kscans

Chapter 15 - For the Improvement of Living Conditions

The moment I raised the floor of the room, it occurred to me.

"If I run flues for an ondol system under the raised floor, I could use it for heating in the winter."

Based on this idea, Yuri added a chimney to the Kamado stove and formed flues to guide the smoke beneath the floor. For the exhaust, he would attach another chimney to the outside of the house later. There were three rooms, including the kitchen which still had an earthen floor. This was too large for one person to live in. A quick estimate showed each room was nearly thirty jou in size. He planned to use the back room as storage. So he wouldn't run the ondol system under that floor, and he attached the chimney to the outside of the middle room. If the flue opening faced upwards, rain would get in, and there was a chance a stork or some other bird might build a nest there like in foreign countries, so he made the exhaust vent open sideways.

"This will be fine for winter, but it'll get hot in the summer. I'll need a route for the smoke that bypasses the ondol. I should make the flue system switchable."

With that, he quickly added a similar chimney to the back of the Kamado. Earth Magic was truly a blessing. It was proving incredibly useful for civil engineering and construction, even more so than for farming. Of course, only a handful of mages in this country could perform additions and renovations as quickly as Yuri. But such trivial matters were of no concern to him.

After building the chimney, something else occurred to him.

"This house didn't have a chimney at first, did it? How did they handle the smoke?"

Yuri was puzzled, but he understood as soon as he looked up at the ceiling. The skylight, built for letting in light, must have also served as a smoke vent. When they closed the skylight during rain, the smoke must have filled the house.

"Well, in old Japanese houses, the smoke from the irori hearth would rise into the room and seep out through the thatched roof. I guess it's not that uncommon."

For now, he would make sure the smoke in this house exited through the chimney.

"Next, a bathroom is absolutely essential, isn't it?"

He then added a bathroom of about four and a half jou to the outside of the dining room. Once again, it was done quickly and easily with Earth Magic. He planned to use Water Magic for the water supply and Fire Magic for heating, so there was no need for plumbing or a firebox for the bath. The only thing he had to consider was the drainage. And even that was just a matter of creating an underground culvert with Earth Magic.

"All that's left is lighting and fuel..."

These were not things he could deal with immediately. Actually, it was stranger that the renovations were finished before he had secured a fuel source.

"For light, tallow candles are probably the most realistic option for now. I just hunted a boar, after all..."

He had the Light spell from Life Magic, but he felt uneasy about always relying on magic. He needed a means of illumination that didn't depend on it. That meant a flame was the most realistic light source. He couldn't risk starting a bonfire indoors due to the fear of sparks, so it would have to be candles or an oil lamp, not a lighthouse on a cape, but one with a wick in a dish of oil. It seemed more practical to use the animal fat he already had than to search for oil-producing plants now.

"As for fuel, I don't want to spend the effort cutting down trees or making charcoal. If I don't have to think about transport, dried grass or firewood should be enough."

The option of a brazier for heating would open up if he had charcoal, but his motivation dwindled when he thought about the effort of making it. He had to pull up the shrubs and weeds growing in the village and fields anyway. Using them for fuel seemed like a standard move.

"Come to think of it, the area around the village was a grassland. Could that also be the result of fuel gathering?"

It seemed plausible that the grassland was formed and maintained as a result of cutting down nearby trees for firewood and charcoal. He decided to learn from the wisdom of his predecessors.