The Construction Is All Ruined
The Construction Is All Ruined
The child's body was horrifically ravaged.
Rotting down to the bone, it gave off a foul, putrid stench, and her skin was abscessed and festering, endlessly oozing pus and fluid.
It was a terrible stench that made you instinctively grimace, but I didn't flee from it.
Because healing this child mattered far more than my disgust.
"Aaaagh!! Aaaaagh!!!!! Aaah........"
The screams of the girl, which had been full of pain at first, began to gradually subside.
The sound of bone, flesh, skin, and blood vessels being readjusted and twisted at will by my skill filled the room.
The rotted bone regenerated, and the decayed muscles and blood vessels became clean once more.
The skin that had been weeping fluid and pus turned white and clear, and her brittle hair, which had looked chewed by rats as if torn out from the pain, also regrew neatly.
Her face, where the cheekbones had been completely visible, was restored. Finally, my modification ended by covering her emaciated, mummy-like body—so thin because she hadn't been able to eat or sleep from the pain—with a healthy layer of flesh and muscle.
Once she was clean again, I helped her to her feet.
"M-Mom...... Dad."
With trembling hands, she felt her body here and there.
Because of the pus and fluid, she hadn't been wearing a single stitch of clothing.
Thus, everyone in the room could witness her completely healed body.
"I...... I don't hurt anymore. I......"
"Cecilia!!! Ooooh!! Oh, my daughter!!!! My daughter!!!!"
The mother ran to her daughter and embraced her.
The daughter embraced her mother back.
The mother began to weep, and the daughter began to cry too.
But it wasn't over yet.
"It's not over yet."
I pulled Mrs. Scrooge and Scrooge toward me and took each of them by the hand.
"What, what are you trying to—Hurk!!"
With a crunching sound of bodies being reassembled, the bodies of the Scrooge couple also began to be modified.
Just as I suspected.
It was exactly as I'd thought.
Fortunately, the contagious Rot Disease hadn't spread to them, but both had suffered so much psychologically and physically paying for their daughter's treatment that they were in terrible shape.
On top of that, Mrs. Scrooge had pneumonia as well, so her lungs were an absolute wreck.
I erased all of that in an instant.
The skin and hair of Scrooge, which had turned ugly and aged from being beaten down by reality, regained their clarity and luster.
It was the same for Mrs. Scrooge.
She no longer coughed.
Instead, she had been transformed into a dignified, middle-aged lady.
After I had completely healed both of them and quietly stepped back, a thunderous roar of cheers erupted behind me at that very moment.
"O Lilia of Grace! O Goddess!!"
"A saint!! Truly, truly a saint!!"
The priests and holy knights of the Lilia Order, who were witnessing my eroge skill for the first time, collapsed to the floor as tears streamed down their faces.
The high priest had a look of sheer soul-leaving-his-body disbelief.
"I believe! Punish me who doubted even for a moment! Aah! O Goddess!! O Goddess!!"
The police officers had taken off their hats and were staring at me with amazement, and the holy knights of the Sun Order were all choked up, their sensitivity apparently overflowing.
In the midst of everyone being so tearful and wailing.
"Hah!! You fraud! Did you think I'd believe it?"
Scrooge's sharp voice stabbed sharply into my ears.
I turned my head and looked at Jonathan Karma.
He was looking at his daughter, his wife, and his own body with a face filled with doubt.
"Do you know how many fake saints like you there have been? One or two?"
His sharp, scolding voice was enough to instantly transform the scene of emotion into a scene of a heresy inquisition.
"That irreverent man! Daring to be rude to the Saint!!"
"Does he blaspheme the Goddess of Grace?!"
The holy knights of the Lilia Order looked ready to draw their swords then and there, and the police and the holy knights of the Sun Order were openly showing their disgust.
But Scrooge acted as if he didn't give a damn.
"Shut it! You think I'd fall for it just because you all swarm in and shout?! I've been had countless times already! If I fall for it again, I'm an idiot!! An idiot!!"
Scrooge quickly dashed to a corner of the room and brought back an armful of things.
Scrolls. Magic potions. A strange-looking wand the likes of which I'd never seen. A mirror with a peculiar magic circle drawn on it. And so on.
