parentshiftbook Chapter 341 On with the tasks for the day
Chapter 341 On with the tasks for the day
Between Fay demanding a few more minutes of sleep, Selene taking her time silently judging and making fun of us, and then Etaria whose question never seemed to end, by the time I finally managed to get going with my tasks for the day, I was more than an hour late.
Thankfully, contrary to the mercenary supervisors on the site, planners at the headquarters, or even the quart's leaders who were the last link within the chain of communication, my presence wasn't necessary for the work to progress.
Contrary to the quart's leaders, I wasn't there to give direct orders to the men. Contrary to the brigade officer, I didn't need to manage a whole group of hundred men while on the task. Unlike the mercenary supervisors, I didn't need to act as the link that connected the management at the headquarters with the brigade officers, passing over the tasks each brigade was to complete.
No.
When I arrived over an hour later than I was supposed to, the work had progressed quite a lot from what I saw by the work's end the day before.
True to its nickname of a man dump, the housing site was bustling with an extremely high concentration of men.
Judging between what I could see and what I could only guess, there had to be at least over three thousand people on the site, making up over half of the total manpower we could use at the camp.
A dump for manpower where the headquarters would throw every brigade that wasn't immediately needed somewhere else.
And with that many men at hand, the work continued at more than just a satisfactory pace.
'They finished only about forty tents by yesterday, but there's like what, a hundred by now?'
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With each tent fitting a total of twenty-five men, we only managed to provide housing for a fifth of the men under our rule. But with how things were going, it was only a matter of time before a whole two hundred of those makeshift shed tents would be completed. And then...
'I wonder how everyone will act when they will find out just how much better the next level of their housing will be,' I thought, smiling at my thoughts before continuing down the road, trying to get closer to where people actually worked.
Soon, I stepped into the crowd, joining the flow of people moving from one place to another, all busy with their respective tasks.
'Just a single look at the resource pile prepared for each set is enough to picture the difference.'
The basic tents required a bit of steel framing, some tarp, and a little bit of wood. And when all of those materials were gathered on the spot one could barely spot them amidst the sea of grass.
But when I looked over to the massive piles of materials of all kinds resting by the holes prepared, each of the piles was pretty much the size of a small, family car...
"Great work, guys," throwing the bad thoughts to the back of my head, I approached the small gathering of the mercenary supervisors. "I never would've expected you to finish the temporary housing so quickly," I praised while looking over my shoulder to the long line of those shoddy shed tents.
"It's actually a pity we didn't get to finish it yesterday," the oldest of the supervisors stepped out and nodded his head. "As for the new ones..." the man looked over to the side and hesitated for a little. "We can finish, give or take, forty of them. And we should be done with that by the dinner, but..."
The look of anxiety grew on the man's face.
"What do you need?" I pulled out a simple notebook and a pen, clicking on it right as I raised my eyes and looked at the man.
"Isolation blocks," the soldier answered without even a hint of hesitation. "Without them, we can only build empty frames. And due to the nature and weight of the build, if we leave such empty husks for more than a day or two..."
This time, the man failed to finish his line of thought.
"If we leave them unfinished, they will all start collapsing by day three," another mercenary stepped up and filled the gaps in the story. "Honestly, in two days it will be one hell of a risk to enter inside. This might be counterintuitive a bit, but the isolation and the plywood on the inside serve to stabilize the entire thing and better support its weight."
I lowered my eyes to the notebook and jotted down a few notes.
"So, isolation blocks on priority," I summed up the request. "Anything else?"
The mercenaries looked over at themselves.
"Actually, we have more hands-on board than we can handle or find the work for. Do you think you could get the folks at the headquarters to stop dumping all of their free manpower on us?"