NOVEL NEXT Ch. 30
Chapter 30: Dimensionality Reduction Strike
Bernagli
A village at the foot of a mountain
From a common wooden courtyard came bursts of shouting.
Upon approaching, one would see an old man and a young man frantically pulling a saw blade around a tree trunk as thick as a man’s embrace.
The long saw slowly cut inward under their coordinated effort.
After working hard for over half an hour, the two finally stopped to rest.
The young man panted heavily, his weakened arms trembling as he lifted a cup of water—this was a sign of exhaustion.
After pausing to catch his breath, he finally managed to bring the cup to his lips and gulped down several mouthfuls.
The old man, also drinking water, shook his head with a sigh as he watched: “Hah, you can’t even handle this bit of work. How will you ever take over from me in the future?”
The young man pulled a bitter face at these words: “Dad, this tree trunk is too thick! Pulling the saw has made my arms ache to death. And we still have to saw through it several more times...”
The old man, finishing his water, replied slowly: “Since when does work not take effort? If it doesn’t take effort, doesn’t bring hardship, then why would anyone pay you money for it?”
“Once we finish this set of furniture for Master Amike, our family will finally have enough money to find you a wife. Without this craft, how else would that be possible?”
At this, the old man’s tone carried the weight of disappointment.
Carpentry was skilled work, it brought in good money, far better than tilling the fields for nobles.
Yet this boy complained about everything.
“Had enough rest? If so, get up and get back to work! If we don’t finish sawing today, nothing else can be done, and the deadline won’t be met.”
Just as the old man urged the youth to resume, quite a few neighbors walked past their door, as if drawn by something.
The young man, curious, called out across the yard to a familiar face: “Hey! Watt, where are you all going?”
“Lord Nuerman is hiring! Work in a woodworking shop, and the pay’s pretty good! No time to talk—I’ve got to see if I can get chosen.”
“What? A woodworking shop?! Dad!”
The youth quickly turned to look at his father.
At this, the old man couldn’t care less about the task at hand—he pushed open the door and followed along.
The words “woodworking shop” clearly related to their own craft.
How could they not investigate? The youth hurried after his father.
Before long, the two followed the crowd and arrived at the gathering point.
At the edge of the village stood a small platform, where someone loudly announced hiring requirements and wages.
Indeed, it was clear—they sought workers for a woodworking shop.
The old man snorted coldly upon hearing: “They don’t even want experienced craftsmen, only young men? Carpentry is that easy? This is a skilled trade!”
While the old man’s attention was fixed on the speaker, the youth noticed something unusual.
The crowd was not only gathered here—people were also clustered elsewhere, looking at something.
Curious, he squeezed through with the others until he reached the front and finally saw what everyone was staring at.
It turned out that this was the woodworking shop hiring workers.
At this moment, someone was loudly hawking wooden stools and tables at the side.
If Mitia had been here, she too would have exclaimed in surprise.
Using recruitment benefits to attract onlookers, then selling goods to the crowd—that kind of business tactic was truly wasted in this world~
The man’s sales pitch was nearly finished.
The youth hadn’t caught the prices yet, but his eyes were already drawn to the workers inside the shop.
This building had long seen people carrying things in and out, but it turned out to be a woodworking shop.
“With so many employees and still hiring, their furniture prices must be higher than ours. We don’t need to worry,” the old man said with certainty as he squeezed in beside his son.
After all, their small family shop needed only two people, while that place had to pay so many wages.
Surely their costs were lower, and thus their prices would be cheaper.
Nothing to worry about.
Yet just as he said this, a shrill sound erupted from within the shop.
The old man stared—and nearly had his eyeballs pop out.
Two young men lifted a log onto an iron table.
Without them doing much else, the iron table’s spinning blade roared to life with a piercing screech, biting deeply into the log amid flying sawdust.
As the pair pushed forward, the log was cleanly split in two.
One of them then rotated a half-log, adjusted it, and pushed it against the blade again.
After several passes, the rough log had been turned into neat, uniform planks.
The crowd gasped in shock, and the old man and youth stood wide-eyed, disbelieving.
They thought of the log back home that had nearly exhausted them to death.
Then they looked at the ease with which these men worked, and the youth couldn’t help but glance suspiciously at his father.
“...Furniture made this way is too rough! Look at the ones on display out front—so square and plain, ugly things,” the old man said, though his voice lacked conviction.
He quickly shifted attention back to see what else the shop could do.
The more he saw, the colder his heart grew.
The woodworking shop had not just one of these strange machines, but many, each with different functions.
There were cutters, drillers, polishers...
different machines for different tasks.
A few workers handled each step, producing piles of identical wooden components.
Finally, teams of workers assembled the parts into chairs and stools, stacked them, and set them aside for drying and varnishing.
Watching one corner of the yard fill with furniture, the old man realized that was more than he and his son could make in a month.
Just then, the salesman on the platform announced the prices again.
When the old man heard the numbers, his legs gave out and he collapsed against his son.
For the prices of those mass-produced wooden goods were twenty times lower than their own!
“Dad? Dad! Hey, someone help, my dad has fainted!”
The crowd burst into commotion.
No one noticed the house at the back of the workshop, from which black smoke billowed.
Inside, two slaves, drenched in sweat and covered in soot, desperately fed wood and strange fuels into a roaring furnace.
What burned there was none other than Mitia’s modified steam engine.
She had dismantled the magical crystal system and restored it to its original boiler-fueled form.
Of course she knew charcoal and firewood caused pollution, that energy conversion was inefficient, that fuel consumption was immense.
But this was exactly the effect she wanted~
After all, the steam engine’s output was more than enough to keep the workshop running, as long as the fuel supply was maintained.
Was that so unreasonable?
Anyway, Lord Nuerman thought the Astal territory was very thoughtful, knowing how to help him lower costs.
At this moment, Viscount Nuerman sat in his manor, calculating how to use this “divine tool” he had pulled strings to obtain, to build more workshops and make full use of it.