The shed used for drying adobe bricks next to the brick kiln had been expanded significantly. Being close to the riverbank, collecting mud was also convenient.
A large batch of adobe bricks had been dried, and the brick kiln, which had been resting for a long time, was about to be fired up again.
Last year, there were Dwarves specifically in charge of firing bricks. They were accustomed to the necessary temperature and could control the intensity of the fire very well, so the fired bricks rarely cracked.
Eric intended to take two Snow Wolf people or Horned Goat people to haul coal back first. Once the brick kiln was lit, the amount of coal needed would not be a small figure.
Once the brick kiln was lit, coal had to be added continuously, burning day and night.
Recently, Arthur had been acting strange. Eric, apart from making pancakes, didn’t make any other dishes. If it were before, by this time Arthur would have gone to the cafeteria to kill time, but for the past few days, aside from when he went to the cafeteria, he spent all his remaining time sticking to Eric’s back.
Eric was planning to find someone to haul coal, but as soon as he saw Arthur, he changed his mind. This guy was a dragon after all; let him try pulling.
Originally, after knowing Arthur was a dragon, Eric intended to delay for a few days to think about how to face him. Who would have thought that no matter how Eric tried to chase him away, Arthur wouldn’t leave, and was even more clingy than before?
Eric knew Arthur was greedy for food, but now even when Eric wasn’t making food, Arthur followed him inseparably. Did Arthur consider Eric his only relative, clinging to him like a chick to its mother?
Unable to understand what Arthur was thinking, Eric decided to check how much he had recovered. Previously, Arthur was very durable; when plowing the fields, he could even pull the plow of the Snow Wolf people, and his speed wasn’t slow either.
People in the tribe thought Arthur was a very formidable human warrior, at least at the level of a Great Swordsman.
Among humans, Great Swordsmen were only slightly more numerous than Great Mages; one could say they were talents found one in ten thousand.
Because of this, people in the tribe said Eric was both lucky and had a good eye. Picking once and picking up two such formidable humans.
Eric wondered what the expressions of the tribe members would be like when the identities of these two were exposed, feeling a bit uneasy in his heart.
"Arthur, go haul coal with me; we’ll use it to fire bricks later. See if you can pull that wooden wagon?"
Eric spoke while pointing at the large, bulky solid wood wagons placed not far away. That was the type of cart specifically made by the Dwarves for the Snow Wolf people.
The weather had warmed up, so the people in the tribe basically didn’t burn coal, and the coal storage was empty. Only these large wooden wagons were parked here, covered in pitch-black coal fragments.
Arthur indifferently reached out to pull the front end of the wooden wagon: "Of course I can pull it, even two of them."
He tried pulling one with one hand. But although his strength was great, his height was that of a human.
This wooden wagon was intended for Snow Wolf people in beast form to use, so a human’s height couldn’t lift it up. The front of the cart would drag on the ground, affecting movement.
Arthur was a bit annoyed because he didn’t want to lose face in front of Eric. He grabbed the handle of a cart with one hand and tried to pull it away. Under his powerful pulling force, the two carts constantly collided with each other but struggled to move forward.
"Alright, alright, don’t break the cart. It’s not that you lack strength, it’s just that your height isn’t enough and the angle is wrong, so wouldn’t your strength be wasted? Pulling one should be fine, let’s go." Eric saw Arthur was anxious to use force and hurriedly advised him.
This size of wooden wagon was very laborious for the Dwarves to make. Although it didn’t require high technique, the size was large; a group of Dwarves had to climb up and down, banging and clanging for a long time to finish one.
Arthur yanked it with force, unconvinced, but fearing he would break the cart and Eric would definitely scold him again, he had to let go in frustration.
Pulling these two carts was clearly as easy as turning a hand... Such a thought suddenly popped into his head. A patch of scales involuntarily appeared on his forehead, but in the blink of an eye, it vanished without a trace.
"Fine, but I can use this cart to pull a lot of coal, even more than the coal the Snow Wolf people pull!" Arthur emphasized.
Eric rolled his eyes and jumped onto the wooden wagon, sitting cross-legged on the front of the cart. He wasn’t afraid of the coal dust dirtying him; after all, he had learned the cleansing spell from Evan.
He giggled and joked with Arthur, who was preparing to pull the cart down below:
"If you pull it, I’ll believe it, but if you pull too much coal, this cart won’t be able to handle it. I believe in your strength, so spare this cart!"
Arthur was stunned for a moment, silently touched his chest, and turned to pull the cart with a doubtful expression.
The human height of less than two meters looked extremely tiny in front of the giant wooden wagon, but such a large cart slowly moved forward in Arthur’s hands, looking effortless.
It was just due to the height issue that he couldn’t pull the cart up normally. The support posts of the cart frame in front of the wheels constantly dragged on the ground, leaving two deep trails.
This guy really had the strength of an ox, Eric muttered to himself. Dragging the support posts like that took twice as much effort as lifting it to let the cart roll on its wheels. Those two support posts were like brakes, used to maintain balance when stopping the cart.
Arthur didn’t feel it was strenuous, only feeling that the sound of the support posts rubbing against the ground was too ear-piercing. Even lifting it to the highest point couldn’t get the support posts off the ground; he angrily stomped his foot, intending to fly up to pull the cart. Although he didn’t remember anything, he vaguely recalled that he knew how to fly.
Unfortunately, in the end, Arthur didn’t fly up, only leaving a deep footprint on the ground.
In the coal mine, there was coal already chiseled by the Snow Wolf people; the two of them were only responsible for transporting the coal onto the wooden wagon.
Ever since the Horned Goat people let Tang experience the feeling of being buried by coal, the Snow Wolf people had a psychological shadow regarding their mining.
Therefore, when it was the Snow Wolf people’s turn to haul coal, they would chisel down more coal so the Horned Goat people wouldn’t need to use their horns to ram it anymore, avoiding the risk of collapsing the mine.
Eric had long discovered that Arthur was even more reckless than Sam, so he didn’t let him mine, directly having him pull the pile of coal accumulated on the ground onto the cart.
Although Eric was still a cub, he worked more nimbly than ordinary people. While directing Arthur to work, Eric wasn’t idle either, personally carrying smaller pieces of coal onto the cart.
The coal mined from the pit was relatively large in size; upon returning to the tribe, it would be crushed a second time, and by then the size would be suitable for use in stoves or heaters.
Soon, the coal was piled high on a cart. It was just that both of them had rolled around until their whole bodies were pitch black; even their faces had black handprints left from wiping sweat.
"Pfft!" Eric couldn’t help but burst out laughing at Arthur, whose face looked like a calico cat.
"Aren’t you the same, ha ha ha..." Arthur pointed at Eric’s face and laughed loudly.
Eric unhurriedly used a cleansing spell on himself. In an instant, the stains on his body and face disappeared without a trace.
Only then did he glance at Arthur triumphantly.
Arthur’s smile froze on his face. He looked at the black stains on his own body in annoyance, then looked at the clean and refreshed Eric.
A thought flashed through his mind; he reached out his pitch-black hand and, quick as lightning, grabbed Eric’s face and rubbed it for a while.
He left streak after streak of black before withdrawing his hand with satisfaction.