Chapter 46: Iron Scraps and Rising Walls
Around noon the next day,
"Ugh..."
Dion woke up and slowly sat up in bed, blinking his eyes to clear his vision. He looked around, completely dazed for a moment as he gathered his senses. His eyes scanned the details of the room, trying to make sense of his surroundings. When he spotted a witch hat hanging on a coat rack, his eyes widened.
"Oh... right... This is Cleo’s room," he realized.
Before he could move,
Clunk!
He felt a sudden twinge in his waist as his brain finally registered the deep ache throbbing through his whole body.
"Ugh... This is from using Berserk Monk yesterday... plus Cleo holding onto me like a vice all night. Every muscle in my body is stiff," he thought, twisting his torso to pop his back.
He swung his legs over the edge of the bed and lowered his feet to the floor. As his hearing cleared up,
Clang! Clang! Clang!
The sharp sound of clashing metal echoed from outside, drawing his attention toward the window. Dion stood up, walked over to the glass behind him, and drew back the curtains. The window offered a direct view of the open field right beside the village on the second floor. Without even having to search, he spotted the source of the noise.
Out on the field, Sheila and Mei were engaged in a fierce spar. Behind them sat rows of young villagers and men, each holding a sword or spear, watching intently as Sheila and Mei demonstrated their combat skills.
"Wow," Dion muttered softly.
Sheila swung her battleaxe down with a heavy overhead strike,
Boom!
The axe slammed into the earth as Mei vanished into thin air.
Grek!
Sheila wrenched her axe free from the newly created crater.
Clang!
Without even looking back, she slung her axe behind her back like a shield, parrying Mei’s sudden ambush from behind as her twin blades slashed toward her neck. The sheer force of the impact sent a powerful shockwave rippling across the field, forcing the seated onlookers to brace themselves to stay upright. Dion could see both of them smiling from afar, they were genuinely enjoying the fight.
Suddenly,
"Graaaaah!"
Dion glanced toward the far edge of the field. He saw Gina expanded into her giant dragon form, launching a stream of fire toward Cleo, who was floating in midair and deflecting the flames with a magical barrier cast from her staff. Observing the peaceful yet energetic scene, Dion smiled softly.
"They’re all training... and for some reason, it feels really good to watch," Dion murmured, resting his chin on his hand as he leaned against the window frame.
He kept watching Sheila spar with Mei before the two transitioned into teaching basic weapon maneuvers to the young men of the village. Then his gaze drifted back to Gina and Cleo, who were engaged in a mock battle, drawing an admiring crowd of local youths.
Noticing that Luna and Aria were nowhere in sight, Dion scanned the area carefully.
"Hmm... Where are Luna and Aria?"
His eyes moved from left to right, then back again, sweeping through the entire village. That was when he noticed something glaringly absent.
"Wait... That’s weird. Why aren’t there any golems patrolling the village?"
Without giving it another thought, he turned around, walked out the door, and headed downstairs toward the mansion’s main entrance. As he pushed the front door open, he saw two little girls, no older than seven, walking into the mansion grounds and heading straight toward the back hill. Curious, Dion followed their path and began hiking up the slope toward his parents’ grave.
As he reached the top, a clear voice echoed through the trees.
"Alright, now let’s calculate how many fruits are left after we sold a portion of them..."
It was Luna. Dion peeked cautiously from behind a thick bush, his eyes widening in surprise. Luna was sitting at the top of the hill, patiently teaching a group of local children how to read and count. The kids were paying rapt attention, eagerly raising their hands to answer her questions.
Seeing this touching sight, Dion quietly backed away, deciding not to interrupt her class. He turned and walked back down the hill without making a sound, a warm smile spreading across his face.
Once he reached the bottom, his mind shifted back to his missing workforce.
"Now then... Where did my golems and Aria go?" he wondered.
