A single person is not worth much. He may be able to feed himself, may be able to cloth himself, may be able to shelter himself, and may be to protect himself. A group of people, whether that be a handful or an empire's worth, can do much more than the sum total of any individual. A village feeds a city. A farmer, a Carter, and a seamstress clothes a town. A lumberjack, a sawman, and a carpenter build houses and buildings. A Militia holds back the tide of destruction. And then a noble or lord takes all the credit. What can you do?

- Kuya Tio on Community, Kuya Tio’s Guide to a Healthy and Happy Homestead.

It was mid-morning when I heard a voice I didn't recognize. I hadn't caught what they said, but couldn't imagine it being anything other than “hello.” Walking down my crooked path was an Akumajin that at first I thought was possibly Hiroshi's son, but as they came closer, I realized it was a girl. She wore a tight sleeveless shirt, pants, and a slightly sun-worn smile. Her core muscles were well-defined and her arms were larger than mine. While she stood slightly shorter, she looked like she could beat the shit out of me.

"You Yuji?" She asked with a nod of her head, her face set in a half grin.

"Uh, yeah," I sounded just as confused as I felt. Come to think of it, Hiroshi and even Saito had never actually mentioned whether or not Nakamura's kid was male or female. The idea of a female carpenter however, was a bit odd.

"You need a house built, right?" She asked.

"Uh, yeah."

Her grin widened slightly, and I got the feeling she was enjoying this. She nodded past me with her chin and asked, "What's that supposed to be?"

I turned to look at what she was pointing out, but only saw the chicken coop I had been sleeping in. "Um, chicken coop?"

"Oh, is that what that's supposed to be?"

This bitch. What the hell?

"You weren't expecting a girl, were you?"

"Ah, no."

"Well, as far as I know, you need a house. Do you have a problem with a girl building it?"

I felt like this was a trap question, but honestly, I didn't have any answer other than, "No."

She chuckled. "You sound unsure."

"I don't have a problem with it."

She cocked an eyebrow, her grin never fading. "Oh, you still don't sound sure."

"Uh."

"I'm just messing with you, okay." She held an arm out to shake, and I took it. Her hands were a bit calloused, and her grip was possibly stronger than mine. “Lia Nakamura.”

“Yuji Han.”

She let go of my wrist and stepped up towards my side to face the same direction I was.

"Ok, Yuji. What did you have in mind?"

"I'm not really sure. I honestly can't afford a traditional farmhouse at the moment. I've also never lived in a traditional farmhouse, so I couldn't say if I would actually prefer it. I was thinking, something a bit smaller that I could expand on later?"

Lia nodded along with each point I made. "Not a bad option. Where do you wanna put it?"

"I was clearing a spot over by the trees there."

She looked where I was pointing and shook her head. "Kind of a terrible spot."

"Why?"

"Well, it's on the southmost side of the property against the trees. So in the winter, you're not gonna get any sun on it, which means you're gonna rely more on heating. In the summer, you might get a bit of shade, but it's not particularly good for cooling either. Though, I suppose we could make that work by putting more openings in the rear. You're gonna want the garden close to your house." She motioned towards my garden. "And it's not, and you can't see who's coming. On that note, you should probably repair your gate before it falls on somebody."

"Yeah, that's on my to-do list. So you're saying I should move the location of where my house goes?"

"Maybe, maybe not. You said you couldn't afford a farmhouse, there's always the possibility you might be able to afford one later in the future. So, building a house right where you would want to put a farmhouse would mean you'd have to tear it down. So if you stuck a small place over in that spot," she again motioned over to the spot I had prepared. "You could use it as a guest house or a bunkhouse for workers later on if you wanted."

"Huh? Ok. I'll have to think about that."

"So, what kind of features did you like?"

"Well, I definitely want a Doma and, uh, Horigotatsu."

She nodded her head in approval. "What about a heating system?"

"Uh, mass heater with a regular heater for backup."

She nodded to herself again. "Yes, that would probably be quite nice. So, no Irori?"

"I don't think so. No."

"What did you grow up in?"

"Uh, basic tenement."

"Ah," she said as if that explained everything. "Well, if you're comfortable with that, we could essentially build something that's a little deeper than a basic tenement. You could save up your money, and if you wanted to expand, you could essentially just increase the width or start on a farmhouse. Mass heater would do the heating job no problem and that certainly would be cheaper."