It was a collection of various items.
"Just wait until it's exposed as a fake!! You fraud!! I'm going to report this immediately!! You'll die by my hand!!"
As Scrooge said that, he pulled out a potion and sprinkled it on his daughter, his wife, and his own body.
Then he began waiting with a triumphant expression.
And five minutes passed.
Scrooge's expression cracked for the first time.
"No reaction. You must be using some pretty good fraud techniques, I see?"
He fired a grin full of mockery at me and then prepared the next thing.
"It'll be different once I tear this scroll!! I paid a lot of money for this Dispel Scroll, you see!!"
The scroll was torn.
But still, there was no change in the three people.
Scrooge's expression wavered even further.
"Th-This!! If I use this mirror, your fraud will be plainly laid bare for all to see!! If I use this!!"
He looked at his daughter's and wife's bodies with the mirror inscribed with a magic circle.
His breathing began to grow ragged.
"If I use this....... if I use this....... your whole fraudulent scheme will be exposed....... exposed........"
Scrooge continued testing this and that, but there was still no change.
His daughter was still in a clean state, and his wife was the same.
"A real miracle....... there's no way a real saint exists. Those bastards robbed me of all my money over the years....... No. There's no way a real one......."
Scrooge was now crying.
Finally, when there was no reaction even after he swung a weird-looking wand through the air, Jonathan Karma collapsed to the floor and began to cry with sobs, wailing like a child.
The holy knights and priests, and the police who had been angry, bowed their heads with solemn expressions only then.
I approached the wailing Jonathan.
And I silently held him in my arms.
He clung tightly to me.
"Why!....... Why have you come only now?! Why!!...... Why didn't you come a little sooner....... sooner and—?!"
"I'm sorry."
There was no further answer.
"Dad!"
"Honey!!"
The wife and daughter dove in.
The four of us clung together, and Jonathan Karma's family wept for a long time, as if trying to shake off all the sorrow they had endured up to that point.
I held the three family members tight.
Just hearing about it made it clear what kind of hardships they must have gone through.
After all that suffering, wouldn't a moment of happiness be all right?
It seemed Jonathan had only calmed down after crying in a daze for nearly a full 30 minutes.
There we go.
Now I could finally get on with talking about buying the factory site.......
"Saint!! I shall simply dedicate my factory site to you! Please accept it!!"
No, wait.
This wasn't right.
I was in a position where I needed the Lilia Order to spend money!!
"The Goddess of Grace has granted my most cherished wish, so I too shall give my most precious possession! Just please take it! I shall gift it to you! I will offer up my factory site as a donation!!"
"No, Mr. Karma. That's not......."
"A miracle!!"
"Grace has looked down upon us!!"
My words were blocked by the shouts of the Lilia Order's priests.
Before I could do anything about it, the names of Jonathan Karma and High Priest Yodel were already written on a contract stating that he would simply gift the factory site and everything within it.
In the blink of an eye.
Far from taking a loss.
The Lilia Order had made the entirety of a massive factory site, located in the heart of the capital even if it was the slums, its own property.
***
Leading my countless followers once more, I headed toward the factory site I had just received under the Lilia Order's name.
A filthy, incredibly dirty land covered in industrial waste and garbage.
Damn it.
I had intended to make the Order spend money, but they ended up getting it for free like this.
Still, it didn't matter.
There were countless things I could make them spend money on.
"Clear the garbage, demolish the factory, and dig up the ground."
"You mean to dig up the ground?"
"Dig deep. As deep as possible. And build a temple in the form of a tall high-rise building."
Observing the capital, it seemed this world already had rebar and concrete technology, so it wasn't hard to spot five or six-story buildings.
The cost of demolishing the factory. The cost of clearing the garbage. The cost of hiring workers to dig up the ground.
Combining all of that, not only would it take a lot of time, but the money poured out would be enough to bring tears to your eyes.
Naturally, there were supposed to be absolutely no benefits whatsoever from this factory site.
Far from being profitable, wouldn't High Priest Yodel just slap me across the face and leave once he realized they'd bought a plot of land that only incurred losses?
"Begin right away......."
