NOVEL NEXT Ch. 15.6
"Monsters. Terrible monsters that looked like big-bodied men."
"You mean with gray bodies?"
"Oh, someone might have mentioned that. We were among those who fled early, so we didn't see them. My husband said he heard about it from an injured soldier."
There were few eyewitness accounts. She remembered hearing similar stories at the previous fortress city. Despite this large town being thoroughly destroyed with many casualties, the identity of the attacking enemies remained vague.
"They weren't ordinary humans, and completely different from magicians or sorcerers. They caused earth tremors. Violent earth tremors. Thud, thud—we could hear it even though we were in a distant place. Even now, I remember it when night comes."
The enemy forces didn't just shoot arrows and flames. Due to those violent earth tremors, all the town's buildings collapsed. Several days of detestable earth rumblings. Throughout the night, the rubble continued to be shaken and crushed into smaller pieces.
"So we're trying to build wooden houses."
"Wooden houses?"
The young wife pointed in a direction. Looking that way, there was the two-story house where she had enjoyed a feast last night. Having arrived at night and not noticing when she woke up in the morning, it was indeed a wooden house.
It was a construction Safi had rarely seen in the regions she had traveled through. She had often seen log cabins, but didn't know of proper two-story houses.
"Apparently there was an eccentric old man many years ago who built it. With wood, if a fire breaks out, it would be completely burned right away, wouldn't it? So the townspeople made fun of it. But only that place remained. The magician's white cocoon was probably related, but splendidly, only that house remained."
Safi remembered the tools loaded in the merchant's covered wagon. Even though she had inquired thoroughly at the time without getting a clear answer, those were tools used for cutting wood and shaping it.
The reconstruction work wasn't something as simple as clearing rubble to make vacant land. Even that alone was mind-numbingly laborious work, and though it was rude to call it simple, what they were attempting was more complex and large-scale. They were trying to build a completely new town in this place.
How much time and effort would need to be invested to reach completion? It seemed tremendously difficult and a steep path. However, she also understood why they were spirited despite having overcome the disaster. They were challenging a new attempt that no one had ever done.
The small black magician wondered if there weren't more things she could help with.
The formulation of the redevelopment plan extended beyond the day. Safi didn't quite understand what elements had caused disputes, but it seemed they were forced to abandon previous drafts and start fresh.
"You call yourself a black magician, but your clothing isn't black?"
The elder who was like a foreman asked something completely unrelated. Safi's robe was azure blue. She didn't dislike pitch-black cloaks either, but this coloring seemed to be something passed down through generations, and she had simply followed that.
Incidentally, her hat was black. This was something she had purchased in a small town she had stopped at. What showed individuality was the band part of the hat, and Safi had chosen yellow. The small black magician explained her costume in detail, but it had no connection to the development plan.
"I don't even know why they call it 'black magician.' Flames are red, and lightning is golden. Those colors aren't really related, but my specialty technique is certainly blackish."
Safi playfully created a small black sphere and floated it above her head. The merchant immediately boasted, "That's it, that's it. The magic I told you about."
"I make this bigger and throw it on the ground. The earth gets gouged out and a big hole opens up."
Safi pretended to throw it. It was simple enough. As she had proposed yesterday, it was just gouging the ground with black magic. The laborers seemed to understand sufficiently, but apparently they had been arguing about where to open the hole.
Even if they covered the place where rubble was dumped with soil, it would be difficult to make that area into farmland. It was troublesome waste that was hard to dispose of. Safi imagined they disliked having landowners and it becoming a taboo place, but it didn't seem to be such a worldly matter. Surprisingly, it was for spiritual reasons.
"Young Lady, The land has something like blood vessels running underground, like in humans."
The foreman began saying strange things.
"You mean water veins underground? I know about those too."
"No. Something sacred, like a source of power. This town was once built on top of such veins."
It was an interesting story. The metaphor of blood vessels wasn't entirely off the mark, and he said that if accidentally severed, the surrounding land itself would die. An invisible single line running underground. The pilgrimage route Safi was trying to follow was also generally a single line, and seemed related, but the foreman's story was vague and elusive.
"Are those vein-like lines thick, or thin?"
No one knew in detail. Some said they were thick, while other laborers insisted they were extremely thin. They said that in this town, prosperous houses and thriving shops had once lined up in a straight line. It wasn't coincidence—the conclusion was drawn that houses and shops were built on top of important veins.
However, there were also cases where thriving shops suddenly declined, and someone appeared claiming that underground veins moved with the times, splitting opinions. No one had seen those veins, and there was still no proof of anything...
❁❁❁ From the Author 🪄 ❁❁❁
The underground veins are probably something feng shui-like, "dragon veins" or something, seemingly unrelated to magic.
The monsters' identity is also vague and testimonies unreliable, but the crisis hasn't passed in the vicinity of this town... This will be developed in episodes after next.
(End of Chapter)