The Earth Spirit's Wrath
"Isn't the construction nearing its end, Father?"
"It is. All that's left is the paving. So stay sharp. If Aslan Belmont makes a move, it'll be today for certain."
Grind. Count Ariente gnashed his teeth as he surveyed the bustling construction site. The foundation work was already complete. Once the road was paved, it would all be over. Yet the Belmont side had shown no signs of interference. They merely dropped by occasionally to check the progress before leaving. Each time, the tension here spiked so high that everyone lost sleep, trembling with anxiety. No one knew when or how that madman Aslan Belmont would strike next.
'No tricks at all? Was he just an idiot all along?'
But as time passed, the Count began to feel foolish. Perhaps Aslan Belmont simply lacked the capacity for thought. Maybe he had handed over the road construction rights without realizing their immense value. It defied any normal person's logic, yet if he was truly that simple-minded, it almost made sense. Yes, the mistake had been trying to understand an imbecile with no thoughts at all.
Just as Count Ariente let out a sigh of relief—
Rumble!
"What was that!?"
"It appears to be a minor earthquake. We should evacuate briefly and resume work afterward."
The ground trembled with a vibration like a dragon's roar. Rocks tumbled down, and the workers hurriedly fled the site.
"Why must something like this happen at the final stage?"
"It should end soon enough."
"It's finally quieted down. Come on, everyone! Get moving and finish this!"
The earthquake subsided. How much time had been wasted because of it? As the workers began returning one by one and prepared to resume pouring cement, the ground shook once more.
Rumble!
"This is driving me insane! Another earthquake!?"
But the moment they tried to start again, the earth trembled. By the time everyone evacuated, it stopped. Yet whenever they attempted to resume, another quake struck at the perfect moment.
"It seems today isn't our day. Let's begin again tomorrow."
"Agreed."
Amusingly, once all the workers withdrew, the mountain fell silent. Not a single tremor occurred for the rest of the day. The next day, everything remained quiet until the workers arrived and tried to start paving—then rumble. The quakes kept striking at the final stage, obstructing the work, and the Count felt he was going mad.
"Damn it! This isn't a natural phenomenon! Is it a spirit's prank?"
It had to be the mischief of some ill-tempered minor spirit. If the quakes only caused a few rocks to fall, they could simply erect fences and continue working. The Count ordered the work to proceed, determined to see who would win—him or the spirit.
"Aaaagh! Boulders the size of houses keep falling!"
"Who gave you permission to evacuate!? Resume work immediately!!!"
"We'll all die at this rate, my lord! Stop the work! Stop the work!"
"These damned bastards...!"
The mountain responded with an unprecedented massive earthquake. In just ten minutes, countless workers were injured and most of the equipment destroyed. The quake's intensity had been gradually increasing until the workers fled. If it hadn't stopped, how much stronger would it have become? The workers were terrified, and many began skipping work without notice.
"Damn it. This can't happen. Do you know how much I borrowed to build this road!? If I can't finish it, I'll go bankrupt! Hijik!"
"Yes."
"Find a spirit mage immediately! We need one who can appease that spirit!"
"Father, the retainer fee for a spirit mage starts at a minimum of one billion larks."
"What's a billion larks to me!? If I miss the deadline, I'll have to return every last coin of the investment as a breach of contract!!!"
Three days after paying the one-billion-lark retainer, the spirit mage arrived at the site. Looking thoroughly annoyed, she yawned as she stepped down from her carriage. Planting her massive staff into the ground with a thud, Lilia furrowed her brow.
"Spirit Mage, please drive away the spirit that's been interfering with the construction around here!"
"Haa. I hate these remote places..."
"If you finish within three days, I'll pay you an additional billion larks!"
"Good grief. Three days? In three days, I could take other commissions and earn at least two billion larks."
"Th-then two billion larks..."
"Wait. Most spirits can't resist my spirit speech. Once I find it, this will end immediately."
Lilia advanced, detecting traces of mana left in the ground, with the Count and Hijik following behind. Suddenly, she stopped, as if she had found something. Had she already located the spirit? It hadn't even been an hour since her arrival.
"Did you find it?"
"Shh. Please be quiet. I'm measuring the mana residue again. Something's strange. Why are the readings this high?"
