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The Island-Banished Noblewoman - Chapter 24
🕑 Added 2024-08-24 07:04:16 +0000 UTCI Want to Burn Bricks (3)
When it comes to making parchment from animal skin, sheepskin parchment is the most well-known.
Even in the Fractalia Kingdom, where plant-based paper made from plant fibers is now widely available, there is still a reasonable demand for sheepskin parchment, and its production continues.
In very simple terms, sheepskin parchment is "skin that has been thoroughly defatted, stretched very thin, and dried."
For the most part, as long as the skin is defatted, stretched thin while drying, it’s good enough. It’s simpler than making leather, which requires a tanning process.
With that decided, Marylia began processing the skin while the golems continued making bricks.
"A stone knife is surprisingly useful, isn't it? Hehehe..."
She removed as much fat as possible from the Cockatrice skin.
This could be done to some extent by scraping the inside of the skin with a stone knife. However, there were still limitations, so...
"Let's soak it in lye. Here we go."
… With a splash, she fully submerged the Cockatrice skin in the lye.
Lye, which could also be used for washing clothes, was effective for defatting skins like this. Additionally, soaking skins in lye or lime water was also effective for removing any remaining feathers on the surface of the skin.
With this done, Marylia left it to soak for a day and continued processing the meat.
She decided to process the meat for today and tomorrow's meals by tonight and salt the rest. Later, she planned to smoke it for preservation, just like she did with the Peryton meat. … Once again, the brick drying area would double as a meat drying area, but it couldn’t be helped.
After processing most of the meat, she also decided to roast the bones and set them aside to dry. They would eventually be used to make broth… A slime came over, perhaps mistaking it for its own food, but Marylia told it, "Not yet—I'll give it to you after I make broth," and tossed the slime back into the field.
The meat for today and tomorrow would be kept in a cooked state. Leaving it raw would not be ideal.
So, she decided to make Cockatrice blood meatballs… Basically, it was minced Cockatrice meat mixed with minced offal, with added blood, kneaded together and then cooked.
"Hehehe, let's make plenty of these, and this should last us until tomorrow."
Smiling, Marylia minced the Cockatrice liver, heart, and tongue, mixing them into the mince, adding salt, and kneading thoroughly.
… Then, another slime showed up, so she said, "Oh well," and gave it a portion she didn't plan to eat… While doing this, other slimes also arrived, so Marylia ended up feeding three slimes while kneading the minced meat!
To the minced meat, she added rosemary and minced chives she found during her recent exploration. Then she mixed in some blood until it reached a thick consistency... After that, she molded it onto skewers and grilled it over the campfire.
"Ehehehe, isn’t it wonderful when meat is grilling over the fire?"
Marylia smiled as she grilled the skewered meatballs. The sizzling fat that dripped and crackled made a pleasant sound. The surface browned slightly, giving off a great aroma.
When she tried one that had finished grilling, the crispy surface gave way to juicy, flavorful meat, which was quite satisfying. The meatballs were soft, the added blood gave them a rich flavor, and the minced offal provided a nice texture, making them delicious.
"Hehehe, these are pretty good~..."
Letting out a contented sigh, Marylia quickly moved on to the next skewer that had finished grilling… Deciding that from now on, whenever she had a good hunting day, she would have a delicious meat party like this...
And so, the next day, on the morning of her 29th day in exile, Marylia spent her time checking the dryness of the bricks and hanging up the salted Cockatrice meat.
After that, she went out to gather firewood. Since she would be firing bricks more and more from now on, they would definitely run out of firewood. The firewood currently in the storage area had dried quite a bit thanks to the fires they had been burning underneath, but that alone would soon be insufficient.
So, she took two Terracotta Golems with her, left the remaining eight with instructions to transport clay and make bricks, and headed out with an axe to chop wood.
Incidentally, she had increased the number of stone axes to three. Terracotta Golems, to some extent, could use tools. Since there were stones polished by the Mud Golems from before, she had fashioned them into stone axes for the golems to use. Now, with the golems also able to chop wood, their efficiency had tripled.
After collecting firewood, she returned to the base, then went back into the forest to gather more.
Along the way, if she found berries, she would put them in a basket; if she found a suitable vine, she would bundle it up and sling it over her shoulder... Collecting various materials like this, she returned to the base, which now had a decent stockpile of resources.
"The fish traps are starting to wear out, so I’ll need to weave a new basket soon."
There are still many things that need to be done. Although there is now enough stored meat that the lack of fish traps isn’t a major concern for food, there are days when she still craves fish. Therefore, Marylia knew she’d have to weave a new basket sometime soon.