"So that's a good idea?"

She shrugged again. I honestly found her broad shoulders kind of intriguing. They were well defined, but still soft. "It depends on how you feel. It's your house; you have to live in it."

That was a very good point. I had absolutely no problems with the tenement, and I really didn't know much about the actual farmhouse. Maybe if I spent more time in Saito's place, I'd have the gist of it. "How much cheaper would the tenement cost?"

"Easily a fraction of a farmhouse. The rough structure alone is much simpler. You're gonna be doing some of the work. Yeah?"

"I hope so. I need to save money and it's not like I'm doing anything else other than tending the garden and the rice paddies right now."

"Okay. I'll run some numbers and make some sketches. I'll talk to you in two days."

"That works for me."

"Oh, and about your gate. If you're interested, I can basically bring you a new one, and we can get that replaced sooner rather than later."

"I am not opposed to that."

"Good, it's honestly rather concerning."

A couple of days later, Lia showed up with a Carabao-pulled cart that held everything needed to replace my broken gateway. She also had plans for several different options of housing, and I honestly wasn't upset with any of them. We worked together for the afternoon while discussing schedules and payment. She gave me a list of things I should try to accomplish before we were ready to actually start building, one of which was to widen my narrow passage from my gate to my actual property site so that she could get the carts of lumber in. We both had to deal with Militia training as she was one of the other girls I had seen on the field, and I had some duties in the village tending to the rice paddies. It sounded like she was gonna be giving me a list of things to do and letting me deal with the simple grunt labor while she only came by to do the actual construction things that I had no clue how to accomplish. That made a lot of sense to me, and it was gonna save me a buttload of money. When she left that day, I had a new gateway, a bit less money, and certainly a new appreciation for the woman herself. I watched her spaded tail sway as she walked off tugging at the Carabao leads. Originally, I felt a bit weird and possibly even intimidated by the muscular woman. but as she wandered off back home, I think I'm kind of into it. Lia is fun, cheery, and has a light, consistently teasing tone that makes her a joy to be around and talk to. It's not exactly like hanging out with one of the guys and also not exactly like hanging out with some demure girl. Honestly, it kind of reminded me of Kaori a bit. I shook my head and headed back to my property. I had a lot of work to do, and thinking about tight muscular women had better wait until after dinner.

***

Noodles?" Wei Lin asked as she came out from the trail that connected my property to Xiao's.

"Hells, yeah," Lia practically yelled as she jumped off the joist we had been working on and headed over to the table.

The table had technically been a suggestion by one of the Yin twins. I don't remember which one. Despite the rickety construction because my construction skills suck, it was quickly becoming one of my favorite spots. Just a couple of boards laid out over a few stumps and some rickety benches. Wei Lin set the large bowl on the table along with the smaller bowls for us to use and said she'd be right back with tea. My guess is Saito was forcing her to cook for us, still with some vain hope that I would find her to be perfect wife material and court the girl. However, now she was also feeding Lia.

"Oh, you gonna join us this time?" Lia asked with a wide grin.

Wei Lin froze in consideration. "I guess?"

"Great," Lia exclaimed while Wei Lin wandered back down the path. "You have the best neighbors."

I had to agree to that. I honestly had no idea where I would be without Saito, and by extension, Wei Lin. We got cleaned up as we waited for Wei Lin to come back with tea, and I sat down at the table on my rickety benches. I sat across from Lia, and Wei Lin sat to my left.

"Oh, yesterday's food was absolutely delicious. I loved every bite," Lia enthused to Wei Lin. "And you should sit with us more often."

My attention returned back to the house we've been working on while the girls chatted about food. The first day working on the place had been rather odd. We spent a lot of time trying to place large rocks. Lia had a few sticks that were a specific size and fit together in a way that created a perfect triangle. She used this to place the rocks, and we spent a lot of time digging and tamping down the dirt to get them in the right spots. After that, I had to hold up posts while she marked things. Then she went out cutting the bottoms of them while I cleared more brush. Once she had accomplished all the posts that sat on top of rocks, we mounted a line, and she drew and wrote on each of the posts, then put them back in the cart and took them home with her.

Stolen story; please report.

