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The Island-Banished Noblewoman - Chapter 38
🕑 Added 2024-10-13 07:06:44 +0000 UTCDay 53 of Banishment: Weapons and Armor (4)
The easiest way to make leather armor is to boil the leather in beeswax and then shape it into armor.
Leather, when tanned, is both durable and flexible. However, when boiled slowly in beeswax, the wax penetrates the leather and hardens it, making it extremely tough. This process results in leather armor that retains its durability and flexibility while being strong enough to serve as protective gear.
… But.
"Finding beeswax might be the hardest part... It's really difficult to produce wax, after all."
Beeswax is a substance secreted by honeybees to form their hives. By simply melting and reshaping it, you can make candles, and by mixing it with fats, it can be used for leather care or even as a hand cream. It’s a very useful material.
However, as expected, you can't find beeswax without locating the bees first. And even if you do find them, the chances of coming across a hive large enough to harvest sufficient beeswax are a matter of luck.
If you're trying to solve the luck problem yourself... you'd need to turn fats into wax. But with Marylia's current technology, that would be difficult.
"... If I can't find any, I’ll just have to boil it in soap."
Marylia decided to take a bold step. After all, turning fats into wax and saponification are somewhat similar processes... sort of.
Marylia planned to delay the soap-making until later because she hadn’t yet prepared any lye. But at the same time, if no beeswax could be found, she might have to resort to boiling leather in soap!
Ideally, she’d prefer to make wax from soap, but for that, she’d need vinegar! With so many ingredients lacking, soap it is! If it comes down to it, she’ll just have to boil the leather in soap!
… And so, Marylia found herself praying, "Please let me find some beeswax!"
Thus came the 55th day of banishment.
"Let’s go find some beeswax!"
Marylia, accompanied by her golems, ventured deeper into the island.
They passed the area where they had encountered the kelpie and continued forward. The forest became denser, and the grass growing under the trees was getting taller.
"It’s hard to walk through this... But I can’t just burn it all. Hmm..."
For a moment, Marylia considered whether burning it might make things easier, but that would be a last resort. She couldn’t risk accidentally burning the beeswax too. So, she pushed through the overgrown grass, stepping on and breaking it as she advanced.
As they ventured further into the forest, monsters inevitably appeared.
"Oh, a griffin. Its feathers will make a nice duvet. Alright, let’s take it down!"
A griffin—a monster with the body of a lion and the head and wings of an eagle—appeared, only to be quickly surrounded by Marylia’s golem soldiers.
"Once you take away its mobility, it’s not that scary!"
Marylia threw a lasso at the griffin.
It was a simple rope with stones tied to both ends. But by swinging and throwing it, the stones would pull against each other, helping the rope to wrap around its target.
The lasso Marylia threw coiled around one of the griffin’s wings. Startled, the griffin let out a screech, but with its attention on its wing, it was soon struck by the spears of the golems.
Without its wings, the griffin had no way to break through the golem encirclement. It was soon pierced through the chest, body, and throat, and after thrashing about, it died.
"Oh dear, are you okay? … You’ve lost an arm."
One of the Terracotta Golems had lost an arm due to the griffin's final desperate struggle. The golem’s clay body was fragile, and a wild swipe from the griffin’s tail had caused it to crack.
"But don’t worry. I’ve got spare parts for arms... Perhaps I should start stockpiling some more parts for you all."
Marylia refilled the damaged Terracotta Golem with mana to keep it functioning and then returned to the base, carrying the griffin's body.
Once the golems were repaired and the griffin processed, it would be time to head out in search of beeswax again...
Griffin meat is notoriously unpleasant, so the dissection was mainly to collect its feathers, hide, fat, and sharp claws.
"You can have the meat if you want."
The slimes in the field, of course, rejoiced. Not that they had any expressions, so it was hard to tell if they were truly happy or not.
Regardless, the eleven slimes that had somehow multiplied gathered around the skinned and cut-up griffin meat, nibbling away at it.
