HTLCCBFT Chapter 17

Has The Lord’s Career Chart Been Filled Today? – Chapter 17

What Oliver proposed building was based on experience he’d gained as a volunteer in underdeveloped areas in the modern era: using soil to treat human and animal excrement—in other words, the long-since-phased-out dry toilet.

Essentially, all organic matter could enter the composting cycle. By being recycled and mixed with leaves and soil, excrement would be converted into high-quality humus. This would not only have a positive impact on public health but also boost lumber production and increase the yield of crops.

Considering that each toilet pit required a full year to decompose and compost, and taking into account the average household size in Laina City, the amount of fertilizer needed for the cultivated land, and the more-than-ample land area…

Oliver decided to have each household build double-pit composting toilets, which had a larger capacity and required less frequent rotation.

He had already written down the specific construction plans and given them to Fosse. However, to ensure the supervisors and foremen wouldn’t slack off on providing technical support, and to make the slaves understand the importance of this matter, Oliver decided to take a shortcut.

He would issue this order in the name of the God of Wealth.

After all, people needed reasons to act, but a God did not.

Basking in the crowd’s astonished and bewildered gazes, Oliver shamelessly invoked the all-powerful Cat God. “Last night, I received a new divine oracle. When the great God of Wealth, the ‘Cat God,’ looked down upon Laina City from the sky and observed His sleeping believers, He could neither tolerate the sight of filthy excrement exposed in His view, nor could He bear for His devout followers to live in such a terrible stench. And after coming into contact with such filth, how could one be worthy of praying to the great God without first washing properly with clean water?”

Then, the ecological toilet construction process that had given him a headache all night was issued in the name of the “Cat God’s wisdom,” leaving others to worry about it.

Furthermore, to get the toilets built before the Summer Market began, Oliver very naturally gave the slaves, who originally had to work in the fields every day, a holiday for the next five days.

There wasn’t much farm work left, and the remaining tasks were not urgent and could be done a few days later.

As for the organic fertilizer, it was, of course, better to start composting it as early as possible.

After explaining all this, Oliver swept his smiling gaze across the crowd and offered encouragement. “Even with the wisdom of the God of Wealth, you will surely encounter difficulties, both large and small, during the actual implementation. That’s right—those are the great ‘Cat God’s’ trials for His believers. For every person who is willing to contribute their wisdom, attempts to pass this trial, and whose idea is ultimately adopted—be they slave or freeman—I will grant the reward of doubled wages, halved work, and the construction of a new wooden house. And the first one hundred households to build a toilet that is rated as ‘qualified’ will also be rewarded with the lumber and stone to build a new house.”

That was actually a little ‘easter egg’ he had hidden, to see if anyone could solve the problems he had posed.

As soon as he said this, everyone’s eyes lit up.

They didn’t quite understand the ‘divine oracle’ the lord had just delivered; they only knew they had to carry it out. But they had heard every word about the rewards—whether for commoners or slaves, they were simply too tempting!

After fully boosting their morale, Oliver crisply announced the dismissal, letting his subordinates slowly digest this string of news.

Actually, his original idea was to let the serfs who could devise solutions—that is, those with a certain degree of skill—shed their slave status and become freemen directly.

But after careful consideration, he decided to proceed step by step.

After all, a stable and good order had to be built on a foundation of strict laws, a social environment where the people had enough to eat and wear, and a sufficient number of impartial law enforcers.

His poor Laina City was currently in the predicament of having none of these.

If he gave too much at once, it might instead cause the very slaves he intended to promote to suffer for their talents, secretly framed by the jealous.

Lord Oliver’s series of new commands indeed stirred up a huge commotion among his subordinates.

Everyone was discussing the recent events: although they wouldn’t have to work the fields for the next few days, that thing called a ‘toilet,’ since it was a divine oracle’s requirement, must be exceptionally difficult to build—definitely much harder than farming.

It ought to be difficult.

Otherwise, how could it be the wisdom of God, and how could it be worthy of the generous rewards for the first hundred households to finish?

The Lord had said that tomorrow, he would have the overseers bring suitable people to demonstrate how to build one… That meant their only real free time was tonight, and they had to hurry to the woods to gather more firewood.

The only one who truly grasped the Lord’s hope of discovering more ‘clever people’ was the young Lucy.

As she silently followed behind Auntie Marianne’s family toward the woods, she seriously pondered the Lord’s words.

That’s right. The Lord, blessed by God, is so capable that there’s already enough labor in the fields for each family.

Besides, no matter how hard she tried, as a female, her constitution was still much weaker than a male’s. In terms of fieldwork, she couldn’t bring the Lord greater returns.

Will I encounter many difficulties while building the toilet?

If she could pass the test, perhaps… she could get a little closer to that radiant archangel?

