Good heavens, this was worse than death!
McAuley's eyes bulged as his soul nearly left his body.
Demon Island!
That was Demon Island they were talking about!
Asking him to deliver supplies there was no different from sending him to his death!
Damn his loose mouth! He cursed himself inwardly.
This is what you get for being greedy and agreeing so quickly. Haven't you learned that if something seems too good to be true, it probably is? Did you really think money could be earned that easily?
McAuley suddenly slapped himself twice across the face - SMACK! SMACK! - leaving clear red handprints.
"Mr. Grey, what are you...?" Luo Wei looked at him puzzled.
McAuley's body trembled as he quickly came to his senses, bowing deeply: "Master, I really want to go, but I-I can't swim. Besides, the Demon Sea... I wouldn't even be able to enter those waters, so you see..."
"I really want to make the delivery, it's just that I probably couldn't find any ship willing to go there..."
Hearing this, Luo Wei realized he had a point. Asking McAuley to deliver supplies was indeed too much - the Demon Sea had treacherous waves that could easily capsize ships. This wasn't a job for ordinary civilians.
After some thought, she said slowly: "How about this - you prepare all the items I mentioned first, and I'll figure out how to transport them."
"Yes, Master!" McAuley wept with joy - his life was saved!
Since the newly purchased house was still dusty and unorganized, Luo Wei and Troy stayed at McAuley's inn that night.
In the evening, Luo Wei lit an oil lamp and lay on the inn room's bed, drawing building designs for Demon Island.
Stone materials would be difficult to quarry on the island, so wooden houses would be better.
She didn't have high requirements for the cabins - they just needed to be habitable. To save on nails, the main framework would use simple mortise and tenon joints.
The wooden houses needed to be built on stilts to prevent flooding during high tides.
As for her house in the outskirts of Sisda Town, it would be renovated into a traditional courtyard style to prevent prying eyes.
After all, this was her "talent exchange center" - any labor force recruited from elsewhere would need to be processed here before being sent to Demon Island for reformation... no, for construction.
The courtyard would be called "Ross Court", a homophone for "screw" in Chinese. This would be her base for producing small screws for construction.
It would be best to build a lumber mill behind Ross Court. Relying solely on those few mercenaries to cut wood with swords would take forever to complete the construction.
If they hired workers here to prepare all the lumber and then shipped it to the island for assembly, things would move much faster.
As she wrote, another idea popped into her head.
The northern forests of the Western Continent were vast and largely uninhabited, full of wild slopes and virgin forests. Since they were building a lumber mill anyway, perhaps they could develop the papermaking industry as well?
She was really tired of trying to compress design drawings onto thick parchment and rough linen, not to mention living without toilet paper!
Though toilet paper production was somewhat complex and might take a few years to achieve, writing paper had to come first.
Once they had white paper, she could print flyers to recruit new residents for Demon Island, compile the history of the Misty Plains, establish regulations, and convince her scattered subjects who hadn't yet been gathered from around the world.
With this in mind, Luo Wei carefully wrote down the methods for making both grass paper and wood pulp paper.
She only remembered the general process of papermaking - workers would need to experiment and refine the technique. They'd need to recruit some clever people for this.
By the time she finished writing all this, the oil lamp was almost empty.
Luo Wei tapped her fingers on the parchment rhythmically.
While hiring workers and building factories would be manageable with money, who could deliver supplies to Demon Island?
The locals were clearly not an option, the griffin was too timid, and Troy needed to stay by her side to protect her. She couldn't think of a good solution.
Just as Luo Wei was getting a headache over this, Nicole suddenly appeared by her hand, looking at the parchment with bright round eyes, tilting its fuzzy head back and forth as if asking why she wasn't resting yet.
"Nicole..."
As Luo Wei stroked Nicole's little forehead with her fingertip, a spark of inspiration hit her.
Wait - if they couldn't find suitable people, why not consider using the undead?
Why not have the necromancers from Demon Island come collect the supplies?
Her brain must have rusted over to miss something so simple, like being stuck in a mental rut. Why hadn't she thought of this before?
Not only could necromancers transport supplies, but she could also recruit undead workers to produce lumber and grass paper, saving a fortune on labor costs!
The undead weren't exclusive to Demon Island - they could be summoned anywhere there was death.
Luo Wei had previously researched this in the academy library. There were two categories of undead.
One type was necromancers who had strong magical power in life and automatically became undead after death. They retained their memories from life and, aside from not being able to go in sunlight, had habits and thoughts similar to living people.
The other type came from ordinary people or animals without magical talent. Their souls were too weak and required someone to summon them and imbue them with magical power to become undead. Once born, they would recognize their summoner as their master.
Nicole belonged to the second type, though Luo Wei herself didn't know how she had summoned it.
"Nicole," Luo Wei lay on the bed, looking into the adorable spider's eyes, "do you know how to summon the undead?"
Nicole lifted its leg, its big watery eyes full of innocence and purity.
"Through willpower?" Luo Wei mused to herself.
Perhaps like praying - if she kept calling in her mind, she could summon the undead?
Luo Wei tried it. No response.
Maybe it had to be done where there were corpses?
Corpses... a location came to Luo Wei's mind - the original owner's fishing village, Naisdeng.
Naisdeng fishing village originally had sixteen households with fifty-three people total. Besides her, no one survived.
Those pirates were brutal - they attacked the village at night, breaking into fishermen's homes and killing everyone they saw. Many villagers didn't even have time to scream before dying in their beds.
Not satisfied with just killing, they set fires throughout the village. Some elderly villagers who couldn't move quickly enough were burned alive in their wooden houses.
The fire burned from night until dawn, turning the entire village to ruins.
If the village chief hadn't hidden the original owner in the cellar, she likely would have died in that great fire too.
Thinking back on that disaster now, Luo Wei suddenly noticed something odd.
Those pirates' goal didn't seem to be plundering treasure, but rather massacring the village.
Because when the original owner thought the pirates had left and quietly climbed out of the cellar, they were still lingering in the blazing village, checking every possible hiding place.
If Princess Lilith hadn't been passing by with her knights that day, the original owner definitely wouldn't have escaped.
It was unusual for pirates to appear on the barren Northern Sea Coast in the first place.
Luo Wei had a feeling those people had come for her.
After half a year, perhaps she should go back on behalf of the original owner to take a look.
Under the crescent moon like a bow, the young girl left McAuley's inn, spreading her snow-white wings and flying north.
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