Chapter 270: The Weight of Creation
Iron and Noah materialized in the familiar clearing. The first thing that caught the eye was that the area around the Main Building had become noticeably wider. The dead trees had been neatly chopped down, and the stumps uprooted.
Wooden houses stood in neat rows along the cleared area. Iron took a quick glance; the houses were lined up in neat rows along the cleared zone, and now there were exactly thirty-one of them.
Noah exhaled heavily and, without saying a word, headed deep into the forest.
Iron watched him leave and thought:
Probably went off to train again.
Turning around, Iron headed for the doors of the Main Building. He pushed the door open, walked through the hall, and at the very end, opened the door to his office.
The room greeted him with coolness and silence. Iron walked past the two sofas, rounded his desk, and sank into his chair.
He took a deep breath, closing his eyes for a few seconds and just listening to the internal silence. However, in the very next moment, his gaze involuntarily caught on the right edge of the tabletop. A thick sheet of paper, folded in half, lay on the surface.
Iron reached out, took the paper, and unfolded it. A complex drafting grid was visible on the sheet.
"Ah, right, of course..." Iron said quietly, pausing over the blueprint for a few seconds. "Completely forgot about this."
He smoothed the sheet out in front of him, peering at the intersections of geometric lines and formulas. He slightly opened the fingers of his right hand — an ordinary pencil materialized out of thin air in his palm.
Iron pulled himself closer to the desk, intending to get to work and make adjustments to the schematic. He pulled out the top drawer, took out a small pouch, untied the string, and pulled out a single Uni coin. Examining its shiny facet, he began to rapidly write new values into the extension lines of the blueprint.
Literally five minutes later, the drafting work came to a halt.
A dull, oppressive pain pulsed inside his head. Iron planted his elbow on the tabletop and leaned his temple heavily against his palm, continuing to stare at the sheet and tapping the tip of the pencil against the desk.
"Damn..." he exhaled muffledly through his teeth.
He tried to continue working on the blueprint. His mind clearly understood the entire concept and exactly how this mechanism was supposed to work in theory. But the moment he tried to compile it into a real, sequential process — the thought immediately slipped away, turning into a vortex of formulas. His consciousness simply refused to build cause-and-effect connections.
Iron set the pencil aside, shoved the blueprint away from himself, and leaned back powerlessly in his chair.
"Again..."
His head responded with a bout of nauseating throbbing.
Meanwhile, the frequent ringing of steel echoed through the deep thicket of the forest. Noah's sword cleaved the air with a screech — honed, lightning-fast lunges gave way to blocks and torso twists, shifting the foliage underfoot.
Elyria materialized right in front of his face. Hovering above the ground, she tilted her head curiously and blurted out right away:
"So you're back already?"
Noah didn't slow his pace, continuing to practice a series of horizontal slashes:
"What do you think?"
Elyria pouted indignantly at his dry tone, but immediately moved on to the next question:
"And where's Iron?"
"No idea," Noah tossed out briefly, without changing his blade's trajectory.
"Well, did he even come back?!" she persisted.
"Yeah."
Elyria immediately perked up:
"Gotcha!"
In that same second, she dissolved into thin air. A moment later, the spirit materialized near the built houses and the Main Building. Hovering over the roofs, Elyria peered into the density and structure of the energy flows and quickly sensed Iron's mana deep inside his office.
Elyria vanished again and flared up as a bright dot right in front of Iron's face. Iron was half-reclined in his chair, motionless with his eyes closed.
"Iron! Iron!" she chirped.
Iron slowly opened his eyes and replied in a quiet, heavy voice:
"Oh, hey, Elyria."
Elyria flew a little closer, peering intently at his rumpled, exhausted face, and shook her head:
"Hmm, you look absolutely terrible..."
"Mhm," Iron exhaled without moving from his spot.
"Well, well, did you bring me souvenirs? Tell me, tell me!" Elyria spun in the air above the desk. "Did you see? I made so many houses, and cleared the clearing too! I did a good job, right?"
A faint smile flickered on Iron's lips:
"Yeah, yeah, you did a good job."
He slowly lowered his hand into the open drawer, fished out the Uni coin he had been examining a minute ago, and carefully presented it on his palm:
"Here, look what a shiny little thing. I have five whole, full pouches of these little things. And they're all yours."
Elyria froze in the air, staring at the perfectly polished facet of the coin shimmering in the light:
"Really? Really?!"
"Yeah, really," Iron confirmed.
Elyria instantly took the coin with both tiny hands, pressed it to her chest, and began to twirl enthusiastically above the tabletop:
"Wow, yes! It's so super shiny! It's so beautiful!"
