Chapter 955 Felling 101
In any case, the first thing Sebastian made them do was put on safety equipment like goggles, gloves, and the like before he approached a smaller, but rotten tree, to give a short demonstration.
"Alright, as you can see now, I'm wearing my goggles, my gloves, my shin guards, and everything else but before we start chopping this tree down, the first order of business is to check your surroundings—"
Ruben cut in, "F-For Drop Bears, right?!"
"Y-Yes, that too—"
"There's more?!"
Sebastian was trying his best not to stifle a laugh, "I'm talking about in an environmental sense… You see, we're still on a very gentle slope but as we go higher and higher, it'll affect our clearing process. So yeah, the first thing to do is get a good look around you: make sure that the area around the tree you're about to cut is free of anything your axe might get caught on like rocks, small/large branches, other trees, a drop bear, etc., and make sure that the tree isn't tangled or the place it might fall wouldn't hit phone lines, other trees, etc., but if it does, go to me first because what I'm teaching you today is the basics."
"A-Alright…"
"Though the gist of it is to make sure there's always an area you can run to and the best direction for that is the exact opposite of where the tree is about to fall on— Oh! Before that, it's customary around here to do several bump checks because we can't accurately see what's the situation up top unless we climb on it or use a drone. It's a good measure of safety because sometimes if a tree is rotten up top and we start shaking it by chopping it from below, a huge part of it might just fall on our heads and kill us. I've seen it a few times and those are actually called widowmakers back then…"
Isaac raised his hand, "W-What's a bump check?"
As soon as Isaac finished his question, Sebastian just removed the sheathe on his personal cutting axe before turning it the opposite way and smashing the flat side against the tree in front of him.
*THUD*
And as he did with full force, the tree shook, and a few leaves fell gently but he bump-checked the tree six more times before he nodded his head and looked satisfied.
"That's a bump check," he said as he rested his axe on his shoulders, "So, once everything's accounted for… It's not time to cut the tree down—before anyone of you says anything, there are plenty of ways to cut them, of course, but it's customary around here to shave off the bark first so we'd have a better view of where we are gonna sink our axe on. And yes, it's also helpful to know that it gets rid of the dirt, moss, grime, etc. present on it because sometimes, it dulls the blade and who knows what other foreign object—though a small, small chance—would be present on it. Take it as another precautionary measure aside from actually seeing if the tree is dead or something similar. One good indicator is that you can easily pick off the bark with our fingers like this…"
As Sebastian explained more and more stuff—which actually was a learning experience, even for me—he then finished clearing off the bark around the tree before he started his swinging motion by slightly hinging his hips as if he was getting ready to perform a deadlift. Doing that, instead of swinging to the actual level of his hips, made the path the axe traveled a little lower but either way could've worked—depending on the person doing it.
He then continued his explanation while swinging with moderate force, "What I'm making right now is called the notch. It's where I'm trying to make the tree fall—"
JP suddenly cut in, "Wait. Is there a reason you're trying to make it fall that way instead of down this slope?"
Sebastian then stopped cutting the tree for a moment, "I don't understand the question…"
Seb followed, "Yeah, I was wondering that too… Wouldn't it be easier if we make it fall that way too?"
'True— Wait, unless…'
As I figured out why Sebastian couldn't understand basic distribution of workload, he just said it loud enough for everyone to hear:
"My dear guests, it seemed like you thought we'd be bringing these trees to the estate."
JP and Seb nodded at the same time, "Aren't we?/ That's what I'm thinking too—"
Then Sebastian finally started chuckling before it became a full-on laugh, "This is just so hilarious! HAHAHAHA! A-Ah… Excuse the laughter but the estate doesn't need these trees for now, the log cabin does. I did say it was neglected for a number of years—"
Megan cut it, "Wait! I do remember you telling us that the PATH to the cabin was neglected, not both!"
"Ah… Then it is an honest mistake, apologies… In any case, don't worry as much because we have the easy route, it won't be much trouble bringing all of these up there and the cabin isn't that far… We've actually started a few days ago—though I've been doing the clearing with a few of my personal workers who were now assisting the other people from the other side—and even if we won't be able to finish the whole thing in two weeks, just the help we'd receive plus the transformation your bodies will undergo will be enough for me… It's the company I was actually looking forward to…"
Then James#2 thought of an easy way out:
"Umm… Mr. Sebastian?"
"Sebastian is fine, dear guest…"
"Right, haha… I'd hate to say this after giving us a brilliant demonstration but wouldn't we be able to accomplish more if we use chainsaws and the like?"
Sebastian looked apologetic once again, "Apologies… But as I said earlier… There's another group working on the opposite end where we'd like to clear a path and unfortunately, all of our chainsaws are being used at the moment… Besides, how can we maintain our bodies if we just haul the logs up? And again… With the way we chop trees sideways, it also works our oblique muscles, and it's just a waste to not make use of the gentle slope we have… That's part of the reason I gave all the chainsaws away so that they wouldn't be that disheartened by working in such a steep, steep~ slope unlike ours…"
"A-Ah… I-Is that so?"
"Then shall we?"
"Sure—"
"Drop Bear!"
"W-WHERE?!"
"Just kidding… Ahaha… Stay alert, alright?"
"..."
"..."
"..."
'He's… He's worse than Oscar…'
In any case, as soon as Sebastian finished up the notch he was making—which took up a large percentage of the diameter of the tree because of its smaller size—all he had to do after that was make a smaller notch on the opposite side then push a little after shouting, "TIMBERRR~", at the top of his lungs.
After that, he began to remove all of the branches it had and put them into a separate pile before cutting up the whole log at arm's length, and then putting it into another pile.
Cutting this tree on the smaller side didn't take a lot of time, but it didn't end there when he pulled out a pickaxe, a shovel, and a rusty-looking axe to completely remove the stump and cover it with some dirt later.
Looking ahead at the number of marked trees for cutting down, it looked like the cadets had more than their work cut out for them, but they just couldn't refuse because of the lengths Sebastian took to explain all of this shit to them and to be able to achieve a smidge of what Sebastian, Mauro, Logan, and I showed them last night.
Even for me, it looked like a daunting task with our numbers but this felt more like training than actual work to me.
But yeah, it was eventually decided to form three separate groups that would operate at the same time but well within each other's earshot—no vision, but as we broke off with a few others, Sebastian took an interest in the Injector Axe that was on Tatiana's back. He thought it was simply a custom axe at first but he quickly made his way towards us when Tatiana made it hiss for a few times.
"Ms. Tatiana? C-Can I please examine your axe for a bit? It caught my eye, it's a curious one, isn't it?"
Tatiana glanced at me but I couldn't care less so she just handed it over, "Here ya go—"
"Ah~! This is heavier than it looks! I see the holes here and this particular button, can I know their exact purpose?"
Since this was still a little bit of a sore subject for Tatiana, I took it upon myself to tell Sebastian a bit of context and his face just darkened when I mentioned a hulking zombie that was able to take several bullets to the head.
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