Don’t raise unruly people in extreme cold weather

Chapter 609: Animals in the Cold Winter
"Good morning, Knight Shay!" A villager wearing thick winter clothes and a small piece of leather wrapped on his face greeted Shay.

"Good morning, Frank! How was it last night? It snowed so heavily!" Shay also greeted the villager and asked him about what happened last night.

"The situation is a bit bad. The snow has crushed two houses. Because the snow has not stopped, we have no way to clear the snow. Your brother was exhausted last night!" Frank reported the situation to Shay.

With the arrival of the doomsday winter, settlements like Shay's where there are still houses on the ground must face a very serious problem, that is, the snow brought by heavy snowfall will crush the houses built of wood.

So after discussing with his brother, Shay decided to arrange people to patrol at night so that any unexpected situations could be dealt with in a timely manner.

After all, when the doomsday winter comes, the problems they have to face are not just the snow.

Shay patted Frank's shoulder, brushed off the snow on his shoulder and said, "Okay, I'll go find my brother. You go back and rest first! I asked the cafeteria to prepare hot soup for you. Martha cooked it early in the morning. I saw she added venison."

"That's great! Nothing can warm my stomach better than Martha's venison soup!" For Frank, who had been on duty all night, a bowl of steaming venison soup full of meaty aroma and fat was too tempting.

After saying goodbye to Frank, Shay climbed up the outer wall of the settlement and soon found his brother in the outpost on the outer wall.

It can be seen that even with the protection of the heating field, the outer wall of the outpost to block the wind and snow, and even a fire inside the outpost, Shay's brother was still freezing.

"Brother, I brought you breakfast. Go back and have a rest after eating!" Shay said, taking out a lunch box from his clothes.

Because I was holding it in my arms, the lunch box was still warm.

Shay's brother took the lunch box and opened it impatiently. Then a rich aroma of meat wafted out.

"Venison soup? This is amazing!" Although Shay's brother had seen and eaten venison soup before as a former civil servant in Langton, the living conditions in the North were obviously not as good as those in Langton. A can of venison soup was enough to make him overjoyed.

Shay watched his brother eating happily and did not disturb him. He picked up the fur-wrapped telescope, walked to the window, and looked at the woods outside the settlement through the thick double-glazed window.

As the environment becomes increasingly harsh, it is difficult for various animals to survive this extremely harsh climate.

And because the settlement has a heating field formed by an energy tower and a constant temperature barrier, although the temperature is still very low, it can at least allow animals to survive.

This also leads to some lucky animals coming to the outskirts of the settlement and taking advantage of the settlement's heating field.

Shay and the residents of the settlement were happy to see this situation. After all, the animals that came to the heating field could be considered a source of meat, which could greatly improve and enrich the diet of the residents of the settlement.

This morning's venison soup was made with a frozen male deer that we found yesterday.

In this kind of weather, animals will freeze solid within a few hours of death, so there is no need to worry about rotting. Even a dead deer can be eaten with confidence.

The villagers were also very happy to have meat delivered to their doorsteps from time to time. After all, in addition to providing meat, animals could also provide a series of valuable supplies such as fur and oil. This was a very good supplement for the settlement in the doomsday winter.

In order to protect animals, Shay restricted villagers from hunting animals outside the settlement. They were only allowed to pick up frozen animal carcasses, and were not allowed to hunt them directly.

In order to prevent the animals from starving to death due to lack of food, Shay discussed with the villagers and began feeding the animals. He also cleared an area outside the settlement as a habitat for the animals.

After a few times, these animals have become familiar with the villagers in the settlement. Now when villagers go to feed them, it will not arouse the animals' vigilance. Some animals will even come up and show friendliness and intimacy.

Under such circumstances, Shay also considered whether to simply start animal husbandry and domesticate these animals.

But villagers say the current situation is good enough and there is not enough space in the settlement to cater to the needs of domesticated animals.

Although the scope of the heating field is large enough to allow some animals to seek refuge there, in reality it is only a small strip of area extending beyond the outer wall of the settlement, which is basically open and unobstructed.

Animals come here to take shelter because of the ambient temperature, but that doesn't mean it can accommodate many animals.

But the animals seemed to understand that this place could only accommodate a limited number of animals, so whenever the number of animals reached a certain level, they would spontaneously squeeze out some of the old, weak or new animals to ensure that the number of populations living here remained within a certain scale.

Those animals that were squeezed away could not go far. They either froze to death or were hunted by villagers in the settlement.

Although Shay restricted the villagers from directly hunting the animals living in the heating field, those that were squeezed away were not within the protection range and could be hunted at will as long as they could be caught.

It is precisely because of this that Shay's settlement not only has meat to eat during the cold winter, but can also sell furs, frozen meat and fat to caravans.

These things have become extremely precious materials in this era, especially animal fats and oils, which are extremely valuable to city dwellers.

You have to know that in a cold environment, in order to maintain body temperature and energy consumption, the only thing you can rely on besides sugar is fat.

"It snowed so heavily last night. Did any animals freeze to death?" Shay asked his brother. He didn't see any signs of animal activity through the telescope just now. Maybe it was because of the heavy snow that the animals didn't come out.

Shay's brother shook his head and answered while drinking venison soup: "No, there was too much snow last night. Even if an animal froze to death, it would be buried quickly. This weather is really terrible."

"Who said no? I really want to have a robot! If that kind of large robot is used to clear the snow, it will be much faster than manual cleaning!" Shay sighed, but for some reason his dead deer turned to the robot.

Large robots are important vehicles for caravans traveling between settlements, and are also important production and labor tools in large towns. Shay's settlement is not big enough, so there are no robots, but there are some settlements that have robots, which made Shay envious for a long time.

"If you want one, you can try to ask Count Brandlis for one when you meet her this time?" Shay's brother joked.

(End of this chapter)