Let go of that monster girl!

Directly above the waterwheel, a pre-dug vertical shaft extends straight upwards, its opening so deep that the bottom is nowhere in sight.

Molen checked the blueprint over and over again, and finally had to admit it.

The efficiency of the mouse girl is astounding.

A dozen or so carpenter mice stood in a row around him, hammers tucked into their belts, nails in their mouths, hands on their hips, proudly waiting for praise.

Molen rolled up the blueprint and stuffed it into his pocket, then reached out and touched the head of the carpenter rat closest to him.

"Each mouse will be rewarded with one silver coin."

"Squeak! Long live the Baron!"

The mouse girl, dressed in a black and white maid outfit, turned around and followed the winding mine tunnel upwards to another cave above.

Lyme had been waiting there for a long time.

Lyme had been waiting there for a long time. She stood quietly by the pool, her light green, translucent body almost blending into the water under the light, with a pair of calm eyes peeking out from under her bangs.

The maid mouse in charge of relaying the order gave a thumbs up.

Lem nodded and reached out to unbutton the top of her maid outfit.

Her clothes slid off to one side along her smooth, frictionless body.

Chapter 19: It seems the trouble has only just begun.

With its pale green, translucent body fully exposed to the glowstone light, Lyme slowly walked into the pool.

The pool water was clear and cool, and a large underground river flowed through it, casting shimmering light on the rock wall above.

Lyme slowly sank to the bottom of the pool, and the mouse girls had already marked the location of the waterwheel shaft below with stones.

She moved the stone aside and placed her hands on the marked spot.

The strong acid seeped into the rock strata, and Lyme's hands, carrying the water, slowly sank deep into the rock.

The maid mouse immediately turned around and scurried down the mine shaft again, disappearing into the winding tunnel once more.

In the cave below, Morren and the carpenter rats all looked up, gazing at the dark vertical shaft above the waterwheel.

The cave was so quiet that the only sound was the gentle flow of the underground river.

A deep rumble came from the depths of the shaft.

A large amount of air was squeezed out of the shaft, whistling and sweeping across the entire cave.

The wind blew so hard that the fluorite lanterns shook violently, and the mouse girls covered their ears.

Immediately afterwards, a loud bang.

A column of water carrying immense potential energy crashed down from the pool above, crashing through the shaft opening.

It struck the water turbine blades with a deafening roar.

"I've gone around in circles."

"Won't the bottom flood?"

The carpenter mouse looked at the increasingly large flow of water and became somewhat worried.

"Don't worry, the diameter of the shaft was calculated by the Baron. It can easily drain away and won't flood here."

The water turbine rotates steadily, driving the gear set and drive shaft, which are connected to the redesigned power generation unit by Morren.

In the pool beneath the waterwheel, Lyme slowly rose from beneath the surface of the water column, only his two eyes showing.

Molen squatted by the pool and stretched out his hand.

Lem stared at the hand for a moment, then placed his wet palm on it.

The carpenter mice also ran up and formed a circle.

"Miss Lyme is amazing, she got the water flowing right away."

"You've worked hard."

Molen smiled with satisfaction.

Things are going to get better.

-----------------

Molen gave a forced smile.

Things are going to get bad.

In the open space in front of the gate of Dwarf Mountain City, the rat girls and the lemmings of the caravan huddled together, crying their hearts out.

We've spent these past few days fighting fungal corpses, soaking in hot springs, and building rafts together, and we've developed some bond over time.

Will you come again next time?

"Come on in, I brought you something delicious."

"Pinky promise!"

On the other hand, the catgirls' farewells were much more casual.

Jimmy lay contentedly on a crate full of copper ingots, sprawled out like a cat pancake, with an expression of blissful happiness that made him almost die.

Several cats sat lazily on the unicorn, waving at the mice below.

"Goodbye, little mice, I'll miss you."

The extremely annoying envoy, Chesie, sat on the back of the giant rat, with her taciturn guard beside her.

One-Eyed kept his eyes fixed on Morren, a meaningful smile playing on his lips.

Moran mentally gave her the middle finger, but still politely said aloud:

"Please convey my regards to Her Majesty the Queen on my behalf, Your Excellency."

The caravan's lanterns gradually disappeared into the distance, extinguishing one by one in the eternal darkness of the lightless zone.

Molen's smile vanished, replaced by an extremely serious expression.

Although they managed to get the timber sorted out and even made a leap forward in securing electricity, the most critical problem seemed to remain unsolved.

In fact, the most critical problem hasn't even started yet.

He didn't think the one-eyed envoy had any sense of humor; she had informed the fox that she would take over the trade route, so it was bound to happen.

Once the cat-and-mouse caravan leaves this time, the next news will be that slave traders will cut off the supply of goods.

Oh no, there won't be any news.