The posts came back several days later, notched in very specific ways with various holes and cuts in them. It made absolutely no sense to me until we actually started assembling it. It was really just a lot of her yelling at me to hold things in one spot or another while she beat it with a wooden mallet. At the end of the day, we had a structure. Not really a house per se, just like the bare skeleton of one.

Today's goal had been fitting in the floor joists, which are the boards that hold up the floor. I can't even quite describe it correctly. The one thing that truly gets me is so far we haven't used a single nail. We'd shove one board through a post, shove another board, notched specifically so they could go through both boards and the post. Then once everything was tight, Lia would take a drill, make a hole, then shove a dowel into it that was split on both ends, stick a wedge in both splits, and then cut the whole thing flush. The whole structure seemed pretty sturdy and it made me feel like I really screwed up on my chicken coop as well as the bench I was sitting on.

"Sounds good to me." Everything you've made so far has been delicious," Lia said before turning to me.

"What do you think?" I stared at her with a blank expression, having missed the whole conversation.

"Actually, it's my sister Yoko who's good at making the dumplings," Wei Lin said.

"Oh, you have a sister?"

It seemed strange to me that anyone would not know that Wei Lin had a sister, as most people in Sharinzhen proper were well aware of how Shinichi treated his wife. Then again, Lia is from Sharinzhen-6, and she possibly didn't spend a lot of time listening to gossip.

I spent the rest of the lunch trying to figure out what they were talking about. It really just seemed like Lia liked food. I suppose if I wanted to woo her, I'd have to learn how to cook. That thought caught me. Lia didn't do much construction because she was one person. Her father didn't have the back for lifting anymore, but most of the construction stuff just seemed to be holding stuff in place while the other person did things. Her and I were doing just fine building this house, and if we got together, we could probably run an actual carpentry business. She would be the brains of the operation, and I’d just be the big, dumb one, holding stuff in place and I guess cooking the meals. I'd have to get better at cooking though.

To be honest, I was still a little up in the air about whether or not I liked the fact that she was so muscular. At the same time, I had a hard time keeping my eyes off her butt and thighs. Other than food, I wondered what else she liked.

The next day's work threw me for just as much of a loop as the stones and odd cuts on the bottom of posts. Today, she showed up with a lot of planks. She showed me how to tie three of them together to form a triangular tube. Then we started a fire. She put the planks over the fire and told me to watch the color of the smoke and to speak up when I noticed the change. I did not notice a change.

"There you see, the color of the smoke changed?"

"Not really," I replied honestly.

"Do it enough times, and you'll get it. What happened is the fire ran out of uncharged wood to burn. Give it a couple more minutes and then take it off the fire." She pulled it out of the little fire, opened up the tube revealing blackened wood which was still on fire, then laid it on the ground to smother it out.

"Ok. Your turn." She watched me as I watched the wood.

"Did you see it this time?"

"Um, maybe."

"Well, give it a few minutes and then put it out."

Once she was satisfied I was getting the gist of it, she left me to burn planks while she went back home to get more. Each one was long and thin, and on each end of the long sides, a groove had been carved away on opposite sides of each plank. I honestly had no idea what we were doing.

"Why are we doing this?" I asked when Lia returned with more wood.

"It's for weather-proofing the wood. Once you're done burning it, you'll brush off the excess soot and then oil it."

"Oh." I had seen the blackened lacquered wood on a lot of buildings. It had never occurred to me that they burnt it like that. “And you can just do this to wood?”

"This is cedar. Cedar works best. You can do it to other woods, but it's best to do it with cedar," she replied. "All right. Here's the brush and there's the oil. Make sure you wait until everything is completely cooled off before you actually start brushing. And especially before you start oiling. I'll see you in a couple of days," and then she left.

This was obviously what I had signed up for, as I wanted to do most of the grunt work myself to save money and this did qualify as grunt work. Still, I was kind of sad to see her leave. I really enjoyed her company. While I was still up in the air on her physical appearance, I really enjoyed her wit and enthusiasm over Wei Lin's cooking.

Finally, we were using nails. The planks that had been charred, brushed off, and oiled were now being fit into place along the walls. There were a couple of studs that they were being pressed against, and I would hold a plank up while Lia drilled a small hole where the plank tab met the stud, and then she'd pound in a single nail. It was about four nails per plank. On each subsequent plank, that little notched tab would match up with the other notched tab, completely covering the nail we had just put in. While it took time to drill each hole and put in each nail, the walls themselves went up fairly quickly and in a single day, we had all four walls boarded up. I still wasn't sure we had used more nails than my damn chicken coop.

