It's becoming more and more chilly every time I wake up in the morning.

There is a lot of desert around here, and there aren't many plants, so it doesn't really feel like it from the outside, but winter is probably coming soon.

It's been three years since I was born, but the temperature around here hasn't gotten extremely low.

There are some deserts like the Gobi Desert that get extremely cold, with average temperatures of -20 degrees Celsius, but that climate is rather unusual.

In many deserts, like here, the temperature is in the single digits even in winter, and it rarely goes below freezing.

All types of crops are difficult to grow unless the temperature is above 15 degrees Celsius, so I stopped sowing seeds after harvesting.

Still, because plants grow quickly, securing food and establishing farming methods are progressing smoothly, and I can even say that I have already done it.

My skills are also progressing well, but preparations for greening and securing human resources are still a long way off.

I decided to let the fields in the village rest and warm them up.

In order to kill pests and diseases in the ground, it is advised to dig up the ground to a depth of about 30 cm and expose it to cold air, but it also aims to create a granular structure in the soil that is filled with air.

It would be difficult to achieve the target unless the temperature drops below 5 degrees, but I still did it in anticipation of a period when the temperature would drop.

(There won't be any work in the field for a while.)

Bamboo seems to have taken root within the village.

With that, there isn't much to do, and I'll just have to hope that it somehow survives the low-temperature winter environment.

These bamboos originally grew wild in the mountains behind the village and are suitable for the surrounding climate, so I think they are probably safe, but I'm concerned that the underground rhizomes are still weak.

I placed some withered sorghum leaves around them, just to give me some peace of mind.

Outside the village, I have been trying to propagate rosemary and olive trees using cuttings, but as winter approaches, I have stopped taking new cuttings.

Although the numbers are small, I hope that the rosemary and olive plants that have taken root will also do their best to withstand the low-temperature environment of winter.

Right now, I'm just watching.

Since there is less to do, I am actively collecting branches that can be used as firewood and dead trees that can be used as wood in preparation for the winter.

I went around the village, strengthened my body through mana manipulation, piled up as much firewood as I could, and repeatedly carried it into the village.

Because I traveled far to collect wood, I was able to collect a considerable amount of wood, creating a small mountain within the village.

(I have to be careful about dryness and fire.)

Now that I have more time, I have focused my efforts on investigating unexplored parts of the village and improving the way to the previous village.

There was one big thing that came out of exploring the village.

The abandoned agricultural tools were made of iron, so I assumed that iron tools were not that valuable, and I thought that there might be facilities in the village that could prove this.

When I investigated, I found a facility with a furnace at the edge of the village, like I expected, and behind the facility was a cavity dug underground, an iron ore mine.

Unfortunately, the mine did not have any features like banded iron deposits, and it appeared to be a poor-quality mine that only produced rust-colored ore.

Still, it can be used as iron ore, so I would like to try making iron someday.

The stairs, which were the first hurdle in creating a transportation mechanism from village to village, have already been completed and have safely reached the height above the waterfall.

While digging further into the stairs, I found something.

After digging the stairs at a 45-degree angle for about 12 meters, a white layer appeared on the wall on the left.

The white layer was nearly transparent in many places, and when I cut it out into a cube and licked it, it was as salty as I expected.

I had been looking for that white thing for a long time, and I found a layer of rock salt in the middle of the stairs.

Even after hollowing out a cube about 30 centimeters in size, there was a layer of rock salt deep inside, so it is probably a reserve.

I made the stairs by digging up the wall on the left side of the waterfall, so after reaching a sufficient height, I dug up the right side from there and connected it to the waterway.

I was careful to dig so that the water would not flow into the stairs, even if the water rose a little and emerged above the waterway.

By the way, I made the stairs with a height of 30cm per step, but it was too high and difficult to use, so when I finished it, I cut it down to half the height and corrected the height of each step to 15cm.

In the end, there were 72 steps in total.

I am satisfied with the completed staircase.

Having managed to clear the first hurdle, I am now working on improving the road so that we can walk on the left side of the waterway towards the village.

When preparing the road, I roughly estimated the distance required to reach the village based on the time it took me to arrive at this village.

From the point of collapse to the waterfall, which caused me to become trapped in the waterway, the water flowed for about 3 to 4 hours.

When I was being washed away, I used bamboo to push against the bottom or wall of the water to increase my speed, so the average speed at which I was being washed away by the water was about 1 meter per second.

Let's say it flows at that speed for 4 hours.

Since 4 x 60 x 60 = 14,400 seconds, it is approximately 14.4 km from the waterfall to the collapse point.

I assumed that the river flowed for several hours, about two hours, from the collapse point to the village.

Since I was mostly left to the flow of the water, the speed was 0.5 m per second, and if I drifted for 2 hours, it would be approximately 3.6 km.

The distance from the waterfall to the village is approximately 18 km, which is more than a half-marathon distance.

Since it is quite a distance, it will likely take some time to maintain the waterway, so I am prioritizing moving forward rather than making the road easier to walk, just keeping it at a level that is possible to move.

I am smoothly improving my skills, so my work efficiency has increased significantly, and the road has already reached the point of collapse.

In addition, I improved the waterway leading up to the point where the boxes will not get caught and have removed the fallen rocks.

If I just build a road next to the waterway, it looks like I'll be able to make it to the village with plenty of time to spare before winter ends.

Using the newly created road, I returned to the place where I was trapped for about two months after a long time.

Although it hasn't even been a year yet, it feels like years ago, and I feel nostalgic.

I took most of the things with me, so there isn't much left.

I'm not sure if it's safe to say that there are any left, but in the rivers and ponds, I can see scattered white fish, which were a valuable source of protein at the time, and bamboo plants that are growing nicely.

It wasn't quite a bamboo forest, but the number of bamboos was increasing, and thicker bamboos were also growing.

It might be a good idea to come here to get some bamboo from time to time.

I have been working on various initiatives over the past year.

Time passed quickly, and there are only three months left until the one-year goal.

Establishing a system for people to move from the village, which I thought would be extremely difficult, is now likely to be completed in time for the remaining period.

The remaining tasks are to develop a concrete method for securing adult human resources and a concrete method for running the village while giving instructions to the people that I will secure. After all, I only look like a 3-year-old child.

I've been thinking about this for a while now, so I'm starting to have a rough idea of the basic route.

Furthermore, I would like to proceed with consideration of that image into a concrete plan.

Not only that, but I'll also need to do something I've been putting off for a while...