Chapter 126: Standing Water
Kalli made her way along the wall, checking on all the turrets. Some of them needed to be shifted a bit so they could anchor themselves securely again, but none of them had been completely dislodged.
There were a few dents, and they were heavily scratched on the surface, but they had closed the protective cover over their lens at the first signs of damage, and every turret informed her that it was fully operational.
In the distance, the forest was in rough shape, with visible patches of the foliage downed by the winds. But the ash plains looked much less like the soft ash dunes they had been, and much more like a gravel beach.
The ash had been driven away by the wind, or compacted by the rain, and by Kalli’s best guess, the next storm wouldn’t have the same damaging ash storm to start it.
According to the recording devices on the turrets, what they had suffered was a sustained wind of 235 kilometres an hour, making it a solid category 4 Typhoon. Not enough to top the charts, but damaging enough for Kalli.
At least their buildings had survived, even if they were going to have to find a way to repair them quickly.
Typhoons usually led to a few clear days, but if they were in Typhoon season, there would be more rain again soon. Even one full week to repair the buildings to withstand storms like they had just seen would be a lot to ask for.
While the ash was no longer their major threat, the number of magma corrupted monsters didn’t appear to have reduced at all.
They were still clustered in groups, mostly dug into the ground for security against the wind. But some were upright and starting to move about again.
And then there was the moat.
It had seemed like a great plan at the time, but now the floodwaters had breached the top and washed out the ends, so what they had was actually a branch of the river that had been carved off the main river to their south, and now flowed around the south side of the Academy’s outer perimeter wall before heading for the ocean near where they were fishing.
That might actually work out for the best.
They could follow the river to the ocean to fish if there was nothing to catch in the flowing water, and it would provide them some backup water for crops.
The shifting ash had changed the topography of the area in subtle ways, and she was going to have to update her maps again over the next few days. One more thing for the list. Not the worst outcome, though.
The ash was visibly shallower now, as so much had been blown away from their region, but not replaced, as the winds were coming in over the water for the first half of the storm.
Kalli had just finished updating her notes on what she could see from the walls when Temple came jogging over to her with a pair of large men from the apartments.
"Coordinator, I don’t suppose that you have home improvement supplies?"
Kalli smiled. "What do you need? I was thinking of having a team redo the exterior with stucco, so it would better resist the next storm."
"If you have roofing tar as well, that would be great. We’ve got more gravel than we’ll ever use, but we need the tar to seal the roof. And then if you’ve got some protective paint, we will order that too.
It will seal and protect the paint. And we’ll need it for the stucco as well."
Kalli did a store search for roofing tar, hoping that it was in there now that being level five had expanded her inventory.
1 Point {Tar Paper} Must be applied with heat
1 Point {Multipurpose asphalt tar} solid block, 50kg
"Well, it looks like the roofing supplies are relatively inexpensive. So, if we have the technology, we now have the materials to redo the roof of the apartments.
I will deliver them straight to the apartment, so you don’t have to carry them the whole way.
Now, for the paint."
1 point {CARC system primer} 5 gallons
1 point {CARC system paint} 5 gallons
1 Point {Rubberized Acrylic Elastomer Paint} Impact resistant exterior paint, commercial grade. 10 gallons
1 Point {Latex interior paint} Mildew resistant interior paint. 10 gallons
"Well, that’s a lot of options. I don’t think that we actually need military grade chemical resistant paint to do the entire building. The thought is amusing, but the rubberized acrylic should be durable enough for ash storms and most other situations.
If we put a fresh layer of concrete over the walls, it should be more than enough to protect us from another storm, and we will upgrade the roof so that it won’t leak in another storm like this.
It’s just a matter of making a lot more storm shutters.
We have the dead fall in the forest to collect and process, so we’re not short on materials. As long as we can find a sawmill. One of the men said that they can do it with a chainsaw and some pipe, so I’ll trust him."
Kalli checked the store, then laughed as she saw the chainsaw options.
[Mana Chainsaw] 1 Point. 60cm blade, tungsten carbide teeth.
[Mana Chainsaw, Horror Movie Edition] 1 point. 45cm blade, long teeth optimized for cutting flesh and bone.
Oh, now they were onto something. Chasing monsters around with a chainsaw sounded like something that the warriors would consider a lot of fun, no matter how ridiculous it was.
[ Like the Cape Cormac Chainsaw Massacre movie, but in real life. ] Kalli laughed to herself, thinking of the B tier low-budget slasher flick that she had watched dozens of times in her past life.
A few of the chainsaws to break up larger monsters might be a decent investment, if it wasn’t for the fact that the warriors could do it with a single sword skill.
Now, they were mostly just a novelty, or a construction tool as they were intended to be.
So, she bought a dozen of them, for the teams cutting lumber, and for the sawmill project to cut planks for the storm shutters. It would be much more efficient for the constructions teams than the hand tools that they had with them now, though the warriors could split trees faster with skills.