Once all the planks were put up, we put up a second baton that went over the planks with another drilled hole and another nail. What was supposed to happen is that the nails would eventually rust and cause the boards to rot. All I would have to do is remove the baton, replace the planks, and put the baton back on, and it wouldn't affect any of the rest of the structure.

The next day, we were at the top of the wall pounding in the top plate which held it all together. I found this a bit perplexing as it already seemed to be completely holding together, but Lia was the carpenter, not me. I was holding one of the top plates in place and staring out at my terribly done chicken coop while Lia was on her side of the board, tapping the top plate into its little grooves connecting to all the other pieces with her wooden mallet. It was rather hot today, and my shirt was sticking to my skin, and sweat poured down my forehead despite the fact that I wasn't actually doing much physical labor. Lia's shirt was sticking to her quite well, and I had been quite enjoying the sight, but there was something else that was vying for my attention. A slight distant ringing seemed to echo down the roadway from the village.

Lia stopped tapping on her boards and listened as well. I hadn't quite placed the sound when she swore and scrambled down the ladder, dropping her mallet on the floor and jumping off the house. Only as she was booking it past my yard and down my walkway to the road did I realize that was the alarm bell? But we didn't have training today. What the hells? I scrambled down the ladder, dropping my own mallet, and stumbled off the deck to follow behind Lia. She was already passing the gate and turning left as I made my way down the trail to the road. In the distance came a rider on a horse who slowed down to stop to talk to Lia as I attempted to catch up. I looked down Saito's passage, but didn't see him coming yet. I kept running until I met up with the horseman who had finished with Lia and was riding towards me.

"Get your shit and report to the mustering fields in Sharinzhen proper," he said, then tore off down the road toward Xiao, who was just now coming around his corner, armor already doned, and the same spear I had first met him with held in his hands. Somehow that made this whole thing more real. I didn't wait for Saito, just ran to the armory where we were being handed out shields and actual spears. If seeing Saito with his spear didn't make this more real, that certainly did.

"What's going on?" I asked.

Chao just shrugged and said, "No idea. I just know that we're supposed to go to Sharinzhen proper."

We ended up heading to Sharinzhen proper in two groups, those of us who had gotten there quicker, and those of us who had gotten there later. I assumed Saito was in the latter part because I didn't see him, and he would have been weighed down with the armor. We sort of half-jogged, half-fast-walked to town. It was the fastest I've ever made it to town, but Wu didn't want us completely exhausting ourselves before we got there.

Once we arrived, along with the guys from Sharinzhen-3, we were pushed off to one side and told to wait for the rest of our village to show up. We stood in formation until we were all together. Then the guy came back and asked, "You understand how a holler line works?"

I had no idea. I was not looking forward to being the guy who said no. When another guy from Sharinzhen-3 piped in, "Not really."

The guy nodded and said, "Okay, here's how this goes. I yell at you some instructions, you turn your head and yell at the next guy the instructions and so on and so forth. We're going down the line. Here we go." He then took a great big deep breath and said, "Proceed forward ten paces."

The first guy in line after him turned his head and repeated it. The guy after him repeated it. The guy after him repeated it. In theory, I understood the practice, but usually when you got multiple people yelling the same thing down a line, the message would change. It didn't seem like an ideal situation.

"Ok? You guys got it. Start heading to Sharinzhen-6, halfway there you'll meet a guy who will put you staggered out along the road. Go now."

I still had no damn idea what we were doing, beyond the slight orders that we had gotten and didn't really seem to have time to ask, as well as no one really seemed to have time to answer. When we made it halfway to Sharinzhen-6, we were collected by another guy who led us the rest of the way down, dropping one of us off at a specific distance so that we could all see each other and were in yelling range.

And that's how I spent most of the rest of my day. Standing in one spot on the road in the sweltering heat, holding a spear and a shield. A couple of hours later, I still had no damn idea what we were doing. Neither did either of the guys down the road from me. At some point, a guy on a horse came riding down the line telling each one of us that we were to wait for a horn blow and then start wandering into the woods for about ten minutes while trying to keep the guy to either side of us in sight. Once the horn blew again, we were to stop.

