100
Chapter 100
Fortunately, Ciel's idea was not adopted.
Even though Rien, who is easily swept along, and Rubia, who can't say no if pushed hard enough, almost actually gave in to Ciel's repeated persuasions.
But before that could happen, a rational solution was presented.
-We can just bring a few beds and push them together.
An entirely common-sense approach.
And so, we ended up sleeping together in one spot like a harmonious family.
We had just been through an intense battle.
Maybe it was because we fought without holding back, but drowsiness washed over us much faster than expected, even in this abnormal situation.
Thus, the eventful day came to an end....
Before I knew it, sunlight was shining warmly down on my body.
Since most of the ceiling had been blown away, the sunlight poured down on me without any obstructions.
My eyes naturally opened at the light.
Honestly, no matter how little leeway we had, spending the night in a place like this felt a bit wrong.
But the environment here wasn't actually all that bad.
Sure, there was a door-sized hole in the wall, but the breeze was cool, and the sunlight was quite pleasant.
I stretched, and a wave of refreshment hit me. It felt as if all my fatigue had vanished in an instant....
"......?"
I thought it would.
What's going on?
Normally, no matter how much fatigue I accumulated, I would always feel fine after sleeping. So why is my body so stiff and sore?
It's not like my Healthy Body trait went on strike.
...No, putting that aside for now.
'Did I sleep here?'
A large bed made by pushing five makeshift beds together.
I distinctly remember my spot being the second from the left.
But right now, I was lying in the fourth spot.
No matter how much I tossed and turned in my sleep, does it make sense for my position to shift this much?
Naturally, my face filled with confusion.
Just then, Lucy entered my field of view.
She had insisted on keeping watch yesterday, no matter how much we told her to sleep, and now she was staring at me.
A greeting asking if I slept well.
Maybe she saw what happened yesterday. Just as I was about to ask her.... I suddenly stopped.
A reflexive reaction.
A sudden intuition washed over me. Through my past experiences, I knew this was the activation signal of the Whispering Earrings.
Though I couldn't understand its intentions at all.
'It said it was better for my mental health not to know.'
How important could what happened last night really be? Being cryptic has its limits.
Still, ignoring its advice felt a bit too risky.
Ever since I got them at the Black Market, there had been times it missed the mark, but plenty of times it had been a huge help.
I didn't have to look far for an example; if the Earring hadn't sent me the intuition to hurry back to the mansion, Rubia would have been tortured for several more days.
In the worst-case scenario, she could have been dragged off to some secret Empire facility, and I might never have seen her again.
It wasn't a particularly difficult piece of advice to follow, anyway. There was no need to go looking for trouble.
I decided to just go along with it.
Right as I made that decision, I heard someone mumbling.
With a low groan, the red-haired Noonim rubbed her eyes. She let out a small whimper as she stretched, then looked at me....
"......Huh?"
As soon as she uttered that single word, she suddenly panicked. Her face flushed a bright red, looking like it might burst at any second.
In a way, it was a completely natural reaction. Waking up to suddenly find a man lying in the same bed would startle anyone.
It seemed she hadn't been awake for long and couldn't properly remember what happened yesterday.
I grabbed her hand to reassure her, hoping to prevent Rubia from creating any more embarrassing memories for herself.
It had the opposite effect.
She started babbling about how she wasn't ready yet, or how she needed to get permission from her parents for something like this, or how she didn't even know how to do it.
Spouting that nonsensical babble, Rubia backed away from me. But a makeshift bed wasn't exactly spacious.
Before I could stop her, Rubia tumbled off the bed.
A scream echoed through the room.
Naturally, my face turned pale.
If she had hit the floor, she should have been visible from this angle. But she was nowhere to be seen.
Now that I thought about it, this building was practically a ruin.
Since Rubia had poured a fortune into building this mansion, it had somehow managed to hold its shape through that fierce battle.
But it had to be structurally compromised in various places.
To the point where it wouldn't be surprising if it collapsed at any moment.
And we were on the mansion's third floor.
It was entirely possible that the floor had given way under the impact just now.
This was dangerous.
Rubia was an ordinary person who couldn't even handle a single drop of mana. A fall like this could seriously injure her, or even kill her.
