With the arrival of the next morning, my three-day holiday was officially over. I could finally begin my activities in earnest. I headed down the mountain toward Gimul early that day, fueled by a renewed sense of purpose.
"Good morning!"
I called out a greeting to the man guarding the North Gate as I passed through, then ran straight for a specific corner of the slums. When I arrived at my destination—a massive, ancient building—a large crowd had already gathered.
"Excuse me. Sorry, coming through... Ah!"
I pushed my way through the dense throng of people until I reached the front. There, I found the seven-man team dispatched from the Ducal House. Standing with them were Chairman Serge of the Morgan Company, the head of the Town Office, Arnold, and the overseer of the slums, Ribul. Surrounded by carriages and what appeared to be their personal guards, the group projected an aura that set them apart from the rest of the onlookers.
I approached them and offered my greetings.
"Lord Ryoma. You’re still ahead of our scheduled time, so please, do not worry," Serge said.
"We just happened to get here early, that's all," Ribul added. "The brats aren't even ready yet."
While they gave their respective replies, Serge and Ribul also caught me up on the current situation. The "brats" Ribul mentioned were the children living in the sprawling, dilapidated structure before us. This was one of the several "Children's Homes" in the Gimul Slums—places where orphans lived together.
I looked up at the facade and sighed. "No matter how often I look at it, this is an incredibly old building."
I was trying to be polite, but even that felt like an understatement.
"It is only natural," Arnold agreed. "According to the Town Office records, this building was constructed even before the city itself was fully established. It originally served as a warehouse for the materials used to build Gimul. As construction progressed, the storage sites were repeatedly expanded or moved, and this decommissioned warehouse was eventually sold off to the private sector. That is how it became what you see today."
His explanation made a lot of sense. The stone exterior was completely unadorned, suggesting a design that prioritized space and durability. Since it was meant for moving large quantities of goods, there were two entrances each at the front and back—four in total—wide enough for heavy carriages to pull up.
To guard against theft, the doors were remarkably thick, and the windows were tiny slits, seemingly designed for the bare minimum of light and ventilation. The grounds were enclosed by a high wall, and I could see the remnants of a heavy gate that once strictly separated the site from the outside world. If the construction hadn't been so sturdy, the whole thing probably would have collapsed decades ago.
To my eyes, however, it looked like nothing more than a ruin. It was hardly an environment where children should be living.
"Ribul-san," I said, turning to the overseer. "Just to confirm: once the children are ready and have cleared out, I have permission to begin the demolition immediately after I verify that the building and grounds are vacant?"
"The faster you finish, the sooner we can start the rebuilding of their home, right?" Ribul's expression was rugged and his tone was rough, but his primary concern was clearly the children's welfare. "We'll split up and look after them while the work is being done, but they’ll feel better the sooner they have a real roof over their heads again."
Ribul had accepted my proposal for this very reason. He had negotiated with the facility's owners, the people who supported the orphans, and the children themselves to make this happen. My goal was to build a Waste Processing Plant and a factory, but by cooperating with them, the "improvement of the living environment" became a shared benefit.
Because of that, I was standing here today, ready to tear this house down.
"Thank you for your cooperation," I said. "I'll see this through to the end of the rebuilding to make sure I don't let anyone down."
"See that you do. It's not just me watching; as you can see, you've got a hell of an audience."
"Yes, sir!"
As if on cue, the children began streaming out of the building in a steady line. I had a few more things to verify before I started.
"What about the laborers I requested to assist with the site work?"
"I’ve secured about thirty men for now," Zeff replied. "They’re on standby nearby; they'll come as soon as they're called."
"Thank you. That should be plenty for the first day." I turned to the others. "Serge-san, Lulunese-san, do you have the items I asked for?"
"The second-hand clothes for the children? Yes," Serge confirmed. "I’ve purchased a sufficient quantity and they're currently in my carriage. We had them all laundered just a short while ago."
"The Cleaner Slimes we were entrusted with are in this carriage," Lulunese added. She was joined by two other maids. "Lilian, the contractor, will ride with the children to provide guidance."
"Everything is ready, then. Thank you very much."
I had asked Lulunese and her fellow maids to provide a mobile version of the Full-body Cleaning Service using my Cleaner Slimes. After the children were freshened up, we would distribute the clothes Serge had prepared as a small gesture of compensation for the upheaval of their lives.
"A brand-new house right as winter is setting in? I doubt they'll feel much like they’ve been 'inconvenienced,' but I appreciate the sentiment," Ribul said.
"The pleasure is mine. Well... it might be slightly ahead of schedule, but shall we begin? It looks like the preparations are complete."
"Indeed," Serge agreed. "Let us start."
The orphans gathered near the entrance numbered about fifty in total, ranging from toddlers to teenagers. The older kids were currently busy conducting a final head count.
"Then I’ll leave the children in the care of Ribul-san and Serge-san. Lulunese-san, I’m counting on you and the others as well."
"As you wish," the maids replied in unison.
"Yeah, go for it," Ribul grunted.
"Leave the rest to us," Serge said.
With that, I moved in. Along with Hughes and the others, I used detection magic and a visual sweep to confirm the interior and the grounds were entirely empty. Once the children’s head count also confirmed everyone was outside, I was finally ready to begin the demolition.
"Alright, I'll go fetch the workers," Zeff said.
"Wait, Zeff-san!"
"What is it?"
"I'd like you to gather the laborers, but please ask them to wait a moment before they start. While I was playing around with my slimes during my holiday, I stumbled upon a result—or rather, a discovery—that seems perfect for this job. I want to test it out. There’s a high chance of success, and if it works, it'll be incredibly efficient."
