Chapter 152: New Building!
"Everyone must pledge their allegiance to his lordship!" Gruka yelled in orc tongue.
With her words, the tenancy agreement turned into a pledge of allegiance. Not like there was much difference between the two. Just like that, Aiden’s number of tenants exceeded the limit to upgrade his class.
With the class upgrade, his skill automatically upgraded because in the system’s all-seeing eyes, there was no need to not link the progress together.
Management skill expanded, new jobs appeared for both humans and the orcs alike. Aiden even gained a new skill that worked alongside the [supervision] skill, essentially making it possible for him to leave the barrier.
[Ahem, correction. You can’t exit the barrier, the skill only makes it so you can bestow your consciousness into a body, dead or alive, and control them.]
...thank you.
[There’s no need for such words between us, Host. Besides, it is your wedding. You can consider it a gift from me.]
Although the system framed it like that, Aiden knew she was getting restless as she wanted a body for herself. He had always said that finding a suitable body was difficult because he couldn’t leave the barrier to look for one.
The system must have gotten sick of the excuse and made a skill from scratch to maintain her primary task of keeping Aiden safe at all times, while also letting him explore the world outside the barrier.
Even then, the [Soul Snatch] skill came with its own drawbacks. Aiden could only possess a body for 24 hours at most, and possessing a corpse wouldn’t slow down the natural rate of decomposition, but increase it.
Once the skill duration was up, he would naturally wake up inside his body. And in that case, if he possessed a living person, they wouldn’t retain any memory from the moment he possessed them to the time he left their body.
As for the barrier... it had expanded into a twenty-mile radius. Any living human being, or in this case, even intelligent beings like orcs, were given an option automatically.
Either they signed an agreement and became a tenant, or they’d be forcefully expelled outside the barrier within ten minutes.
As soon as Aiden read that notification, his mouth twitched uncontrollably.
"We went through all that trouble to capture that boy only for this to happen!?"
If Aiden had known the barrier would start making the monsters his tenants, he would have tried to get even more people, and the boy would automatically become a tenant.
[Host, I’m afraid your reading comprehension is weakening. I’m merely giving them a choice. They can refuse, and when they do, the monsters would be killed in the next barrier pulse while the humans would be expelled.]
"Oh, right, my bad. It seems I haven’t been getting enough rest nowadays..." he sighed, running a hand through his hair. "What about the second dwelling that I was promised with the class upgrade? I don’t see another building here."
Just then, a notification popped up in front of Aiden, informing him that he got a new skill called [Demolition and Construction].
It was just what the name said. With the help of that skill, he could demolish old buildings and construct new ones in the blink of an eye. However, he would need to have a blueprint for instantaneous construction.
"Karina, fetch Elaine for me and tell her to bring me the blueprint of the building she designed."
"Got it," Karina replied and elegantly picked up her gown to walk into the building.
"A bit faster, please."
"Ugh, so bossy. Good thing I love you enough to do this."
Saying so, she tore off the lower half of her gown, showing off her toned thighs as she ran inside. In less than two minutes, Elaine was dropped in front of Aiden... in her bathrobe.
"Eh!?" Elaine shrieked and fixed her robes. "M-Ma’am! I told you to let me get dressed... boohoo! EEK! ORCS! SIR! ORCS ARE CAMPING OUTSIDE!"
"Calm down, they won’t harm you," Aiden massaged his temples before glaring at Karina. "You should probably apologize to her. Don’t you think?"
"Ah, right. I’m sorry, I’m sorry," Karina clicked her tongue while patting Elaine’s head. "Your landlord needed you, so I got a bit too hasty. Don’t worry, just give him the blueprint, and I’ll drop you off."
"Blueprint... is still in the apartment," Elaine pouted, looking at Karina. "You didn’t even give me time to grab it before you tossed me over your shoulder!"
