Chapter 51
[Title: Lmao, I Have to Pay You Back, Right?]
(Meme of the boxes of goods Head Mod invested in Keliarton)
You successfully founded Keliarton, after all.
Now you have to pay me back lol.
- Lloyd) No!!!!!
ㄴ Yes!
ㄴ Ah lol, I helped you out gladly.
ㄴ Now cough up as much as I invested lol.
Medieval-style investments and medieval-style loans were like that.
You lent something, so you demanded more than that in return.
Interest and collection practices that would leave modern loan sharks speechless—that was the Middle Ages.
Can't pay me back? Got a problem with that?
Ah lol, then start a war.
There was a reason territorial wars broke out so frequently.
It seemed things were similar here, too.
I was the one who had made the investment, yet I was just lying around without a care while the Gallery's latest topic spread.
- The reason Keliarton was founded...jpg
- Personally, I could never repay Head Mod even if he only handed me one tuna can lol
ㄴ How the hell do you make iron in such thin shapes lol
But the Gallery users were mistaken about something.
I had already received the return on my investment.
Keliarton had been founded, becoming my first line of defense.
“Still, I should probably say something.”
But that was something only I knew.
The Gallery users would never imagine that I had built a bunker beneath Keliarton and was hiding there.
Feeling that the time was right, I left a post in the Gallery.
[Title: Flying Squirrel]
Author: Head Mod*
Mr. Keliarton^^
I've come to collect my investment. Please open the door^^
- Queen of Tuna Cans) u ㅁ u...
- Lloyd) What a wicked investor you are!!
ㄴ What is this now lol
ㄴ But debts have to be paid.
ㄴ If you're mad about it... you know what to do, right?
- But isn't this technically different because it's an investment?
ㄴ What does that matter here?
ㄴ Investment = loan = plunder = business
ㄴ Aren't they all the same thing? I genuinely, genuinely don't know.
- If you can't pay, you have to go to war lol
ㄴ Do you even know where Head Mod is?
ㄴ Then you lose the war.
ㄴ Absolutely certain lololol
ㄴ Can't you see what happened to Adrian, split in two!
I could see the Gallery's attention concentrating on the matter.
The rate at which posts appeared dropped sharply, as though everyone was waiting to see what I would say.
And I proudly left a reply.
- Head Mod*) Let's hire laborers.
ㄴ Queen of Tuna Cans) Huh?
ㄴ Head Mod*) I'm going to dig sewers. To dispose of waste and prepare for heavy rain too, yeah yeah.
I had never intended to be repaid in any particular form.
The goods I had received from here and there were already piled so high in the storage room that it was about to burst.
Besides, even a legendary sword needed a day off now and then.
I couldn't serve as a ventilation fan all day long.
And the canned tuna and ramen I had invested as food? The more I bought, the more I got.
So I left that reply for my own benefit, but.
- Queen of Tuna Cans) Really? ㅠ o ㅠ
ㄴ Lloyd) Damn, Head Mod! I love you!
ㄴ Is Head Mod a god! Is Head Mod a god! Is Head Mod a god of gods! Is Head Mod a god of gods! Is Head Mod a god of gods!
ㄴ Head Mod, when I grow up, I want to be a mother! Head Mod, when I grow up, I want to be a mother! Head Mod, when I grow up, I want to be a mother!
Random worship posts began plastering the Gallery.
*
The goal was to get rid of the smell of a medieval city.
Head Mod*: Never kill the filth slime
But I wasn't trying to build a sophisticated medieval sewer right away.
I didn't have the materials for that, and building something on that scale would require the dwarves' help—but there were no dwarves.
“So let's make something simple as a stopgap for now.”
A combined sewer, where rainwater and sewage flowed together and which was convenient to build.
More precisely, I decided to make something closer to a ditch than a sewer.
As I started making arrangements, a question occurred to me belatedly.
“But can we dig deep into the ground with shovels?”
You might think, Obviously you dig earth with a shovel, don't you?
But now that winter was approaching, I knew how hard frozen ground could be.
I hadn't wanted to know, but I even knew that striking the earth with a shovel made sparks fly and produced a metallic clang.
[Title: First Progress Report]
Author: Lloyd
I'm doing as told for now...
Am I doing this right?
Do I dig deeper?
(Meme of laborers scooping up and hauling away deep layers of dirt in one go)
(Meme of someone giving a thumbs-up after digging down to 5m)
- Head Mod*) How the fuck did you do that?
But this was the Middle Ages.
I belatedly realized that this was a gathering of the naturally strong who had survived the Middle Ages.
“There's no need to dig too deep.”
I had been thinking of the kind of drains you could see along the sides of every road.
They could be covered with suitable lids to maintain hygiene, while carrying away waste from people's homes.
It would protect the city from torrential rain while also cleaning up the sewage.
But the Gallery users' response was a little lukewarm compared to what I had expected.
- I get what you mean, but...
- Wouldn't dirt and sewage just pile up in it?
- There's something similar in Adrian, but it fell apart because it hadn't been maintained from the start.
Rifts could form underground too, but they didn't just appear in the middle of a pile of dirt.
In other words, it was still impossible for one to conveniently appear halfway through the sewer.
It wasn't hard to imagine sewage flowing naturally, collecting and hardening in the middle of the sewer, and causing the same contamination, but...
“Who am I?”
The owner of a filth slime.
As long as there was a living Rift, nothing was impossible.
I planned to dig a large pit in the center of the sewer, where the sewage would collect, and put the filth slime in it.
- But how do we contain slime?
ㄴ It's slime, idiot. Of course you can contain it.
ㄴ Why are you swearing at me, idiot?
ㄴ Now, now, calm down, idiots. Slime doesn't have a distinct physical form.
