Kuzunalis

FLTL Ch 223. Perika

A/N: Here is a list of the fantasy beasts, as well as the map of the Southern part of Cilaria for reference. Enjoy!

Adzee: Hulking beasts the size of bears, yet possessing the unmistakable grace and pack mentality of wolves. Their fur, a mixture of brown and gray, ripples over powerful muscles as they lope through the dense forests. While similar in their habits to the wolves found more commonly throughout the forests of Reslinor, adzees are a rare sight. With th...

FLTL Ch 222. Calculations

A/N: The Dukes and The Kings are 39 chapters ahead of Royal Road now! Enjoy!

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The ex-mercenary gave them a summary of the trip including the fact that most of the fish was on credit as well as about meeting the young master Lanidas who was the only son of baron Farodas, and how he had tripled the taxes for them. However, everyone had a good laugh at the way the ex-mercenary had managed to make the young master pay double the price for the coal, before Feroy to...

FLTL Ch 221. Taniok And Darora

"It wasn't Madam Nerida's fault after all," the majordomo replied with a shake of his head. "It was another maid who was jealous of Leah for being able to live outside the manor and with the man she likes, so she was tearing up any recently repaired clothes or sheets so Leah would have to work even more." He looked at Kivamus. "Don't worry, I've taken care of it. The maid has been warned that if such a thing was ever repeated she would be let go from the manor, and apart from the food and lod...

FLTL Ch 220. Medicine

A/N: Welcome back, and enjoy!

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"This is a medicine..." Feroy explained, pointing at the reddish powder inside the folded leaf, "something which will heal your child. Just give a small pinch of the powder inside these leaves to your son with some water, twice a day. You will see improvements by this evening, and your son should hopefully be fine in a few days."

"This... is this witchcraft?" the man asked with fear, before he looked down. "It does...

FLTL Ch 219. A Man In Need

The feast had been going on for more than an hour by now, probably even two hours. One by one everyone had taken the food in their wooden plates and bowls, before they began to eat and mingled with each other. Some of the guards had finished eating, and were showing some juggling tricks to the kids on one side to the awe of Lucem and Clarisa. A little outside the circle of the braziers, someone had brought a circular target which was used for archery practice and hung it on the outer w...

FLTL Ch 218. Speech

The ex-mercenary smirked and waited until they had exited the gates and moved some distance away from the gate guards before he whispered back, "Got the full amount, and even got to see the Baron Farodas scolding his son for making such a bad deal. He was quite angry that Lanidas had agreed to buy coal at the price I asked for, but the baron didn't want to lose face by refusing to pay that price which would only prove to outsiders that his own son was making deals without his permission."

FLTL Ch 217. Mission

A/N: Patrons are 38 chapters ahead of Royal Road now!

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However, it seemed like the young master didn't want to order his guards to arrest or kill them in the middle of the market. Looking at the forced grin on the young master's face, Tesyb wasn't sure whether he didn't even understand the insult made by Feroy to him just a moment ago, or if he was just putting on a brave face, pretending he didn't understand. 

Either way, Lanidas' tactic of gatheri...

FLTL Ch 216. Young Master Lanidas

"I'm a small merchant coming from Tiranat," Feroy answered smoothly. "The other three men with me are guards I hired for the journey." 

"Your wagons seem to be quite full..." Lanidas remarked. "What do you deal in?"

Feroy immediately pulled back the oilcloth covering one of the wagons. "I've come here to sell coal, of course."

"Good, good, we needed that coal. Did you pay the entry taxes at the gates?"

"Of course, milord," Feroy answered. "We paid the full tax of ...

FLTL Ch 215. Nobility

A/N:  Some minor changes have been made in the previous chapter in the last few paragraphs, mainly to show that pottery was also being loaded on the ship.

Enjoy!

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"Great, you are here," the ex-mercenary said when Tesyb reached there. "You find anything on that side?"

Tesyb shook his head, making sure that no passersby were walking nearby. "Mostly grain and pottery sellers on that side. There is some freshly caught fish, but that won't be of any use t...

FLTL Ch 214. Kirnos

The standing guard frowned and looked at his partner, who seemed to be thinking about it, before giving a curt nod. The standing guard began, "Tell ya what, ya seem like a good fellow who's been dealt a bad hand of soyent in life. Just for ya, we are willing to waive off a full silver of the taxes. That's five silver you need to pay to enter through the gates."

