“Isn’t the construction almost done, Father?”
“Yes. Once the paving is finished, it’s over. So stay alert. If Aslan Vermont makes a move, it will definitely be today.”
Crack.
Count Ariente gritted his teeth, looking out at the construction site where work was in full swing.
The groundwork was already complete.
All that was left was to pave the road, but there were no signs of movement from the Vermont side.
They would occasionally visit the site, inspect the progress, and leave.
Each time, it heightened their vigilance, leaving them sleepless and anxious.
Who knew when and how that crazy Aslan Vermont would strike…
‘No tricks? Was he just an idiot?’
As time passed, the Count began to feel foolish about it all.
Maybe Aslan Vermont really didn’t understand the value of the road construction rights and gave them away foolishly.
It was incomprehensible from a normal person’s point of view, but thinking simply like that made it somewhat understandable.
Yeah. It was a mistake trying to understand a fool.
Count Ariente felt a sense of relief for a moment.
Rumble!
“What?!”
“It looks like a small earthquake. We should evacuate and resume construction later.”
The ground started shaking with a vibration like a dragon’s roar.
Rocks fell with a thud.
Workers hurriedly evacuated the construction site.
“Why does this have to happen at the last stage?”
“It will be over soon.”
“Now it has calmed down. Come on, everyone! What are you doing? Let’s move and finish this up!”
The earthquake finally subsided. How much time was delayed because of that one earthquake?
The workers gradually returned.
Just as they were about to resume paving, another rumble occurred.
Rumble!
“I’m going crazy! Another earthquake?”
But as soon as they started again, the ground began to shake once more.
Just when they were about to evacuate, the earthquake stopped.
And every time they tried to resume, the earthquake would occur again, perfectly timed.
“Today is not the day. Let’s start again tomorrow.”
“We’ll have to.”
Amusingly, as soon as the workers left, the mountain was calm, with not a single earthquake happening all day.
The next day.
It remained quiet until the workers arrived, but as soon as they started the paving work, rumble.
As earthquakes repeatedly interfered with the final stages, the Count felt he was going mad.
“Damn it! This isn’t a natural phenomenon! Is it the spirits’ mischief?”
It must have been the prank of some nasty little spirit.
If the earthquakes were just causing a few rocks to fall, they could put up fences and keep working, couldn’t they?
Determined to see who would win, the spirit or them, the Count ordered the work to continue.
“Argh! Huge boulders keep falling!”
“Who told you to evacuate? Resume the work!!!”
“We’re all going to die, Count! Stop the work! Stop the work!”
“You b*stards…!”
The mountain responded with an unprecedented great earthquake.
In a short 10-minute quake, many workers were injured, and most of the equipment was damaged.
Even as the workers evacuated, the intensity of the earthquake increased.
If it hadn’t stopped, how much stronger would it have gotten?
Workers, already terrified, began to call in sick without permission.
“Damn. No. How much investment did we receive to build this road…! If we can’t finish this, we’re ruined! Heisig!”
“Yes.”
“Find a Spirit Master immediately! We need a Spirit Master to appease that spirit!”
“Father. Hiring a Spirit Master starts at least a billion Lark.”
“What’s for a billion Lark! If we don’t finish the construction on time, we’ll have to return all the investment for breach of contract!!!”
After paying the hiring fee of a billion Lark, three days later.
A Spirit Master arrived at the construction site.
Yawning as if extremely bored, the Spirit Master stepped down from the carriage, striking the ground with a massive staff, furrowing her brow.
“Spirit Master, please drive out the spirit that’s been disrupting the construction in this area!”
“Sigh. I hate being in such remote places…”
“We will give you an additional billion Lark if you finish in three days!”
“Geez. Three days? I could easily make two billion with other commissions in three days.”
“Then we’ll make it two billion Lark…”
“Wait. Most spirits can’t resist my incantation. If I find it, I can finish it immediately.”
The Spirit Master exuded an unusual aura.
Lillia Brydel. She was known as the most skilled in the Empire.
Instead of wasting time calling mediocre Spirit Masters and then replacing them, they decided it was better to call a big shot from the start.
Lillia advanced, detecting the mana traces left on the ground.
The Count and Heisig followed behind her.
Then, suddenly, she stopped as if she had found something.
Had she already found the spirit?
It hadn’t even been an hour since Lillia arrived.
“Did you find it?”
