The shirt had dried by the time midday passed.
Eiji picked it up from the flat stone beside the well and slipped his arms through the sleeves. The fabric still held the warmth of the sun. The seam along the back brushed lightly against his shoulder blade. It had shrunk slightly where it was sewn, but not enough to make it unwearable. Compared to this morning, when the wind blew straight through the tears, it felt much more like real clothing.
(Right. Next up is a house.)
Beyond the square stood a row of six houses with their roofs still holding shape. He had only counted them from the outside that morning, without stepping inside a single one to check. If one of them was going to serve as their bed for the night, he wanted to lay hands on it before choosing.
Yuna stood up from the rim of the well and walked over to his side.
"Which one are you going with? I mean, they're all completely falling apart, though."
"I want the house that broke down the most properly."
"...Isn't your phrasing a little weird?"
He knew it sounded strange, but he couldn't find a shorter way to put it.
Starting from the closest house, they inspected them one by one. The doorframe pillars, the foundation stones, the base of the beams. Every time he touched the wood and stone, the method to repair it flowed straight into his head. Which parts were dead, and which were still alive. Relicta Inspectio dutifully informed him every single time. Yuna followed half a step behind, crouching down beside his hands at every stop.
"If a house was forcibly destroyed, it stays warped even if you fix it. But a house that collapsed under the weight of time will restore naturally... I think."
"Is that your intuition as a Scavenger?"
"Well, something like that."
In the second house, the floor was rotten all the way down to the joists. This one alone likely wouldn't return to being a home even if repaired. In the fourth house, the foundation stones had split, tilting the entire frame along with its pillars. In the fifth and sixth houses, the ridgepoles were snapped, leaving the roofs slanted down on one side.
In front of the third house, Yuna stopped in her tracks. Out of the six, its roof appeared to have survived in the best condition.
"Then what about that house with the roof still on?"
"No, we'd better pass on that one. The beam is sagging right in the middle. They say a roof is at its most dangerous when it looks like it's holding up."
It was a piece of wisdom borrowed from his grandpa. Though, present-day Eiji actually had the eyes to verify it firsthand.
In the end, the two returned to the first house. The wooden wallboards were half gone. Even so, out of all six houses, this was the only one where the foundation, the beams, and the pillars were all still intact together.
(Or rather... this was the only choice from the very beginning, wasn't it?)
After restoring the well, this doorway had been the very first thing to catch his eye. It might not have been a choice so much as something he had merely confirmed by touch.
In front of the entrance pillar, Yuna paused. She reached out and traced the topmost notch of a stepped series of marks carved into the wood.
"......"
She said nothing. Eiji stayed quiet as well, slipping inside past the half-detached door.
The interior was an earthen-floored entryway. Afternoon light poured through the gaps in the missing wallboards in sharp beams. Looking up, a patch of sky was framed inside the hole where the roof boards had fallen away. As for the flooring, the back room had rotted and sunken in, while a detached door leaned against the threshold beam. The skeleton was alive, but it desperately needed meat on its bones.
Relicta Inspectio had already tallied the missing materials beforehand. Dozens of boards, one beam log, wall plaster, and wooden splicing pieces. It was an amount that made the thirty-one well stones look trivial by comparison. Unfortunately, there wasn't a convenient sawmill left standing in this village.
Eiji poked his head out the doorway and turned toward the neighboring second house.
"Nobody's using the house next door anymore, right?"
"Do you really think anyone is?"
"Then let's borrow from it for this one."
Yuna's retort was framed as a question, but it served as an answer all the same.
He held his palm out toward the second house. Inside his mind, the name surfaced once again.
(...Relicta Collectio.)
When he chanted it within his heart, one of the warped floorboards lifted into the air without a sound. Its outline dissolved into particles of light and flowed toward his hands. A second board followed, then a third. The rotten joists and detached door panels likewise turned into motes of light and drifted over in succession. The particles lingered around his hands, swirling in a faint vortex.
"Whoa. Eiji-kun, that's amazing."
"I'm surprised myself. Looks like a Scavenger gets a skill like this, too."
The second house rapidly dwindled down to bare bones before their eyes. What had been taken were the boards and the earth; the pillars remained standing in place. It resembled a beast with its ribs exposed... no, that was disrespectful. It was a benefactor providing materials.
The two returned to the front of the first house, and he held out both hands. One breath. The words that followed rolled off his tongue without needing a second thought.
"Give purpose once more to that which was cast aside—Relicta Renovatio."
The particles rose straight toward the hole in the roof.
The beam lifted. The tilted axis leveled out, and boards drew near atop it one by one. The hole narrowed at a speed that felt as if the wood were simply remembering its original arrangement. The particles filled the gaps in the walls, and a new surface rose where the missing boards had been. The sunken floor surged upward, replacing the rotten discoloration altogether. Finally, the door leaning against the threshold floated up and settled into its frame. The hinges gave a short creak.
Once the roof was sealed, the acoustics inside the house changed. The sound of the wind was shut out completely.
The final particle vanished over the beam, and the light of Relicta Renovatio receded.
Before their eyes stood a complete house. The walls were firmly closed from end to end. The spliced-in boards were pale, while the original boards were a deep amber, creating an alternating pattern of wood grains from the two structures. The ridge of the roof ran straight across, with a chimney rising into the sky at its edge. The door rested quietly shut within its frame, leaving only the entrance pillar with its stepped notches untouched. Since those hadn't been broken, there was no way to fix them.
It was nowhere near something that could be called brand-new. Yet, it was no longer a ruin either. It felt like a home that had been lived in and cared for over many years.
Just as he saw the restoration through to the end, the toll hit him.
