Chapter 119

Chapter 119 – It seem to be in the Middle of Construction Work

There’s no way for Renya to have knowledge about something like urban development.
Fundamentally Renya is the type of person who does physical work. If pushed to say, his attitude towards knowledge is: He only knows the things he knows, but as for those things he doesn’t know, he doesn’t really care. That’s the type of person he is.
So of course he doesn’t possess any knowledge regarding public work either.
What he’s capable of doing is limited to somehow providing the building materials and securing manpower.
As for the question from where he secured them from, Renya kept his mouth firmly shut and never talked about it. However, from the rumors that normal people hear by chance, news, which makes one doubt their own ears, that a single rocky mountain near Kukrika has vanished, that several dragons are present at the construction site and are being forced to carry things such as lumber and stones or that a unit of 100 soldiers, wearing the Trident Principality army’s equipment, tilled an unbelievably wide plot of land in a short time with hoes in their hands, fly about everyday.
While giving Frau, who was in her maid outfit, a ride on his shoulders, Renya thinks,
Somehow I have been pulled into something rather bothersome, haven’t I?
Frau managed to sever the connection with the house in Kukrika so easily that it actually surprised Renya.
The various types of plants thickly growing in the garden have completely disappeared without a trace, making Renya question where they could have gone after only using two days to prepare.
Even the basement, where Frau and Emil had been doing suspicious things, had been completely emptied out and only a deserted space surrounded by stone walls was visible through the entrance, which was left open.
No matter how much Renya questioned Frau about this, she stayed silent.
I don’t know whether all this is under Frau’s complete control. I wonder whether this hasn’t been leaked somewhere unbeknownst to me, Renya doubted so, but as soon as he tried to press her for answers in a slightly more forceful manner, Frau immediately resisted by using her final weapon, “A girl’s secret.”
As expected, even Renya wouldn’t be able to pursue the matter any further with those words thrust in front of him.
Therefore he only confirmed with her that nothing inopportune had been leaked to the outside and that she’s properly finishing the management, processing and clean-up. Apart from that he has mostly left the topic alone.
The city’s layout was entrusted to Emil and Mayria.
The biggest reason for this is that there is a lack of other, more capable, personnel, but even on this side various problems have started to crop up.

“Saaay, Emil… just what the heck are you doing?” (Renya)

“I-I wonder wh-what you are talking a-about, Renya? If I could have you remove your eagle grip on my head for starters, wouldn’t that make it easier to have normal conversation?” (Emil)

When Renya, who discovered Emil in the area where the building stones were being stored, saw her writing something on the back side of the stone tiles, which are likely going to cover the roads of the city, one by one, he quietly drew near from behind and suddenly used an eagle grip on her head with his right hand.

Once Renya continues to strengthen his grip little by little, Emil grabs Renya’s right wrist with both her hands while keeping up her cramped smile, and begins trying to somehow tear his hand off her head.

“Didn’t you hear my question? I asked you what you’re doing.” (Renya)

“I suppose confirming the quality of the tiles that will be used as paving for the roads…” (Emil)

“Hoo?” (Renya)

“Ah, it hurts!? You don’t believe me Renya!? Somehow I just heard creaking sounds coming from parts that must not provoke such sounds!? I have the feeling that this isn’t the grip strength of a normal human!?” (Emil)

Emil began to thrash about while raising her voice in a way that resembled a scream, but she’s unable to escape from Renya’s palm.
In fear, Emil surrendered to Renya who silently started to further increase the pressure.

“I’ll talk! I’ll do it, so can’t you loosen your grip a bit!? It’ll burst open! My head’ll burst open!?” (Emil)

“Keep it short, okay?” (Renya)

Once Renya weakened his grip a bit, Emil answered him briefly as she was instructed by Renya, even though she was still struggling and wondering whether she couldn’t get Renya’s hand off the back of her head someway.

“I added a little trick to the tiles.” (Emil)

“What kind of trick?” (Renya)

“Renya… I’d like you to look and think about it.” (Emil)

Removing both hands from Renya’s arm and abruptly shifting to a sincere tone, Emil begins to stress the importance of her words while tightly clenching her fists.