It was almost another hour before the horn blew and it was about ten minutes before the horn blew again. I could just barely see the guy to the right of me and couldn't see anybody to the left. Roughly thirty minutes later, I heard the horn blow again. I had no idea if I was supposed to start moving again or not. I looked to the guy to the right of me and he just sort of shrugged. I shrugged back. A couple of minutes later, the horn blew again. This proceeded until the yelling started.

The message was either "dohn’ moo" or "hove too," and I had to freeze when it got to me. Logically speaking, nobody here should know what "hove too" meant. So, I shouted, "don’ moo" down the line, and it kept going. Seems like the message rebounded back because it was "don't move" this time, and as I shouted down the line, I could hear it get screwed up as it went. This was really an inefficient way to spread information.

For the next hour or so, I listened to the horns in the distance blow, each one getting increasingly closer until somebody came running down the line, seemingly just to verify where each person was. He didn't know what was going on other than his orders to just make sure there was an unbroken line behind him. After him, came a group of people with a guy dropping people in between each of us. Now, I had a guy I could see closer to me on both sides. We were just standing out here, hot, sweaty, and very thirsty, not to mention hungry, confused, and annoyed. Again, the horn blew, and again, we all just stood there and waited because we didn't know if we were supposed to be moving or not. This continued until we had a larger group of people come by, and then I was being led down the trails and placed in between somebody else. This time, I was actually close enough to have a conversation without yelling.

"Do you know what's going on?" he asked me, beating me to the punch.

"No, I was gonna ask you the same thing."

“Best guess is we're looking for someone or something. Seems kind of like we're driving who or whatever it is into a smaller location, but that's just a guess.” He said with a shrug.

We made small talk until word came up the line that when we heard the horn blast, we were supposed to move forward again. This time, it was easier to keep the message straight because it could be heard for a long distance and it got clearer every time it got closer.

The horn made its droning noise and we moved forward until the horn made its droning noise again. Then we stopped. I assumed everyone got repositioned again, and we did this three more times. At this point, the line was starting to get crowded, and we were considerably closer to the town proper.

Someone finally came down the line, shouting that at the next horn blast, we should all start moving towards town at a leisurely walk and that if we hear three rapid horn blasts, we should move towards it as quickly as possible. Somewhere between thirty minutes and an hour later, the horn blast sounded, and we all started moving. A good fifteen minutes after that came the sound of the three sharp blats from towards town. A dead run wasn't really possible, so we all seemed to make do with a quick trot. I was panting heavily and drenched in sweat. Once I broke from the forest and into the rice fields, I saw a large cluster of people that had made it there before me, behind them, the town Sharinzhen proper. Nobody really seemed concerned about anything, and I was wondering if maybe this wasn't just some type of elaborate training scenario.

That thought was crushed when I fell into a forming rank not far from the main crowd, a large mound that I had mistaken for a pile of dry reeds or something resolved itself to be the body of an enormous boar. Scores of arrows and a half dozen spears jutting out of the body made it look like a giant porcupine. The red-armored samurai, whose name I could not remember, stood by the beast, posing with one leg up on its head and his helmet tucked under one arm, while a scholarly-looking man held a piece of paper between the samurai Lord and another guy in a robe who was gesticulating wildly. At some point, I realized it was a mage who was creating some type of scene capture of the samurai.

Was this whole exercise the Lord's idea of a hunting trip? Or was the boar actually a threat? The thing was freaking huge, and boars had a tendency to be mean bastards, but couldn’t we have just chased it off into the forest? Did we actually have to kill it? I stood in line in the sweltering sun, wondering if we had just done the town a service or merely aided in the samurai's entertainment. Two stretchers were carried away, one of which had a sheet covering an unmoving body. This whole thing had at least one casualty.

The samurai Lord, through having his image captured, approached the rank and file of us lowly Militia people. He stopped several paces in front of us with a great grin on his face and bowed slightly before yelling, "Thank you for your service. You may return home." And that was it.

I wandered home, hot, thirsty, hungry, and chafing. After returning my spear and shield and making my way back to my unfinished house, I decided to take the rest of the day off. The stream above my house was still cold, and honestly, that sounded nice at this point in time. It was a weird feeling. I felt very much like a cog in a machine and not a particularly well-put-together machine.