Feroy gave a sigh full of despair. "No, no... that barely helps me at all! I just don't have that much coin to spare... Make it...

FLTL Ch 213. Bargaining

Tesyb gazed around the snow covered dirt path while the horses kept pulling the wagons. Since the past hour or so, the scenery around them had changed completely. For most of the journey from Tiranat, the path they had been following was just a clear track of ground between the leafless trees of the forest which surrounded them on both sides, but as they had reached closer to Kirnos, they had started to see some small farms on the sides of the path, until eventually they were passing between ...

FLTL Ch 212. Invitation

A/N: Patrons are now 37 chapters ahead of RoyalRoad! Enjoy!

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Kivamus remembered that when the ex-farmer had done it in the South of the village, the strip had lasted for around two to three centimeters, before it had started to fall to the ground in a clump. That had meant it was good quality loamy soil for sowing wheat. But this time, the strip of mud kept getting longer until it was easily five to six centimeters long. That meant this was very good quality c...

FLTL Ch 211. Digging

Kivamus explained while looking at others, "Now we have two dozen former stonecutters in the village, who are well versed in this. They have more than enough experience of cutting through much harder limestone, and with no real shortage of tools now, they should be able to do it without too much difficulty. I have already mentioned that we need to keep the labourers working in the South to clear the forest as long as possible, but we can afford to shift two dozen of them to the eastern hills,...

FLTL Ch 210. Fire Clay

A/N: Welcome back and enjoy!

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"No, I don't mean to block it permanently," Kivamus explained with a small laugh. "We will create a small barrier - maybe five to ten feet high in the path of the stream, which will make water gather upstream of it. Once the water has reached the height of the dam, it will begin flowing once again over the barrier, and it will resume the earlier path of the stream. However, now the water flowing over the dam will be falling to the...

FLTL Ch 209. Risalis And The Romasi River

"That's because it's not nearly as dense as fedarus wood which is burning next to it," Kivamus explained. "Even after using this wood press machine to compress the sawdust and wood shavings, it is still much less dense than any wooden branch cut directly from the tree. That means the small air gaps between the compressed particles easily transfer the air to the inner particles which makes them burn so well."

Gorsazo gave a nod, thinking about it, while the labourers had started to refil...

FLTL Ch 208. The Wood Press

A/N: Patrons are 36 chapters ahead of RoyalRoad now.

Also, here is the link (LINK) to chapter 201, where I had added some images of the design of this wood press machine. You can visit the link to take a look at the design once again before you read the chapter to make it easier to visualise.

Enjoy!

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They kept walking and soon they passed the last huts of the villa...

FLTL Ch 207. A Winter Walk

It was early morning of the next day, and Kivamus was standing near the gates of the manor along with Duvas and Hudan in the continuously falling snow. There was just enough light to see clearly, but the sun had yet to rise above the Arakin mountains in the east. He rubbed his hands together in a futile attempt to warm them, but it barely did anything. The weather was bitterly cold in the open, and even the fur coat he was wearing as well as the continuously burning brazier kept next to the g...

FLTL Ch 206. Finances - Part II

"Indeed," Duvas said with a grimace. "98 gold for this particular month, to be exact. For the full year's taxes, it was around..." he muttered while turning pages on his ledger. "Where was it... I know I had calculated it already..." Then he pointed at something, "Oh, here it is. 937 gold is still due as the taxes for the previous year." 

"937 gold...!" Kivamus exclaimed. "That's a lot more than what I was expecting..."

Duvas gave a reluctant nod. "At least it's not a full 12...

FLTL Ch 205. Finances - Part I

A/N:  I have written the numbers in numerals instead of in words in this chapter, since it would probably be difficult to read big amounts if written in words like it is usually done in prose, including in this novel. Let me know if it works better.

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"What about Feroy?" Gorsazo suggested. "He had already gone with Pydaso to Cinran so he does know about the current prices of various things, and it's not easy for someone to fool him anyway."

"I was th...

FLTL Ch 204. Problems

Duvas frowned. "You already know by now that the eastern stream doesn't have nearly enough fish to feed all the villagers. It's just not possible." 

"No, that's not what I'm saying." Kivamus added with a grin, "But first, tell me, we still have nearly a barn full of coal, right?" Once Duvas nodded, he continued, "How much would you say it is? Actually, why did the previous baron build just two barns of coal in the manor anyway? We might have had more coal in storage otherwise."

