard as a stone. We keep stacking it higher. When we take the wooden boards away, you have a solid rock wall. It cannot burn. It will not rot. And if a beast hits it, it won’t even shake.”

Silas was speechless. He could already picture the impenetrable earthen fortress rising around his home. “And the river we moved?”

“We dig a wide, deep ditch in front of the new earth wall,” Takuya smiled a sharp, brilliant smile. “We let the river fill it. No one will ever touch Dian Village’s walls again.”

✽✽✽✽✽✽

“Stop,” Vane hissed, throwing a fist into the air.

The hunting party froze instantly. They had tracked the blood to a rocky, hollowed-out ravine. The wind was blowing steadily at their backs, moving down into the rocky depression.

“I smell them,” Lydo whispered, his knuckles white on his bow. “Down in the rocks. There are three of them resting.”

Vane looked at the terrain, formulating a plan. “Alright. Napari, you go left. Lydo, go right. Inori and I will take the center. We surround them in a full circle and shoot down at the same time so none of them escape.”

“No,” Inori interrupted instantly, his tactical mind seeing the lethal flaw in the hunter’s logic. “If we form a circle, Napari and Lydo will be shooting arrows directly toward each other. If you miss the wolf, you hit your friend. Plus, if we leave gaps between us on all sides, they will just turn invisible and slip right past us.”

The hunters realized their mistake instantly. “What do we do?” Vane asked.

“A ‘U’ shape,” Inori instructed, pointing to the rocks. “Lydo, take the high rocks on the left. Napari, take the high rocks on the right. Vane and I will block the only exit down here. Nobody shoots across. We wait for them to run out of the smoke.”

The hunters moved silently into position. Once they were set, Inori poured three small mounds of the crushed yellow sulfur onto dry leaves at the edge of the ravine. He pulled his metal Zippo lighter from his pocket.

With a sharp click, a bright, steady flame appeared from the metal box. Vane’s eyes bulged at the impossible magic fire, but he kept his mouth shut.

Inori touched the flame to the sulfur. It ignited with a strange, blue flame. Instantly, a thick, violently yellow smoke began to billow outward.

Sulfur dioxide generation successful, Inori noted clinically.

The wind caught the acrid, terrible smoke, rolling it like a thick blanket down into the ravine. Inori and Vane pulled wet cloths over their noses and mouths, their eyes watering even from the fringes of the cloud.

Ten seconds later, the ravine erupted.

A cacophony of wet, violent coughing, sneezing, and panicked yelps echoed from the rocks. Three massive shapes stumbled blindly out of the yellow fog. Their concentration was utterly shattered by the suffocating gas. Their skin rippled wildly, flashing from forest green to transparent before finally snapping back to a solid, dull grey.

They were exposed.

“Now!” Inori yelled through his cloth.

The hunters didn’t hesitate. Arrows snapped from the high ground. Vane drew his bow back and released. Because they were blinded, disoriented, and choking, the wolves couldn’t dodge. The crossfire was absolute and devastating.

Within five seconds, all three wolves lay dead in the dirt, the yellow smoke slowly drifting over their grey fur.

A flawless, zero-casualty victory. Vane looked at his bow, then at the dead monsters, and finally at Inori. The hunter’s eyes held nothing but pure, unadulterated reverence.

✽✽✽✽✽✽

“A strong wall is good,” Silas said softly, staring at the table in his home. “But a safe village doesn’t put food on the table, Takuya. Why would the young men come back just for a wall?”

“Because of the money,” Takuya said smoothly, delivering the final, killing stroke of his economic takeover.

Takuya leaned back in his chair. “Your hunters sell raw meat. Your farmers sell raw grain. That keeps you poor. But today, Vane saw how my brother can make his bow shoot twice as hard using animal sinew and glue. And the whole village saw my other brother make a clear water that heals wounds to save Balthazar.”

Silas nodded slowly, tracking the logic.

“We don’t sell grain anymore,” Takuya declared. “We sell the ‘Dian Bow’ and the ‘Clear-Water’ medicine. We are the only village in the world that knows how to make them. Balthazar is a rich merchant who owes us his life. We will use him to sell our goods in Suebic Town at a high price.”

We establish an absolute manufacturing monopoly, utilizing a debt-bound logistics distributor, Takuya translated internally.

“But here is the secret, Silas,” Takuya continued, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. “When we sell these things, the village doesn’t just give the money to a lord. We share the profits. Every man who cuts wood for the bows, every farmer who helps make the medicine—they get a piece of the silver.”

Silas’s breath hitched.

“When the young men in Suebic Town hear that the farmers in Dian are making real silver coins safely behind an earth wall… they won’t just walk back, Silas. They will run. And they will beg to work for you.”

Silas sat in stunned silence. He looked around his drafty, rotting home, and then looked at the impeccably calm man sitting across from him. Silas wasn’t a fool. He knew he was looking at a mind he could not even begin to comprehend.

“I am just a farmer, Takuya,” Silas whispered, his voice trembling slightly. “I don’t know how to build dirt walls or negotiate with rich merchants. If… if you stay. If you build this for us. I will do whatever you ask. The village will follow you.”

Takuya smiled warmly, extending his hand across the warped oak table. “We will build it together, Silas.”

Silas reached out, grasping Takuya’s hand in a firm, desperate shake. The shadow-leadership of Dian Village had officially been handed over.

Just as their hands clasped, a massive, roaring cheer erupted from the dirt road outside the house.

Takuya stood up and pushed open the heavy wooden shutters. Marching down the center of the village, surrounded by cheering farmers and weeping mothers, were Inori, Vane, Lydo, and Napari.

Dragging heavily behind them in the dirt were the massive, bloodied corpses of the three grey wolves.

Takuya looked at the dead monsters, then down at the cheering villagers who were now chanting Vane and Inori’s names. Takuya let out a slow, satisfied breath.

The Kazuha brothers had officially conquered their first piece of the new world.