Chapter 32: Chapter 32: The Pyre of Progress
"Fire! Fire!" shouted Maya.
The two older women came bursting through the tree line, their faces pale with horror. The woven baskets they had spent hours filling with winter berries and wild roots slipped from their hands, spilling their hard-earned food all over the dirt. The sight before them was pure chaos—the crafted wooden framework they had hoped would be their new home was engulfed in a roaring, crackling wall of bright orange flames.
"Get water from the river!" shouted Mila’s mother. "Hurry! The whole thing is turning to ash!"
She lunged forward trying to sprint toward the crystal-blue shore despite the lethal monsters lurking beneath the surface, but Mila stepped into her path, grabbing her mother’s broad shoulders with a firm, unyielding grip.
"Stop! Do not go near the water!" said Mila.
"Are you insane, girl?!" shouted Mila’s mother. "Your man’s hard work is burning to the ground! Let me go!"
"Kellar ordered this," said Mila. "He told me to help him set it on fire. Just watch him."
Maya stopped dead in her tracks, her breath catching as she looked at her nephew. Kellar wasn’t panicking at all. Thanks to the system’s influx of knowledge, his eyes could see how the cellular moisture inside the wood was evaporating. A glowing, semi-transparent overlay in his vision highlighted the timber, shifting from bright red where the fire was too hot, to a deep, stable blue when the wood reached its perfect density.
Kellar dashed around the blazing perimeter with monstrous speed. He kicked a pile of burning logs away from a corner column, reviving the flame on a central pillar with a bundle of dry straw, and then threw a shovel of damp dirt over a joist that was cooking too fast.
"Has he lost his mind?!" said Maya, her hands trembling as she watched him dance through the thick smoke.
"He called it baking," said Mila. "He said it will make the wood twice as strong."
"I have never heard of such madness in all my time with the tribe," said Mila’s mother, though her shouting stopped.
The three women stood in a tense, stunned silence, mesmerized by the strange spectacle. For an hour, they watched Kellar work with supernatural precision. He knew where to let the fire bite deep and when to smother it, guiding the destructive element like a master craftsman handles a chisel.
Finally, with one last surge of dirt, Kellar smothered the remaining embers. The roaring flames died down, leaving behind a thick cloud of white steam and a towering structure of blackened, soot-covered timber. Kellar wiped the sweat and ash from his forehead, a triumphant grin breaking through the grime on his face as he turned to look at them.
"We are finished with the baking," said Kellar.
He walked over to the three women, his chest heaving from the intense exertion.
"The fire has changed the wood," said Kellar. "By sweatinglost out the internal cellular moisture under a high temperature, we have increased the structural density and tempered the entire frame against rot and decay."
Maya and Mila’s mother stared at him, their expressions blank. Kellar caught himself realizing a major flaw in his explanation. Even though his own mind processed the engineering terms, the primitive tribal dialect didn’t possess the vocabulary for concepts like density or tempered. To them, his words were nothing but meaningless, foreign gibberish.
"We do not understand a single word you just said, boy," said Mila’s mother.
"It does not matter," said Kellar. "All you need to know is that this wood will never rot, and the frame will not collapse no matter how many winter snow pile on top of it."
As the smoke cleared, the raw beauty of the layout became visible. The structure wasn’t massive by modern standards, featuring a framework designed for three separate bedrooms, a spacious central living hall, and a dedicated corner space Kellar had set aside for a future indoor bathroom. Even though the flat-roofed, rectangular design looked like a large cube, it possessed a striking charm alien to this world.
The standard huts of the northern clan were tiny and asymmetrical, built from leaning logs bound with raw hide, making them look more like saggy leather tents than actual cabins.
"The food!" said Maya.
She gasped, pointing down at the dirt path where their spilled baskets lay. The three women knelt down dusting the snow off the winter berries and wild roots they had gathered. They sat together on a pile of unburned logs, sharing the simple, fresh meal while Kellar continued to work with ceaseless energy.
"Should we return to the village and return tomorrow morning?" said Maya.
"No," said Kellar. "It will only take me a little while longer to finish the walls and the roof. We can move our things in tonight."
The older women exchanged incredulous looks but chose not to argue, watching in awe as Kellar began slotting pre-cut wall planks into the baked framework.
The winter sun was dipping below the distant mountains, painting the sky in deep shades of crimson and violet, when Kellar hammered the final thick board of the roof into place. He stood atop the sturdy structure, looking down at his handiwork.
"Having supernatural strength really makes building a survival shelter fast," said Kellar.
"Come inside and take a look," said Kellar.
He hopped down from the roof with a soft thud, gesturing for the three women to enter the structure. Maya, Mila’s mother, and Mila walked through the wide entryway, their boots stepping onto the solid, elevated floorboards. They stood in the center of the spacious main hall, turning in circles as they took in the strange, geometric design.
Maya reached out, her fingers pressing against one of the wall planks. She pushed against it with all her weight, but the structure didn’t budge.
"This is incredible," said Maya. "It feels as firm and unyielding as the centennial trees deep within the forest."
Mila’s mother walked into one of the designated bedroom spaces, slapping her palms against the interlocking corner pillars. A broad, booming laugh escaped her chest as she realized the sheer quality of the shelter.
"There are no hide ties to snap, and no wind is getting through these gaps," said Mila’s mother. "You have built a fortress out of a pile of logs, boy."
Mila walked to Kellar’s side, her eyes gleaming with pride as she looked at the clean, defined spaces of their new home.
"You are full of miracles, Kellar," said Mila.
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