At this thought, Lucy’s heart couldn’t help but pound with excitement, and she secretly clenched her fists.

For the time being, no one was aware of the frail little girl’s determination.

After running several trips into the night and finally gathering enough firewood for the winter, the exhausted slaves lay down on the ground, which was covered only by a thin layer of straw mats, with blissful and satisfied smiles.

Early the next morning, the Lord, whose golden hair was as brilliant as the morning light, cheerfully swung an axe and entered the woods under the protection of his loyal steward and knight guards.

He needed a large amount of lumber, both as material for building the toilets and as rewards in the form of houses, and he also needed more experience points to unlock high-level profession skills.

While he was inside, chopping trees with great enthusiasm, the serfs outside had also shed their relaxed mood. They formed a large, tense, and solemn circle, listening with rapt attention to the explanations and demonstrations led by Supervisor Ed. In Oliver’s view, besides providing a stable source of compost, the greatest advantage of the ecological toilet was its simple construction.

The structure of a double-pit composting toilet could hardly be called complex: it involved digging two 1.5-meter-deep square pits in level ground, using sturdy lumber to build two ring beams to protect the pits, a floor frame made of wooden planks and cob, and a superstructure made of wheat straw and branches.

But for the slaves who had never seen such a toilet—no, even for supervisors like Ed, who had just been summoned to the castle by Steward Fosse last night and had the instructions drilled into them all night by a stone-faced Fosse—it was far too complicated!

Aside from the nobility who used gold or silver chamber pots and wiped themselves with damp cloths, didn’t most people just relieve themselves wherever they were? Those who bothered to dig a pit beforehand and cover it up afterward were already considered exceptionally particular!

Ed had felt his head spin as he listened, but he didn’t dare ask a single question.

—This was a divine oracle, after all.

As he strictly followed the diagrams and directed the slaves in building the model toilet, he felt an irrepressible ache in his heart.

And the lumber the lord had provided was so fine, far better than the wood used for the beams in his own house, yet it was being used to build toilets for slaves for free… It was too extravagant, far too extravagant!

Ed’s heart bled, especially during the entire process of cutting the earthen planks.

The slower-witted slaves only understood the initial part—”Oh, we need to dig two big pits”—and were completely bewildered for the rest of it.

The slightly quicker ones, like Marianne and Jack, brought all their little ones along, hoping to earn the reward promised by the lord.

They forced their family members, who had average memories, to each memorize a different part of the process so they could piece it all together back home.

Meanwhile, former freemen like Jonathan, who was literate and had once been an apprentice in a blacksmith’s shop, watched the most intently and remembered the most clearly.

But the only one who truly pondered ‘why it was being done this way’ was Lucy.

Although Lucy was very short, the other slaves took pity on her and kindly let her squeeze to the very front of the crowd, which was packed several layers deep. From there, she could clearly watch Ed and the others at work.

She stared without blinking, greedily absorbing the knowledge contained within the scene and constantly thinking.

Since the final assembly hadn’t started yet, she had already guessed the general purpose of the baseboard—which had taken several people a great deal of time to make—while many others were still clueless about its function.

The repeated application of mud, ash, and mortar, and the tamping of the edges, must be to withstand a great weight later on.

And the large hole that was drilled, along with the specially prepared hollow wooden pipe, was for venting the foul air from beneath the board.

There were even handles carved into the board’s edges… prepared for it to be usually covered but occasionally lifted.

Were the dry leaves added before setting the baseboard into the side pit just to prevent the smell? Why was another layer of mortar applied after the baseboard was in place? Also, Ed had emphasized that this ‘toilet’ could only be used for dry excrement, while urine had to be put into a separate bucket. It also had markings on it—when the liquid level reached the first mark, water had to be added, filling it until the waterline reached the second mark. Only then could it be used on trees, corn, and other crops.

There were just too many questions, but she couldn’t ask them out loud…

Lucy could only struggle to think it through on her own, but due to the limits of her knowledge, it was impossible for her to find the answer.

In everyone’s long-held understanding, pouring urine directly onto crops was harmful to them.

What they didn’t know was that urine contained nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium, which were beneficial to crops. After being diluted to the proper ratio, it became a fertilizer that could significantly increase the yield of vegetables like corn, as well as most fruit trees.

Just as this model toilet was nearing completion, Ed, who had been extremely tense throughout the entire process, finally breathed a sigh of relief.

This suddenly reminded him that the lord had left behind a trial of the gods here.

He cleared his throat and met the bewildered gazes of these people who were far more foolish than he was. Although he held no expectations whatsoever, he still raised the oak plank in his hand and faithfully repeated the question: “The great God’s trial is, how can you slow down the rate at which wood decays?”

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TL Note: If you haven’t noticed, Authors note has been removed due to the new program I’m using.
For this chapter the author mention reference materials for the toilet.