By the Grace of the Gods (LN) - Volume 12 - Chapter 19

Chapter 7, Episode 57: Follow-Up #3

“Shall we?”

The day after I’d been officially taken on by the Jamils as their engineer, I was to accompany Reinhart’s inspection of the city. We climbed into the carriage and sat on the cushioned seats. After the coachman closed the door, we rolled out smoothly.

We talked occasionally throughout the ride, and the duke and duchess observed the city streets from their windows on either side of the carriage. Keeping up the pretense of enjoying a leisurely ride, they were constantly noting things about the current state of the city.

“Oh.”

“Spot anything?” Reinhart asked.

Elise shook her head. “There was someone from the security company on that corner back there, and there was a crowd of people very happy to see him.”

“That’s probably one of the workers who served as a firefighter during the attacks,” I noted.

“Oh, the ones who wore all that gear and went right into the fire. That makes sense,” said Elise.

Those firefighters were celebrities now. Everyone greeted them when they walked down the street, and they told me that they were hard-pressed to pay for their own drinks in a bar without the bartender or other patrons buying it for them. One of them had even been approached by someone who wanted to introduce their daughter for him to court. Of course, these people had risked their lives jumping into burning buildings to perform rescues. That was no small feat, even with their fire suits, and it was only natural for anyone in the city—let alone those who’d actually been rescued—to want to express their gratitude.

Truth be told, when I’d proposed the original ideas for the firefighting squads and fire suits, I hadn’t expected anyone to charge into burning buildings. I was a complete amateur when it came to firefighting, really. Firefighters from Japan had inspired the firesuit themselves, but the only “training” I’d had on the craft was a crash course I’d gotten from an old self-proclaimed ex-ranger of the self defense force at a neighborhood watch meeting I was forced to attend.

With half-baked knowledge and equipment manufactured in a rush, I could have never asked the workers of the security company, who were day laborers with no ties to the city to begin with, to jump into literal fire. If I had dared to ask, I never would have expected anyone to do it.

To my (frankly rude) surprise, they had volunteered to do so. When I’d explained the effectiveness of the suit, I had outlined the results of my experiments, stating that the suits would protect them for a very short time in actual fire. This had prompted several volunteers, including the leader of the Brawny Boys.

At first, I’d had to hold them back. After more experiments and iterations, when I had begun to trust the equipment, more volunteers had come forward, which had inspired the team of artisans manufacturing the gear.

When the time had come to use them, charging directly into fire had become a viable option. After seeing them in action, the artisans had even suggested ideas to further improve the firesuit.

While the original idea had come from my vague knowledge of firefighting in Japan, the ones who’d really made the firesuit a reality were the artisans and firefighters of Gimul. What we were seeing on the streets now was just the fruit of their labor and passion.

Of course, the constabulary that had always protected the city was properly acknowledged, and even though law enforcement had once kept a close eye on adventurers, the reputation of those who had aided in protecting the city was restored. Meanwhile, members of the Tamer’s Guild, Merchant’s Guild, and the city’s officials had garnered thanks for how they’d helped support the cleanup efforts.

“Oh!” said Reinhart.

“Something catch your attention?” Elise asked her husband.

“I see a lot of cat beastkin in this area, and I’m wondering why,” he said.

“Oh... There’s an inn that’s popular with them in this neighborhood, so I assume that’s why.”

“Judging by the look on your face, you’re involved with that inn too,” Reinhart noted.

I didn’t know what look he was talking about, but he wasn’t wrong. “Very much so. I run the inn. I had built it for the incoming laborers, with just enough space and furniture to sleep in at night. For some reason it grew very popular with cat beastkin...”

For this, I had taken inspiration from the capsule hotels of Japan. Not the fancy, modern kind, but the old-fashioned, bare-bones ones. Even though I had used the down of fluff slimes in the bedding and soundproofed each compartment very well, the inn was basically jam-packed with bunk beds, each “room” essentially a cramped box...which was apparently a huge hit among the feline beastkin. One time, I had taken Miya, the cat beastkin adventurer; Mizelia, the tiger beastkin; and Lulunese to get their opinion on it. Consensus was that the space was tight, but that somehow made it more relaxing. Something about it appealed to their species, I guess. This had led to cat beastkin being the only repeat customers of the inn while the rest of the customer base was as intended: people who chose the inn solely for the dirt-cheap price or because it was the last inn with any vacancy in town. Those people naturally did not come back often. As a result, the number of cat beastkin guests had gradually grown until the inn now almost exclusively catered to them.

“I did get a short report on that inn, now that you mention it,” said Reinhart, “but I didn’t know how the business had evolved.”