He tried to exhale, but no sound came out. His body tilted to the right, and the strength vanished from his knees.
"Whoa... close one."
He braced a hand against the earthen floor. This ran deeper than with the well. The trembling in his fingertips had reached all the way to his elbows, and a high-pitched ringing echoed endlessly in the back of his ears.
"Eiji-kun, are you okay?!"
Yuna rushed over and dropped to her knees beside him. Her hand reached out toward his back, then hesitated. She had only just confirmed at the well that Heal skills had no effect on this exhaustion. Instead, she ducked beneath his shoulder, wrapping his arm around her neck.
"...I'm looking pretty pathetic, aren't I?"
"Who cares about that? Let's just rest for today, okay?"
"No, I'm fine. Feels like I can manage a bit more, so let's get the inside in order too."
"Geez. Always pushing yourself..."
Yuna spoke with an exasperated sigh.
She called him out on it, but he wasn't entirely bluffing. His breath was returning faster than it had at the well. It might have been because he had a shoulder to lean on before he completely collapsed.
After resting for just a moment, work resumed. For now, nothing would get done until they looked inside.
The two stepped over the threshold together.
"Ooh...!"
"Waaah!"
The moment they entered, both gasped in admiration.
And for good reason. Not a single beam of the light that had pierced through the walls remained. The earthen entryway had regained the dim ambiance befitting an indoor space, and the wooden floor was level all the way to the edges. Even stepping on it produced nothing more than a faint creak. Looking up, ceiling boards stood in place of the open sky. The patch of blue that had peeked through the hole was nowhere to be seen.
"Incredible, incredible! Eiji-kun, that's amazing! It's turned into a genuinely proper house!!"
"Yeah. Though having it be a single-story is a bit of a bummer. I wanted to make it two stories if possible."
"Forget that kind of luxury for now!"
When Eiji voiced his complaint, Yuna shot back with an amused retort. Of course, it was just his awkward attempt to hide his embarrassment.
Eiji's intuition had been right after all. In a world with so many broken things, being a Scavenger might be far more meaningful a profession than he had imagined.
As he pondered this, he noticed Yuna looking his way with narrowed eyes.
"What is it?"
"Mm-mm. Just thinking that you really are a hero, Eiji-kun."
"What are you talking about? Goda or someone said I was just a junk collector, didn't they? Come on, let's fix up the furniture too. Stop saying weird things and help me out."
"Okaay."
She gave a drawn-out reply, but she continued to send that ticklish gaze his way, completely throwing off his rhythm.
Pulling himself together, it was time to repair the furniture.
A table had fallen in the corner of the entryway. Two chairs sat with broken legs. A crumbled stove leaned against the wall, with a rust-covered iron pot resting beside it. Remaining on his knees, he touched them one by one. Every time he rolled the incantation over his tongue, particles scattered from his fingertips, costing only a sliver of stamina. The table legs righted themselves, and the fractured edges of the chairs fused back together. The stones of the stove stacked up, taking the shape of a proper firebox.
In the back room sat a single bed. The loose frame tightened, and the moldy, stiffened blanket returned to its soft, woven texture. Now they could sleep comfortably.
Without incident, they had rounded up most of the essentials. Though aged, the interior was now a fully functional home.
"...It really became a house."
"Even if I say so myself, it's an incredible ability."
If someone possessed a skill like this in their old world, architects and repairmen would all be put out of business.
Yuna glanced toward the table and spoke.
"Are two chairs really enough?"
"Hm? I mean, there's only two of us, right?"
"Eh... ah. R-Right. That's true. What am I even saying?"
Flustered, she nodded, her cheeks flushing red for some reason.
Best not to pry into the reason. Asking would probably just blow up in his own face too.
On a shelf along the wall, a shallow bowl with a chipped rim lay upside down. Yuna picked it up and wiped away the dust with her sleeve.
"Ah, look. This dish is cute."
"Must belong to the previous resident. Well... let's make use of it."
Taking the offered dish, he placed his finger on the chipped rim. As the gap filled in, even the faded flower pattern regained its color. The brush strokes were delicate. Rather than a stamped pattern, someone had painted it by hand.
"Here, it's fixed."
"Thank you!"
He returned the dish to Yuna. Receiving it with both hands, she turned the pattern toward the light coming through the window. After admiring it for a moment, she set it back right-side up on the easiest shelf to reach.
Lastly, he reached his hand into the stove's firebox. A faint draft of air drifted past his cheek from deep inside. The chimney was clear. If they lit a fire, it would function properly.
Eiji pushed himself up from his knees. As he stood, a wave of lightheadedness nearly swept his consciousness away.
(...Guess I'm reaching my limit after all.)
While it was a remarkably convenient skill, there seemed to be a ceiling on how much he could use it in a single day. Come to think of it, he had been told his mana capacity was on the lower end. The limit on skill uses and the physical strain that followed were likely tied to mana.
(Would things change if I could craft an item that boosts mana capacity, I wonder?)
He considered the thought for a second, then shook his head.
Enough of that for now. For the time being, a house was built, and water was secured. The basic furniture needed to get by was prepared as well.
For their first day living in an abandoned village, it was an absolute triumph.
"Let's call it a day with this. Man, I'm starving."
"Yeah. Let's eat, okay? I'm completely famished too."
Saying so, she glanced toward the hemp sack. Right on cue, both of their stomachs let out a loud rumble at the exact same time.
They had been so absorbed in their work that they had forgotten their hunger entirely.
"Ehehe. My stomach growled."
"Well, we've only eaten hard candy since we got thrown into this world, after all."
It was only natural to be starving.
The rest could wait until tomorrow. First things first, it was time to eat.