Kuzunalis

FLTL Ch 253. Musings

Become the Duke of Tiranat to read ahead

"Be quiet, you moron," the deputy scolded the giant, before calling up the other bandits and starting to explain where everyone should be positioned. 

Joric was still hesitating, while he glanced towards the road. Would he be able to do what these bastards were asking of him? Would he be able to pretend well enough for this? 

No... he couldn't! His heart was beating so fast that it seemed ready to jump out of his chest. He t...

FLTL Ch 252. Planning

A/N: The Dukes and The Kings are 45 chapters ahead of RoyalRoad now! Enjoy!

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However, it seemed that either the insider information that the bandit had brought was not accurate, or the caravan had decided not to return at all. Not that he had even been told that there was a caravan there, but it seemed likely with the way they all had been hiding in the forest for the past few days. Either way, it was their fourth day hiding here, and by now their food supplies...

FLTL Ch 251. A Long Wait

"Uh... no. There were some problems with the fitting," Duvas shook his head. "The wooden panels of the sluice gate were a little bigger than they should have been, since one of the new apprentices of Darora hadn't measured it properly. So they had to bring them back from the construction site yesterday, and today Darora will modify them himself to make sure they fit. I think it should still be done by this evening." He added, "One good thing is that Yeden, the foreman of the dam site, didn't ...

FLTL Ch 250. The First Watchtower

Kivamus grinned at Taniok and raised a hand in acknowledgement. Before he climbed, he had to wait for a couple of workers to climb down the ladder, until eventually it was only the bald carpenter standing on top of the tower. Then just as he walked closer to the ladder, Hudan put up a hand to stop him from climbing. 

"I'll go first, milord," the guard captain instructed. "I need to make sure all the ladder rungs are secure enough before you climb on it. If they can take my weight w...

FLTL Ch 249. A Landowner

The ex-mercenary tilted his head. "I did say to him that you were a guard, although a new one - which you are."

"Yeah, but when he said that he would leave me here with you, he didn't seem to think that I was a guard at all! He thought that you were just pretending that I was a guard!"

Feroy exhaled. "Look around us, Hyola. We are not in Tiranat. What do you think would have happened if I kept insisting that you were a guard? At the very best he might have asked you to prove it by...

FLTL Ch 248. Anger

A/N: I've made a minor change in the last chapter, with a new paragraph added to show that Feroy ordered half of their guards to stay and hide outside the walls of Kirnos, as well as a few other minor things. You can read it again before reading this chapter if you want. Link: FLTL Ch 247. A Commoner's Life

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At the same time, Tesyb must have noticed her hand, and wi...

FLTL Ch 247. A Commoner's Life

A/N: The Dukes and the Kings are 44 chapters ahead of Royal Road now! Enjoy!

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~ Hyola ~

It was late afternoon of the second day of their journey, and Feroy, who was sitting next to her in the front wagon, had just told her that they should be able to see the palisade wall of Kirnos just after the next bend in the road. Initially, Yufim had wanted to sit next to her, so that he could challenge her to see who shot more bandits in case they were ambushed, but Feroy...

FLTL Ch 246. Discovery

"Yeah, bringing the logs inside is a good idea," Hudan agreed. "If we do this then it would be easy for our guards on the watchtowers to spot any bandits outside the walls since their field of view will remain clear."

"Alright then," Duvas gave a nod. "It will take time to bring all the logs inside, but it's better to start early and to finish before the roads get safe to travel and risk of bandit attack increases. I will put workers on it today itself." He continued, "Apart from that, ...

FLTL Ch. 245. Distraction

A/N: Welcome back!

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Torhan just stared at him for a moment, like he was peering into his very soul, before speaking in a gentle, yet commanding voice. "You'll be leaving tomorrow with Nokozal and some of my men to the road going east from Kirnos." 

"Uh... what?" Joric was thoroughly surprised. "But why?" 

Torhan kept quiet while still staring at him, so his deputy gave the answer after taking a glance at his chief. "Our scouts had seen a caravan l...

FLTL Ch. 244. The Torhan Compound

The bandit glared at them. "Alright, you cretins, work day is over now. Load up all the clay into the wagons, and don't leave a single tool out here, or it's your hide on the line."

The slaves nodded, and began emptying the carts into the wagon where clay was being deposited, before loading up the empty carts themselves into another waiting wagon meant for that purpose. Soon, the wagons had been tied to the waiting pairs of nodors, which started pulling them up on the inclined slope lea...

