CHAPTER 71: Introducing Elle
“Mm. I’d hoped that with your influence there was enough time for me to introduce him properly to the nobles. But it seems we’ve run out of the luxury of time. If we wait, then I fear the things you have mentioned will happen. If the nobles can’t bring Shane to their side, they’ll try and force him. Knowing the natures of both Shane and the nobles, I can already forecast the unhappy result. I am going to encourage Shane’s relationship with the king. In the meanwhile, I want to ask if he could team up with Elle because she’ll have a moderating effect on Shane. Hana is too much like Shane. She would support him in any action regardless of the implication. That might not help him make good judgement calls in the future.”
“That was my plan, however Shane has accelerated things far quicker than I anticipated. It would be good to get him out of the limelight for a while and keep him busy in the forest. Are you okay with that?”
“Heck, I couldn’t believe my luck. On top of that, it would be a good way to for Obon to prepare for the winter.”
“What about our friend the mayor?”
“I heard the king initiated an investigation on him for a while ago now. I’m not sure what that turned up, but from what I’ve seen and heard, he’s up to something nefarious and I can’t help but wonder if it’s tied in with the nobles somehow. Unfortunately, we don’t have any evidence against him yet.”
Grenfell laughed at Karato’s comment.
“Even if we have most of his funds sitting at the back of the storeroom?”
“I still can’t believe Shane managed to find all of it. Unfortunately, the mayor could just claim it was taxes he owed the palace, or he could outright deny any involvement. It wouldn’t be sufficient grounds to act against him or remove him as mayor. For now, the worst we can do, despite our misgivings is to work around him the best we can.”
“Talking about the storeroom, I want to show you something.”
Grenfell took Karato to the storeroom. Karato, already familiar with the vast expanse of the storeroom never liked to go in there on his own because he feared he would never come out. His scavenging nature would become a compulsive disorder in that place. As it was, he could hardly keep away from the royal storerooms. But despite his expectations he found the storeroom empty, not an item to be seen except for clean shelves. Grenfell drew his attention to something.
“Look at this.”
Grenfell pointed to Shane’s large model on the floor.
“What am I looking at?”
“Stop being lazy. Bend down and look carefully, you tell me.”
Karato bent down and looked at the model. It was no doubt a large set of metal houses, business, streets, fountains, and bridges. The houses all looked like double storied dwellings surrounded by small parks. Large trees interspersed the parks and lined the roads. The model’s artistry looked amazing with a fascinating level of detail. Then his eyes caught sight of something familiar.
“Is that the Screaming Banshee? Oh, there’s the Dryad. So, this is Obon, but it’s also not.”
“It’s Shane’s plan for Obon’s future. It’s how he envisions it will look.”
Karato stepped back to get a larger view. The town was unusually shaped like a gem and one quarter of it was strangely empty.
“I don’t get it. Why shape it like that and why’s one quarter of it empty?”
“I’m not sure about the empty part, perhaps he’s looking to fill it up with something else. Regardless, no matter from which side you look at it, you can easily fit another one of those towns next to the other. Each one of these towns is entirely self-sufficient.”
Karato didn’t know what to think. That Shane was already thinking on that level was truly astounding. He had a plan already in his mind.
“How is he going to achieve this?”
“Ha, ha, ha. Only a few moon cycles he arrived naked in this town without a copper to his name and now he is going to be starting his own woodcutting business. Both you and the king befriended him, you tell me how many people have achieved that within that time, while starting from nothing?”
Karato couldn’t deny that. Shane was unique. He should instead be asking another more relevant question on his mind.
“How many summer seasons do you think it would take for him to achieve this?”
“At the rate he’s going. Within three.”
Karato couldn’t hold his surprise in. Logic told him that from there, development would expand exponentially. Something told Karato that Shane held more than a few surprises close to himself. Grenfell then said something interesting.
“Here’s the thing. Is the kingdom going to embrace this change or fight it? If we embrace it, we’ll see wonderous things in our lifetimes and many people will be satisfied. If we fight it, then Aryonne faces only ruin.”
Sobering words thought Karato.
“What’s our part in this?”
“We support him, encourage, and discipline him. He’s level-headed and loves people but he also accepts guidance which is rare in young leaders. You, on the other hand, also need to keep those nobles off his back until he becomes politically strong enough to keep them away.”
“What about His Majesty, will he be willing to see that level of power within Shane’s hands?”
“The king has nothing to fear from him because Shane respects authority and understands his role in that. It’s to what level those power-hungry nobles will go to stop Shane, that should be the king’s concern.”
Karato wondered who were Shane’s parents that they gave birth to such a well-rounded man. He hoped that one day, if they were still alive, he could meet them.