“The chance to participate in the creation of a city from scratch doesn’t come around often.” (Emil)

Normally places where people live don’t suddenly appear at the scale of a city.
Most of the times it begins with something at a far smaller scale and then slowly grows into a considerable size.
What Renya is building completely skips this regular process and is a project of designing a city from nothing.
It’s not like there aren’t any cities in this world that were built in such manner, but you can call it a rare occurrence.

“Yeah.” (Renya)

“Because I ran into this rare opportunity, it makes me wonder whether it isn’t my duty as an engineer to go all out and use all methods available.” (Emil)

“What precisely do you plan to do?” (Renya)

“That is, you know, Renya. I abundantly incorporated my special magic formulae, in other words, one that absorbs mana from the residents little by little and stores it, to… ouch, ouch! It hurts, Renya!” (Emil)

In the middle of her speech, Renya started to put strength into his grip again. Once more Emil thrashed around while opening her clenched fists and then holding her own head.

“Rejected.” (Renya)

“I-Isn’t it fine? Common residents don’t have many opportunities to use their mana anyway! I will configure it so that it absorbs so little that they won’t even feel any fatigue from it!” (Emil)

“That’s not the problem here. You would also hate a city where you are exploited without your consent by some unknown entity, right?” (Renya)

“Eh?” (Emil)

Emil turns around in Renya’s direction with a puzzled expression.
While loosening the strength in his hand unconsciously due to her expression, Renya wondered whether he had said something odd. Emil asked him while looking really mystified,

“Human cities… they don’t have such function?” (Emil)

“No… or that’s what I think at least.” (Renya)

When she asks that while staring at him, Renya lost confidence in his own words and answered while faltering a bit.
Once he tries thinking about it, Emil hasn’t gone out of Renya’s home except for things like visiting army facilities. She probably didn’t have many chances to see how typical humans spend their time.

“Eh? I mean, there’s air conditioning and even a proper water and sewer service in your house, isn’t there Renya?” (Emil)

“Those are Frau’s work. There seem to be no places that use mana for their living comfort up to such a point among the typical homes?” (Renya)

While answering, Frau with a puffed out chest, as if asking him How about that!, pops up within Renya’s mind.
Emil muttered while intently staring at his tight, flat chest,

“Then… what are normal humans doing about water or temperature?” (Emil)

“They draw water from a well or accumulate rain water? The temperature is probably regulated through making a fire or allowing the wind to blow through the house.” (Renya)

“… Such a bad efficiency.” (Emil)

Emil said with a voice containing her astonishment, or rather her admiration, or rather her inability to comment on it any further.

“Our city will be completely managed by Frau and will also have the same functions as your home, Renya. Of course we have to collect mana from the residents bit by bit and set it aside for the maintenance of those functions though.” (Emil)

Things like water and sewer services, a certain level of temperature regulation inside the city, lights to illuminate the city during the night and a communication network within the city. The city where Emil lived, in other words the demons’ city, has a difference in its scope and a few disparities. Most of the communities with a size that allows them to be called cities use a system to collect mana from their residents and a system that uses the accumulated mana to maintain the city’s functions, according to Emil.

“Though the quantity taken from the individual demon is slightly larger because we possess a lot of mana. Since the humans have larger numbers, albeit possessing little mana, I think we will be able to somehow handle it even if the collected amount per person is small.” (Emil)

“I guess that might have a certain charm…” (Renya)

Although all the structures within the city might be inferior to my home in Kukrika, if they can maintain the same functions, won’t we be able to present that as merit which would compensate plentifully for the demerit of absorbing a little bit mana? Renya wonders.

“In the first place, don’t you believe that you are overthinking things a bit too much, Renya?” (Emil)

“Really?” (Renya)

“After all, this system, it was also set up in the capital city of the Trident Principality. However, it looks like the system over there isn’t used for maintaining the city’s functions, but for something else.” (Emil)

Due to Emil stating that without hesitation, Shion’s body, who came to pick up building stones by chance, trembled with a start.
Having been assigned to Renya as the one in charge of military affairs, Shion is mainly the same type of physical worker as Renya. She readily abandons work that requires mental capacity at Emil’s or Mayria’s level, and works hard and diligently at manual labor such as transporting building stones or ramming stakes into the ground for the sake of establishing a foundation.
Being referred to as the military official might sound nice, but currently an organization that could be called military doesn’t exist in the Kunugi Margraviate.
In other words, Shion had a lot of free time as there was no work for her to do as a military official.
Somehow Renya has the feeling that Shion would still have plenty of free time even if they reached the point of actually having an army, but as he believes that it’s probably wrong to voice that out, he stays silent and limits himself to only thinking about it.
As for the reason, it’s because Rona has been employed as Shion’s assistant.
The opinion that all practical and businesslike matters will be very likely handled by Rona was shared by almost everyone in Shion’s surroundings.