FLTL Ch 243. Joric, The Merchant

Lanidas had glared at him for a while but eventually he had walked away, probably to find someone else to harass, allowing Joric a sigh of relief. However he knew it wouldn't be long before the young master was back. All the merchants in the marketplace knew that the guards were employed by Baron Farodas - who was still greedy but fair - quite unlike his unscrupulous son, so Joric knew that he had to do something soon to ensure his family's future remained safe. As long as his family r...

FLTL Ch 242. The Dam

A/N: The Dukes and the Kings are 43 chapters ahead of Royal Road now! Enjoy!

I have also attached a few images after the chapter showing the location of the dam. Take a look when you reach the relevant part of the chapter!

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"Not yet," Yeden replied, "but all the pulleys should be built by this evening, so we will bring them here tomorrow morning. In the morning, the carpenter had said that he had to finish the current seed drill he was working on, before...

FLTL Ch 241. Mechanical Advantage

A/N: I have attached a few images below the chapter which will make things easier to visualise. Make sure to take a look when needed. Enjoy!

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With Hyola out of the village, they only had two crossbows in Tiranat right now, which meant only two of the gates could be protected by them. Ideally, Kivamus knew that he should have asked Darora to work on making another crossbow so they could protect all the gates even when they had to send a crossbow to protect a ca...

FLTL Ch 240. Taxes

Ustaimo felt a great deal of pleasure seeing the frown on Zoricus' face when the fat bastard heard that the Count wanted to postpone borrowing more gold from him. He suppressed his glee and began, "It's hard to say, milord. Usually we get above a thousand gold from Tiranat every year in the autumn, but my sources have told me that even before the southern road closed due to snow, merchants had already stopped going there because of a risk of bandit attacks. So Tiranat might not have made enou...

FLTL Ch 239. Count of Cinran

However, it had been nearly two decades since the incident through which Count Ebirtas had gained power, and by now, the Count was already old - having seen sixty five winters by now - which is probably why Zoricus must be dreaming of becoming a count in the future.

Coming back to the present, Ustaimo looked ahead and immediately saw the tired visage of the elderly Count Ebirtas, who was sitting at the head of the table while frowning at a map spread on the top. However, much to ...

FLTL Ch 238. Ustaimo

"Not at this point," Kivamus answered. "With three-fourths of the dam already completed, by now our six wagons have already helped in stocking up enough extra material by the eastern stream that the remaining four wagons should be able to bring up the rest of the construction material without too many problems. It's not ideal, but we'll make do somehow."

The guard captain remarked, "This will still leave a short on guards to defend the village. That's why I keep saying that we really sh...

FLTL Ch 237. Part-time Merchant

A/N: The Dukes and the Kings are 42 chapters ahead of RoyalRoad now! Enjoy!

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The majordomo nodded. "I was getting to that. We have already completed the initial planned target of clearing the forests which we wanted to do in the beginning, but we do need to exceed the target because of the new people we have taken in. For that it will take at least one more week."

"Hmm..." Kivamus muttered. "That means we won't be able to start coal mining at a good scal...

FLTL Ch 236. Parapets

Darora had already provided them with the third crossbow a week ago, and since then he had been working to make as many seed drills as he could, once they had given a trial to the first machine and removed any problems they had found in it. By now they had four seed drills already stored in a barn in the manor, and hopefully they should have more than a dozen of them by the time they would have to start sowing seeds in another two weeks or so.

He glanced at the now growing stack of pape...

FLTL Ch 235. Late Winter

A/N: Welcome back!

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The guards continued moving along with him, and it didn't take long for him to decide that this was indeed a good place for making the dam. 

Climbing down from his horse, he called over the supervisor - who used to be a limestone cutter in the past, just like the other clay diggers - and began explaining to him about the location. The man, who seemed to be in his forties, nodded enthusiastically as he explained what would make both of t...

FLTL Ch 234. A Good Spot

Duvas continued, "Apart from that, like you had told me yesterday, I have already ordered half a dozen workers to continue making paper at a small rate every day. We have no shortage of sawdust or ashes - which are the main raw materials for making paper - so we don't need to worry about that. Also, it will only take a small time for the wood press machine to compress the finalized pulp into paper, so it wouldn't really slow down the production of sawdust briquettes. The felt is reusable, so ...

