With that.
Hestia returned to the changing room and, with brisk, practiced movements, peeled off that deep-blue gown worth three hundred and twenty thousand Valis, changing back into the familiar white dress she usually wore.
Then, after impressing upon the still-shaken shop clerk again and again that the gown absolutely had to be delivered intact to the manor in the upscale residential district before this afternoon, she finally walked out the doors of [Starweave]. The noonday sun beat straight down on the flagstone street, just bright enough to sting the eyes.
...
A breeze drifted past. Hestia was in a wonderful mood, hands clasped behind her back, her steps light.
Watching Haimer, she was already turning over in her mind where they'd go next. After all, Haimer was usually either reading in the manor or busy with other matters; it was rare to have time to themselves, just the two of them walking down the street together.
This was a chance she'd seldom had since coming to the Lower World.
"Haimer, where are we going next?"
Hestia quickened her pace a couple of steps, drew up beside Haimer, and tilted her head up.
"It's not often we get to come out. How about we go stroll around Northwest Avenue? I hear a shop specializing in Far East sweets just opened over there—we could go try them out."
"Or South Avenue works too—we could go see whether there are any interesting little trinkets."
"Those things can wait until later."
"I intend to head to the abandoned district of the outer ring and check on the construction progress of the new base."
"Awww!"
At these words, the smile on Hestia's face instantly collapsed.
"To that dust-covered construction site?"
Hestia pouted, thoroughly unwilling.
"There's nothing there but wood and stone—it's filthy and noisy, what's there to look at? Didn't that Royman send a whole crowd of people to keep watch over it? You don't need to go inspect the construction quality yourself, do you?"
Hestia pouted and gave a couple of disgruntled whines, but she also knew that once Haimer had decided something it could not be changed, so she could only follow obediently behind.
...
The two passed through several blocks; the farther they went toward the outer ring, the more cracks split the flagstones of the road.
The abandoned district of the outer ring.
Dust drifted in the air.
Dozens of wooden cranes stood on the open ground, ropes and pulleys creaking as thick logs were hoisted up one after another. A temporary sunshade canopy had been thrown up at the edge of the site.
The Guild Master, Royman Mardeel, sat in a wooden chair.
The chair had originally been a generously wide one, but his bulk of fat was wedged between the armrests, the wood along the edges warped somewhat from the pressure.
"Faster! Get moving, all of you!"
Royman waved a white handkerchief, pointing at a stretch of high wall being laid up ahead.
"That corner over there! That stone's been cut crooked by half an inch—who cut it? Haul it down and recut it! You'd dare slap a flaw like that into place?"
He shouted at the top of his voice, sweat running down from his forehead along his cheeks, soaking a ring into his white collar.
Ouranos had laid everything out before him.
As for how that great god had once slaughtered deities back in the Heavens, Royman dared not forget a single word of it.
Now Haimer had obtained full authority.
Should he so wish, Orario could have a new Guild Master by tomorrow.
Being able to sit here in person now and oversee this group of dwarven craftsmen at their labor was, for the moment, just about his only chance to demonstrate his loyalty to Haimer.
As for the long table on the other side of the sunshade.
Hephaestus, wearing a set of hard-wearing white work clothes, stood with her arms crossed over her chest, head lowered as she studied the parchment structural diagram spread across the table, her gaze lingering on several points marked with load-bearing figures.
As the Goddess of the Forge, the mechanical structures of architectural engineering naturally came easily to Hephaestus.
"An archway of this span, supported with the basalt we have on hand, is still a bit of a stretch…"
Hephaestus murmured under her breath.
Tsubaki, meanwhile, stood at the end of the table, a leather waterskin dangling from her hand.
Yanking out the wooden stopper, she tipped her head back and gulped water down—glug, glug—the flow trickling down her chin and onto her collarbone.
"Yo, the man of the hour's here."
Just then, Tsubaki seemed to notice something. She set down the waterskin, wiped her chin with the back of her hand, and broke into a grin toward the sandy road.
Hearing Tsubaki's call, Hephaestus lifted her head from the drawings and followed Tsubaki's line of sight.
Royman heard the stir too.
He laboriously twisted his obese body around and turned to look.
Black hair, black eyes, an unhurried gait.
Making out who had come, Royman's shoulders shrank in. The white handkerchief slipped from his hand and dropped onto the lime-dusted ground at his feet; without bothering to retrieve it, he pressed hard on both armrests of the chair, strained with his legs, and wrenched his tightly-wedged backside out of the seat.
