Assessing the Situation

Miranda was definitely a villain. Her teaming up with Lucille of the Demon Race felt like a natural progression of the plot.

But Melty? That, I didn't understand.

She was supposed to be a character who sided with the protagonist—the kind of girl who exposed the Mastermind’s schemes, not joined them. Why was she siding with Miranda? Did they actually share some kind of common ground?

"I get it. Just take me there," I said.

Lacking any real grasp of the circumstances, I had Sasha lead me to the scene.

◇ ◇　◇

She led me to the house where Melty lived. I remembered her lamenting that she had too many visitors, but now her home was nothing more than a pitiable heap of rubble.

"Who would do something so terrible?" I asked.

"A-Are those words coming from the man who blew my house away last time...?"

Melty emerged from the debris, dressed in nothing but her usual oversized shirt. It looked like she’d been scavenging for valuables and records.

"She’s talking about you, Fritz," I said.

"Me?! That has nothing to do with me!" Fritz shouted, reflexively raising his voice.

"Well, Fritz was the one who actually blew it away. However, while I’ll concede that my instructions were the root cause last time, this time definitely had nothing to do with us, right?"

We had been in the Empire until just moments ago. We literally hadn't had the time to smash Melty’s House to pieces.

"T-This time, well..." Melty’s gaze drifted toward Miranda.

Miranda immediately began to panic. "T-That was force majeure! I didn't think it would collapse just from a little push!"

So Miranda was the one who broke it. That made the situation even more baffling. Why would Melty form an alliance with the person who demolished her home?

No, if I’m going that far, Melty being in this territory at all is an anomaly. She was likely just born under an unlucky star.

"Wait. Just a push? I didn't build that house to be so flimsy."

While I’d delegated most recent construction projects to others, I’d handled Melty’s personally. Between the time constraints and my own guilt for destroying her previous tower, I’d poured everything I had into it. A house built with the height of my technical skill shouldn't have collapsed from a mere shove.

Well, unless the person pushing it was a Dragon or something.

I almost laughed at the absurdity of the thought, but then a dark suspicion took root. Miranda doesn't have any combat scenes in the original work. Could her stats actually surpass even First’s?

...No way. Even for this world, that would be a total Balance Breaker. Which left only one possibility.

"Did you perform a further Renovation on the house I built?"

Melty flinched. "W-What are you talking about?"

"Sigh... I understand everything from just that reaction."

Apparently, Melty had failed while trying to apply some kind of reinforcement to the house. Miranda must have pushed it at the exact moment the structure was already failing.

"So it was your fault after all!" I groaned.

"That's not true! If you hadn't sliced my tower into rounds and sent it flying, my mental image wouldn't have been of such a wobbly tower to begin with!"

The logistics were a bit fuzzy, but apparently, Melty still wanted to live in a tower. I'd assumed she was done with them after being trapped in one, but I was wrong.

"You should have just said something sooner," I told her.

"It was quite an interesting tower, actually," Lucille added. "It swayed back and forth, like a leaf in the wind."

Lucille demonstrated by standing stiffly and wobbling her body. Did they actually prefer a swaying tower? A standard one-story house built on the ground wouldn't offer that kind of movement. Looking at Lucille's demonstration, the tower would have had to be incredibly crooked to sway like that constantly. Melty had clearly botched the adjustments.

"Fine. For now, Fritz, can I leave the cleanup here to you guys?"

"What are you going to do, Yuri?"

"I'm going to build a new Melty’s Tower. This time, I’ll make something she’ll actually be happy with."

Fritz grinned. "Haha, I figured you’d say that. I’ll have this place cleared in no time. If you need materials, just say the word."

And so, we set out to construct the new Melty’s Tower. Yet, I couldn't shake the feeling that I was forgetting something in the back of my mind.

Well, if I can't remember it, it probably wasn't anything important.

"T-To ignore me... how cheeky for someone like Yuri! Just you wait. Our alliance is going to interfere with you thoroughly!" Miranda fumed, brandishing a clenched fist.

She turned to seek agreement from her partners, but her face went pale.

"Wait... why is there nobody here?!"

Lucille and the others had already vanished.

◇　◇　◇

A tower that sways but doesn't collapse, huh...

The vague image of a Five-Story Pagoda came to mind. I didn't actually understand the architectural mechanics behind its internal structure, so whether I could build it successfully was unknown. Still, Melty was the backbone of this territory's Magic Tool production. I wanted to fulfill her wishes as much as possible.

"I doubt I'll get it right on the first try, but..."

I focused my Earth Magic, but the result was an extremely ordinary, rigid tower. A total failure.

"T-T-This is—"

Melty stared up at the tower, her eyes brimming with tears. She was likely devastated by how much it didn't match her imagination.

"It's okay. If I practice a few times, I should be able to get it right."

Saying that, I demolished the tower right before her eyes.