Transmigrating to the BeastWorld,I Picked Up an Adorable BeastHusband!-Chapter 60: Falling the trees

Weijie looked down at her, his pupils slightly dilated, a sign of the seasonal shift already beginning to affect his nervous system. He squeezed her hands back, his palms still radiating a heat that felt like a dying coal.

"You will not die." he said, his voice dropping into a register so low it was almost a growl of protective instinct. "I will not let the frost touch you. If you need the fire to stay awake while I sleep, then the mountain will give us its wood."

He looked toward the dense cluster of iron-oaks standing like ancient sentinels at the edge of the plateau. In his prime, he could have felled two of those in a day and dragged them up the slope without breaking a sweat. But today, even the act of standing straight seemed to require a conscious effort.

"I will bring them." he promised. "I will bring the iron-oak."

Ningning nodded, regardless she shouldn’t over work Weijie. She’d have him fall and chop off two trees per day.

She would need to build a pulley system so the chopped up wood is easier to carry.

"Let’s go to those trees."

To build a pulley, she needed rope and a rotating wheel, but as she scanned the rugged terrain, Doudou’s interface flickered a blueprint into her mind that looked much more efficient.

[Actually, Dumpling, a pulley is great for vertical lifting, but you’re moving weight across a slope. A wheelbarrow or a primitive heavy-duty cart would be a much better investment of Weijie’s remaining ’battery life.’ If we use a single-wheel design with a wide roller, he can push ten times the weight with half the effort.]

Ningning nodded, she guessed that it made sense.

"A wheelbarrow." Ningning murmured, her mind already racing through the physics. "Weijie, wait. We aren’t just dragging these. We’re going to build something to carry the wood for us."

Weijie tilted his head, his movements heavy and thick, but he followed her toward the edge of the iron-oak grove.

The air was getting sharper now, a biting chill that seemed to settle in the marrow of his bones.

"To build a wheelbarrow." she thought "I need a wheel. Doudou, what’s the most durable material here?"

[Scanning... You need a cross-section of a fallen hardwood tree for the wheel, Dumpling. A stone-age axle will snap if it’s too thin. Look at that fallen cedar over there; the trunk is seasoned and solid.]

Ningning pointed toward the massive, silvered trunk of a dead cedar. "Weijie, I need a slice of that. Thick as your arm, and as round as the moon. Can you do it?"

Weijie didn’t ask why. His devotion was a silent, steady engine. He stepped toward the cedar, his obsidian-edged axe gleaming in the pale sunlight.

With every swing, a heavy thwack echoed through the thinning forest. It took him longer than it would have a week ago; he had to stop to breathe, his chest heaving as his body fought the urge to slow down.

While he worked on the wheel, Ningning scavenged for the frame. She found two long, Y-shaped branches, sturdy oak that had been downed in a previous storm.

These would be the handles and the chassis.

By mid-afternoon, they had the components spread out on the frozen dirt.

A lumpy, wooden disc with a hole charred through the center, a fire-hardened axle made of mountain ash, and the V-shaped frame.

"We need grease," Ningning muttered, looking at the rough wood-on-wood joints.

"I don’t have any fat left to lubricate it. If we push this load, the wood will seize up and snap."

[Improvise, Dumpling] Doudou’s voice was crisp in her mind. [We need a lubricant. Do you have anything oily? Anything at all?]

Ningning scanned their meager supplies. Nothing. She looked around the forest floor.

[Look for pine sap.] Doudou suggested.

[It’s not grease, but if you mix it with water and ash, it creates a thick, tacky paste that might reduce the friction enough. Better yet, look for hardwood bark to line the joint. It’s slippery when wet.]

Ningning knew she couldn’t afford to waste time. Weijie was leaning heavily against a tree, his breathing shallow.

She had to get this cart built and get them back to the cave before the temperature plummeted further.

"We need sap," Ningning decided, her voice firm despite the cold. "If the axle breaks, we lose everything."

