Demon World Boba Shop: A Cozy Fantasy Novel

“Arthur! Over here!” Zelk’s smaller companion waved Arthur over. “The name is Crue, by the way. And this is a lot of rock to pick up. Are you sure your town isn’t called Rocktown? Or stoneplace?”

“We needed every bit of it for the walls. I wish we had twice this much,” Arthur said.

“Well, we’ll get it moved. What do you think of my crew so far?” He motioned at his crew, by which he appeared to mean the entirety of Peaktown. “Satisfied?”

“Very.”

It had been a couple hours but the hard, combined effort of three towns had already removed a good portion of the rubble. Coldbrook was working alongside the other two towns, and had made a good showing. With that said, they fell far, far short of the sheer muscle of Peaktown’s people, at least on average. They were strong, almost all as strong as the heaviest lifters Coldbrook had to offer now that Karra had changed her class.

“Are you all manual labor classes?” Arthur asked.

“Not all. But close. We’re miners. We haven’t hit anything really worth mining yet, of course. Just some iron and a bit of silver. But soon enough we will and then the town will blow up. We’ll get our crafters then,” Crue said.

“Is that what it takes? It seems like we had ours right from the beginning but then again, I’m a crafter myself,” Arthur said.

“That’s also how you sold yourself, right? Half of your founders were crafters and you had a builder and weller from day one. Even if you didn’t ever find much to export, this was always going to be a nice place to live. By the way, is the mouse girl single?”

“Rhodia? She’s married.”

“See, that’s what I mean. People already married. It’s a nice place to live.”

“How is Peaktown, though? It must have its points.”

Crue started expounding on those points right away. Peaktown was, first and foremost, a cold place. It wasn’t exactly on a peak as the name implied but it was at a high altitude, much like the cold region he had crossed with Talca. In the winter, it was so miserable that about half the town opted to live in houses mined out of the solid granite to insulate from the weather.

“It’s nice in the summer, though. Or with good enough cold weather clothes. You can stand in one spot and see ten peaks. It’s why we named it that,” Crue said.

“And all it will take is one big find to make it work?” Arthur asked.

“Usually. And it’s there. I know it is. Some rare metal, some useful mineral. We just have to go deep enough and we’ll hit it. Then we can export, bring in the stuff we can’t make ourselves, and get the town really moving.”

“Great. We’ll help any way we can.” Arthur was thoughtful for a moment. “Just one question, though.”

“Shoot.”

“Why didn’t you just seal up the mine and stay in there? Why run in the first place?”

“All it would take is one leak. Then where would we go? Imagine being alone in the dark at some end of a tunnel, and the monsters are just coming for you, and you can’t tunnel through solid rock fast enough to get anywhere. That’s why.”

Arthur shuddered at the thought. “Fine, you win. I take it back.”

“It’s okay. We lost some buildings, but we’re lucky in some ways. We still have places to sleep out of the cold until we can get everything back up and running. I am going to take you up on that offer for help, though,” Crue said.

“Yeah?”

“Yup. I need your weller.”

Arthur tried to look casual.

“What for?”

“What do you mean, what for?” Crue was confused right until he started laughing. “Oh, I get it. She’s your girlfriend?”

“She is.”

“Well, good news, it’s nothing like that. It’s just that we need wells. A couple of them. Nothing fancy, just something with better pressure and output than we can do ourselves.”

“Ah.” Arthur nodded. “I can’t speak for Mizu but if she wants to do it, we can probably spare her for a bit.”

“It’s a lot to ask, but we’d appreciate it. And it would make our work a lot faster. You wouldn’t believe how much water a mining operation blows through.”

“Can I ask a question?” Arthur said and continued when Crue nodded. “Why aren’t you the mayor? It seems like you’re doing a lot of that kind of work. At least from where I’m standing.”

“Oh, they asked me. I said no.”

“Why?”

“Lots of reasons. Some personal. I’d like to stay in Peaktown forever, but at some point I might not be able to. If that happens, I don’t want to leave them in the lurch.”

Arthur nodded. He got it. Not the problem where Arthur might leave, but the idea that he might be leaving Coldbrook worse off in some way by being the mayor. He was liking Crue better and better by the moment. The badger was rough around the edges but had a good heart.

The work moved faster than Arthur could have hoped. With new people to talk to and a friendly inter-town competition fast developing, there was a visible, real difference in the amount of rubble to be shifted by the end of the day. That night, everyone feasted, laughed, and then went to bed much earlier than was normal for any of them, worn comfortably out by the day’s work.

Arthur made himself a cup of tea before bed and considered juicing it up with a sleep-enhancing effect. When his head started to droop before the water was even boiling, he abandoned that plan. He sunk into his mattress, magically fluffy and comfortable. For once, he wasn’t asleep before he could enjoy it. Arthur soaked up the softness of the sheets and the warmth of the blankets for five minutes this time before his brain finally shut down.