“Unless there’s trouble, I don’t go down there either. I completely delegated the day-to-day operations,” I said. This style of business operation was best suited for me, I think.

For the rest of the carriage ride, we continued talking about the glimpses of the city that passed by in the windows. While they discussed what they could on the spot, they were also noting things to look into later. Even during transit, they didn’t take a break.

After half an hour of watching the noble power couple at work in the soft jostling of the carriage, we had arrived where a series of temporary housing units stood in the northern part of the city.

Here had once stood a long row of lumber dealers’ warehouses; unfortunately, they’d been burned down during the attack. The temporary housing project had started after negotiations between the city clerk and the owners of the lots, in an attempt to utilize the surviving lumber and plots. These, however, were incomplete. None of the original structures remained, but half of the lots were still occupied by debris from the demolition. My next job was to clear all that debris while the duke and duchess made their rounds.

A torrent of people greeted our carriage—it must have included a lot more than just the residents of the temporary housing. I couldn’t even begin to count how many people were waiting out there.

“I’ll go ahead and get ready,” I said in salute to the noble couple who must face that crowd. They nodded at me, quite calm, and then elegantly climbed out of the carriage.

I wondered what the people felt when they saw their duke and duchess. No cheers or booing—instead, a strange quietness filled the air. Through the opening in the carriage door, though, I could see the crowd was fixated on Reinhart and Elise. As they were led away by security personnel, every eye in the crowd following them, I slipped out of the carriage and headed to my job site.

“Over here!”

I met up with the foreman assigned by the city council and went over our agenda.

“Carriages for transport?” I asked.

“Five parked by the road,” he answered.

“I see... That may not even cover the wood alone. Can we get a few more, considering we’ll be turning the rubble into building blocks as well?” I asked.

“We can request additional carriages,” the foreman said. “But can’t we use the same carriages? Once for the lumber, then for the building blocks? I was told that we’d be sorting the rubble, then turning them into usable lumber and blocks before loading the carriages...”

“We are, just in an unorthodox way that is more efficient. If possible, I would like a line of carriages along the rubble,” I said.

“Y-Yes, since it may affect traffic... They may not arrive until the duke and duchess have left, but I will ask about it.”

“Thank you.”

We continued to hash out work details until we were ready, then waited for the Jamils to return.

As I was reviewing the workflow of the project, a voice quietly called from behind, “Hey, you.”

“What?”

For some time, I had noticed some children I didn’t know watching me, but I hadn’t expected them to talk to me. I turned to find five children in total, four of them younger than me and the youngest about five. The fifth looked like a middle schooler, maybe put in charge of babysitting for the day. I was getting major déjà vu.

Judging by where the children were standing, I assumed the middle schooler restlessly looking to and fro was the one who’d called me. “Yes? Can I help you?” I asked.

“Yeah! Here you go!” The boy closest to me outstretched his arms. In his hands he cupped a plain, undecorated snowman.

“This is for me?”

“Yeah! Thank you for saving me!” the boy said.

That finally made me recognize the boy as the one who had been kidnapped the other day. “Yes, I remember you. You look much better.”

“Mommy was there when I woke up!”

“His mom told him about you,” said the teen. “He wanted to thank you.”

“All right... Thank you!” I said. “I’ll happily take this with me—”

But when I reached for his token of appreciation, the snowman moved. The kid hadn’t moved his hand or anything, but the top half of the snowman moved as if to twist away from my grasp.

Is that...? 

“Oh, don’t!”

“He doesn’t like you touching him.”

“The thing’ll run if you touch it!”

The children’s warnings confirmed my instinct. Just to be safe, I Appraised it. 

Snow Slime

Skills: Flight—1 Keep Cold—3 Lighten—10 Absorption—1 Divide—3

“A slime!” I exclaimed. “Not ice, but a snow slime?! I’ve never seen this kind before!”

“Said they found it while they were playing in the snow,” the teen explained. “They heard you like slimes, so they kept insisting that we give it to you...”

“Wait, don’t look sorry! I’m so happy! Thank you so, so much!” I said.

“G-Great... You really do like slime, huh?”

I thanked the other children all over again and contracted with the snow slime. Surely the snow slime would be as heat-averse as any ice slime, so I whipped up an impromptu cooler box with some rubble and magic.

Never would I have expected to meet a new slime like this. The snow slime seemed similar to the ice slime, and I was dying to know how they were different and how differently they evolved. I suspected there was more at play than mere humidity.

As I was pondering those things, Reinhart and Elise returned ahead of schedule.

“Oh? Have you made new friends?” Elise asked.

“Looks like you’re having fun,” Reinhart said.

“Oh, welcome back!” I greeted them.

