By the Grace of the Gods (LN) - Volume 4 - Chapter 4

Chapter 3 Episode 4: Rumors

I left home in the morning on most days, but I was supposed to come to work later starting today, so I decided to start building my house instead. I went with a standard design; walls that were long horizontally, with windows and a door. I drew a diagram on the ground and updated it as I came up with more ideas. I could set up anything I needed in the mine, so the house only had to be comfortable enough to sleep in.

On the other hand, my store was under constant attack, and I was worried that they might target my home too. But building a secure house would take a while. I could instead continue to live in the mine, and use this new house as a decoy to attract any attackers. The house could block the entrance to the mine so that one had to pass through the building to enter, making it appear that the house was my home. That would buy me time to escape or fight them off.

Traps were also worth considering. Anything too complex would take time to set up, but I could easily have my slimes watch for intruders and splatter them with acid, poison, or sticky fluid. Well, acid or sticky fluid would work, but poison was worthless unless it entered the body. Poison gas would be more efficient if I had any slimes with poison magic, but I didn’t just yet. If they could use fire, then a concoction that produced poison smoke would work too, but now my ideas were getting increasingly complicated. I decided to settle on acid or sticky fluid for traps. But I had to actually build the house before I could even start on that.

It seemed best to build something easily repaired in the event that the house was destroyed in an assault. The house had to look legitimate to work as a decoy, but I needed to construct it as soon as possible. A prefab of sorts seemed like the best option. A prefab was a building that had all its parts created in a factory so that they could be simply assembled at the construction site. Little work had to be done on-site, and they were quick to build. When constructing many buildings of the same design, this process also made it easy to come out with mostly identical end results. There were no factories to order parts from and I would have to make them myself, but it would all be easy once that was done. I could make materials of an appropriate size with Create Block, so I figured I could manage something with that.

I cast Create Block and began my experiment by tinkering with the blocks a bit. I enlarged a brick and put holes in it to make concrete blocks. This much was easy. To stack these and create walls, I would need cement or sticky fluid. Instead, I added more holes to the bottom and bumps to the top. Now the blocks would fit together and be stable enough. I made another one that was shaped like a cube. A single bump wouldn’t have been enough, so I put four on the top and made four holes on the bottom. I also sanded the protrusions down to make sure they weren’t too sharp and potentially dangerous. That was when I realized I was recreating a popular building block toy. But that matched my goal well enough, and it was at least a good reference point for my design.

I decided to call this new twist on the Create Block spell ‘Building Block,’ with ‘Building Block: Cube’ and ‘Building Block: Rectangle’ variations. Now I could create blocks of either shape as needed. I built a wall out of the blocks as a test, and the weight of the stone made the wall fairly hard to shake. I used magic to turn some dirt into clay, then smeared that all over the wall to make it sturdier. Now it had the appearance and resilience of any average wall, similar to precast concrete. This was If I kept making more parts, my prefab would become a reality. Now seemed like a good time to head to work.

■ ■ ■

I came in late and asked Carla if there were any problems.

“Good morning, Boss. There are a few things I’d like to report. Firstly, Mr. Smit came this morning.”

“And not as a customer?”

“That’s right. The men who kicked up a fuss the other day turned out to be tamers with the tamer’s guild. Mr. Smit wanted to apologize for the incident.”

“He apologized personally? That’s embarrassing.”

My first time coming into work late, I missed an important visitor. It had been so long since I missed something like this that it almost made me nostalgic. I considered stopping by the tamer’s guild now, but he probably had his own business to attend to.

“Who were the culprits? This happened a couple days in a row, right?”

“These men have been tamers for a long time and live meager lives, so when they saw you making so much money as a new tamer who can only use slimes, they were green with envy. They felt that raising a ruckus at the store wasn’t much of a crime, so they didn’t think much before they did it. Their little grudge will land them a disproportionately large fine and some community service, I’m sure. If you would like to request compensation from the guild, I can reach out to them for negotiations.”

There were no damages for me to request compensation over. Taylor himself came by the store, so there was no need to tell him to be more careful from now on either.

“We don’t need money. They should have their own ways to respond to situations like this, so we just need them to follow through with that.”

“I knew you would say that. In accordance with the rules of the tamer’s guild, the culprits will be penalized, and all members of the guild will be informed of their crimes. But there is one other thing I would like your opinion on. There seems to be some criticism of Mr. Smit for taking our side.”

“Not from the culprit? Why?”

“The men who obstructed our business had fairly strong monsters and worked with the guild for a long time. They should have had greater status than they did. They felt that they were unjustly treated and committed these crimes as a result, according to the critics. Unfortunately this framing places us in a bad light. Some customers who heard the rumors have come to us with concerns about our business. I’ve been telling them that we haven’t had any problems and that we’re thankful to Mr. Smit.”