As long as its total capacity wasn't exceeded, slime could flow and squish like water and be contained anywhere.
“An absolutely fucking broken sewage treatment plant...”
In reality, the work proceeded smoothly.
Building the sewer took much less time than expected, so all that remained was to put the filth slime in the empty pit, but...
“Wait, where's the slime?”
The most important part, the slime, was nowhere to be seen.
There was no way the perfectly healthy slime had suddenly disappeared, so I searched through the old posts and found it.
[Title: Filth Slime Killed LOL]
(Meme of the filth slime dying and disappearing)
(Thumbs-up monster-hunter frog emote)
Easy lol
- Head Mod*) You fucking bastard
ㄴ Author) ????
Profanity, season 53,424.
I felt my head begin to spin.
*
I didn't even need to find the criminal; I found a post proudly displaying the crime scene.
[999-Day Ban]
Before putting my hand on the ban button, I decided to hear the final rebuttal.
-Head Mod*) Why did you kill it?
ㄴ Author) No, you said, 'Never kill the filth slime';
ㄴ Head Mod*) ?
ㄴ Author) So I thought you meant I should kill it;
What the hell did that mean?
As I was making the post, I saw that I really had said, “Never kill it.”
“Ah, this is my fault.”
In the Gallery, saying “Never do ~” meant “Absolutely do it.”
I was angry for a moment and tried to ban him, but there was nothing I could do.
Besides, it wasn't as though the filth slime would quietly sit still.
If it had wandered around contaminating every house while we built the sewer, that would have been a problem too, so I had no grounds to complain.
But there was no problem.
I had anticipated this and prepared a new countermeasure.
Queen of Tuna Cans: What do we do now? ㅠ o ㅠ
Head Mod*: Do you happen to know what gacha is?
Queen of Tuna Cans: Gacha...?
It was time to perform a rain dance.
I dumped all the city's sewage into the pit.
The pit was enormous, but it only took a few hours to fill it with the city's sewage.
[Title: Wow lol, That Looks Fucking Delicious.jpg]
(Meme of the Keliarton sewer pit)
Kidding lol
Enjoy your meal~
[Recommendations1] [Dislikes15]
- You fucking bastard
- Ah, why do I keep clicking bait even when I know it's bait?
ㄴ Because you're a Gallery user...
ㄴ jpg ← When this bastard is written there, it makes me fucking curious lol
It was so full of sewage that it could even be used as a bait image in the Gallery, whose users had strong stomachs.
- So what do we do now?
- How are we supposed to dispose of this?
- Natural absorption has limits; at this amount, even nature would dry up and die lol
I had thought that the filth slime's disappearance meant we would have to settle for this temporary solution, but I had a different plan.
- Head Mod*) Just wait a little longer.
I waited while watching the image of the pit filled with lumps of filth.
One hour, then two.
I had time to spare, so it wasn't difficult.
Before long, the Rift's influence reached the pit where all the city's sewage had collected.
[Title: Fuck, What Is This]
(Meme of a mutant monster being created in the pit by the Rift)
The Rift is using sewage to make a mutant monster?
Head Mod, is this right?
- Ah, fuck, I told you it didn't look right.
- Yeah, I don't live in Keliarton lol
ㄴ As long as it isn't me.
- Head Mod*) So what came out?
ㄴ Author) A lump of filth came out;
ㄴ Head Mod*) Ah, damn lol
ㄴ ????
ㄴ Damn?
The lump of filth emerged as a mutant monster.
The monster was immediately struck by arrows shot by the knights waiting nearby, leaving behind only the lump of filth it had been.
But there was no reason to be disappointed.
I could just draw again.
- Head Mod*) Rain will fall someday
There was a reason I called it an Indian rain dance.
It would happen someday. Someday.
- Wait, could this be?
- Damn it, Head Mod, you're a genius!
- Damn, Head Mod, what the hell is this idea!
As some Gallery users realized, I had been waiting to draw a filth slime.
After the Rift created mutant monsters several times, I finally succeeded in my Indian rain dance.
[Title: Did It Appear?]
(Meme of the filth slime)
(Meme of it devouring the surrounding sewage the moment it appeared)
It appeared, so of course I had to post it.
This was the first time a monster had ever been cute lol
- Kyaa
- Wow, look at how fast it eats ㄷㄷ
- You're using a monster like that?
The filth slime devoured everything nearby.
But the amount of sewage accumulating was greater than the amount the filth slime could eat.
There didn't seem to be any need to worry about it escaping.
- Damn, I knew I could trust you!
- Gallery users, are you afraid of Head Mod's exploits?
I read the Gallery posts, then happily lay back down in bed.
“This should do for now.”
Without realizing that an even bigger problem might arise.
*
“This is really convenient.”
Alex, a Gallery user living in Keliarton, was dumping a bucket of waste into the sewer.
He no longer had to throw trash out the window from his house.
All he had to do was collect his waste and dump it in the sewer in the alley behind his house.
He no longer had to be disappointed that there were no Rifts in his home.
“Now I can go upstairs and get back to browsing the Gallery.”
He picked up his basin and left the back alley.
The back alley was still dirty.
No, it had gotten even dirtier.
But he figured it was fine since the visible parts were cleaner than before.
- Squeak, squeak-squeak.
That was when a mouse caught Alex's eye.
He glanced at it as though it were something profane, then thought nothing of it.
“Go away. Just don't come to my house.”
When he made a show of shooing it away, the mouse immediately fled from Alex into the sewer.
Alex didn't chase after it any further.
In the past, he would have killed it for fear that it might breed in his house, but things were different now.
“Ugh, disgusting. I should take a bath.”
He had no idea.
Though there were only a few mice in his house for now,
dozens, even hundreds, of mice began infesting the sewer behind his house.