When we arrived, Grenfell and Karato sat talking at the Dryad’s counter.
“Ah…Shane, Hana, I’d like you to meet my daughter, Elle.”
“Daughter? I didn’t see anyone.”
Suddenly a minted breath behind my ear said,
“Hello, nice to meet you again.”
“Whaaat!”
I jumped forwards in surprise. Behind me stood a silver haired, young woman, dressed in green.
“You?”
Hana looked surprised at my outburst.
“Do you know her?”
My heart was racing at a thousand knots, she walked as if on a cloud. I could swear I never heard a squeak from the floorboards, every movement of the half-elf was grace in motion. Someone tapped me on the shoulders. It was Hana bringing me back to the real world.
“Shane?”
“Ah, sorry. We met once before, nice to meet you again.”
The old man immediately continued.
“Elle helps me on the odd occasion with some of my paperwork and since your business seems to be increasing, we thought you could do with an administrator”
Elle looked at me quietly with those green artefact eyes, I wasn’t too sure if I should be happy that someone was willing to help me, or that they were deciding for me.
“Shane. Just so that you know, I’m not the sort of administrator that just sits behind a desk, I’m travelling with you wherever you go.”
Hang on a second, Elle was joining us?
“Welcome aboard Elle, we are pleased to meet you.”
Huh, why did Hana just invite her to join us?
“Excuse me a moment…Hana, can we have a private word for a second?”
Grabbing Hana, we disappeared into the back of the store.
“Lover’s quarrel.”
Elle said smiling.
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“Totally. Don’t give him too much grief.”
Said Grenfell.
When we came back from the store, Hana’s face was smiling, but a bit redder, and I was recovering from the losing end of a verbal match. She could be an idiot sometimes, but then she looked so cute when she was mad, she always scrunched up her nose like she was smelling something bad.
“Sorry for that Elle, welcome on board. I only have one demand for new members.”
“What’s that?”
“You need to be wearing dungarees.”
“Really? Do I have to? I’m not sure if I want to do that.”
“He, he, he. Oh, by the way, you can make yours green if you like.”
“Thank you, I think. So, what exactly do you call yourselves?”
“What do you mean?”
“Is the name of your group something like Monster Fighters, Killer Doves or Hammer Badger?”
Was she related to a biker gang that she came up with those ghastly names?
“No. We haven’t decided a name yet, and certainly not one of those suggestions.”
“Who said they were suggestions?”
“Don’t tell me there were actually adventurer groups out there called those names?”
And why did I suddenly feel as if I had a big sister watching over me. Trust the old man to make his daughter keep an eye on us. And something else; since Elle was a half elf, was the old lady an elf?
“Shane. Let me manage your businesses for you. I don’t believe that simply giving things away will lead to the benefit of towns folk, especially unmanaged. Let me bring maximum benefit to you and the people who you would like to share this with.”
It sounded vaguely familiar. Didn’t Olivia give me the same speech just a few days ago?
“Yes sure.”
“Just like that?”
“Look, I know the old man well enough to know that when he sends me his daughter to help, I have the best person in town for the job. Consider yourself hired.”
Elle laughed to herself. Shane had a heart like gooey syrup. Just as well her father saw that coming.
“Anytime you want to arrange something or make deals other than those you have already made, please let me do the negotiation?”
“Okay, I’ll leave it up to you. Just give me some time to get used to it, I tend to do things on the fly sometimes.”
“Well take it easy then. I need to go soon. It was nice meeting you Shane and Hana, perhaps we can meet again soon. We’ll catch up later about your woodcutter business.”
Huh, just how did she know about that, I wondered?
“Yeah…sure.”
As we watched her walk away I turned to Grenfell.
“Just how much does she know?”
“Pretty much everything.”
I mean, could anyone in that place not keep something under wraps?
We spent the rest of the afternoon making axes and saws using the creation core. There were enough weapons and tools that used wooden handles and metal for us to add to the core. All I needed to do was add in a few marsh stones to supply the required ethereal energy and then one by one some beautiful. We spent more time finding suitable materials than actually making the tools. By late that afternoon we had all the required tools. I even had included a few blacksmithing spares like horseshoes. To keep Grenfell happy, I produced enough swords as well.
Since we completed my tasks for the day, I decided to check on the scolems we created the previous evening. All of them successfully arrived and were absorbed into the core. When I touched the core, Ara was able to retrieve the information and give me a heads-up inventory of everything the scolems had found and where. Included was a map of the surrounds and the locations of the items. There were the expected armour, weapons, unfinished projects, and outdated spare parts. Nothing of interest showed up, which wasn’t a surprise for me since the area closest to the door would be the most utilised. I seriously thought it would be better if any item we could recycle could be added to the core to build up a metal stock, but I wasn’t sure how. I posed the question to Ara.