FLTL Ch 233. Winter's Fading Breath

The next day in the evening Kivamus was standing inside the manor hall with the others, while looking at the newly framed pieces of paper which they had hung inside the hall on a wall. On one of the two smaller papers, Lucem and Clarisa had written their names in huge letters along with some sketches while trying to imitate him, since being children learning in school, they would be the ones to benefit the most from paper in the future. Lucem did have to use Clarisa's help to guide him, but K...

FLTL Ch 232. Papermaking - Part II

A/N: The Dukes and The Kings are 41 chapters ahead of Royalroad now! Enjoy!

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"Alright," Kivamus said after enough time had passed that the slurry had cooled down. "Now bring up the moulds and deckles here, and put them one above the other in pairs." The servants carried out the order immediately, with two of them being smaller sized moulds, and the other two being larger sized.

The majordomo was watching everything curiously, while also asking small ques...

FLTL Ch 231. Papermaking - Part I

Kivamus nodded and took the frame in his hands, looking at it from all sides. Truthfully, while its quality was far from what could be made on modern earth, he wasn't expecting even this quality from a completely handmade frame of mould and mesh. "This will work well enough." 

Putting the frame down on the table, he looked at the carpenter. "Come back here tomorrow evening so you can nail the rest of the meshes on the remaining frames. Cedoron should be able to make most of ...

FLTL Ch 230. Safe Integration

A/N: Welcome back!

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Hudan shrugged. "We don't really have any other place where we can keep them, do we? Both the longhouses are already filled to their capacity  with villagers even sleeping on the overcrowded floors there, while the damaged huts in the village won't do anything to prevent the cold if we put the newcomers in them. However, the jail was made from thick logs just like the longhouses and would easily keep them warm enough, although it ...

FLTL Ch 229. New Arrivals

"There is nothing to worry about," the guard captain announced to the other guards. "These people are hardly bandits, although they did have plans to steal food from the village if it came to the worst. I'll explain more later after I have informed Lord Kivamus about them. For now, take all of them to the jail in the manor, after taking whatever they have as their weapons. They will spend the night there. Also, keep an eye on them on the way, and make sure everyone stays with the group." ...

FLTL Ch 228. Wistfulness

~ Kivamus ~ 

~ A short while ago ~

Kivamus was waiting for dinner in the manor hall with Gorsazo and Duvas, while Hudan had begun to tell another story to Lucem and Clarisa near the fireplace which had kept them enraptured. While waiting, he had been thinking about how to begin the process of paper making after all the required wooden parts were made, while the majordomo seemed to be discussing something about the classes with his former teacher.

Although he had ...

FLTL Ch 227. The Southwestern Gate

A/N: The Dukes and the Kings are 40 chapters ahead of RoyalRoad now! Enjoy!

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~ Hyola ~

"It's nearly dark now..." Hyola muttered, while gazing outside the southwestern gate of the village. Although it wasn't really a gate yet with the carpenter still having it under construction, it would only take a day or two before this last gate was also completed. One side of the gate was already fitted to the wall, while the other side -  which was nearly ready...

FLTL Ch 226. Mould And Deckle

A/N: I have attached some images after the chapter. You can take a look at them to visualise the designs better.

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"The simple reason is that paper isn't just going to be used by us two in the future," Kivamus replied. "Right now you can't even imagine just how widespread the usage of paper can get in the future. We can use it to give children something to write on, we can replace the costly parchments for us, and perhaps even print books in the future. It also...

FLTL Ch 225. Binpaaz And Girnalica - Part II

A/N: Welcome back. Here is the local map for reference once again.

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Duvas nodded. "Of course, Fort Aragosa is fully controlled by the Duke, or rather, your brothers now. Like I said earlier, they are quite satisfied letting such small raids go unpunished, since it only weakens Cinran, and later on, they can just claim that they got the news too late to respond in time, which is plausible enough that the Count can't e...

FLTL Ch 224. Binpaaz And Girnalica - Part I

"It ended for the same reasons by which most wars end..." Duvas sighed. "The war had been going on for years, and alliances were built and broken so many times in all combinations between the three countries. After nearly half a decade of continuous war, there is a mental exhaustion which sets in over any country, since nearly every home has had someone from their family dead or disabled to the ravages of war. Other than the trained re...