A Matter of Sanitation (5)

Such was the nature of medieval investments and loans: if someone lent you something, they demanded far more in return. With interest rates and aggressive collections that would leave modern loan sharks weeping with admiration, that was the harsh reality of feudal finance. Can't pay it back? Feeling bitter about it? Well, go to war, then. Feudal territorial disputes didn't break out constantly for nothing.

Apparently, things worked the exact same way around here. While I was rolling lazily around my bunker without a single thought about collections, the community had already turned it into hot forum gossip.

The users, however, had completely misunderstood the situation. The true return on my investment had already been paid in full: Kellierton's successful establishment now served as my primary frontline buffer. Still, no one else knew that. Not a single person in the forum could fathom that I was lounging in an underground bunker directly beneath their feet.

“Guess I should put out a statement, at least.”

Deciding the timing was right, I drafted a quick post.

The eyes of the entire forum had snapped directly onto the thread. The board's refresh rate plunged to a near standstill, everyone holding their breath to see what outrageous demand I would drop next. Without hesitation, I replied.

I had never intended to ask for anything back anyway. My storage rooms were already practically bursting at the seams with random goods gifted from every corner of the realm. Besides, even a legendary sword deserved an occasional break—I couldn't just keep having it spin around as an exhaust fan twenty-four hours a day. And as for the food I had invested, like the canned tuna and instant ramen? No matter how much I spent, my point balance just kept multiplying faster. Ultimately, building proper infrastructure benefited me the most.

Suddenly, the comment feed was completely overrun with unhinged spam worship.

The core objective was simple: eradicate the foul stench that choked this medieval settlement.

I had no intention of attempting an intricate, modern underground drainage network right away. We lacked the specialized materials, and engineering an architectural feat of that scale would require dwarven stoneworkers—and we had zero dwarves available.

“So for now, we just build a crude, makeshift ditch.”

A combined sewer system where rainwater and waste could flow together along an easily dug trench. Essentially, an open drainage ditch with simple covers. But just as I set the plan in motion, a sudden realization struck me.

“Wait... can they even dig that deep into the earth with basic shovels?”

One might wonder what was so hard about digging dirt with a shovel. But with winter fast approaching, I knew firsthand just how petrified frozen ground could be. I had learned the hard way that slamming an iron shovel into frozen topsoil produced little more than sparks, a deafening metallic clang, and shattered wrists.

I had momentarily forgotten where I was. This was a brutal fantasy world, populated exclusively by monstrously tough survivors who had endured an apocalyptic war through sheer biological grit.

“There's no need to dig that ridiculously deep.”

All I envisioned was a modest roadside trench. Fitted with sturdy wooden covers, it would preserve public hygiene, carry slops and effluent away from dwellings, and divert heavy stormwater away from the streets. But to my surprise, the forum users responded with collective skepticism.

Rifts did manifest underground on occasion, but they didn't just sprout conveniently inside random piles of dirt. Expecting a spatial fissure to open neatly at the midpoint of an alley sewer to swallow the trash was pure fantasy. Naturally, everyone expected the sludge to stagnate along the channel, rotting into a horrific biohazard that would contaminate the city all over again. A reasonable concern, but...

“Who do you think I am?”

I was the master of a Waste Slime. With a living, breathing organic trash disposal unit at my disposal, ordinary logistical limits didn't apply. My plan was to excavate a massive central holding pit where all drainage converged, then drop the Waste Slime directly into it.

As long as the pit's capacity matched its mass, a slime would remain contained like gelatinous sludge. An utterly broken bio-recycling facility. In practice, progress surged along at a blistering pace. The trench work wrapped up far sooner than expected, leaving only the final step: transferring the Waste Slime into the newly dug reservoir.

“Wait... where did the slime go?”

The centerpiece of the entire operation was nowhere to be seen. A perfectly healthy monster didn't just vanish into thin air, so I scrolled back through recent board posts until my jaw dropped.