"What do you mean?"
"Just now, there was an error far exceeding normal values. Even a great spirit doesn't register this high. It must be a measurement error. One moment. If I measure again... Huh? Why is the result the same...?"
She calculated the amount of mana residue left in the soil to estimate the mana used. Suspecting an error, she double-checked, but there was none. She repeated it two or three times—still nothing. No error.
'Wait a second. Does this amount of mana even make sense?'
It was enough mana to split a mountain if one wished. Ah. So that's why it had been split? This vast mountain range, because of a single spirit...?
"Ah?"
Lilia looked up and her body went rigid. The Count and Hijik, likewise crushed by an unknown pressure, froze in place.
"What is it?"
"A, aaah."
Unlike the bewildered Count and Hijik, who had no idea what was happening, Lilia could see it clearly. A massive brown entity stood right before her eyes. Its enormous size wasn't the issue—spirits weren't bound by gravity or atmosphere like physical objects, so they could grow indefinitely. Many spirits were large yet insignificant. But this one...
'It approached me without making a single sound despite its massive body?'
The mystery was that Lilia hadn't noticed it at all until it reached her.
'The ability to hide its presence from me, the continent's greatest spirit mage. And the power to cleave a mountain...!'
Putting it all together, Lilia's lips trembled. No matter how she looked at it, this spirit was undoubtedly a great spirit.
[O nameless spirit, kneel before me.]
Lilia's spirit speech rang out. The massive brown entity remained completely unfazed despite being struck directly by it. It was not a being that could be subdued by her words.
Thud!
"Eek!?"
Evidently displeased that she had used spirit speech on it, the great spirit rolled on the ground once, as if annoyed. Lilia's face instantly crumpled.
[Begone.]
"Y-yes...!"
"No! Where are you going!?"
"How am I supposed to drive that thing away!? I'll return the billion larks by tomorrow, so never call me again!"
"..."
Whoosh. Lilia fled without looking back. The Count's face crumpled as well. Ah. Now how was he supposed to finish the construction?
***
"Ariente seems to be in danger."
"Did you know this would happen in advance, Young Master?"
"Hardly. How could I have known there was a great earth spirit sleeping in that mountain?"
Everything was proceeding exactly as I had expected. Ariente had begun by cutting into the mountain to widen the road and reinforcing the ground. But at the final paving stage, the great spirit kept interfering, preventing completion.
'The great earth spirit dislikes the mountain being polluted.'
Cutting into the mountain and reinforcing the ground had been acceptable. The great spirit had endured the noise up to that point. But pouring cement over it? That crossed the line. Unable to tolerate it any longer, the great spirit had finally erupted at the very end. It was a simple reason once you understood it, but Ariente would never guess why the spirit was angry. After all, there wasn't a single person there capable of communicating with spirits.
"Then if we leave Ariente to collapse like this, the construction rights will naturally transfer to us. We can leave dealing with the great spirit to Julia the necromancer. All we need to do is take over the well-progressed site and finish the final paving stage. Don't tell me you planned all of this from the beginning?"
"..."
Sylvia stared at me with a look of shock. Half right, half wrong. Of course, if left alone, Ariente would fail to finish on time and go bankrupt. The count's family would collapse in an instant and be left penniless. But that wouldn't do.
"We can't let Ariente go under. We're neighbors now, after all."
"Ah! Of course! Even though they were rude first, you intend to forgive them...!"
"The more active cities there are near the road, the more traffic there will be. And if they go bankrupt, do you think they'll just hand over the site they've worked so hard on with a smile? Knowing their temper, they'll probably tear up the road just to spite us."
"Ah. Of course."
Sylvia's expression, which had been about to soften with emotion, hardened again instantly. She wore the face of someone thinking, 'As expected.'
"Let's go. To Ariente's territory. It seems time for a renegotiation."
"A renegotiation?"
"We'll bail them out just before they go bankrupt. That way, we can keep sucking them dry later. Kekekeke."
"Whoa..."
All we had to do was tweak the contract terms ever so slightly. Instead of the investment being returned interest-free by the deadline, we'd make it an indefinite deposit while raising the interest rate to fifty percent. Something like that.