Chapter 223: The Birth of a State
On either side of the dry, wagon-rutted road stretched bright green grass, slightly damp from the fresh dew. Clerk’s gang trudged behind. Noah walked to the side, while Elyria flew loops in the air above Iron’s shoulder.
Lumon’s grid unfolded before Iron’s eyes. Up ahead, the dark expanse of the forest was already clearly outlined. Iron studied the terrain in his mind, weighing options for the future settlement, when suddenly a lone red dot blinked on the interface.
He was about to open his mouth to warn them, but seeing that Noah and Elyria were already looking in that exact direction, he stopped himself.
"Who is that, Noah?" Iron asked quietly, not taking his eyes off the approaching silhouette.
"A girl," he replied curtly.
"I don't sense any danger from her," Elyria chimed in, dropping a bit lower.
"Neither do I," Noah agreed.
Clerk, walking behind, swallowed nervously and asked anxiously:
"Did something happen, Iron?"
The engineer silently pointed a finger forward. Clerk and his men immediately craned their necks, eyeing the stranger.
"We'll wait for her to come to us," Iron decided.
The girl approached unhurriedly and confidently. Closing the distance, she quickly swept an ironic glance over the whole group without breaking her stride: eleven vagabonds, a tiny flying girl—she squinted at Iron—he was clearly not normal, and then at Noah, who seemed alright.
"Where are you heading?" she asked casually, not slowing down.
At that moment, Iron locked his eyes on her and simply froze in place.
Noah, noticing this strange pause, nudged him lightly in the ribs with his elbow. Iron blinked quickly, coming to his senses, and pointed dryly:
"Into that forest."
"Mind if I join you?" the girl asked lightly, and after waiting a couple of seconds, added: "I haven't introduced myself. My name is Eliza."
Iron gave her a skeptical once-over from head to toe:
"Old-fashioned name."
"Eliza?" she swept her gaze over him.
"I'm Iron, this is Noah, and she's Elyria."
Iron looked at the eleven vagabonds and then said:
"And this is Clerk and his people."
"Iron... And you're saying something about my name? I take it you were named after a piece of metal?"
"Who do you think you are?" Iron snapped, slightly annoyed. "And anyway, smoking at your age is bad for you, didn't you know?"
"I'm nineteen, smartass," Eliza said, resting a hand on her hip. "I'm already of age."
Elyria, making a couple of loops in the air, smoothly dropped right onto the top of Eliza's head, settling comfortably in her hair.
"I like her! Let's take her with us!" the spirit squeaked.
"Yeah, she seems alright," Noah shrugged. "What do you think, Clerk?"
"Yeah... why not," Clerk replied fussily, looking down at his feet just in case.
Iron exhaled heavily:
"Do whatever you want."
He turned around and stepped further down the trail first. Gradually, the whole group trailed after him.
"Still... anyone could have a personality like that," he thought.
Meanwhile, Elyria shot off the girl's head and began buzzing around her face, bombarding her with questions:
"So what are you doing here? Where are you from? If you're out here all alone, you must be crazy strong?! Right?!"
Noah reached out and grabbed the spirit by the scruff of the neck with two fingers:
"You're going to scramble her brains with all these questions. Calm down a bit."
"Hey! Let go!" Elyria flailed her little hands indignantly in all directions, trying to reach Noah.
"No, it's fine..." Eliza smiled, watching them with interest. Then she shifted her gaze to Iron's back and quietly asked Noah: "But tell me, why are we going into this forest in the first place?"
"Iron wants to build his own state," Noah replied calmly, continuing to hold the squirming Elyria. "And he thinks this forest is the most suitable place."
"I see..." Eliza drawled.
A few hours passed. The line of people finally turned off the road and headed deep into the forest.
The forest was bright and tall: sunlight filtered through the lush canopies, illuminating the moss and fern thickets. Squirrels darted busily along the gnarled trunks of pine trees, forest birds called out to each other somewhere deep in the branches, and the air was filled with the thick, refreshing scent of pine needles and damp earth. Everyone walked in silence, enjoying the quiet after the long trek.
Iron navigated using Lumon's grid flashing before his eyes: a right turn to bypass a pair of oaks, a hundred paces straight, then a smooth arc to the left through low brush. The group trailed silently behind him.
At some point, the trees parted, and the whole group stepped out into a small, relatively flat clearing wedged between tall pines. The ground here was covered in soft moss and fallen needles.
Iron stopped dead center, looked around, and said curtly:
"Right here is where we'll build the new state."
Eliza gave the ground a critical once-over, shifted her gaze to the solid wall of tree trunks around them, and said:
"Looks... like crap."
"Yeah," Noah nodded calmly.
"That it does," Iron didn't argue.
He turned his head to the spirit, who was still hovering nearby:
"Elyria, make it look pretty here. However you want."
