Preparing the Tools

I had been forcibly dragged back to the shack, left to ponder exactly why my previous attempt at an axe had ended in such a failure.

The process had been identical to the one I used for Fee’s Dagger. The only difference was the amount of Enchantment Magic I had poured into it. Perhaps I should try embedding the Magic Stones directly, similar to the method used for the warehouse?

I picked up a stray Magic Stone rolling around the floor and imbued it with a Sharpness Reinforcement enchantment. The issue remained that I lacked the necessary tools to actually mount the stone.

Ever since I had been ordered to lie down, Fee had been watching me like a hawk, ensuring I didn't try to sneak back to work.

"Lord Yuri, you aren't going to run away again, are you?"

"I'm fine, Fee. I'm not going anywhere. I’m resting, just like you wanted."

I discreetly slid the Magic Stone I’d been holding under the covers of my futon.

"More importantly, you’ve been working just as hard. You should take a break too, don't worry about me."

Fee narrowed her eyes, her gaze flat and skeptical. She knows. She knows the second she leaves, I’m heading back out to finish that axe.

She was right, of course.

"Haaa... fine," Fee sighed. "Fee will rest, too."

To my shock, she crawled right into the futon beside me.

"Wait—what!?"

"Is there a problem?" she asked, her voice muffled.

She was petite enough that she didn't actually take up much space, but still—

"No... nothing's wrong."

"Then hurry up and sleep."

And so, under the watchful eye of my bodyguard, I was forced into an early night's rest.

---

"It’s morning!"

I slipped out of the shack with the first rays of dawn, stretching my stiff limbs in the crisp air.

"Alright, today’s the day—"

"If you collapse again, I’m locking the door from the outside," a voice chirped from behind me.

"I’ll... keep it within reason," I promised.

In truth, the list of tasks was staggering. There was a limit to what I could accomplish alone; trying to reconstruct this entire village by hand would take years. Under normal circumstances, that might be acceptable, but I didn't have the luxury of time.

The Lousauth family was destined to perish by my eighteenth birthday. I had eight years left. Only eight.

I needed to organize my priorities. First on the list: water and sewage. Clean Water was a basic necessity, and for the sake of long-term hygiene, a proper drainage system was essential. There was a river nearby; I just needed to dig a canal to bring the flow into the village.

Then there were the defenses. This was a dangerous frontier, and Monsters could strike at any moment. The simple moat I’d dug would only stop small-fry. Based on the reports I’d heard, there were much larger threats in the area. To truly protect this land, I would eventually need to encircle the entire settlement with walls and turn it into a Fortress City.

That would require immense structural integrity, meaning I’d have to use magic to reinforce the stone. But that would take days—weeks, even—that I didn't have yet. For now, the moat would have to suffice.

I also needed fields for crops, houses for the villagers, and eventually, more people to fill them. And through all of this, I needed to earn enough merit to secure my independence.

The scale of it is overwhelming. No, focus. One step at a time.

"First, I need to make the tools so everyone else can actually help with the labor."

I started with the internal structure. Using Transmutation, I shaped a slightly undersized axe head from stone, then coated it in a thin, stretched layer of Magic Stone. I then layered more stone over that coating until it reached a standard size. Finally, I carved a small indentation into the center of the blade and embedded an enchanted Magic Stone into the slot.

"Let's see if this works."

During the warehouse construction, I’d learned that Magic Stone Thread could act as a conductor, allowing Magic Power to flow through multiple stones at once. I had applied that logic here, wrapping the entire inner head in Magic Stone to ensure the enchantment's effect permeated the whole tool. To prevent the brittle magic material from shattering on impact, I’d reinforced it with an outer shell of common stone.

The moment the Sharpness Reinforcement stone clicked into place, the axe seemed to pulse with a faint light.

"Time for a field test. Fee, could you go get Fritz?"

"On it."

Once Fee was out of sight, I immediately got to work on the next set of prototypes.

---

"There's more of them..."

Fee had returned, and she looked thoroughly exasperated. Spread out before me were a newly minted hoe and a shovel.

"They're all essential," I argued. "If Fritz is going to be our test pilot, I might as well have him try the whole set."

Fritz looked at the pile warily. "...These are normal tools this time, right?"

"Entirely normal," I lied.

"Which means they aren't normal at all," he sighed, reaching for the axe.

He stepped toward a nearby tree and gave it a tentative swing. The blade passed through the trunk like a hot wire through butter. There was almost no resistance, no vibration—just a clean, silent arc.