He walked toward the perimeter fence. Strolling through the village, he noticed how the former slaves brought in by Sheila, Cleo, and Aria were already blending in and working alongside the original locals. The whole village was bursting with life: men were weeding the fields, women were tending to household chores or assisting with the crops, and several workers were repairing damaged homes while building new structures on vacant plots of land.
As he approached the main entrance of the village, still protected by the massive barrier Cleo had cast the night before, he froze in his tracks. His eyes went wide and his jaw dropped.
"So that’s where all my golems went... with Aria," he thought to himself.
Aria was standing near the entrance, shouting orders as the golems moved at incredible speed. A sturdy stone wall had already been erected right next to his watchtower, and the golems were already busy constructing a second section. Dion walked over to Aria, who had her hands on her hips as she supervised the construction.
"Aria," Dion called out.
Aria spun around, her face instantly brightening as she rushed over to him. Dion braced himself for a sudden flying hug, but when she reached him, she spoke with total urgency.
"Dion, please summon more golems! Thirty golems aren’t building this wall fast enough!" Aria said casually.
"Oh... about that... I can’t right now. I have to wait until tomorrow, the skill is still on a one-day cooldown," Dion explained.
"Huh...? Cooldown?" Aria asked, tilting her head in confusion.
"Don’t worry about it. Point is, I can only make more golems tomorrow, and I’ll need a massive amount of scrap iron," Dion clarified.
Aria fell silent upon hearing his explanation, her expression turning serious as her brows furrowed in thought. She rested her hand on her chin. Seeing her sudden shift, Dion asked,
"How many worker golems are you trying to add, anyway?"
"Hmm... I calculated the timeframe," Aria began, breaking down her math. "To build a wall this thick using thirty golems took from last night until noon today. So I’ll need at least sixty more golems to meet schedule... Oh, and that’s not counting the five servant golems keeping the mansion running."
"I see... To craft sixty golems, I’m going to need 3,000 pieces of scrap iron," Dion noted offhandedly.
"Huh... 3,000? Got it," Aria replied instantly.
"That’s why I’ve only made thirty-five golems total so far, I’m severely limited by the scrap iron available around here... Wait... What do you mean ’got it’?" Dion asked, suddenly bewildered.
Aria smirked and leapt backward. Spreading both hands wide, two pitch-black spatial vortices ripped open in front of her palms.
Clang! Clang! Clang!
Ruined swords, broken daggers, handleless axes, chipped spearheads, and mountains of damaged iron equipment began pouring out of the portals without pause. What started as a small heap quickly ballooned into a massive mound, growing so tall that Dion had to look up, the pile of discarded iron weapons and tools had surpassed his own height.
"Wow... All of this...? How is that even possible?" Dion gasped.
"Hey... My class is SS-rank Arsenal Merchant!" Aria boasted cheerfully. "I can open my dimensional storage whenever I want and pull out supplies at will. So, now that we have all the materials, we can do it, right?"
"Of course we can, but I still have to wait until tomorrow to cast the spell," Dion replied.
"Oh... Okay! We can just leave it all right here. Nobody’s gonna steal a pile of junk metal anyway," Aria said nonchalantly.
"Hmm... That works, though it’d be much better if we had a proper workshop to store it," Dion smiled.
Reaching for the dimensional pouch permanently strapped to his waist, Dion pulled out a smooth iron sphere with a bright red button on top. He pressed the button and tossed it onto the ground.
Boom!
A heavy tremor rippled through the earth as a boxy iron structure containing elevator doors materialized right before their eyes. Aria stared in awe.
"Wow... What is that?" she gasped.
"An Emergency Bunker, an underground shelter for emergency protection," Dion explained with a smile. "Let’s load all this scrap metal into the lift and take it downstairs. I’ll work on crafting the golems down there tomorrow. The bunker item is single-use, but as long as we don’t deactivate it, it won’t disappear. It’ll be way safer to work underground."
"Alright... Let’s get to work!" Aria cheered.
Aria reopened her spatial portal to funnel the massive pile of iron straight into the bunker lift, and together, they stepped inside to head down into the subterranean shelter.