Chapter 594 (1/2)

”What a pleasant surprise,” thought Roland

Out of his expectation, Tilly herself would also co several combat witches to help hi Island, or that she did not have to worry about the stability of the island for now

The day after he received the letter, Roland waited for Tilly at Shallow Beach with Anna and the other witches

After half acould clearly be seen on the beach of sand and mud

Simple wooden board houses and work sheds had already been built around the slope, which were the prototype of the future warehouse and sailor dormitory The ard sides of the wooden houses were painted with an orange anti-corrosion coating to protect the alsobeachhead was leveled, and its external side was made of bricks It noorked as a temporary dock, and the natural deep-water harbor here even saved Roland the trouble of building trestle Even the three-masted shi+ps could berth here directly by the side of the dock

As it was the first ti the develope, they all looked around with curiosity

”Is that huge pit the collapsed shi+pyard? What're they doing over there right now?” Anna walked to Roland and then pointed to a distant place where many workers seemed very busy with their jobs

”Uhm, you've heard about it, too,” Roland said with a little embarrassment

”Of course, Nana told s”

The collapse of the shi+pyard and the explosion of the coke oven in a test run were both major accidents of this year in the Border Area The latter could be considered as a price he had to pay during development and exploration The former, however, was mostly caused by his own careless round condition in Shallow Beach, Minister of Construction, Karl, had proposed that the shi+pyard should be built near the hills as the place could provide them a gestion at once because of the ti ti the hills, if they built the shi+pyard in the old way, he would have to wait until the next year to begin building the steam vessel for Thunder

As for the soft-foundation proble as he let Lotus build a steel structure of the shi+pyard and poured concrete in to protect it

The project had gone well as he had expected in the initial stage The vertical walls which had been designed to protect the steel structure had seemed to be quite sturdy after the concrete had set Roland had been very pleased with hi experts were just so-so To his surprise, an accident had eventually happened when the workers had been installing the portcullis

As soon as the one arbirds, it had fallen doith the concrete walls on its both sides, burying the installing workers inside Even though the Huht as a feather, the workers had already been heavily injured at the time None of theation revealed that during the process of pouring the concrete, some sand and mud had sunk under the workers' feet and fallen to the botto to the floor and the see parts between the floor and the vertical walls were just a thin layer of concrete The moment when the heavy portcullis had been set into the wall, the steel structure had failed to sustain the weight and collapsed with the walls suddenly

In the rievous fault of Roland In this era, however, casualties frequently occurred during construction and no one would take it seriously, let alone blauilty and deeply sorry for the workers

He cleared his throat to gather hi ooden posts”

”To prevent the earth beside the shi+pyard froot what Roland meant

”Uhm, it's just like roots of a tree The wooden posts are crossed and inserted into the ground to increase friction, so the vertical walls won't fall down,” Roland nodded and said This time, he would carefully check whether there were sunk sands andthe concrete in, as he had already got his lesson

”Look, here comes a shi+p!” Mystery Moon shouted in a sudden