Time was not on anyone's side. It most certainly despised Rino. When he failed the first timeline to finish constructing his windmill, he used the remaining day-offs he bought previously. It was a safety net that Rino did not expect to be used in such a manner.

He could ask the farmers to increase their production, but Rino didn't want to subject them to overworking as a punishment they certainly did not deserve after that backbreaking highway construction. If anything, they deserved a break. The lich wanted to introduce the hot springs to the trolls and earth gnomes. Yet, it was difficult to let anyone go on a vacation with the deadline up against his neck.

In just four more hours, he was going to experience the punishment clause in all his quests. There wasn't much Rino could do at this point. If he forced his minions to work overtime, he would lose his respect as a leader.

A king who could only rule using fear and oppression wasn't a good ruler.

===

Daily Quest #21

Objective: Build a Windmill

Time Limit: 14 Days (late)

Tutorial here.

Reward: Complex Food Recipe

Penalty: Deduct 24 hours of sleep upon failure and [Curse of Overtime] until quest is forcefully completed.

===

That deduction of sleep hours was probably the most painful punishment. Rino wasn't as worried about the Curse of Overtime simply because he took precautions. Technically, work would be done only within his marked out territories. Both Town Zera and all of Noir Province had the Eternal Night enchantment.

Despite the beliefs of many in his previous world, Rino was no genius. He was just an ordinary person with magic abilities and a very hungry attitude towards learning. The lich strongly believed that there was a solution to every problem. People simply did not try hard enough to create it. His childhood experiences shaped his paranoid nature. In everything that Rino did, he wanted to cover every base to the best of his abilities with several action plans in case something did not go his way.

Thankfully, this mindset proved extremely compatible with the research career he established. Even after receiving a new body and identity, this trait did not disappear. If anything, a Rino without any title or accreditation was like a wild animal released from his cage.

Everything that he did was for this moment where he awaited the worst to happen. If he was going to be a ruler, Rino did not want to be a short-sighted fool. His plan was laid to rule the world he was forced to build a kingdom for and give the gods a huge surprise.

The progress of the windmill building was very slow because the earth gnomes and pygmy dwarves were still trying to figure out how to fit the grindstone plates. On the bright side, while they did that, the windmill base and underground storage were picking up pace. The trolls worked together with the shadow spectres to place the stone slabs for the base while the speedy killer rabbits transported materials using Rino's dimensional storage accessories.

Two more hours until divine punishment…

Strangely, Rino was feeling very calm. It was the kind of silence Rino remembered accompanying him when he was under house arrest, awaiting his sentence when the nobles gathered together trying to frame him for plotting a coup d'état. The magician tower fought in his name and honour while the royal family remained neutral to the conflict, refraining from passing a quick judgement for all the crimes the nobles tried to pin on a lowly baron like him.

Zera Mill slowly took form. After Rina suggested using weight and reinforcement charms, the windmill stopped caving in under the weight of the four thousand kilograms of grindstone plates. The general structures were finally holding together.

Deezer felt proud that their architectural design did not need to be compromised for the heavy grindstone plates. Rino did tell them to shift everything that needed to be fitted into the building and fixed up later. The shell had to be ready first while they worked on the interior. However, for the last two days, all they could do was repeatedly slam against this impossible wall of reality that threatened to throw all their plans out the window.

For days, with Rino, the architectural team tried to design and redesign, tweaking everything that they could tweak to the finalised design. It was easy to complete the windmill using some prototypes. However, nobody expected different factors to affect the results when they started building a full-sized windmill.

With everyone getting busy, following the directions of the building coordinators, Rino took a step back to conserve his energy. Presently, his low mana reserves were continuing to deplete as they worked. The Nightless Underpass was getting put to good use for the past few days as the courier rabbits worked without a break to bring all the materials they needed.

Rino simply did not have the correct expertise to build this masterpiece despite resolving the material crisis. The vanes were crafted according to the design under Aiden and Griffith's watchful eyes. However, when they started mounting it to the axle, the vanes would not stay in position and not even hardened cement could hold them in place at the angle required.

Rino spent a long time trying to find a solution, but new problems continued to surface. He thought designing the windmill was the hardest part. However, every stage of building Zera Mill was a hurdle. Before he had time to find a way to affix the vanes onto the axis, The base of the windmill collapsed despite his previous ground treatment magic.

It turned out that the windmill's ground structure was too firm and the carved out stone slabs for the base building could not balance on the raised ground. Earth magic could raise and firm the ground beneath the windmill. However, Rino did not account for flattening the terrain before it was built. With all his engineers busy trying to resolve the vane problem, nobody realised that the windmill's base was slanted until it collapsed, breaking many precious resources that Rina and Sheila spent trying to salvage.

In the end, Zerg told Rino that it might be faster to request new materials from Noir Province instead of trying to repair the broken materials. In terms of cost-efficiency, Zerg was right. Hence, the killer rabbits were put to work once more, doubling on the number of runs they made in a day to bring the broken stone slabs while the earth gnomes fixed the surface of raised ground.

The trolls did their best with the help of Acht's team, drilling the structural pillars into the reinforced ground with little success. The methods that they used to build the barn could not be used to build the windmill. Rino had to abandon helping the other teams to help resolve their issues because it took precedence.

After several experiments to find the best material to hold the structural pillars in place. The creeping vines from the jungle worked best, and Rino spent a good part of the night taming the creeping vine and forcing it to be part of his monster undead minion.

After making the creeping vine monster the windmill's guardian, new problems surfaced again before the vane was affixed. The trolls who built the base and structure broke the stairs while transporting the first grindstone plate to the second level. Eventually, Rino told the trolls to leave the plates to the shadow spectres. It took all nine shadow spectres with Rina and the genesis fairies to bring the first grindstone plate up. The wood creaked and bent dangerously as they eased the fixed grindstone plate, and Zerg reported the situation.

Not wanting to test the strength of the treated jungle wood, Rino ordered everyone to cease bringing the next plate up. They do not know how to affix the axle yet, but that would come later. First, he had to find a way to put everything they needed inside this windmill structure. It was easier said than done.

Even with the creeping vine monster guardian's assistance, the windmill struggled to hold itself upright. It resembled a house of cards that could topple at any moment. The vanes were not light either, and placing them right at the top, Rino had a feeling the current windmill would be blown apart by the wind.

How did the commoners build such a thing without the assistance of magic? Rino might never find out now that there was nobody left to ask. Everyone he knew in the previous world had to be dead. Perhaps they were in better places now while he was stuck here in a new kind of hell.

After Rina's suggestion, things were finally starting to resemble the prototype windmill. Heavy enchantments were used, and his junior sister spared no mana when using high-level enchantments on the second grindstone plate. He could not blame her, but Rino had to excuse himself for a while, feeling slightly ill as his mana reserves dipped even lower.

Only five minutes left to complete this windmill. They weren't going to make it.

Whatever! Rino steeled himself for the curse of overwork. A death earned by overworking didn't sound too bad either. It wasn't his ideal death, but death was still death. Beggars couldn't be choosers.