A large crowd gathered.

I barely returned from my morning run and found Fenna and the other beastmen parking their carriage next to the bathhouse, packed with hand-crafted clothes offered for a steep price.

"Ah, Nati, since I couldn't convince you, I hope you don't mind me profiting from your impending slime disaster." The fox girl greeted me, still rather skeptical. I was confident though, and couldn't wait to see her face when my laundry became a big hit with the neighboring tribes.

"Sure, I might buy some new clothes from my income on the first day." I accepted her challenge. To my surprise, the laundry’s opening drew in more people than my earlier presentation with the crossbow. The building itself was only finished yesterday.

"This is a lot of people again," Charlotte noted, arriving on the scene. She patted my back, probably to encourage me, but all sweaty from running I was a bit embarrassed. "Is everything finished?”

"Thanks to the golems Alex made." I nodded. As the tribesmen referred them, the orc-class golems provided an excellent workforce. Their numbers dropped though, only ten were still operational. "And I didn't hog them all, they finished their main task yesterday as well."

"I still have mixed feelings about that." The chieftain confessed. Now Nateaser had a decent paved road connecting it with the rest of the Imperial Network and with the neighboring tribes too. "I liked it better when we were still a small, hidden village in the forest."

"Ugh, sorry about that." Depending on the point of view, I was most certainly to blame or to thank for. "I hope my inventions brought you some comfort at least. I'm not a fan of crowds either, to be honest, and I'm contemplating, if I could still sneak in a quick soak before the event."

"You'll be the main presenter. Take your time to get ready." She said, smiling. "Truth is, everyone else got here too early. They all anticipate the success of your latest invention. And don't mind my grumbling, the tribe is in your debt. Soon, maybe all of the Lesser Races will be too."

"Oh, come on." She made me blush, but her praise felt good. Even if they started small and silly, like with the balls or a simple shower, I could tell, every person looked forward to a more comfortable life, like me.

I didn't want to be celebrated though. I avoided the crowd too. Running around the bathhouse, I entered the private chamber and tried to practice while I took a shower. My mind kept wandering off though. It was a lot of people gathering already. Because of the finished road, I thought, thanks to Omerta. The paving progress was significantly sped up in the last two days. Since I distracted Alexandra from her duties, the orc witch decided to step up instead.

She wanted to make her golems and did something vastly different from the other wizards. The Iron Centaur soon became a landmark of Nateaser, but it rarely stayed in one place for long.

It ran back and forth between the quarry and the building sites, the noisy golem also made the round trip to Fenna's village in less than an hour. This offered us a simple solution to our housing crisis, the beastmen and other volunteers from the nearby tribes could simply go home after work every day. Their tents were already at maximum capacity though. Every day at least a dozen refugees arrived in our village, and word traveled extremely fast.

"Nati? You in here?" I heard Mabel's voice. I already finished before she could ambush me in the bath. Her grin was unaffected though. "Wanna see the crows? Charlotte bought fifty of them just now."

"Crows?" I stuck my head out. "Not chickens, by any chance?"

"Well, those too, a hundred more, but these are crows." The orc girl confirmed. "They'll be kept behind the embassy, to carry messages."

"Umm, sure, but I'll have to launch the laundry first," I noted, getting nervous. Everything was ready, even the workers knew their jobs at this point. Still, standing out in front of the curious crowd gave me severe anxiety. Charlotte was adamant that I had to present my inventions, that was the worst part of it all. "Will you help me, Mabel?"

"Of course. I'm your deputy manager, you know." Her grin only got wider. I had no idea where she even heard this word, but for the amount of goblin workers I gave jobs lately, I needed someone to manage them. They were the most numerous group of the refugees.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

Other than lizardmen, they multiplied the fastest of all the Lesser Races. They couldn't compete with the experienced, and long-lived beastmen in craftmanship, but they were able to do most jobs at a satisfactory level. My laundry was staffed with goblins too. The slimes themselves were handled by a golem though, to avoid injuries.

"I welcome everyone on this wonderful day." I greeted the crowd. My voice felt a bit strange, and I was already sweating again. Some people cheered, while Fenna rubbed her hands, expecting my idea to flop. "Let me open this laundry and explain how it works."