—

“Okay, everyone. We’ve heard the requests from, well, all of you. Your little competition is now official.” Karra swept her arm over the rubble. “You will observe that I have driven stakes into the ground, cutting the rubble pile into three sections. Each town will work on their own area today. The pile that gets lowered the most is the winner.”

“Can we toss rocks onto their pile?” Milo raised his hand, keeping his face admirably straight.

“No. No shortcuts at all. Seaside has the middle pile, which is already a bit lower. No complaints about that, either. They have to cross over your piles to get rid of their own rocks, so that’s only fair. Otherwise, the same goals from yesterday apply. We are shifting the rocks to the side of the road as fast as we can, then building up our wall again. Let's get as close to that as we can.”

The crowd cheered, and then to Arthur’s surprise, actually ran to get started on the rocks. He shook his head and started on tea. Would he make some for everyone? Of course. Would Coldbrook’s tea be just a little bit better than what other teams got? Absolutely it would. The other towns would get good tea, of course, but this was a competition. It only made sense to make sure his own guys had a little edge.

The tea was made and drunk, and the hours flew by, with Arthur joining the Coldbrook group and working up a sweat with everyone else. It felt a bit futile when Karra could move five times what he could without even breathing hard, but every rock really did matter. Even Seaside, who were mostly dexterity-based people who worked on the water, were working hard enough to keep things close.

Nobody wanted to break for lunch but Karra forced them to. Arthur didn’t realize how much he needed it until he sat down and felt his legs complaining about what he had already put them through that day. He gripped his fork with blistered hands and ate as much as he could, then creaked back to a standing position to return to the rocks.

Aches and pains tea, That’s what we need, Arthur thought. Thank the gods for Itela’s teaching. Otherwise, I’d have no idea how to make it right.

About halfway through the second half of the day, Arthur caught Lily edging further and further away from the road, looking suspicious. He caught her by the collar when she tried to run as he approached, then knelt down to confront her on whatever she was up to. He didn’t know what it was but it didn’t seem good.

“I’m just testing the range of my skill.” Lily said, puffed up in defiance. “I want to see what its limits are.”

“Right now? When you could be moving rocks? I didn’t take you for lazy, Lily.”

“I’m not! I’m just… Never mind. I’ll figure it out soon. There’s no problem.”

The guilty glint in Lily’s eye finally struck a chord in Arthur. “Oh, I get it. You are seeing if you can loop our team into your majicka lamp, while keeping the others out. Is that it?”

“Something like that.”

“Well, don’t,” Arthur said. “It’s not fair. We can’t have that big of an advantage and still feel good about it.”

“Fine.” Lily pouted but accepted it. “Although I did taste your teas earlier. Don’t tell me ours wasn’t better than the others.”

“I won’t. If you can find just a little, tiny edge to give the team, fine,” Arthur said. “Just make sure it’s nothing they’d notice, okay? They’ve been polite enough to keep all their little tricks invisible. We owe them the same courtesy.”

As the last hour of the workday hit, it was clear that Seaside was out of contention. They had performed, but couldn’t keep up with Coldbrook’s numbers or the sheer rock-manipulating class superiority of Peaktown. They eased off, almost stopping as they watched the other two towns break their backs in pursuit of victory.

Arthur strained every muscle in his body as he moved anything extra he could, even if it was just a rock as small as a pebble. The minutes ticked by until only seconds were left and finally Karra called it.

“Sorry, folks.” She smiled and looked out over the road. “We’ve moved a truly massive amount of rock today, but it’s too close to call. It’s a tie. Sorry, Seaside. Looks like you’ll be cooking dinner for everyone tonight.”

Arthur moaned and collapsed on the rocks, where he was joined by an equally exhausted Lily and Mizu.

“I can’t believe it. It’s really too close to call?”

“Maybe,” Lily said. “Or maybe Karra just wants the same amount of rock moved tomorrow. We really got a lot done today, you know.”

It was true. By the end of tomorrow, they’d be racing to see who cleared their sections first, not who made the biggest dent in the hills of rock. The day after that, they’d be at work on the road, bringing the river back to its normal course and making everything look at least mostly normal again. It was a massive speed-up in the schedule, something they hadn’t expected to have done for weeks. If Karra was being a little tricky to make that happen, Arthur couldn’t blame her.

Seaside was as good as their word, working with Skal-caught seafood to make masterpieces of nautical cuisine Arthur would have hardly thought possible if he had tasted them back on Earth. Afterwards, they also provided entertainment, borrowing instruments and singing songs of the sea. They were much, much rowdier tunes than Mizu’s ditties about water. Arthur wondered if it was all the salt that made the difference.

Listening to the music, Arthur realized for the first time that he’d miss these people when they were gone. Not that there weren’t enough people in town already to provide company, but the other frontier settlers had melded in so completely he could hardly imagine them leaving. They would, of course, leave. They had to. They had their own classes to advance and their own lives to live.

But one way or another, I’m going to make sure we keep in touch. These are friends now. Friends don’t just go away.