Exiled Villainess: They Threw Me Out, Now Every Beastman Wants Me novel Chapter 106

Chapter 106: The Sticky Problem

A few of the males had been frustrated when digging along certain paths of the second channel.

Some of their hoes kept getting stuck in the soil, and the earth they pulled looked different from the rest. It was darker, denser, and clung to the tool in thick, sticky clumps.

It was clay-rich soil. Not pure clay, but heavy, malleable earth with a plasticity that ordinary dirt didn’t have. When she squeezed it, it held its shape.

Tera’s pulse jumped with excitement.

Clay was so precious, and it was an answer to a number of existing problems she already had. But when she assessed how much was actually there, her excitement dimmed.

The clay-rich patches were scattered and thin, sitting in narrow veins within the deeper layers rather than in accessible deposits. What they had found wouldn’t be enough for both channels and the pot making, but it was an appropriate amount.

Tera had another female help her carefully separate the clay-rich soil from the regular earth as the males continued digging, setting it aside in a growing but modest pile. She instructed the diggers to watch for the same dark, sticky soil in other sections and set it aside whenever it appeared.

Some sections yielded nothing. Others produced small pockets that added to the collection. By the time the second channel was finished and compacted, Tera had a respectable but limited supply of clay sitting near the settlement, carefully stored under a layer of silk leaves to keep it moist.

It would have to be used wisely.

And just like that, the second channel was finished within the first half of the third month.

It had taken this long because digging was only part of the work. Once both channels were dug, Tera had the males go back and thoroughly compact the walls and floor of every section. The soil needed to be packed hard and dense to prevent the walls from softening and collapsing after rain.

The compacting took even more time than the digging had.

The males used flat stones, their own feet, and even their beast forms to press the earth down until it was firm and unyielding. It was monotonous, backbreaking work that tested everyone’s patience, and Tera felt guilty watching them do it while she supervised from the side.

But they weren’t grumpy. That surprised her the most. She had expected complaints, resistance, and the kind of low-level mutiny that came from asking people to do something tedious for days on end.

Instead, the males took their resting periods, went out to hunt during the breaks Tera scheduled, and came back to compact more earth without being asked twice.

Tera had given up hope of finishing the task long before the deadline. It was going to take the time it took, and rushing would only lead to mistakes that cost more time to fix. As long as she finished before the penalty activated, she could live with that.

Now that the channels were prepared, next came another problem.

And it was one Tera had been dreading since the channels were first planned.

Bare earth absorbed water. It was one of the most basic things she knew, and it was the single biggest obstacle standing between her and a functioning water system. If she filled these channels now, the water would seep into the soil and vanish long before it reached the settlement.

She needed something to line the inside of both channels. It had to be waterproof and durable enough to hold up over time.

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This problem bled into the fourth month of the project, and it nearly drove Tera insane.

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