Following them were the guards, who were followed in turn by the locals. Meanwhile, the children who had given me the slime were starting to look like they didn’t know what to do. The teen was even looking a little pale.

I cleared my throat. “I had the opportunity to help him the other day, and these wonderful children came to thank me, by gifting me something very rare—an evolved slime. I don’t know yet what the slime’s capabilities are, but it’s a very valuable contribution to my research, for sure.”

Reinhart smiled. “I see. If it helps your research, Ryoma, it may very well help us and everyone on our land.” His smile drew smiles out from the children, while the teen kept bowing, as if he were one of those toy birds that keeps dipping its beak to drink water. The kids were the opposite of in trouble, but letting them go now might’ve been the best option for the teenager’s mental health. Now that the duke and duchess had returned, we’d have work to do too.

“Shall we begin?” I asked.

“Not to rush you,” he said. “But if you’re ready, let’s start. Once we get the children somewhere safe.”

“Yes, my lord!” one of the security guards replied. “This way, children,” he called, respectfully escorting the children away.

I turned to the left to find about ten carriages lining the street by the row of rubble-strewn plots, as I’d requested. When I asked if I could begin removing the debris, the man in charge gave me the green light.

“Then, I’ll get started,” I said. My task was to remove the debris. I could have done it all at once with slime magic, but I’d decided to take a different approach today. “Dimension Home,” I said.

To a chorus of amazement from the crowd, a slime emerged—an enormous, translucent tentacle reached out from the familiar space portal. It was an emperor scavenger slime, an amalgamation of ten thousand scavenger slimes.

“It’s huge!”

“Is that really a slime...?”

“Mommy, look at the gigantic slime!”

“I never expected to see a slime like that.”

“Where did he catch that thing?”

“Don’t ask me. But are you really surprised he has a rare slime with him?”

“Guess not.”

Amidst all the shock, I could hear the crowd accepting this reality a little too easily.

Anyway, my job was already halfway done. At its absolute smallest, the emperor scavenger slime was a spherical blob with a radius of three meters. People had no reason to encounter a slime like this in their normal life span. Safe to say, it left a lasting impression on the public.

In order for me to stay out of trouble in the future, it was imperative for me to advertise the fact that I was now the duke’s engineer. Even though there was no minimum age for the job, it was very possible that people would assume nepotism, based on how young I was. For that reason, I needed to show off the sort of accomplishment that everyone could easily recognize. To that end, I had decided to break out a slime I had intentionally kept hidden from the general public. This was a showcase of my abilities as an engineer.

I would also do the work well, of course. I’d have to demonstrate how much use I could be.

“We’re going to start by loading the lumber,” I called out. “Ready the first carriage, please!”

With my direction, the emperor scavenger grew even bigger, until it covered the rubbled plot entirely.

“Uh, while slimes are seen as weak by most,” I explained, “even the least powerful slime can pick up something light or carry it on its body. With a slime this enormous, it can move heavy debris and fallen trees, as you can see. Also, slimes are excellent at identifying objects. You’ll see how...”

I continued commentating to the crowd as debris of all shapes and sizes were taken in by the slime, sorted in the blink of an eye, and deposited out of one of its tentacles.

Stones piled up near me, while pieces of lumber were stacked onto the carriages lining the plot. It was like watching heavy machinery with a conveyor belt operate. Even in a world filled with magic, the emperor scavenger must have been the most efficient method of sorting debris that most people had seen. The coachmen, who seemed to have overestimated how much downtime they would have until they were needed, snapped back into action.

While I felt a little bad for them, I decided to speed things up a little. I shared the emperor scavenger’s vision, gaining an accurate picture of where and how the debris was organized.

Then, I cast an earth spell: “Create blocks.” Piles of debris turned into building blocks of uniform sizes, sinking into the slime. “Stone blocks are coming too!” I called.

Piles of debris were sorted, treated, stacked onto the carriages, and immediately replaced by more piles. The carriages rapidly filled with lumber and building blocks as the plots cleared out by the minute.

It must have been a satisfying sight to the crowd, because I started hearing some cheers mixed in with the amazed murmurs.

■ ■ ■

One hour later...

“Great job, Ryoma.”

“You must be tired. I brought you something to drink.”

“Thank you. I’m not too tired physically, and I haven’t expended too much magical energy, but performing in front of the crowd made me nervous,” I admitted.

I had been told that two large buildings’ worth of debris had to be cleared. The carriages were completely full after thirty minutes, so I’d been stuck for another thirty minutes waiting for the carriages to deposit the materials and return, drawing the full attention of the crowd the whole time. With the public announcement of my appointment as an engineer, I feel like people saw me differently than before. Although I didn’t sense any malice from the crowd, there was something about the situation that made me very aware of every movement I made.