She left Weijie to rest against the cedar and hurried toward a cluster of towering pines, looking for the tell-tale amber drips of hardened resin.

Her fingers, already numb, scraped at the sticky substance, dropping the precious nuggets into her leather pouch.

[Hurry, Dumpling.] Doudou urged. [The thermal readings are plummeting.]

Ningning found a hollowed-out stone to act as a mortar, tossing in the sap, a handful of dry dirt, and a splash of water from her water pouch.

She mashed it with a heavy rock until it formed a thick, tacky sludge.

When she returned to the cedar, Weijie was sitting on the ground, his eyes closed.

"Weijie, wake up! We have to assemble this now!" she urged, shaking his shoulder.

He blinked, slow and dazed. "The wheel..."

She smeared the thick, sticky sap-paste heavily onto the oak axle and inside the hole of the wooden wheel.

It wasn’t perfect, but it was better than dry friction. Together, they jammed the axle through the wheel, fit the frame into place, and tied the raw rawhide strips tight.

"It creaks." Weijie muttered, pushing the barrow forward. It did..a harsh, grinding sound but it rolled.

"Weijie," she said, her voice sharp to keep him focused. "The barrow is ready. But the trees... we need them down now."

Weijie looked up at the towering iron-oaks.

To a human, they looked impossible. To a snake-beastman, even a tired one, they were a challenge to his strength. He gripped his obsidian axe, the black glass blade glinting like a predator’s eye.

Weijie approached the first oak.

He didn’t have the explosive power he’d had a week ago, but he had the weight.

He swung.

THWACK.

The sound was dull in the heavy, cold air.

He swung again.

THWACK.

Ningning didn’t just watch.

She knew that every second he spent swinging was a second of body heat he was losing.

"Doudou, where’s the weak point?" she thought. "I need him to cut this efficiently."

[Target the southwest side of the trunk, three feet up,] Doudou projected a faint, flickering grid over the bark in her mind.

[There’s a natural lean. If he notches it there, gravity will do forty percent of the work.]

"Weijie! Hit it here!" she pointed to the spot.

He adjusted his stance, his breathing coming in ragged, white plumes.

He carved a deep notch into the iron-hard wood. After an hour of grueling labor, the tree groaned. It was a deep, structural sound, the scream of wood fibers snapping.

"Get back!" Ningning screamed, grabbing his arm and pulling him away.

The iron-oak fell with a bone-shaking crash that seemed to vibrate through the very soles of her feet. The silence that followed was terrifying.

"One." Weijie rasped, leaning on his axe.

"Only... one."

"We need the sections, Weijie. Chop it into lengths that will fit the barrow. I’ll help you load."

The process was agonizingly slow.

While Weijie used the last of his explosive strength to section the trunk, Ningning used a heavy stone to bash off the smaller branches, clearing the way.

By the time they had the first tree sectioned and loaded into the wheelbarrow the sun was a mere sliver of gold on the horizon.

The wheelbarrow groaned under the weight, the sap-paste squealing as the wooden wheel turned.

It works." Weijie muttered, his hands trembling on the handles. "It... it moves."

[Tree count: 1 of 6.] Doudou noted.

[Current pace is too slow, Ningning. The temperature is dropping into the danger zone. I’m picking up those bipedal thermal signatures again. They’re circling. They’re watching the tree fall, it’s like a dinner bell for them.]

Ningning looked at the dark woods. She couldn’t see them, but she felt the eyes.

"Weijie, we can’t do all six today. We have to get this load back and seal what we can. We’ll come back at first light."

"No." Weijie said, his voice suddenly thick with a strange, primal authority. "The snow... I can smell it. If we do not fall the second one now, the wood will be buried. I will not let you freeze."

He turned toward the second tree, his eyes glowing with a desperate, fading light.

He swung the axe again, but this time, his hands slipped.

The obsidian blade nicked his palm, and dark, sluggish blood began to drip onto the white rime frost.

"Weijie!"

"I am fine." he growled, though his knees buckled slightly.