Before the night could completely swallow the last glimmer of light on the plains...
The first batch of troops responding to the call had already arrived. The roar of engines and the grinding of tracks vibrated through the air around the camp.
"Good grief, is this a Leman Russ Tank?"
David leaned in close to a steel behemoth, looking up at its thick, sloped frontal armor and its short, stubby cannon barrel.
Curious, he reached out and tapped his knuckles against the metal track side panels.
The tank's hatch opened, and a middle-aged man with weary but sharp eyes jumped down, striding toward Sergeant Victor.
The two spoke quickly, gesturing as they did, while the middle-aged man's gaze scanned the crude camp.
Seeing that no one was paying attention to him, David quietly retreated behind a tank.
He pulled out his [blueprint] and aimed it at the majestic Leman Russ Tank.
[You can only copy equipment that you have built yourself or whose principles you fully understand.]
As expected, it didn't work. David could copy the blueprints for those buildings because they were simple to begin with and he'd had Hans' explanations.
Sergeant Victor and the Armored Captain were still talking in low voices.
David saw Carmine directing others to bring out crates of pre-portioned beast milk, distributing them to the newly arrived armored vehicle crew members.
Bella was busy by the dark green tent, setting up an even larger pot and lighting a fire beneath it.
He even sneakily swiped a few freshly grown potatoes and some wheat from David's field.
He thought his movements were hidden, but little did he know that David saw everything clearly.
The conversation between Victor and the Armored Captain drifted over.
"This camp of yours is too small and far too crude." The Armored Captain looked around, his tone blunt.
"The mobility and firepower of our vehicles need space to deploy. As it is now, if we're targeted by rebel artillery, a single barrage would finish us."
Victor also realized the problem.
David leaned in and interjected, "I can solve that."
The Armored Captain turned his head and saw a young man wearing strange iron armor. He asked doubtfully, "And you are?"
Sergeant Victor gave a dry cough. "He is a key figure in our next plan. You don't have the clearance to know the specifics yet."
The Armored Captain didn't push further; he simply nodded.
"You said you want to expand this base, right?" David confirmed, the urge to build starting to stir within him again.
The audience for the underground matchbox he'd shown Hans last time had been too small; it wasn't satisfying enough.
Now that there were more people in the camp, including newcomers, it was time to show off his true skills.
He reached out his hand directly to Sergeant Victor: "Lend me your pen."
Victor hesitated for a moment but still handed over the gold-plated fountain pen.
David spread a sheet of paper on a relatively flat crate and began to sketch rapidly.
"First, we'll build a perimeter wall to expand the entire camp by five times."
David drew a large circle on the paper and then boxed out a grid in the top left corner.
"This area will be converted into farmland. One block of water can hydrate an 8x8 area. We can dig two more layers underground as planting levels to ensure the food supply keeps up."
Victor opened his mouth to say there was no sunlight underground, but then he thought of the plants that had grown in less than an hour and wisely kept his mouth shut.
The pen tip moved swiftly to the bottom right corner, where he drew a small circle.
"We'll put an infinite water source here. Soldiers can draw water, clean wounds, and even bathe—you lot really need to do something about that smell."
Next, in the middle-right area of the circle, David drew a large section of neatly arranged rectangles.
"Residential area. What kind of style do you prefer? Classic matchbox or classical matchbox?"
"Is there a difference?" Sergeant Victor asked.
Hans, standing beside him, seemed to recall some rather unpleasant memories and gave Victor a meaningful look.
"The difference?" David looked up with a serious expression.
"A basic matchbox is square and boxy. A classical matchbox is boxy and square."
Victor and the Armored Captain: "..."
"And here," David continued to mark the blueprint, ignoring their reactions, "defensive walls, watchtowers, a centralized medical area..."
David got more and more excited as he drew, practically planning a small fortress.
"David," Sergeant Victor had to interrupt him, his tone somewhat helpless.
"There's no need to go to such trouble. The troops are only here for a temporary rest."
"No, no, no, no," David shook his head repeatedly, cutting Victor off.
"The soldiers need rest, and they need a relatively good environment to recover their strength and morale. Besides..."
He paused, a confident smile appearing on his face.
"Building these things won't take me much time at all."
He patted Victor on the shoulder and stuffed the pen and the densely drawn paper back into his hands.
He gave the other man a look that said, 'Relax, watch me.'
"Let me show you what I can do."
...Patient No. 3 took advantage of Carmine being busy caring for the newly arrived seriously wounded. He sneakily shuffled off his hospital bed and slipped out of the infirmary area.
His wounds had mostly healed under the treatment of the beast milk, but he had been ordered to rest quietly and was bored out of his mind.
"Ah, the smell of freedom." He excitedly pulled back a canvas flap and stepped outside the camp area.
Then, he froze.
Wait... where was he?
Where was the disorganized, crude camp from before?
In its place was a territory surrounded by high walls of cobblestone.
The walls looked to be over three meters high, thick and solid, with protruding battlements at regular intervals.
The internal space of the camp had clearly expanded several times over.
Even more striking was that on one side of the camp, several matchboxes had already sprung up from the ground.
A growing crowd of people and soldiers had already gathered at the scene.
The newly arrived armored troops and the original camp soldiers had all put down their work.
Holding their portions of beast milk, they stood nearby, watching this unbelievable scene.
Patient No. 3 also approached in a daze, squeezing into the crowd and whispering, "What's going on?"
The armored soldier he asked didn't even turn his head, merely muttering:
"I don't know. I swear I've never seen psychic power like this. He built a house in 32 seconds! Emperor above, did you see that? 32 seconds!"
"You call that a house? That's just a matchbox," another soldier interjected.
"So what if it's a matchbox? It's a hundred times better than huddling under wreckage or lying in a mud pit in the open air."
The crowd rustled with eager discussion, their eyes following David's figure.
David's vanity was immensely satisfied.
"Hey, Master Architect!" a bolder young soldier called out, scratching his head.
"Um, if it's possible, could you use some wooden planks or something to partition off a small space in this big room?"
"My comrade snores like an earthquake at night. I really can't stand it."
"You're full of it, I do not!" the named soldier immediately retorted, drawing a wave of good-natured laughter.
"Of course I can," David replied decisively.
He walked to the matchbox he had just built and, in a few swift motions, dismantled a portion of the wall facing the crowd, making the internal structure clearly visible.
Then, he took out some wooden planks and a crafting table, crafting a wooden door on the spot.
Under everyone's watchful eyes, he neatly divided the originally spacious room in two with wood and installed the wooden door in the middle.
"How's that? One side for each of you, no more interference."
"That's perfect! Thank you so much!" The soldier who made the request was overjoyed and thanked him repeatedly.
This was like opening a floodgate.