Chapter 91 - Food Storage

"All right, let's make that, too."

After creating and naming the spell for creating the Hardened Brick Horseshoes that are part of the Valkyries' equipment, I decided to move on to the next thing.

It was about the storehouse for food.

Up until now, we had been storing our food in a very ordinary warehouse in Barca Village.

However, I had always been curious about this food storage.

With the memories of my previous life, I had always been surrounded by a plentiful supply of food throughout the year, and I had taken that for granted.

However, there is a natural principle that every food has a certain time of the year when it can be harvested, and it is not possible to eat it outside of that time.

It was only after I was reincarnated in this world that I realized that it was an abnormal situation to be able to eat food at any time regardless of its season.

Since I was born here in Barca Village, I can say that I've always lived my life thinking about food.

I've been constantly evolving the magic I dreamed of having in my previous life in order to eat food.

However, no matter how many spells I created to improve the soil so that I could harvest more food, I could not extend the period of time I could store the harvested foods.

At best, people here could make a hole in the ground and store the food there, but even that was only a little better than storing it at room temperature, and it would be inedible after a while.

Even so, it was only a little better than storing them at room temperature.

But that's all over now.

I've got a new way to preserve food.

***

A new storage facility.

I created it on my land.

But I didn't build anything unusual.

It was just a big warehouse.

However, I made the walls of the warehouse very thick.

The walls were made very thick so that no sunlight or wind could enter, and there was not a single gap in the space.

「Ice Spear」

I used that magic inside the warehouse.

I used the Ice Magic that I had acquired from Carlos, the head of the Fontana family.

I've been able to use only magic related to Earth or strengthening my own body no matter how hard I tried, but after receiving a new name, I've been able to use magic called "Ice Spear".

I repeated this spell, which was originally an offensive spell meant for the battlefield, into the empty warehouse.

The 「Ice Spear」 is a spell that creates an ice pillar about the thickness and length of an adult man's arm, and shoots it towards a target.

The icicles tumbled down into the warehouse.

It's not that the Ice Magic doesn't break down and disappear after a certain amount of time, as it did when I fought before.

The ice pillars are just like the ones I can make with Earth Magic.

But of course, unlike Earth, the Ice would melt over time.

So, once I had accumulated a certain amount of ice, I scattered sawdust on top of it.

Yes, the warehouse I built was more fitting to be called an Ice House.

Normally, ice from ponds is stored in a basement called an ice house, but if you cover the surface of the ice with sawdust, it will not completely melt away even when there is no ice.

I decided to use my newfound Ice Magic to preserve the ice.

However, I am not the only one who can make ice.

Since I was named by Carlos, my 'Children' with the surname Barca have also been able to use the ice magic [Ice Spear].

In this way, it became possible to create and store ice at any time throughout the year in Barca.

* * *

"But, Ars-dono, was this ice house necessary, desu?"

"What are you talking about, Gran-san? This ice was prepared to preserve food."

The reason why I took the trouble to build an icehouse as a warehouse.

I'm sure you'll agree.

What I wanted to build was not a place to store ice.

I wanted to build a refrigerator.

I've never used one of the antiques myself, but I've heard that refrigerators in the past did not use electricity.

There was a refrigerator made of a wooden frame, in which ice was put inside, and the cold air from the ice cooled the inside of the refrigerator.

I wanted to recreate that.

However, there was no need to keep it for home use.

The ice was stored in a large warehouse, and there was also space to store food in the cooled warehouse.

However, it would also be natural to build a wooden refrigerator for home use in addition to the warehouse.

Even though I gave them the surname Barca, it was not like all the villagers could use Ice Spear.

I will sell ice to those who are not able to produce it themselves.

With the advent of this ice-house refrigerator, foods that used to not last very long can now last a reasonable amount of time.

My diet has improved a bit, as I can now store vegetables that I used to be able to eat only right after harvesting, as well as the occasional wild boar meat.

CadmarLegend Oooh, new improvements... so many improvements... and the diet... I didn't think of that before. How're you liking all these chapters being posted?