FLTL Ch 203. Shortages

"Oh, that reminds me," Duvas suddenly exclaimed, "this is exactly what I was going to remind you about yesterday, but I forgot in all the hustle and bustle of your visit to the coal mines. Yes, we do rely on the temple of the Goddess for this. I visited it yesterday to see the calendar which is maintained by father Edric, and I saw that New Year's Eve is in just two days from today."

"From what I remember, the Kingdom of Reslinor uses a solar calendar, right?"

Gorsazo gave the ans...

FLTL Ch 202. Winter Competition

A/N: Patrons are 35 chapters ahead of Royalroad now! Also, enjoy the extra long chapter today!

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It was the early afternoon of a new day, and Kivamus had already finished explaining the design of the wood press to Darora, which he had finished earlier in the morning. The carpenter had been skeptical at first, especially about making the threads of the screw which was usually a very intricate work, before he realised that with the screw being so thick and made f...

FLTL Ch 201. A Cleaner Replacement

A/N: I have added a few images at the end of the chapter to make a few things easier to understand. Make sure to take a look at it when you reach the relevant paragraphs.

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"I couldn't have done it without your designs," Darora replied with a shrug, "but I'll take your praise." He grinned before adding, "I have worked hard for this, after all."

Hudan glared at the young carpenter, but Kivamus just snorted at that reply and raised a hand to prevent the guard capt...

FLTL Ch 200. The Water Wheel

A/N: Welcome back! Here is the sketch once again as a reference:

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Regardless of the chronic shortage of craftsmen in Tiranat, Kivamus still estimated that all the gates would be built within ten days or so at the current rate. With the sharpened tops of the stakes which formed the village walls easily standing more than fifteen feet high - and with the gates built till nearly the same height - they would act as a st...

FLTL Ch 199. Departure

Duvas laughed. "It's just not possible to kill an adzee while trying to preserve its pelt. That beast would easily tear you into shreds in that case. Be assured, we will carefully salt it for the winter, and Pydaso or any other merchant would be glad to take it off our hands after that."

"That's certainly good to hear," Kivamus nodded. "But about the adzee meat, is it even edible?"

"Of course," Duvas snorted. "It's considered a delicacy in these parts of the kingdom. If this had h...

FLTL Character Arts and Descriptions, and Other Maps

Here is some of the character art I made recently along with some maps. I'll add more images of other characters here in the future when I have time to make them.

Since I can only pin a single post in Patreon, I'll add the link to this post in the Table of Contents post (which is always pinned at the top of my page) so you all can visit this post again in the future.

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Southern part of Resl...

FLTL Ch 198. Aftermath

Hyola wasn't sure how the guard had gotten injured, but immediately another guard pulled him away from the wildly thrashing beast.

With the weight of the heavily muscular adzee being so high, she heard the sound of a couple of spears snapping from its weight, before gravity took over and the adzee fell back on the ground just a few feet in front of the guards, with most of the spears still jutting out of it. She thought she heard another guard screaming in pain, but she wasn't sure in a...

FLTL Ch 197. Moment Of Truth

"There!" She immediately whispered to the others as she pointed towards that area, while the guards just gave nods in reply, nobody wanting to make any unnecessary sound with an adzee so close to them. Their hearing was known to be excellent, after all. 

She didn't know how long she kept waiting with her muscles tense and ready, but slowly she saw the distinctive grace of the movement of a fully grown adzee slowly walking between the leafless trees while gazing towards them with it...

FLTL Ch 196. Danger

A/N: Another long chapter today. Enjoy!

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For a moment, Kivamus thought about running to the northern gap in the walls to take a look, as well as to help the guards. But it didn't take him more than a moment to realise that he would only be a liability there, and would prevent the guards from fighting to their full capabilities. Thankfully, it was only around sunset now, so all the guards would be ready and alert at the time, including Hudan and Feroy, otherwis...

FLTL Ch 195. Estimates

A/N: Enjoy an extra long chapter today. I also made a very simple sketch of the inside of a mineshaft, which shows the size of the water wheel and how it works. It is a very rough sketch, but it might help in understanding it better.

As the water wheel rotates clockwise (with the help of one man on each side of the wheel stepping on the cleats/steps, which aren't shown in the sketch), the buckets at the circumference of the wheel dip into the gathered water and eventually lift the water...