But the axe didn't stop there. The sheer force of the swing translated into a shockwave that extended from the blade, slicing through the air and toppling the three trees standing directly behind the first.

"Perfect. The Sharpness Reinforcement is even better than I imagined. Now we just have to see how long it lasts."

"..."

Fritz didn't say a word. He stood there, face pale, staring back and forth between the stone tool in his hand and the small forest he had just accidentally cleared.

"Ready to try the hoe?" I asked.

"Wait a damn minute! Are you seeing this?! This is insane!"

"It’s just a tree, Fritz. It’s the same as yesterday."

In the original game, axes were viable weapons. There was even a high-tier skill called Earth Splitter. I figured if a game character could do it, an axe in this world should be able to handle a little lumberjacking.

"Fee, back me up here! Tell him he's crazy!" Fritz pleaded.

Fee stepped forward and examined the tool. "The handle is stone. It’s hard to grip."

"Ah, good point. I didn't consider the ergonomics."

"That's not the problem!" Fritz screamed. "The sharpness is wrong! This shouldn't be possible with stone!"

"Well, if you want anything better, I'll need iron. Stone has its limits."

"I'm telling you it cuts too much! This isn't an axe anymore! Is this really just a rock?"

"I mean, there's a bit of Magic Stone inside to boost the Sharpness Reinforcement..."

"Then this is a Magic Axe!"

I frowned. I knew of weapons called Magic Axes from the game's lore. The Magic Axe Mirna, for instance—a legendary tool of a god that possessed the Lightning Attribute, a massive Anti-Demon Effect, and the highest Attack Power in the game. Compared to a legendary relic like that, my stone tool was a toy.

"It's just a Stone Axe, Fritz. Don't overthink it."

If I could mass-produce the most powerful weapons in the game this easily, the entire balance of the world would collapse. It was a terrifying thought, so I pushed it aside. It couldn't be that simple.

"Is... is the rest of this stuff like that too?" Fritz asked, his voice trembling. He picked up the shovel and, for some reason, swung it with all his might against a tree trunk.

The shovel didn't cut. It was a shovel, after all.

"DAAAGH!" Fritz howled as the recoil rattled his bones. He clutched his numbed arms, face contorted in pain.

"Why would you try to cut a tree with a shovel?" I asked, genuinely confused.

"I don't know anymore!" he snapped.

I hadn't put any cutting enchantments on the shovel. Instead, I’d focused on Earth Specialization and Physical Ability Improvement. It was designed for digging, not combat.

"Since you have it in your hand, why don't you go tidy up the moat?"

The current moat was a mess of uneven depths and jagged edges. It worked, but it was an eyesore. If I was going to rule this territory, I wanted it to look professional.

"Fine," Fritz muttered, looking relieved that the shovel hadn't decapitated the tree. "I won't know what it does until I use it for its real job anyway."

He hopped down into the trench and jammed the shovel into the dirt. The tool glowed. A split second later, a concentrated beam of light erupted from the spade. It didn't explode; it simply erased a perfectly cylindrical section of earth.

Fritz stood in the newly deepened trench and turned a dead-eyed stare toward me.

"...Do you have anything you'd like to say, Lord Yuri?"

"It only affected the earth," I noted. "So it’s definitely a shovel."

"Shovels do not fire beams of light! Is this a legendary artifact!?"

"It’s a normal shovel with an Earth Specialization stone!"

"Go back to school and look up the word 'normal'! This is the opposite of that!"

"But it's efficient," I countered. "We're short-staffed. We have to make up for the lack of manpower with better tools."

Fritz opened his mouth to argue, then hesitated. "...I suppose that makes sense."

Fee tugged on my sleeve. "I want a weapon like that, too."

"You sure? It'll still be made of stone for now."

"I want it."

"Alright. I'll see what I can do."

"Yay," Fee whispered, raising her hands in a rare show of excitement.

Fritz watched her, then looked down at the shovel in his hands. He gripped it tightly. "I want a weapon too! Give me something like... this!"

"You can use that shovel as much as you like, Fritz."

"No, I meant—"

"Or the axe? You're the only one strong enough to use it properly anyway. It's yours."

"I... uh... thanks."

Fritz looked like he was on the verge of tears. He had the most powerful tools in the region, yet as he trudged back to work, he carried the heavy, slumped shoulders of a man who had lost his soul.