"L-Lord Haimer!"
Royman hurried over a few steps to greet him.
"How is it you've come in person!"
As he spoke, Royman quickly angled half his body aside and gestured with his hands, clearing a level passage leading to the sunshade.
"The sun's so harsh, and there's so much dust on the site—what if it dirtied your clothes!"
"Once those main load-bearing pillars over there are set in place and the foundation has fully settled, I'll go to the Guild for a bath and a change of clothes, then come over to your place in person and give you a detailed construction report."
Royman was a sly old fox.
His words were watertight, laying out both his own hard toil and his reverence for Haimer plainly on the surface.
"How far along is the progress?"
Haimer couldn't be bothered with pleasantries and went straight to the crux of it.
"Soon! Really, very soon! It'll be done any moment now!"
Royman caught that Haimer meant no reproach, and his heart eased just half a breath. He hurried to a position half a step to the side, nodding and bowing again and again.
"This time, we've brought in overnight every last one of the most skilled, most efficient dwarven engineering crews from hundreds of miles around Orario."
"At the current pace, the main stone framework of the base will be fully topped off within the next two days."
"After that comes the reinforcing coating for the outer walls, and the water-circulation system inside."
"That work doesn't require moving large stone material, so it's faster—at most three or four days and it'll all be wrapped up."
Royman swallowed.
"Rest assured, the blueprints for this base are drawn strictly to the standards of the very largest factions."
"We've even bumped the material thickness up a grade."
"Once it's built, the living and training space above ground alone will be enough for you to comfortably station a thousand people permanently, without anyone feeling the least bit cramped."
At this point, Royman's speech slowed a little, and his voice dropped low.
"Also, that part of the project underground..."
"Likewise carried out entirely per your instructions, not a single item left out."
"We've not only dug down to the limit hard-rock stratum of the crust, but the space is so roomy you could drive a carriage down there."
"And what's more, we've secretly reserved several concealed passages running straight to the main trunk line of Orario's underground waterways, with every exit disguised."
Building an underground network of this scale beneath the city, right under the Guild's nose, would look to anyone like preparation for some unspeakable scheme.
But Royman was, after all, a clever man.
And so he kept his mouth especially in check.
He didn't dwell overmuch on the matter—indeed, he even helped to cover it up.
It was, after all, an order issued by Ouranos himself.
Even if Haimer told him to tear down the Guild's front gate and pave a road with it, he'd have to comply.
"Well done."
Looking over the cluster of buildings that had already taken shape, Haimer offered the remark offhandedly.
"As long as you can let me see the whole thing within a week, I'll put in a word about your contribution to Ouranos."
"Many thanks, Lord Haimer! This is all just what I, as your subordinate, ought to do!"
A slap, then a sweet date.
This was the universal method by which those in power managed their underlings.
And on a man like Royman it worked extremely well, too.
Having heard it, Royman rattled off several thanks in a row.
Hestia stood behind and to the side of Haimer, hands behind her back, heels tapping the ground, looking exceptionally pleased with herself.
Then.
After a few words of instruction were finished.
Seeing that Haimer's interest was lukewarm, Royman clearly grasped that Haimer didn't want to deal with him any further, and saw too that lingering here any longer was only an eyesore.
So he found some excuse and then hurried off.
Watching Royman's trotting figure recede into the distance, Tsubaki leaned back against a nearby wooden pillar and finally couldn't help smacking her lips a couple of times.
"Lord Haimer."
"This Royman fellow—normally, in front of us Familia captains, and even in front of some of the patron gods—"
"relying on his standing as Guild Master, holding back all sorts of approval slips for material allocation and regional exploration, he puts on airs grander than anyone."
"When we go to the Guild on business, we've had to read his moods more than a few times."
"Today, the moment he's in front of you, his back's bent practically down to his ankles."
"Just how terrified of you is he?"
"If you ask me."
At this point, Hephaestus lowered her crossed arms as well and walked over.
"Ouranos most likely poured out every last detail of all those messes you made back in the Heavens for him to hear."
"But for him to be this obedient, I imagine you must have struck some sort of deal with Ouranos."
"Letting him know you could have Ouranos pick a more compliant Master to take his place at any time, I suppose."
At least, that was how it looked to Hephaestus at present. Haimer, however, was indifferent.