The spirit blossomed at these words. Her glow flared brighter, and her tiny eyes shone with delight:
"Really?! Literally anything I want?!"
"Yeah, go for it."
Elyria soared higher into the air and threw her little arms wide. A soft greenish glow rippled outward from her palms across the clearing. The trees at the edge of the space began to move: their trunks started to thicken, and their branches wove together, visibly forming a natural, living, and incredibly dense fence around the future camp.
Iron crossed his arms over his chest, watching it unfold.
"We could've just done all this ourselves, of course," flashed through his mind, "but..."
Elyria raised her hands even higher. The ground far beyond the clearing let out a hollow groan. A good distance away, slabs of rock began to slowly rise from beneath the turf with a screech and a crack, forming a ring of high stone ridges.
Elyria's glow abruptly dimmed, her small hands trembled, and the rising stone ridges froze, having managed to rise only a fraction of what was intended. The spirit's eyes fluttered shut, and her tiny body plummeted downward.
Noah instantly darted forward to catch her, but Eliza was faster—she made a quick lunge and carefully caught her in her cupped palms.
Iron looked at the unfinished hills in the distance, then at Eliza holding Elyria, and finished his thought:
"...but then it would've been a lot harder."
"Good job, Elyria," Iron said quietly out loud.
"Well... I probably should've asked her to cut us some proper planks first," he thought to himself in annoyance. "Ah well, too late now."
Iron turned to Clerk and his gang. They were standing stock-still, their mouths hanging open and eyes bulging at the half-raised mountains in the distance and the living tree hedge. Pure terror was written on each of their faces.
"Should probably see what they're capable of in practice," Iron mentally concluded.
"What are you standing around for?" he asked them calmly. "Go harvest some wood."
No one even twitched. Clerk kept staring mesmerized at the edge of the forest where terraforming had been taking place just seconds ago.
"Did you hear me?" Iron repeated, only much colder and sterner this time.
Clerk jolted violently, snapping out of his stupor, and nodded frantically:
"Ah... yes! Yes, of course!" He spun around to his men and screamed at the top of his lungs: "You heard him?! Let's go! We need to chop wood!"
The vagabonds hurriedly grabbed their axes and dented swords and dashed toward the nearest pines as fast as their legs could carry them.
Eliza, meanwhile, carefully sat down on the dry grass beneath the canopy of a tall oak, laid the sleeping Elyria in her lap, and began to watch the process.
Iron and Noah didn't sit on the sidelines either. And while Clerk's men huffed, sweated, and barely managed to fell one pine every half hour, Noah simply walked up to a trunk, delivered a couple of precise strikes, and easily dropped giant trees to the ground, then effortlessly dragged them to the center of the clearing. Iron helped hack off the branches and trim the logs down to size.
By evening, a massive, neat pile of excellent building timber stood at the edge of the clearing. Clerk's vagabonds collapsed onto the grass without an ounce of strength, panting heavily, even though the lion's share of that pile had been harvested thanks to Noah and Iron.
The engineer exhaled, brushed some wood shavings off his sleeve, and collapsed onto his back on the ground.
"Building houses is going to be ten times harder than before..." he muttered quietly, looking up at the darkening sky. "Gotta use the new method tomorrow. Hope it works."
He barely had time to close his eyes when the heavy crackle of branches echoed from the thicket. Noah walked out into the clearing, dragging the carcass of a massive boar behind him. With a dull thud, he dropped the kill right onto the trampled grass.
Iron immediately got up. With a practiced motion, he set up a large fire pit in the center of the clearing and used magic to ignite the prepped kindling. Drawing his sword and applying a precise distribution of force lines, he perfectly carved the boar carcass into even chunks in a matter of moments. Whittling down long wooden skewers, they quickly skewered the meat.
Soon, as night fell, the mouthwatering scent of roasted meat drifted over the camp.
The fire crackled. Clerk's men, finally eating a decent meal, went quiet by the fire, devouring their portions with delight. Eliza sat nearby, cradling Elyria who was still sleeping in her lap.
Iron chewed his meat, staring at the dying embers, and said quietly:
"Noah, you know..."
"You said you'd figure something out about this," Noah cut him off without turning his head.
"Yeah... But, I haven't figured anything out yet, so... We'll have to keep watch."
"Fine," Noah exhaled and relaxed his shoulders slightly. "At least Elyria won't be around tonight, so it'll be quieter."
With those words, Noah casually glanced at the spirit lying with Eliza. And at that exact moment, Elyria's eyelids fluttered ever so slightly.
Noah froze. A panicked scream rang through his mind:
"No! Just don't open your eyes! Please, don't!"
But Elyria finally opened her eyes, stretched, darted out of Eliza's arms, and soared into the air, looking around:
"Wow! Is it night already?! And what are you guys eating without me?!"
Noah covered his face with his palm and muttered quietly to himself:
"Damn it..."