My fifty-three-thousandth profanity of the season slipped out effortlessly. A throbbing migraine began hammering against my temples.

I didn't even have to hunt down the culprit; the idiot had proudly paraded his crime across the front page.

Hovering my finger over the ban button, I decided to grant the offender one final chance to state his defense.

What kind of backwards logic was this? Then I looked back at my own post and cringed.

“...Ah. That one's on me.”

In toxic forum culture, posting a title like 'Never do X' was practically a universal decree daring users to do exactly that. My blood had boiled enough to ban him into oblivion, but by internet logic, I had basically walked into it. Besides, expecting a wild Waste Slime to sit quietly in one spot while humans constructed a city sewer around it was unrealistic anyway. If it had wandered around poisoning homes during construction, that would have been a disaster in its own right.

Fortunately, I had already prepared a contingency plan.

Time for an Indian rainmaking ritual. I ordered every scrap of sewage, rotting refuse, and slops across the settlement dumped directly into the great reservoir. Though the basin was vast, the collective effluence of an entire city filled it to the brim in a matter of hours.

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

The pit was so putrid it was already being weaponized as shock-bait on the board, but the users still had no clue what I was doing.

They assumed this was an act of quiet desperation after losing our only slime, but I knew better.

I propped my chin in my hands and stared at the surveillance feed of the bubbling muck. One hour passed, then two. Time was the one resource I had in boundless surplus. Sure enough, drawn by the foul concentration of organic decay, the touch of a dimensional Rift soon descended upon the deep pit.

The filth-golem had barely crawled halfway out of the sludge before a barrage of arrows from waiting city archers tore through it, reducing the creature back into a harmless heap of sludge. But I wasn't discouraged in the slightest. If the roll missed, you just pulled again.

They didn't call it an Indian rain dance for nothing. If you danced until it rained, your success rate was a hundred percent. Eventually, it works. Eventually.

A few sharp users finally pieced it together: I was running gacha pulls for a fresh Waste Slime. After several more cycles of Rift manifestations producing duds that the garrison promptly executed, our rain ritual finally struck gold.

The Waste Slime voraciously engulfed everything around it. Yet the volume of waste draining continuously into the pit far outpaced its digestive capacity, leaving it effectively rooted in paradise. There was no risk of it attempting an escape.

I took in the sea of glowing praise on the board, feeling deeply satisfied, before falling back onto my bed.

“Well, that should settle things for now.”

Utterly oblivious to the far graver peril quietly festering in ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the shadows.

“Man, this really is convenient.”

Alex, a forum user residing in Kellierton, hoisted a heavy pail of waste and tipped it into the alleyway trench. No longer did he have to fling buckets of rank effluent out of his second-story window into the mud streets below. Dumping household sludge into the back-alley gutter took care of everything in seconds. It almost made him stop missing the convenience of having a domestic garbage-disposal Rift right in his living room.

“Time to head back inside and browse the gallery.”

He tucked his wooden ladle under an arm and stepped briskly away from the drainage canal. The alley remained filthy—if anything, the collected stench made it dirtier than before—but since the main thoroughfares looked considerably cleaner, he figured it was good enough.

Squeak, squeak-squeak.

A sudden high-pitched rustle caught his ear. A rat sat perched by the gutter, twitching its whiskers. Alex scowled at the vermin with deep disgust, as if beholding an unholy abomination, before shrugging it off.

“Shoo! Scram! Just stay out of my house.”

He waved his ladle to chase it away. The rodent scampered off and plunged straight into the sewer grate. Alex didn't bother pursuing it. In the old days, he would have hunted it down without mercy to stop it from infesting his home, but now that it fled into the gutter, he couldn't care less.

“Ugh, vile creature. I need a bath.”

He had no idea.

While his home was currently free of vermin, deep within the dark, moist recesses of the sewer trench right behind his walls, dozens—hundreds—of rats were beginning to swarm and multiply.