"Hehe, is it tasty? Eat plenty."
… Though there was no response from the slimes, Marylia leisurely observed them, thinking, "It would be fun if they multiplied again!"
Now, despite being delayed by processing the griffon, Marylia had her lunch and then set out once again to search for beeswax.
Finding beeswax depended entirely on luck. It would be best to head toward where flowers were blooming, but even finding a place with flowers was a matter of chance. All she could do was expand her search area as much as possible.
"I hope I find some… but it won’t be that easy, will it?"
Marylia wandered deeper into the forest, searching here and there… but only came across a man-eater plant, no beeswax in sight!
… Well, the roots of the man-eater were delicious, so Marylia happily harvested them to bring back.
Thus, several days passed, and Marylia continued her exploration.
However, while she managed to hunt plenty of creatures, she still hadn’t found any beeswax. The meat and hides from the monsters were starting to pile up and become overwhelming to process.
Marylia was beginning to feel pressured into deciding, "Maybe I really should boil the leather with soap." She needed some sort of armor, like a leather cuirass, before venturing any deeper into the forest.
On the 60th day of banishment…
"It's raining today."
That day, rain poured down, so there would be no exploration.
"The slimes must be thrilled. Ehehe…"
Marylia peeked at the field and confirmed that the number of slimes had increased to 13. By the time the rain cleared, there would probably be even more.
"Now, you all keep kneading and tanning those hides for me."
She instructed the golems to tan the hides they had gathered so far.
They soaked the hides in a tanning solution, beating, stretching, and pulling them to make the material more flexible.
This time, the tanning process would be thorough. The hair would be completely removed, turning the hides into full leather rather than fur, and the golems' brute strength was perfect for this kind of repetitive, labor-intensive task.
Had Marylia done it all herself, it would have drained her time and energy. But with the golems doing the heavy lifting, it was a breeze.
While the golems worked on the hides, Marylia spent the rainy day inside, turning half the fat she had gathered into soap, weaving strings, and generally enjoying a quiet, productive day.
On rainy days, there wasn’t much to do, so Marylia decided to spend some time cooking.
"Since it’s a day like this, slow-cooked shank meat sounds perfect."
Having hunted another peryton, she set its shank to stew, slow-cooking it over the hearth she had built inside the house, allowing her to cook even on rainy days.
"I’ll throw the bones in too and make a delicious broth."
She nestled some man-eater roots into the ash of the hearth, knowing they’d eventually become tender and delicious when roasted. Meanwhile, the peryton’s bones, sinew, and shank meat simmered in a pot with salt and herbs, transforming into an irresistible broth.
Marylia spent the day weaving string by the hearth, humming a tune as the food slowly cooked.
For lunch, she enjoyed the slow-cooked shank soup and roasted man-eater roots. Afterward, she spent the rest of the day weaving baskets until evening.
Since there was plenty of soup, she planned to have some for dinner as well.
… However.
"Oh my, it's all jellied~ Ehehe, it's aspic."
When Marylia went to eat the soup in the evening, she found it had completely cooled and set into a firm jelly, wobbling like a slime in the pot.
Incidentally, Marylia loved aspic. The jelly-like texture that melts in your mouth was one of her favorites. Not that her fondness for aspic had anything to do with her love for slimes…
"Yes, of course, slow-cooking tendons and bones would make aspic."
Up until now, she hadn’t had the luxury of slow-cooking anything this long. Usually, she’d just quickly extract broth from bones and tendons, but with enough time, the result was this wobbly jelly.
"… Aspic."
Yes, aspic, or to be precise, gelatin.
As she wobbled the pot and watched the aspic jiggle, Marylia had a sudden thought.
"This is it."
Smiling, she continued to wobble the pot.
"Instead of beeswax… I'll boil the leather with this!"
Indeed.
Marylia had been planning to soak the leather in beeswax to make armor, but there were other substances besides beeswax that could be melted by heat and solidified when cooled.
One such substance was "glue."
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