“I’m sorry,” Reinhart said. “But it’s just for today.”

“I’ll be fine,” I said. “It’s all to mitigate any trouble in the future.”

“Don’t worry about it too much,” said Elise. “Make sure you get a good lunch. You also run the restaurant we’re going to, right?”

“I do, but are you sure that’s where you want to eat?”

We were going to eat out for lunch, and I had expected them to want to go to a high-end restaurant like the one Orest had taken us to. However, they showed interest in dining at the worker’s canteen, the dining hall I had invested in. Fast, cheap, and filling were the operating principles of that place. Not that the food was revolting by any means, but it wasn’t a place you would ordinarily catch a noble—much less a duke or duchess—dining at.

“It’s part of our inspection,” Elise said. “We need to see firsthand what the average person in town might eat for lunch.”

“Besides, we used to be adventurers. We were no strangers to Gimul’s taverns,” said Reinhart.

“That’s right. You’ve told me about that.” The Jamils were all very approachable, I thought. In a good way, they didn’t act like typical nobles.

“Right. Remember how I told you that everyone in my family is supposed to go on a journey alone once they come of age? That’s so we can understand how our people live. There are countless examples in history books where a lord never took into account how his people really felt and ended up falling to an uprising.”

“I have heard of that,” I said.

“If we were seen dining at a high-end establishment when the city hadn’t even recovered from the attacks, what would people think? Even if they could rationalize our decision, I don’t think it would sit right with them,” Elise pointed out.

“That’s true,” I said.

“Nobles don’t need to eat extravagant food all the time,” she continued. “I prefer to take my time and enjoy my meals, for one. So a normal restaurant is perfect for days like this. Speaking of, what are some popular items on your menu?”

“Well...I usually recommend the sprint rabbit stew, potato salad, and a stir-fry of goblin gourd, eggs, sausage, and tofu. Will that be all right?” I asked.

While keeping prices down was a priority for this restaurant, it wasn’t good business practice to lower the price to unprofitable levels. Not to mention that if we undercut other restaurants too severely, it could hurt their business. So the canteen used edible (and legal) ingredients that weren’t usually utilized in restaurants; that way we could differentiate our menu and offer the dishes for cheap.

Goblin gourd, for example, was a gourd the size of an okra pod. Its bitter taste made it an unpopular ingredient. Its name came from the fact that goblins loved eating this crop, either because of its high nutritional content or because goblins had unique taste buds. Another theory for its etymology came from the idea that it was an aphrodisiac. As a result, people with less decorum tended to call the crop a goblin member.

“I’ve eaten a few in my adventurer days,” Elise said. “I’m looking forward to tasting their rendition.”

“I’m more stuck on this...tofu, was it?” said Reinhart.

“Tofu is processed beans,” I explained. “Ground beans are solidified with a coagulant. I learned how to make it in Fatoma.”

By learning how to make tofu, I had been able to use soybeans in different ways: tofu, soy pulp, kinako powder. Since Fatoma also had something similar to soy sauce made from fish, I often wondered if someone from Japan had settled there.

“Your travels to Fatoma were fruitful, then,” Reinhart said.

“Yes, I learned a lot there,” I said. “Um, is something wrong?”

“Not at all,” he said. “I’m just happy for you.”

“Me too,” Elise chimed in. I didn’t know what he was getting at, but Elise seemed to. “You may not realize this, Ryoma, but you come to life when you talk about new things you’ve discovered or learned, especially through your travels. Just not quite as excited as you get when you talk about slime.”

“I do enjoy researching and experimenting in general,” I said.

“And that’s a great thing,” Elise said. “You should take in this world however you want and learn from it whatever you like. I am confident that will be the best thing for you, and the best way for you to help us in the long run.”

“I couldn’t agree more,” Reinhart said. “Oh, looks like we’re here.”

The carriage slowed to a halt, and I could hear cheerful voices outside. The canteen was bustling for the lunch rush. Peeking out of the window, I could see the line of patrons spilling out of the place, all smiling.

Gimul and its people had been greatly hurt, but they still carried on. I hadn’t seen anyone on the streets or at the rubbled lots, or now at the canteen, who had given up in woe for what had happened. Everyone seemed to be fighting in their own way for a brighter tomorrow.

I doubted it would take long for the city of Gimul to return to normal. Unlike the gods, I couldn’t tell the future for certain, but I had a strong feeling about this. If I had been of help in any way to these people while I enjoyed my own life—if I could keep living the way I wanted to while helping these people—that would make me happier than I had ever dared hope for.

Now I wished for nothing more than for my life to continue like this. Carrying on towards a brighter tomorrow with everyone in my life.