The inhabitants of the dark zone will only discover, three months from now, that the caravan that was supposed to arrive has not shown up.

When they are exhausted and desperate, they will find those foxes smiling as they visit with loan sharks and slave-catching pitchforks.

Any settlement attempting to fend for itself will be directly attacked by foxes.

After all, these guys have the right to maintain commercial order granted by the kingdom, and those who dare to resist will even face the kingdom's iron army.

All of the above are just Molen's conjectures, but based on his experience dealing with those foxes, the actual situation is probably even worse.

Even if Jimmy comes back to transport copper, the foxes won't easily allow her to bring supplies to Dwarf Mountain.

Winter will begin in two months, and disaster will follow in four months.

Before that, the problems of food and weapons must be fully resolved.

"Is what I asked for ready?"

The foreman rat next to Molen puffed out his chest:

"Completely ready."

The workers' kitchen was steaming hot, with several large iron pots placed on the stove.

The mine rats busied themselves in the stove area, adding firewood to the firebox and lifting the pot lid to check the contents of the bags.

Steam was billowing out from the gaps in the pot lid, and it smelled like a piece of wet mud being roasted over a fire.

It smells like wet mud, and it is indeed wet mud, made from a mixture of soil and sawdust in a certain proportion.

The miner wiped the sweat from its brow with its sleeve, turned to its companion beside it, and asked:

How much longer do we need to steam it?

"The Baron said it has to be steamed for eight hours."

How long is eight hours?

There was no clock tower on the hill, so the mice had no way to keep accurate time. The two mice looked at each other and both showed blank expressions.

"Anyway, it'll be done when the shift changes."

The steamed sand was spread out to cool to a temperature that was not too hot to handle, and then shoveled into burlap sacks.

Then, the rat girls, in pairs, huffed and puffed as they carried the rats into the surface mine pit, stacking them neatly along both sides of the mine tunnel.

Other rat girls carefully approached, carrying a pile of earthenware jars, each containing a small portion of solidified meat jelly, undoubtedly contributed by Jimmy.

In the very center of each jar of meat jelly, there is a small white nutrient mushroom block, from which some mycelium spreads.

"What exactly does the Baron want?"

"Steaming wood chips in a pot, then stuffing them with moldy meat jelly?"

"You're asking me? I should be asking you. The Baron must have his reasons for doing this."

The rat women whispered among themselves, but still placed the earthenware jars one by one next to the burlap sack.

Molen crouched down, drew a dagger from his waist, and cut open one of the bags of steamed sand. He rubbed the sand at the bag opening with his fingertips; the particles were loose and even, and the sand felt very clean.

Medieval bumpkins certainly wouldn't know what microorganisms are. Their methods for growing mushrooms were mostly extremely simple and crude: find a few pieces of wood, chop them a few times, sprinkle some horse manure on them, and then leave it to fate—whether it grows mold or mushrooms depends entirely on luck.

Concepts like sterilization, purification, and culture media won't be proposed for another four or five hundred years.

Sterilizing the substrate and using mycelium blocks instead of spores for inoculation is not difficult to do, and the principle is also very simple.

However, without understanding the basic principles, these methods are at best just secret recipes discovered by a lucky person by chance, passed down from generation to generation without anyone knowing why they work.

This is the difference in perspective.

Molen wasn't quite sure what the secret recipe was for the wolf girls at Wolfsburg to grow nutrient-rich mushrooms.

After all, Wolfsburg only sells finished dried mushrooms, and fresh, nutritious mushrooms are only occasionally found in dangerous areas like fungal forests, which naturally creates an information barrier.

However, as long as mushrooms are still a type of fungus, there are only a few ways to cultivate them, and you can try different combinations to find the best methods.

Ok……

Molen held the sand in his hand and glanced at the clump of white fungus in the earthenware pot next to him.

It must be a fungus, right?

Chapter 20 In short, let's not build guns yet (4K long chapter)

The rat girls, with pained expressions, stuck their shovels into the layer of white soil beneath their feet.

The white clay is only an inch or two thick on the surface, soft and dry, so it doesn't take much effort to shovel it.

But the black mud layer that was revealed after the white soil was removed was terrifying.

It was rotten and sticky, emitting a foul and pungent odor.

It was as if rotting corpses and excrement had been fermented together for two and a half years, and the stench was so strong that you could almost see the air distorting.

"It stinks."

Breathe through your mouth, exhale, inhale.

"Ugh, this smell is making my eyes water!"

"Quickly shovel, quickly shovel."

The rat girls endured their nausea while speeding up.

After shoveling twice, you have to turn your head and take a deep breath of relatively fresh air, hold your breath, and then come back to continue shoveling.

The shoveled white soil was thrown onto the burlap spread out next to it, forming a small white mound.