“Is this all incredibly sudden, or is it just me?”

“It does seem like quite the leap to make.”

“I’d like to know more about this.”

“Understood, I’ll have Carme gather information.”

“Please do.”

There were no other reports worth noting, so I checked on the rest of the store, then went off on the first job I could find that day.

“May I have five horned rabbits, please?”

“Here you go! Are you running errands? How nice of you.”

“Something like that,” I laughed. Not that I could do anything about my appearance, but it complicated things.

“Well, if it isn’t Ryoma?” Sieg said when he popped in from his workspace. “I’ve got slime food for you.”

“Thank you, I’ll come check it out as soon as I deliver this,” I said, then thanked him and turned to leave the store for now.

“Oh, can you hold on a second?” he asked.

“What is it?”

“You mind having your slimes clean up my store? My clothes are cleaner than ever, but now I’m starting to notice the smell in here. I clean the place myself every day, of course, but I can’t quite seem to get rid of the stench.”

“Then I’ll bring some deodorizing fluid later. If it’s just the smell that’s the problem, I think that should solve it.”

I returned to my store and got some deodorizing fluid ready. After closing time that night, I was checking documents when Carme got back.

“Welcome back. Did you figure anything out?”

“Here,” Carme said and handed me a summary. He worked quickly.

“Looks like word about Mr. Smit’s critics has spread pretty far.”

“Yes, there’s some variance in the rumors, but none of them view Mr. Smit favorably. It’s been bothering Glissela of the merchant’s guild too, and she believes that someone may be trying to harm Mr. Smit’s reputation. Mr. Smit seems to be in a delicate position within the guild.”

“Seems like it.”

The documents contained a visual depiction of the power structure within the tamer’s guild, along with a summary of their history. I knew that the tamer’s guild had two schools of thought, but this showed how they had formed into two separate factions. One focused on strong monsters, and they were currently the dominant faction. The other thought that strength was less important than using monsters properly, and sought to live in harmony with monsters. Their school of thought originated with Shiho Jamil’s introduction of taming magic to the world, and her suggestion that a path to peaceful coexistence between man and monster was possible. It would by no means be easy, however. When the advantages of using monsters became apparent, the tamer’s guild gradually diverged from Shiho Jamil’s ideals and continued to hold the same beliefs to this day. As the years passed, fewer and fewer members shared Shiho’s beliefs.

Most jobs from the tamer’s guild involved using monsters for work a human or animal could have done instead. When it came to slaying monsters, there were adventurers who specialized in that. Delivering letters and other small jobs could be done by horses and humans. And if all these jobs could be done without monsters, that meant tamers had to compete for them. Tamers who made their living through the guild sought out monsters that could make their jobs easier. Humans and beastkin, in particular, had short lives, and every time a new pupil replaced their master, the ideals of the old days were further forgotten.

“There are still elves and other long-lived races who have learned and taught Shiho’s ideals all their lives, and their students still inherit her beliefs to an extent. Mr. Smit is one among them, and his high status within the guild has earned him some hate.”

“I see. How much is this related to the obstruction at our store?”

“I can’t say for certain that it’s unrelated.”

“Right,” I agreed. It was possible that my store was never the real target, and it just happened to be convenient for this purpose. “Could we spread our own rumors? Ours being the truth, of course.”

“The merchant’s guild has a treasure trove of information. There are plenty of merchants on the lookout for the latest news, so it would be easy enough if we spread the rumors through them. What should they say?”

“I actually just recently made a contract with six limour birds, so I’m no longer a tamer who can only use slimes. It looks like some of the criticism is about Mr. Smit favoring someone with no talent, claiming he doesn’t know what he’s doing. I think this would help discredit those rumors. It would show Mr. Smit as someone with a lot of foresight, don’t you think?” I suggested. Limour birds were known for being difficult to form contracts with, after all.

“That should be plenty,” Carme said with a smile. “Then the critics would be the ones who don’t know what they’re talking about. The response should be amusing.”

“Can I ask you not to make it too inflammatory? I don’t need to make more enemies.”

“Understood, I’ll get started on that right away.”

“Oh, hold on a second. It’s night, and we don’t know who we’re dealing with. Bring Fay or Lilyn with you just to be safe. This will be outside their regular hours, so offer to pay overtime. I’ve also been setting up defenses at the mine, so don’t worry about me.”

“Understood, but don’t push yourself too hard,” Carme said before he left the room. I waited for him and Fay to return, then decided to head home to the mountains.