“Shh. Be quiet. I’m measuring the mana residue again. Something is strange. Why is it so high?”
“What do you mean?”
“There was an error with numbers way beyond the normal range just now. Even great spirits usually aren’t this high. It must be a measurement error. Wait. Let me check again… Huh? Why is it the same…?”
Calculating the amount of mana residue left in the soil, she tried to reverse-calculate the amount of mana used.
She thought there was an error in the process, so she checked again, but there was no problem.
It was the same two or three times.
There was no error.
‘Wait a minute. Can this amount of mana even exist?’
If one wanted, they could split the entire mountain with this amount of mana.
Oh. So that’s why it split?
Did this huge mountain range split because of just one spirit…?
“Ah?”
She looked up.
Lillia’s body stiffened.
Heisig and Count Ariente were also frozen, crushed by an unknown pressure.
“What is this?”
“A… ah.”
Heisig and Count Ariente were bewildered, not knowing what was happening, but Lillia saw it.
A massive brown spirit standing before her.
The size wasn’t the problem.
Unlike objects in this world, spirits were not affected by gravity or the atmosphere, so their bodies could become infinitely large.
There were many spirits that, despite their size, were insignificant.
‘To approach me with this enormous body, without me noticing?’
The fact that this massive entity had reached her without her realizing it was a mystery.
‘To hide its presence from the continent’s greatest Spirit Master, and to have the power to split a mountain…!’
Lillia’s lips trembled as she put it all together.
No matter how she looked at it, this spirit was a Great Spirit.
[Unknown spirit, kneel before me.]
Lillia’s incantation echoed.
The massive brown entity, exposed directly to her incantation, didn’t budge.
It was clear this spirit could not be subdued by her incantation.
Boom!
“Eek!?”
The Great Spirit, seemingly very displeased and uncomfortable with the incantation, stomped the ground once.
Lillia quickly turned crestfallen.
[Leave.]
“Y-yes…”
“Wait! Where are you going?”
“How can I drive that out? I’ll return the billion Lark by tomorrow, just never call me again!”
“…”
Swoosh.
Lillia fled without looking back.
Count Ariente’s face also quickly turned crestfallen.
What to do about the construction now?
***
“Ariente is in trouble.”
“Did the young master know this would happen?”
“Not exactly. How could I have known that the Great Spirit of Earth was slumbering in the mountains?”
Everything was going as I had predicted.
Ariente began construction by cutting into the mountain, widening the road, and solidifying the ground.
At the final paving stage, they were repeatedly hindered by the Great Spirit, unable to complete the work.
‘The Great Spirit of Earth dislikes the mountains being polluted.’
Cutting into the mountain and solidifying the ground was all fine.
The Great Spirit might have found it noisy but bore with it up to that point.
But pouring cement on top?
That was crossing the line.
Unable to bear it any longer, the Great Spirit finally exploded at the last stage.
It was a very simple reason when you thought about it.
But Ariente wouldn’t have the slightest clue why the Great Spirit was enraged.
They had no one capable of communicating with spirits.
“So if Ariente goes bankrupt, the construction rights will naturally transfer to us. Necromancer Julia can handle the Great Spirit, and we just need to take over the well-advanced construction site and finish the final paving. Did you plan all this from the start?”
“….”
Sylvia looked at me with an astonished gaze.
Half right, half wrong.
If left alone, Ariente would indeed fail to complete the construction on time and go bankrupt.
Ariente would collapse instantly, and the Count’s family would end up penniless.
That wouldn’t do.
“We can’t let Ariente go bankrupt. They are our neighbors now.”
“Oh! Of course! Even though they were rude to us first, you’re willing to forgive them…”
“The more bustling cities near the road, the higher the traffic. If they go bankrupt, do you think they’ll just hand over the construction site they’ve worked hard on? Knowing their temperament, they’ll probably ruin the land they’ve worked on just to spite us.”
“Ah, I see.”
Sylvia’s expression turned from slightly touched to quickly hardening again.
She had a look of ‘Oh, of course.’
“Let’s go to Ariente’s territory. It’s time to renegotiate.”
“Renegotiate?”
“Let’s save them right before they go bankrupt. That way, we can continue to squeeze them in the future. Hehehe.”
“Woah…”
We would only slightly adjust the contract terms.
Instead of the original agreement of returning the investment without interest, we would hold the funds indefinitely, increasing the interest rate to 50% or something.
