kscans

Chapter 123 - The Yuri Village Renovation Plan 6. Woodworking

Using the pull saw he had painstakingly crafted, which was honestly not the easiest to use, Yuri once again set about making a chair. He cut the beams to the prescribed length and planed the cut surfaces... which he actually did using the `Wood Transformation` of Wood Magic. In this country, planes were also push planes rather than pull planes, and he didn't have the energy to remake a plane on top of everything else. The thin blade of the pull saw came in handy for cutting the board into a circle... although its sharpness was a bit lacking, likely due to imperfect sharpening and setting. He also shaped the board with `Wood Transformation`, but he properly used a chisel to carve out the mortise holes. Yuri felt as though he had done some respectable carpentry, but...

"The Woodworking skill still hasn't been unlocked..."

He hadn't felt any skill awaken during the work, and a check of his `Status Board` screen confirmed that the `Woodworking` skill remained un-unlocked. Well, what he had actually done was just cut a few beams and a board and open some mortise holes. He hadn't even touched the plane. If a skill were to awaken from just that much, everyone in this world would be a skill-holder.

"To get the Woodworking skill, I need to make more things..."

Wait, wasn't the original goal to improve the village's standard of living? Gaining the `Woodworking` skill should be a secondary outcome, shouldn't it...

"Is there anything else I can make... I went to the trouble of making this saw, it would be a waste not to use it..."

It felt like his means and ends were getting beautifully mixed up, but it was a fact that making various things would be beneficial. He had gone around repairing the houses, but just cutting scrap wood and repairing it with Wood Magic wouldn't raise his woodworking skill.

"Something else to make... oh, how about a ladder?"

It wasn't something he would use right away, but it was certainly a tool that might become necessary in the future. It would be better to make one now than to panic when the time came. There would probably be more opportunities to repair roof leaks in the future.

And so, he tried making a rather long ladder, but...

"Still no skill from this, huh..."

Yuri was becoming a bit pessimistic, wondering if he would have to start making desks, shelves, boxes, maybe even dressers or fittings, or perhaps even a bathtub... but there was something he had completely forgotten.

The truth was, Yuri had not used a single nail up to this point.

Both the chair legs and the ladder rungs had been firmly bonded with `Wood Transformation` after being inserted into the mortise holes, leaving no role for nails to play. The repairs of damaged siding and the like were also done with `Wood Transformation` and `Wood Reinforcement`, so nails had no part to play there either. It was unclear whether nailing was a prerequisite for acquiring the `Woodworking` skill, but it was a fact that his technique was becoming quite lopsided.

However, Yuri himself was unaware of this and...

"Hmm... it might be a little different from woodworking... but maybe I should try carving a statue of a god. Come to think of it, I've offered prayers from time to time, but I haven't made a proper household altar or shrine at all... It might be disrespectful to say ‘on this occasion,’ but it should be fine to make one, right?"

He was thinking about something completely different.