"The Saint has commanded us to dig deep into the earth and build a tall temple!! Let us clear the garbage!! It is the will of the Goddess!!"
My ambitious plan began to go awry the moment High Priest Yodel raised his voice.
As soon as Yodel shouted, an immense number of slum residents came swarming over in droves.
Looking closely, they were all people from the slums whom I had treated.
"Let us repay the grace we received from the Saint!!"
A massive crowd of people suddenly flooded in, offering to help clear the factory.
As you'd expect, even if I washed my eyes and searched, there wasn't a single person who wanted to be paid.
"Now, now! Form a line!! We'll go in order, go inside, clear things out, and come back repeatedly!! Understood?"
The holy knights of the Sun Order and the police controlled the crowd to prevent accidents.
"Go and buy food! Right now!! We must provide food for those who are working!!"
High Priest Yodel and the holy knights and priests of the Lilia Order went to buy food.
And me?
"Saint!! Grant your grace!! My child is sick!!"
"My mother is vomiting blood! O Saint!!"
Having done this a few times now and gotten used to it, a long line had naturally formed in front of me.
This wasn't supposed to happen.
Fuck.
Still, it was fine.
Demolishing the building would cost quite a bit of money. I looked at that huge factory. Tearing all that down would take at least several months.
Once they started cleaning it up, the Lilia Order's money would shatter into pieces.
Surely, that would be the case.
Because not pissing off the Goddess was also important, I was diligently treating the slum residents under the title of the Saint of Lilia when.
I felt a dread that seemed to stop my breath seize my entire body.
The witch!!
The four-armed nuclear-bomb witch!!
No!! I had made her with two arms back then!!
Why did she have four again?!!
Why was she here?!!
"Saint!"
The witch spotted me and, with an overly delighted face, swiftly dashed toward me.
And before I could do anything, she hugged me tight.
From the witch, the scent of a woman—so shocking to a forever-alone virgin like me—wafted up intensely.
"I wanted to see you!"
The witch shouted as she looked at me with a face that looked terribly happy.
I was frozen stiff and could barely even give a proper reply.
"Why did you come here?"
Yes!! Why had she come!! I said I didn't want to see you again!! I had no hobby of living with a bomb right next to me!!
"I've become a witch belonging to the Magic Tower! I came because I wanted to share this happy news....... Is there anything I can help with?"
Well, what happy news that was.
So, now that she was a Magic Tower witch, why didn't she go hang out with the friends she made there? Why had she come to me?
While I was inwardly praying for her to please just disappear quickly, the four-armed witch's eyes turned toward the factory.
"We must hurry and clean up and tear down the factory!! There will be much work to do in the future, so we must move quickly!!"
As if she had heard High Priest Yodel shouting at the working slum residents, the witch grinned and then looked at me.
"That factory. You're planning to demolish it?"
"Yes."
"I'll do it for you!"
In an instant, as if she had used spatial teleportation, the witch vanished from before my eyes.
I could sense that she was a genuine witch, unlike me who would get winded from a lack of mental energy after just using Time Stop.
And a short while later.
The witch suddenly appeared before my eyes again, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
This time holding a large permit in her hand.
"These are a magic-use permit and a demolition permit! Since you have to get permission to use large-scale magic in the capital! Wait a moment. I'll get rid of that factory for you right away!!"
No.
Wait a minute.
What about my plan to make the Lilia Order spend money on demolition?
What about my plan to make them suffer losses by pouring money into cleaning up that garbage?
No, you witch!! Stop!!
But before I could stop her, the witch had already dashed toward the factory site as if flying.
She showed the permit to the police who were commanding the crowd and said something, and the police instantly evacuated the people who had been cleaning. As soon as the evacuation was finished.
"Good heavens!!"
"My god!! How is that possible!!"
The witch pulled out her wand and waved it, and along with it, the entire massive factory was uprooted as a whole and lifted into the air.
And then, the factory building lifted up like that, in the next moment, disappeared somewhere with a pop.
In just a single day.
The decrepit factory that had been overflowing with waste and garbage had been transformed into a cleanly cleared empty lot.
Fuck.
This wasn't the plan!!