Ara had a point. To open a transfer gate open required a certain amount of EE. The size of the gate would determine the amount of EE. The bigger the gate opening, the more EE needed. I didn’t need more convincing. We programmed the scolems to become scavenger golems and clean up the storeroom. I left a few Mustite bars with spare EE that they could recharge with when needed, since I wasn’t sure how soon I would be around again.
The next morning, before Hana could even wake up, I was greeted by Ara.
“Ho, ho, ho.”
I couldn’t but exclaim aloud.
“What are you on about now Shane?”
“Sorry to wake you Hana. I’ve just discovered I have a new skill.”
“Oh, that’s…good…I hope…it makes breakfast.”
And she fell asleep again. I confess her response was a bit underwhelming for me, although a breakfast skill sounded really appealing in its own way. I curbed my enthusiasm to try it out gravity straight away, I didn’t want to destroy the building while I played around with it. I hopped out of bed. I had a feeling it was going to be a good day.
At first light Orilay and the team of about fifty men met me outside his home.
“Hey Shane, what’s this all about? I heard you had some work for us. You better not be pulling our chain or anything like that.”
Shouted one of the men out from the back somewhere.
“Follow me you bunch of useless sods. I’ll show you what’s waiting.”
I took them a few meters past Orilay’s house.
“When did this get here?”
In front of them stood ten enormous piles of stone. Each pile at least three persons high.
“What’s this Shane?”
Asked Orilay curiously. He never remembered anything like that outside his house, you could hardly miss it. I never mentioned how, before sunrise that morning, I used the gas skill to increase the density of the air around me, creating a sound bubble that restricted the noise of the falling stones. Nor did I mention how I used the solid skill to reduce vibrations so that those in the houses around me didn’t feel the earth tremors of a few dump trucks worth of stone falling to the ground.
“Um, could you overlook for the meanwhile how these came to be here. I would like you and the other to sort out these piles of rock into their different sizes and stacked into neat piles. I’m willing to give each man here three silvers for the work today.”
I picked up one of the rocks and showed it to Orilay. The translucent blue stone with the white veins looked truly stunning in the light. There was something about that vein that suddenly struck me as familiar, but I was distracted by Orilay’s surprised exclamation.
“Wait! Is that an ogre arm sticking out of that pile?”
“You may find each pile has an ogre in it. Could you also skin them, remove the tusks and the monster stones if they have any? Leader rings in their ears need to come to me. As a bonus I’ll give all the men here one ogre to keep. You can sort it out between yourselves. Feel free to use the freezer works in the dungeon to store the carcass pieces. I only want its tusks to claim the subjugation reward.”
“Mm, please forgive me if I sound unthankful, but one ogre might be a bit on the low side for fifty men. Would you be willing to part with two?”
“I’ve no issue with that. Okay, two it is.”
“You hear that guys, let’s show Mr. Karosaki here just what makes us proud to be woodcutters. No amount of work will get us down. Leave it to us, we’ll have it sorted by the end of the day. There’s going to be a lot of questions Shane, but I’ll leave it for another time, we’ve got a lot of work ahead of us. Ralph, get off that pile and get busy, you’re not a phoenix anymore.”
I laughed as loud as the rest at Orilay’s jest. Ralph’s Phoenix impression around that fire in the woodcutter’s camp was legendary. Luckily for me, no one mentioned my part in that fiasco, and I was quite happy to leave it like that too.
They split up into ten men per pile and in no time they started removing the rocks. After a short while I noticed a couple of men running off back towards town to get a few more hands.
“Hey Orilay. If you get Alma to help feed these folks, not only will I pay her the same, but everyone else that helps her, and I’ll cover the food costs.”
“If you do that, I’ll warrant we’ll throw you a party like no other in the future.”
Judging by Orilay’s sneaky smile, I realised he would probably use the opportunity to advertise the new woodcutter’s camp. As for Hana and I, we needed to get on to the dungeon. Training waited for no one.
Over the following days I spent my time discussing various plans of mine with Orilay, working on my gravity skill, working on my town model, supplying Marsh Bullfrogs to the townsfolks at the slaughterhouse and tweaking the scolems in the store. By the end of that, Hana was looking a bit frazzled and to be honest, I was probably feeling a bit overworked myself. We even had more disagreements of late. Since Karato had left a while ago for Shimmerstal we had pretty much continued delving into the dungeon on our own. Olivia didn’t participate during those times for some reason, but I realised we were burning our candles from both ends. We needed a holiday.