"There is one, but it's only the tiniest sliver of leverage."
"This way, at least when I hand down orders, I don't have to waste any breath with him explaining why it has to be done this way."
With that said.
Haimer casually strolled over to the chair Royman had just been sitting in.
A bit of moisture from Royman's clothes still lingered on the seat; he knit his brows and did not sit down.
Instead, he pulled over a clean wooden stool nearby that had some drawings draped over it, and sat down.
Seeing Haimer's careless, indifferent air toward the matter.
Hephaestus reached over and pulled a coarse cloth rag from the corner of the table—one used for wiping down tools—and wiped off a bit of lime dust stuck to her face.
"Now that you mention it."
"You, a great god who can make the Guild Master break out in a sweat with a mere flap of his lips."
"Today, in the dead of noon no less, you've deliberately braved this brutal sun to come all the way out to this dusty wreck of a construction site."
"It can't be simply to listen to Royman rattle off a progress report like beans spilling from a sack, can it?"
"If I remember right, didn't you come by this place not long ago?"
Hephaestus tossed the rag onto the table.
Haimer leaned back against the seat and, looking at this goddess of the forge who had spent several days at the site and whose patience was very nearly spent, spoke helplessly.
"Construction progress, true enough, doesn't sprout another story in the span of a few hours."
"Coming over was, of course, mainly to get a grasp of the construction progress."
"However."
"If we're talking about the main reason for coming."
"In the end, I still wanted to stop by and see you—to see whether you'd worked yourself into exhaustion."
"Ohhh~~~"
Hearing this, Tsubaki beside them immediately let out a long, peculiar cry from her throat, splitting into a grin that bared a row of big white teeth, her feet shuffling restlessly half a step toward Hephaestus.
Then she deliberately turned sideways and gave Hephaestus's arm a light nudge with her sturdy elbow.
The gossipy glint in her eyes.
Jostled by Tsubaki, Hephaestus couldn't help turning her head aside to shoot Tsubaki a withering look, her originally solemn expression nearly unable to hold.
"So you dragged me all this way under that blazing sun just so you could come and see Hephaestus?!"
At this, Hestia, who had been standing behind Haimer the whole time, finally couldn't keep her cheeks from puffing out.
After all, she'd already had her thunder stolen once by Demeter at the clothing shop, and now that they'd arrived here, Haimer had come right out and said it was to strike up conversation with Hephaestus.
They'd gone out to keep her company, and yet today she was practically a backdrop board hung on the wall!
Haimer tilted his head slightly too, his peripheral vision catching the dangerous omen of Hestia clenching her fists, poised at any moment to throw herself down on the sand and roll about in a tantrum.
A wave of headache.
He raised his hand, extended his long arm, and pressed his index and middle fingers together.
And, with unerring precision, gave Hestia's smooth forehead a light flick.
"Whose fault is it that the two of you were stuck together every single day back in the Heavens?"
"I got used to the sight, and so it became second nature."
"The moment I see one of you, my mind instantly and naturally calls up the other."
"Stopping by to look in on you along the way is only right and proper."
Haimer's words dredged up old history outright, and Hestia grew even more put out.
Back in the Heavens, she had indeed always clung to Hephaestus's side.
But whose fault was that!
Hephaestus had been mocked endlessly by the other gods back then!
At this thought, Hestia gave a sudden snort, tossed her twin tails, turned her back on them outright, and ground a little clod of dirt on the ground hard with the tip of her toe, settling into a sulk.
As for Hephaestus.
Seeing that Tsubaki's gaze toward her and Haimer was growing more and more brazen—she'd even begun to whistle—she quickly pressed her fist to her lips, gave a forceful cough, and forcibly wrenched the topic onto another matter.
"All right, all right, let's get down to business."
Hephaestus's expression straightened a touch as she looked toward Haimer.
"Tomorrow is the Divine Council."
"Ever since you descended to the Lower World, apart from meeting a few of us gods you're already close with, this will be the first time you formally appear before all the gods."
"Although that lot have already been secretly trying to gauge your attitude."
Hephaestus paused, then asked, feigning offhandedness.
"But it is the Divine Council, after all."
"You've been busy nonstop since you came down—have you prepared a formal outfit to attend in tomorrow?"
"If you haven't."
"It just so happens I can spare the time tonight to go with you, look it over, and buy one that suits you."
____
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