Iron leaned heavily on the armrests with his palms and slowly got up from the chair, swaying slightly from the oppressive heaviness in his head:
"Alright, you can leave me alone now."
Elyria paused her joyful flight and looked at his graying face with concern:
"Do you need help?"
"The biggest help would be if you just leave me alone," Iron replied evenly.
The spirit's face grew noticeably sadder. Looking at Iron's extreme exhaustion, Elyria didn't argue anymore, just obediently nodded and instantly vanished, reappearing back in the forest.
Iron exhaled and collapsed powerlessly onto the sofa, instantly closing his eyes.
Meanwhile, Elyria flew over the clearing with a sad look, her wings drooping. Eliza, who was helping with the site arrangements, noticed her right away.
"Why are you so sad, Elyria?" she called out, stopping.
"Well, Iron came back, but..." Elyria trailed off sluggishly, hovering in the air.
Liana, standing nearby, immediately turned her head and asked:
"Iron came back?"
Elyria nodded and added in a quiet voice:
"Well, he looks kinda bad."
"Well, we should help him if that's the case," Eliza immediately suggested, ready to head for the Main Building.
"Well, that's the thing, he told me not to bother him," Elyria sighed heavily.
Eliza scoffed and looked at the spirit:
"Well, you were probably pestering him with your questions."
Elyria hesitated a little, awkwardly lowering her little hands and rubbing palm against palm:
"Well, that's possible, of course... but it's not true!"
"Alright, let him rest, it's better not to bother him, really," Eliza said with a smile.
"Yeah," Liana agreed.
Elyria nodded with a sigh. Eliza, meanwhile, changed the subject:
"And did Noah come back?"
"Oh yeah, yeah, he did," Elyria replied instantly.
"Where is he? Let him get us some wood," Eliza said.
"Well, he's training," Elyria answered.
"Tell him to help us," Eliza asked.
Elyria enthusiastically gave a big thumbs-up:
"Okay!"
In that same second she vanished, heading back into the forest to Noah.
Eliza turned around and walked deeper toward the forest, where the rest of the settlers were working. Approaching them a few minutes later, she picked up an axe and said calmly:
"Iron is back."
The guys immediately got distracted from their work and perked up:
"Iron's back, really?"
"Seriously?" Marek asked, looking up.
"Yes," Eliza confirmed, and immediately gave a strict warning: "But don't bother him. According to Elyria, he's not in the best shape right now."
"Yeah, alright," Marek nodded understandingly.
"Got it, we won't get in the way," one of the guys replied.
At that very moment, Noah walked out to them from the direction of the forest. Elyria was flying behind him, actively spinning over his shoulder, but Noah just kept walking forward, paying absolutely no attention to her.
"And there he is," Eliza said, pointing at Noah.
Marek smiled welcomingly and called out to him:
"Oh, you're finally back, Noah!"
Noah didn't even slow down and calmly walked past them, merely tossing out a curt:
"Yeah."
Iron continued to lie motionless on the sofa. He lightly bit his lip, deeply immersed in his own thoughts. Frozen in this position, he stared at the ceiling, going over the chaotic thoughts swirling through his mind.
After some time, Iron slowly raised his right hand in front of him. He slightly turned his wrist, intently examining his own palm and fingers against the backdrop of the ceiling.
"Is this even real...?" he said quietly into the empty room.
A short pause hung in the air. Iron lowered his arm, sat up on the sofa with difficulty, and got to his feet.
"Alright, I need to do at least something, this won't do," he said aloud, shaking his head. "I should make at least some furniture."
With these thoughts, Iron walked out of the Main Building. For a start, he tried to find the necessary materials for beds right inside the already built wooden houses. He actually managed to find some blanks and wood. From this stockpile, he immediately assembled the first bed and transferred it to one of the neighboring houses.
However, the resources found on-site were absolutely not enough. Realizing this, Iron collapsed space and set off in search of the missing components.
About fifteen minutes later he obtained everything needed, unloaded the materials back in the clearing, and without delay set to work crafting the beds.
The process dragged on. About thirty minutes passed before Iron managed to fully assemble and install one bed in every wooden house.
When he was putting the last bed into the final house, his strength completely left him. And Iron flopped down onto the freshly made bed, completely out of energy.
He lay on his back, catching his breath heavily and raggedly. Lively sounds drifted in from the street through the walls: some of the workers were loudly calling out to each other about something, someone's laughter and the clatter of tools could be heard.
Iron slowly turned his head to the right. There was no proper window — just an empty rectangular opening in the wall.
Gotta do that too... he thought to himself.
He lay like that for about ten minutes. When the dizziness gradually subsided and his overall condition more or less returned to normal, Iron got up from the bed with difficulty and went to make the glass.