Thinking about this, Marylia instructed the two golems accompanying her on her exploration to take on the task of "drying the firewood," and she began preparing the vines, so that she could weave a basket on the next rainy day.
For meals, she reheated the skewered meatballs, cut them into rounds, and added them to a soup. The somewhat extravagant cooking method of roasting something and then boiling it, proved to be quite delicious. There’s something comforting about having a meal that’s a little more elaborate.
Even on a deserted island, she wanted to keep a passion for delicious food and a sense of leisure!
… With that in mind, she decided to make tea after the meal.
She collected seeds from wild grasses from the Poaceae family, roasted them in a pot, and then added water to brew the tea…
“This tastes like barley tea~”
In an eastern country, they drink barley tea brewed by roasting barley. It was similar to that barley tea she had previously obtained as an imported good. Well, since it was made from Poaceae family seeds, she had expected it to taste like this.
“Hmm, not bad. I might do this more often in the future.”
As she enjoyed her post-meal tea, Marylia decided, "I could probably make herbal tea as well, so let’s try doing things like this more often in the future."
And so, after a day of increasing brick production and resource gathering, Marylia ended the 29th day of her exile and began the 30th day…
“Let’s fire it…”
Finally, she decided to fire a large earthenware pot!
She carefully placed a large vessel that fit the size of the furnace to the limit inside the furnace, and then lit the fire. She started with a low flame. After both the furnace and the pottery had warmed up, she placed firewood on the grate and vigorously pumped air in with a blower.
This time, she had two golems working on the firing. With two golems, the airflow wouldn’t stop when adding firewood, so the heat would be more consistent.
“I hope this goes well…”
Marylia prayed as she watched the furnace.
… But even if she stared at the furnace, it wouldn’t increase the success rate of the pottery, so she distracted herself by arranging half-dried bricks around the increasingly hot furnace to speed up their drying, or by stacking bricks into a tower, starting a fire in it, and further accelerating the drying process…
At noon, the fire in the furnace went out. It would be left alone until the evening, when the interior of the furnace would be checked.
“I really want a big vessel… I hope this works…”
Marylia glanced at the furnace occasionally, hoping and praying that the vessel wouldn’t crack, and in the afternoon, she set out again to gather wood and materials.
… And then, in the evening.
Marylia grilled some of the Cockatrice meat that had been drying for a day and night, sautéed wild herbs in cockatrice fat, and for dessert, she ate a bit of a jam-like substance made from simmering the berries she had collected. Without sugar, it was just the natural taste of the fruit, but the fruity aroma, concentrated sweetness, and tartness were delicious.
After enjoying a satisfying dinner… it was time to check inside the furnace.
Feeling nervous, Marylia carefully reached into the furnace, lifted the large vessel out…
… Her hand met an empty sensation.
With a sense of foreboding, she carefully pulled it out of the furnace…
“Ahhhhh! It broke in half!”
As expected! The large vessel had cracked perfectly in half!
It was a clean break. Ruthlessly, right down the middle. It had fired beautifully, even while splitting perfectly in half, which somehow made it more frustrating.
“Was it the way the heat hit it? Or did a large stone get stuck in the middle?”
Marylia tried to reflect on what could have gone wrong, but in the end, she didn’t know. And if she didn’t know, there wasn’t much she could do.
“… Things don’t always go as planned.”
As Marylia felt a little dejected, the slimes came hopping over, bouncing around cheerfully. She felt a bit better as she kneaded the slimes, squish, squish, squish, for comfort.
“Well, I’ll just take this as a learning experience and try again. The Peryton hide isn’t something I have to tan right away either…”
The dried Peryton skin could be left alone for a while longer. As long as she tanned it before winter, it would be fine. After all, she would want the fur when winter came.
So, she decided to take things slowly. Marylia adjusted her mindset…
“O-oh my? Do you guys like this pottery?”
She was a little perplexed when she saw the slimes hop into the broken pottery. They were jumping around on the broken pottery, bouncing and squishing around…
“Oh, they like the gaps…”
… The three slimes settled snugly along the cracks in the pottery. Apparently, they liked the space between the pottery pieces and felt comfortable nestled in it.
“What a strange habit… Oh, maybe I should set up something like this in the field for them…”
For a while, Marylia pondered over this as she poked and prodded at the slimes nestled in the cracks of the pottery…
“Ah.”
Suddenly, an idea struck her.
“That’s right! Just like these slimes…”
Marylia pulled the three slimes out of the pottery, lifting them out one by one. She inspected the broken edges of the pottery.
The edges were clean and not crumbling. Everything apart from the crack had been well-fired. In that case…
“If it’s broken, I can just join it back together!”
She decided to put the broken pieces back together and use them. Marylia resolved herself to this!
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