CH 216

“Oops.”

I get up without thinking, and the tremor makes me stagger. My elbow is promptly grabbed from the side.

That’s enough to completely stabilize my body even amid this terrible tremor. I turn to look, and see Kalin holding me.

“What are you doing, Rust? Get under the table just to be safe.”

“Yes, sorry.”

We slip under the table, while Kalin is still holding my elbow, and Roa is already here. She’s looking around while eating sweets.

“You two are going to be busy. You can have this.”

Roa says while holding out her sweets.

The magic elements in both her eyes are shining. She’s using both her transparency and long-distance sight powers.

“Thank you. How’s the damage, Roa?”

Kalin asks Roa, before eating something in one bite again.

“There isn’t a lot of damage inside Putaresque. Master Rust’s Eve really is great. But this tremor is bigger than the last, and there have been landslides in this territory and within my range.”

I take one of Roa’s sweets too. It’s pretty hard to eat with all this shaking.

“Ahh… I don’t really understand the principle behind these tremors, but they should be getting bigger and bigger.”

I say while eating, despite being concerned. I don’t know when I’m going to have the time to eat after this, and replenishing nutrients is important.

“Are you basing that on the shaman’s memories?”

“Exactly.”

I finish eating, while wondering how Kalin can eat this in one bite. Her mouth must be pretty big compared to the rest of her body.

“So basically…”

“Yes. We have a time limit.”

The tremor finally dies down. We look at each other, and move out to deal with this situation.

◇◆

“I know we have been building more brick buildings lately, but we should hold off on that for now and rely on Eve’s buildings. Rust, about Habbafulton…”

Kalin says from behind a pile of documents.

“Yes, I’m heading there with Seilook soon. Master Halhammer is leading the production of a sister transmuted beast to Eve, so that should be almost ready. But Habbafulton doesn’t have a source of magic elements like this place, so it won’t last long.”

“It should just hold until these tremors go past what the buildings can take. If we don’t do something about that ‘Third Seat of Immorality’, we’re all in the same boat anyway, right?”

After the tremor subsided, I left Kalin’s office, and now I’m back again.

I have to go to Habbafulton to make bamboo buildings grow there too, as a temporary measure against the intermittent tremors that are growing in strength. But first, I had to come here and report.

“And there’s no doubt that this ‘Third Seat of Immorality’ is underground in the neighboring country, right?”

Kalin asks while peeking from behind the papers.

“That should be the case at least. Apparently that seal was placed hundreds of years ago, so it’s difficult to know exactly…”

“This sounds very interesting, Master Rust.”

I’m interrupted by a voice coming from behind me. It’s Princess Lily, who is still here in Putaresque.