I Transmigrated Into A Fantasy World To Farm And Build Houses!-Chapter 271: Starting to Paint the Future Again
"Little Patriarch, why havenโt I seen you go out today?"
From afar, before anyone had even appeared at the courtyard gate, Baluโs booming voice arrived first. ๐ง๐๐๐๐คโฏ๐๐๐ฐ๐ฃโฏ๐ญ.๐คโด๐ฎ
Eric happily raised the rolling pin and jumped up: "Balu, why are you here? Arenโt you learning how to dig wells?"
As soon as he finished speaking, Balu stepped in, looking with surprise at the basins filling the yard:
"Oh, the digging for that well is finally done. The Dwarves are installing the water pumping equipment; we donโt understand that stuff anyway, so weโll just exchange food with you guys for it when the time comes."
He lifted the lid of a basin to check, saying in surprise:
"Why is there so much dough? Are you planning to make delicious food for us personally again? Why not do it at the cafeteria? The stove is bigger there, saving you the trouble of doing it in the courtyard. Itโs lucky thereโs no wind today, otherwise, it would have blown soil into the dough."
"Is the digging finished already?"
Eric recalled the progress of the well digging. Thatโs right, Dwarves plus Snow Wolves, who naturally like digging, made this speed seem reasonable.
"In a few days, there will be several more wells in the tribe. You can come and see them then if you want."
The Snow Wolves and the Horned Goats both had to build new houses. With free time these past few days, Thomas let everyone choose the location for their new homes and mark them. Bricks couldnโt be used to build houses yet, but water wells could be dug in advance.
It was certainly impossible for every household to have a well, as underground water veins werenโt present everywhere. Those who were lucky could dig a well; those without a water vein would just have to go to another house to get water.
This didnโt affect anything. Eric remembered when he was young, before he had running water, people in the village also went to houses with wells to get water like that.
He still remembered his grandmotherโs house had a well. Every day, neighbors would laugh and carry buckets over to get water, gathering to chat while they were at it. Some people even brought snacks from their homes for Eric. In short, his childhood was very happy.
The Snow Wolves were still not used to having a private courtyard like Ericโs. In their eyes, this was completely redundant... If they werenโt afraid of him getting angry, perhaps everyone wouldnโt have bothered with the gate and would have just stepped over the wall into the yard, saving bricks on building walls in the process.
Eric was quite speechless about this point. Sometimes he didnโt know whether to suspect himself or the Snow Wolves. After thinking it through, he discovered that walls really had no effect on Snow Wolves. How high would he have to build to stop them? And if it were too high, it would block the sunlight.
The Dwarves didnโt like building courtyards either.
They were used to communal living. When everyone was forging weapons or other tools, if they encountered difficulties, they only needed to step out to find a clansman for help. Adding a courtyard was truly too inconvenient, making Eric look like an outlier.
In short, although the well veins in the Hadu tribe werenโt numerous, fortunately, everyone didnโt have courtyards, so it was convenient for anyone to get water.
Balu chuckled a few times: "Alright, if I watch a few more times, Iโll remember it better."
"Right, itโs good that youโre here. My arms are about to give out; hurry up and help me make cakes. I plan to turn all this dough into flatbreads. In a few days, Max and the others will bring Mat back to the tribe; they can take these along to eat."
As if granted amnesty, Eric stuffed the rolling pin from his hand into Baluโs.
"Flatbreads? Is it like the stuffed buns?" Balu recalled the stuffed buns Eric had shared with him; that was the first time he had eaten such delicious food.
"Not quite like that. Flatbreads donโt have filling. While filling makes it tastier, it doesnโt keep for long, so itโs not convenient as dry rations." Eric thought for a moment before answering.
Balu, half-understanding, took the rolling pin to help.
The dough on the cutting board had already been rolled into a large round sheet. Eric handed him a brush and told him to dip it in oil paste and spread it evenly over the surface of the dough.
Although he didnโt know why this was done, Balu trusted the Little Patriarchโs skills, so he obediently followed instructions.
"Roll it up, right, right, just roll it from this side to the other like that..." Eric finally didnโt have to work anymore, massaging his shoulders while teaching Balu how to make the bread.