"The first use is free, but expect to wait in line for a while." My deputy manager added. "I see a lot of dirty clothing in here."

"Um, as you might already know, we use slimes in our laundry, and other than that, they are also used to clean the water of the bathhouse, and filter the waste this village produces." I started my explanation. I also practiced my speech during my run but forgot half of it. Charlotte just loved to see me struggle in front of people. "Their breeding ground is inside the water system of the bathhouse."

"And will you pay for the ruined clothes?" Fenna played the heckler. This one wasn't planned, like the crossbow demonstration.

"I, um, we tested the system, and it doesn't ruin clothes." I tried to calm the crowd, although they didn't seem agitated. But I sure was. "If accidentally, we ruin one, of course, I'd replace it though."

"Come on, Fenna, let her talk." Omerta joined in. "I'm curious how it's supposed to work because I was busy elsewhere this time."

"Right um, the slimes get plenty of food, filtering water in the pools." I tried to continue. My stage fright got way worse since my previous presentation. "Once they start to divide, their offspring, small enough to pass the filters, would drop down into a separate chamber, and end up in the laundry's main water tank. A golem lifts them out and puts them to work. Let's head in so I can demonstrate it."

The laundry was merely a small extension of the bathhouse, only a fraction of the crowd could enter, but they listened intently to my explanation and even volunteered some dirty clothes.

"The clothes are put between cast iron bars and lowered into the slime's tanks." I started the physical demonstration. "After a few seconds, they are removed and rinsed with high-pressure water jets. This is to remove the slimes before they damage the fabrics. It will also give a pleasant scent to the clothes, using different herbs and oils mixed in."

The golem combed the slime's tank, using a similar filter to what we had in the bathhouse, and removed the slimes that grew too large. He moved them to the outdoor filtering units while I commented on the processes. Both were along the walls, one where the little stream entered the village, and the other where it would exit.

"At the end of their life cycle, or when we have too many to handle, they'll get boiled and processed in yet another stage," I announced, coming full circle. "The best quality slimes would end their lives by becoming an ingredient for Lambert's healing potions."

The rest was to become a tasty sauce for cooking, but I didn't have to mention that. These slimes were breeding fast, thanks to feeding them in three different stages. They filled every tank and filtering unit in the four days since we caught our first one.

I expected them to become another important export product of the village. It wasn't all my merit of course. In the early stages, Alexandra was a huge help, explaining how we could handle and use the slimes. However, this meant she ignored her other duties.

She never told me anything about her progress. Considering, she was gone in the last two days, she must have been doing well, uncovering the events that led to the disappearance of the old capital. And thanks to Charlotte's policy of not relying too much on any of the magicians, the village itself didn't feel her absence. If anything, it was thanks to her that Omerta established the Iron Centaur Express.

"So, um, any questions?" I asked at the end of my presentation. This felt way more tiring than my early morning run, but it was an absolute success. "The usage will cost one copper or equivalent."

The crowd cheered, but I couldn't wait to hide from them. It felt strange, that while the magicians did way more significant things, they never had to stand ahead of the tribe, nor cheered this much. It almost seemed like Charlotte tried to build a personal cult around me, and I would have none of that. I wanted to learn some spells too, like making those amazing golems instead.

Omerta planned to make more of them, but as it turned out, they required a lot of ore and even more effort on her part. The main production methods were still manual labor, but magic made everything so much easier, it felt like cheating. We just needed more magicians.

"All right. And next is the daily football championship between orcs and beastmen." Mabel announced, once my opening ceremony was over.

The new road, Centaur Express, and patrolling hunters made travel between the nearby villages safer and faster. Even the children could visit each other without limits, playing to their heart's content.

The daily football championship on the main square quickly became a tradition. Surrounded by the embassy from the north and the stream from the south, it was a true centerpiece for the village. The old mess hall was not far to the left, and the bathhouse and laundry were near the right, with the new, multi-story apartment buildings and the main inn under construction.

Nateaser shaped up very nicely and at an unbelievable speed. It was no accident that people kept moving in faster than we could provide housing for them. But this large crowd started to give me anxiety.