"O-Okay, sure."
Hughes sighed. "As always, your intensity when it comes to slimes is something else."
"Ah, sorry..."
I had slipped into my "focused mode" again. But with their approval secured, I was going to experiment without reservation. First, I made sure Hughes and the guards were outside the grounds to ensure the site was clear. Safety checks are the most important part of any construction project, after all.
I stepped outside the perimeter as well and retrieved a large jar from my Dimension Home.
"Hey, when do we get to work?" one of the hired laborers grumbled from the back.
"What's that kid doing?"
"I don't care what it is, just tell him to hurry it up..."
The complaints of the workers and the murmurs of the crowd reached my ears, but I just smiled.
"Hehe... Since I have an audience today, let's make this a bit flashy!"
I poured a massive amount of mana into the jar's contents.
"——!"
Someone in the crowd must have been a magic user. I heard the word "mana" ripple through the whispers.
"This should be enough," I murmured. I had used about a quarter of my total capacity, which I judged to be plenty for the task.
At that moment, the jar’s contents—sand packed to the very brim—erupted upward, caught in a swirling gale.
"Whoa!" the crowd gasped.
The sand ascended like a single, massive pillar, rising higher than the building itself before hovering in the air. It condensed into a sphere that began rotating at a ferocious speed, wreathed in wind. I slowly lowered the right hand I had been holding toward the sky.
On that signal, the sand and wind scattered for a split second, regrouped in mid-air, and then executed a violent descent.
Producing a sound like a rushing tide, the sand and wind reached from the roof to the foundation in an instant.
"Hey, what just happened?"
"I missed it... but I heard this sharp zshht! sound and now there's a line on the wall."
"Wait, is that a line or a scratch?"
"That looks deep. He put a gouge that big in a stone wall? That's terrifying power."
"No," someone with better eyes interrupted.
"What do you mean 'no'?"
"Look inside the gouge. You can see the interior of the building and the wall on the other side."
"Hah!?"
"I’ve got beastkin blood in me and I’ll bet my life on my eyes. I'm telling you, it went all the way through."
"Then that means... that kid's magic just..."
"He cut the building?"
"......Whaaaaaaaaaat!?"
To be technically accurate, I hadn't "cut" it; I had "shaved" it. Just as a mountain is worn down by wind and rain over eons until it becomes a canyon, I had used Sand Magic to loosen the particle bonds with Earth mana while using the velocity of wind and sand to erode the stone.
Furthermore, I had used Sand Slimes that were currently in an Assimilation state with the sand I was manipulating.
"One more time. This time, split into two."
The pile of sand that had settled on the ground divided into left and right, crawling across the earth before ascending toward the roof. The moment two more lines were drawn across the wall, another section of the stone simply vanished into the air.
The sand I was controlling wasn't just physical matter; it was the Sand Slimes themselves. They could act with a degree of autonomy, and because we were contracted through Taming Magic, we could communicate our intent.
This made controlling the magic incredibly easy. It was an odd sensation to describe, but it felt like I was communicating with the sand itself, and the sand was moving of its own accord to fulfill my will.
Perhaps because of that synergy, I could achieve a state of pseudo-chantless magic. It also reduced my mana consumption significantly and allowed the Sand Slimes' own skills to influence the magic. The benefits were endless.
The process of manipulating the assimilated sand with magic had also affected the slimes. Just as magic-type slimes evolve, providing them with mana had allowed the Sand Slimes to learn Sand Magic themselves. They had even picked up the Erosion skill, likely by observing my magic.
Using Sand Magic allowed them to move at high speeds, expanding their utility, and they could even absorb the mana I gave them to cast spells in my place. Above all, whenever I provided them with mana, their overall stats and skills seemed to be subtly reinforced.
It was as if the Sand Slimes were acting as a living magic staff while I acted as a mana battery, each of us complementing what the other lacked. For example, I could do this:
"Hah!"
After finishing a series of vertical cuts at regular intervals, I split the two streams of sand into four each. I then used them like saws to cut horizontally through the remaining pillars of the wall.
In less than five minutes, the entire front face of the stone building had been sliced into a perfect grid. With a thunderous roar that shook the very earth, the wall collapsed.
Naturally, a massive cloud of dust erupted from the impact.
"It'll be a mess if that spreads, so please, collect it."
I projected the image and intent: I’ll maintain the power and range, you handle the fine control. Responding to that will, the sand I was manipulating diffused and then spiraled, turning into a localized sandstorm that raged only within the building's footprint. The dust from the collapse was instantly vacuumed into the vortex, leaving the onlookers completely unaffected.
"Since I’ve already got the output this high, I might as well finish the job."
I converged the sandstorm. The vortex, now two stories high and incredibly dense, ground the building’s stone and outer walls into powder within minutes, exposing the wooden framework underneath.
To be honest, this magic had a harder time with wood than stone, but if I cranked up the density and rotation, I could still chew through it. I identified the rotting sections, broke the wood down into manageable pieces that wouldn't catch the wind, and dug the foundations out of the earth.
"I think that's got it."
The ancient building was gone. In its place was a wide, flat sandbox. Looking across the site, it was completely clear, giving me an unobstructed view of the gathered crowd. Not a single surrounding building had been touched.
Ideal and perfect.
Satisfied, I turned around, only to feel the weight of dozens of gazes.
The people I barely knew were either aghast or standing in stunned silence. Those who knew me well, however, looked either exasperated or were smiling wryly, as if to say, "The usual," or "He went and did it again."
Every single person present was looking back and forth between me and the massive pile of sand behind me, unable to find their words.