And no matter how amazing the Stigma was, it couldn't bring a dead person back to life.
Standing up from the bed, taking a stance, enhancing my physical body with mana, and kicking off the ground.
I didn't have the time to go through that entire sequence.
I quickly spread my wings. Something I could now control somewhat freely.
Fast.
Faster.
I accelerated relentlessly, focusing only on that.
The scenery blurred and shifted in an instant.
It was truly the speed of light.
I tried to catch the falling Rubia like that... but something strange was happening.
My face was painted with panic as I reached the second floor.
Rubia was definitely there, but...
...only her lower half was.
I went back up to where I originally was.
What I saw was Rubia screaming with her eyes closed. This side was her upper half.
How should I even describe this?
A hole had formed, but it didn't seem to be that big.
An awkward hole big enough for her lower half to slip through, but not quite large enough for certain parts of her upper half.
Rubia was wedged in there in a ridiculous pose.
"S-Save meee!"
She had just woken up and was still half-asleep.
It seemed she still thought she was falling.
I patted the desperately flailing Rubia's shoulder. She opened her eyes and... realized the situation she was in.
Her face flushed bright red.
Ciel and Rien, woken by the commotion.
And Lucy and I. Everyone's gaze was focused on her.
Rubia pleaded with us through her tears, begging us not to look at her.
...Well, in the end, she couldn't get out of there on her own, so she had to ask me for help.
*****
An elegant dress.
Gone were the messy hair and the drool marks around her mouth from earlier, replaced by a perfectly dressed Rubia standing before my eyes.
"S-So. What is it you wanted to discuss?"
She still couldn't quite meet my eyes, though.
Considering the decades' worth of embarrassing moments she had accumulated just between yesterday and today, the fact that she could stand in front of me at all proved she was a pro.
She was trying desperately to separate her personal feelings from business.
Honestly....
To be completely honest, I did feel a little tempted to tease her.
But I fought off that wicked temptation with all my might and spoke to her.
"Well, it's about the mansion. We can't keep living in a place like this."
The earlier incident made it painfully clear that this place was in bad shape. We couldn't just leave it like this.
"If it's about repairs, I could just hire some workers and have it done in no time... ...Wait a minute."
Rubia's face, which had been saying that, was suddenly colored with dismay. She might be a bit scatterbrained usually, but when it came to work, she was incredibly reliable.
"This might be a much more serious problem than I thought."
She had realized it.
Leaving this mansion as it was would ruin everything.
According to Ciel's analysis, the Barrier Balzac had installed would last less than two days. There was a limit to how much Ciel's magic could extend the deadline.
But what if the Barrier was deactivated before the mansion was repaired? What if the Perception Hindrance and Access Prohibition Formula lost their effect, and people saw the state of this place?
What would people think if they saw a ruined mansion overnight? And if word reached the Empire, what kind of conclusion would they come to?
"If we mess up, everything will be exposed."
Rubia said seriously.
Her face turned dead serious in an instant.
"But even so, repairing the mansion overnight is impossible. It might be better to just blow it up and disguise it as an accident during Potion manufacturing....... No, that's a bit unnatural too. There has to be a better way...."
Rubia fell into thought with a grave expression.
She'd been through a lot lately. She must have been stressed in many ways, so I was incredibly grateful to see her thinking so seriously about a solution.
"You don't need to worry about that. I was planning to solve this problem in a very simple way."
I told her.
"First of all, this is your mansion. I just felt I should get the owner's permission before proceeding, so I called you here."
Her face filled with question.
She had no idea what I was talking about. Her face showed she didn't understand how I planned to fix the mansion.
But there was no need to explain.
Seeing is believing, as they say.
I sent them a signal.
At the same time, footsteps echoed from Ciel's Shadow Passage, which was still open.
Dozens... no, hundreds of Dwarves.
The race known to have the greatest craftsmanship in the world. Those incredibly precious Technicians.
They were all gathering here right now.
A smile naturally formed on my lips.
It was a natural reaction. What man in this world hasn't dreamed of something like this?
A dream team composed entirely of the best in the industry.
Endless funds thanks to the Potion business.
This was truly a heaven-sent opportunity.
Time to start the extreme modifications.
The moment to realize my dreams had finally arrived.
...It was time to build a Secret Base.