Aiden smacked his head, silently pointing back at the apartment with the other hand. Karina smiled sheepishly before picking Elaine back up and rushing inside.
This time, it took them over ten minutes to get back, and Elaine was properly dressed, carrying a large scroll of paper in her arms.
"Here are the plans for the new apartment building, sir," Elaine said, respectfully presenting it to Aiden. "Are these orcs... here to help with construction?"
Honestly, Elaine still couldn’t wrap her head around why Aiden needed the blueprint. With the nonexistent resources in the world, forget about building an entire apartment, just making a small house would be impossible.
Yet, Elaine, much like the other tenants, would believe Aiden even if he said he could fly to the moon and make settlements there.
"No, they are here to live," Aiden mumbled as the blueprint disappeared.
Before anyone could wonder where it went, the ground under them began trembling.
"You all might want to step back a bit," Aiden said, taking a step forward.
Seconds later, something burst out of the ground and kept moving upward. Aiden was lifted in the air as an entire building similar to the apartment emerged from the ground.
The orcs outside the barrier shot to their feet the moment the ground started moving. Several of them had weapons drawn before Gruka’s voice cut through the noise with a single word in orc tongue that put everything back where it belonged immediately.
Inside the barrier, the tenants were doing considerably worse. No one knew what was happening, and thinking it was an actual earthquake, rushed outside to see the building rising out of the ground.
The wolves nearest to the construction zone had backed up until they hit the people behind them, creating a slow-moving wave of bodies pressing toward the building’s entrance.
Elaine had grabbed Karina’s arm at some point for protection, and Karina just tapped it. After being with Aiden, nothing surprised her anymore, and Carmila, Milarel, and Gruka were even less surprised.
Meanwhile, Aiden was too busy aura farming as he stood on top of the rising building, not holding anything, he just stood there with his hands in his pockets while an entire residential building constructed itself under his feet.
By the time it stopped, he was standing on the roof of a twenty-story building that had not existed less than five minutes ago.
"Ouch!" Karina hissed in pain, swatting Elaine’s hand away. "Why did you pinch me!?"
"Just wanted to ensure it ain’t a dream..." Elaine replied, staring at Aiden’s small frame.
"That’s not how it works!" Karina snarled, flicking the young lady’s forehead.
Their banter broke the shocked silence of the folks around them, and a wave of loud chatter erupted as they all pointed at the new building that, although it looked similar, was much bigger than the one they lived in.
It made sense for the building to be bigger since orcs and other monsters would be living there.
The orcs, on the other hand, weren’t as impressed. After all, they had seen their lord do even more grand and weirder things in the Otherworld.
"Lord built a castle for us!" Braku roared, raising her fist in the air.
"It’s not a castle," Gruka corrected her. "A dwelling of this native world, like the broken ones we saw on our way here."
Braku didn’t care what Gruka had to say. The building was precious because their lord had constructed it for them. It was an honor the orcs wouldn’t have even dared to dream about in the Otherworld.
None of them said it out loud, but they suddenly found themselves liking the current lord more than the one they had fought alongside in the Otherworld.
Aiden took the stairs down rather than jumping, mostly because the suit was still intact and he intended to keep it that way for his other weddings. But if his brides wanted him to wear something else, he wouldn’t be against it either.
By the time he walked out of the new building’s entrance onto street level, the crowd had pressed forward and was examining the building as if to check if it was real or not.
While they did that, Aiden walked back to Karina and Elaine, who were still staring at the building.
"Good design," he said, patting her shoulder in approval. "The orcs would like it a lot. They can express their gratitude themselves, but just in case they don’t... Thank you for your hard work."
"N-Not at all, sir! It was an honor to assist you," Elaine replied, her eyes tearing up. "It’s just that I never thought I would ever see a building I designed in this apocalypse... thank you for making it possible, sir!"
Aiden just smiled and walked back inside. After all, it was still his wedding, and he had made his bride wait long enough to celebrate their wedding night.