The dough was rolled into a long log. Eric took out the fish-scale knife he hadnโt used in a long time and divided the dough into small, equal pieces.
He demonstrated by taking a piece of dough and pinching the edges on both sides tightly so the oil paste wouldnโt leak out.
Balu followed suit, pinching each piece of dough tightly, rounding them, and setting them aside.
"The flatbread dough needs to be a bit thick; that way it tastes good." Eric explained to Balu while rolling a piece of dough into a slightly thick round cake.
Balu imitated perfectly, rolling all the remaining dough pieces into round cakes, completely meeting Ericโs requirements.
"Very good, Balu, you really have talent, much better than Arthur."
Eric walked around satisfied, checking each one. Despite the Ox-Head tribe having silly-looking ox heads, their hands and feet were quite dexterous.
On the contrary, Arthur, such a delicate and handsome young man, was someone who ate like a dragon, spoke like a dragon, but worked like a vomiting cat.
Speak of the devil and he appears. The fool Arthur ran happily into the courtyard, holding several stacked stone basins in his hands: "Iโm done; can I learn to knead dough now?"
Eric sighed silently in his heart, pointed him to a spot, and dragged a bag of flour over to him:
"Do a little at a time. And with your strength, restrain yourself a bit. Look at the Ox-Head tribe; their strength isnโt any less than yours, so why donโt they break things?"
Arthur was in the wrong, and moreover, he never lost his temper with Eric, so he silently lowered his head.
He looked like a bullied person squatting there. Eric felt both annoyed and amused, and seeing the white handprint on Arthurโs forehead made him want to laugh even more.
"Well then, go knead the dough. Once you learn how to knead dough, Iโll teach you other things. In the future, you can make whatever you want to eat, whenever you want to eat it." Eric started using his "painting the future" skill again.
Arthur nodded happily, and Eric almost hallucinated a tail wagging incessantly behind him.
Eric summoned a stream of water to wash the stone basins Arthur brought back and used the wind to dry them. Arthur took them and carefully poured flour in.
Seeing that he was much more careful, Eric let him fiddle around by himself while he gathered the dough scraps that had fallen on the ground, waiting to take them to the farm to feed the chickens and ducks.
The middle of the courtyard had been cleaned up. The food previously buried in the snow had been hurriedly eaten by Eric, and what couldnโt be eaten was sent to the cafeteria. Now the yard was clean, unlike in winter when the whole yard was full of food, and simply digging up a pile of snow would reveal magical beast meat.
He released a large fireball in the open space, placed a large iron pan on it, then hugged a jar of lard from the kitchen and used a spatula to scoop some into the pan.
Balu brought the cutting board next to the iron pan. After the temperature in the pan rose and the lard melted, Eric used the spatula to spread the fat evenly over the panโs surface, then placed the cakes in one by one with Balu.
Eric was a bit taller now, but standing in front of the large iron pan, he still felt his arms were too short. If he baked the cakes himself, relying on his bare hands, he wouldnโt be able to place the cakes in the center; heโd either have to throw them or use a spatula. With the tall and large Balu there, this aspect saved a lot of work.
Leavened cakes had to wait until bubbles appeared on the top surface before they could be flipped. Using an iron pan to bake cakes was very fast; Balu took the spatula, his hand flipping the cakes as fast as lightning.
Arthur, whose hands were covered in sticky dough because he added too much water while kneading, smelled the aroma of the flatbreads and began to lose focus, looking toward Eric.
*Ah... What is the kid doing? Why does it smell so good?*
Arthur thought frantically. Clearly, he was a teenager himself, he didnโt dare call it out loud, but in his heart, he followed everyone in the Hadu tribe in calling him "the kid".
Thinking about other things, the sticky feeling on his hands made him even more uncomfortable. Unable to control his strength, the stone basin shattered into a pile again.
Fortunately, this time he grabbed the dough mass in time. Only, when he wanted to put the dough into another basin, he couldnโt get it off; if it didnโt stick to his left hand, it stuck to his right.
Eric carried a basin of cooked flatbreads past him, accidentally glanced over, and immediately burst out laughing.
...
Author: Suddenly, I find referring to the kid as just "Eric" (Dฦฐฦกng) without a surname quite nice, ladies. Iโm ditching his surname, what do you think?