“Shion? Do you know something about that?” (Renya)

“N-No, nothing! I was just startled that you suddenly started speaking about the Trident Principality.” (Shion)

While answering in a fluster, Shion lifted up all the stone tiles that were piled up over there and ran off as if escaping.
Due to Shion’s all too obvious attitude, Renya and Emil fully comprehended that she knows something about the function of the Trident Principality’s capital that Emil was talking about, but neither of them were in the mood to chase after Shion and confront her about it.
After all that was something relatively insignificant to either of them.
Rather than that, Emil grins broadly while seeing off the escaping Shion.
The stone tiles, which Shion took, were apparently materials with Emil’s bestowal magic applied on them.

“So I guess that means it’s already too late even if I told you to stop now, huh?” (Renya)

To begin with, it looks like I noticed it far too late, Renya realizes.
If he had done this before the city construction, he likely could have stopped it, but now the city’s construction has already started with the pavement of the roads and the construction of several buildings in work. There are even parts that have been completed.
There’s no way that Emil hadn’t meddled with those.

“I feel sorry for having stayed silent about it. But I never actually thought that such functions don’t exist in human cities.” (Emil)

“I will look the other way if you promise me that the functions will be put to use for improving the livelihood of the citizens. And please make sure that magic stones can be used as a substitute.” (Renya)

It’s probably necessary to inform the residents about it in a roundabout way, Renya feels.
If the residents stopped settling down in the city because of this, we will somehow still be able to handle it with a mass production of magic stones through Frau, Renya assessed.

“You can leave that part to me. The elevation of the city’s living standard is directly linked to the easiness of my livelihood.” (Emil)

“You plan to settle down here…? Well, whatever, but…” (Renya)

“I think it’ll become a city where it’s easy to live. At any rate, it will be a lushly green city with a set ratio of 50:50 between architectural structures and green tracts of land.” (Emil)

“Wait a moment.” (Renya)

When he turned his look upwards at Frau who is riding on this shoulders, Frau tried to escape Renya’s gaze by fully concentrating on looking up to the sky.
Seeing that, Renya grabs both of Frau’s ankles, which are swaying on both his sides, and starts to swiftly put strength into his grip.
Frau, who was watching the sky, became pale due to the pain and pressure assaulting her ankles, tightly grasped her small fists and began to launch a barrage of punches towards Renya’s head in silence.

“Frau, I haven’t heard anything about this, have I?” (Renya)

“Master… it will be fine ~nano. I will only plant the children with gentle… temperaments. T-That’s why I’d like you to take your hands off my ankles ~no.” (Frau)

“Children with gentle temperaments, you say? What children!?” (Renya)

“Huh? This was to be kept secret from Renya?” (Emil)

Frau glared at Emil, who had apparently spit this information out on purpose and was currently patting her head that had just been released from Renya’s hand, with eyes that had a dangerous glint dwelling within.

“Emil… I will remember that ~no. Master!? Frau’s ankles are completely different from strong legs like those of Shion-ane-sama or Rona-ane-sama ~no! If you grasp them like that, they will be torn off ~no! Having a lot of greenland is a good thing ~nano! The human heart will feel at ease, and it will be an environment also making it easy for the elf Croire-ane-sama to live in ~no! That’s why I’d like you to remove your hands ~no!” (Frau)

“Only that an ominous place outside the human world will extend to the size of a city, right?” (Renya)

“That’s not it ~no! It will be fine since Frau will manage it properly ~no! T-They might break ~no!” (Frau)

In the end Renya wasn’t conscious when his hands separated from Frau’s ankles.
Frau, who was unable to bear the pain any longer, took the decisive action of head-butting the top of Renya’s head as if planning a double suicide. Only when both were knocked out, were Frau’s ankles released from Renya’s grasp.
Emil, who quietly moved both of them, who had lost consciousness, into a corner hidden from people’s eyes, once again started with her work at the stone tiles as if being possessed by a demon.