Chapter 69 - Unnecessary

Carrie still needed to wait for her body to recover so Gren couldn't take her with him. Luckily, Claire volunteered to help in her grandmother's place. To Claire, it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to interact with a magician for an extended period of time. It wouldn't take long for Claire to finish her food and get ready to go out but Gren decided to go out front to wait for her.

"What's going on out here?" In front of Denny's shop was a giant ball of fur. Korra was surrounded by the four other women and they were all huddled together.

"It's too c-cold." Korra was shivering. Gren had been inside the building for less than half an hour but the temperature was too low for them to keep their heat for that long. Korra was the only one not completely covered in fur so she suffered the most and the other women decided to block the wind for her.

Gren couldn't just leave her in the cold so he gathered snow before compacting it and creating a large igloo outside of Denny's shop; just big enough to fit the group of women. After a group of bursts from a large number of small flames inside of the igloo it was now warm enough to help the women raise their body heat to an acceptable level. The spell was originally used for creating fireworks but Gren had been using it to heat himself up before he learned a barrier spell that allowed him to keep out cold air. The women entered the igloo and looked very relaxed as they warmed up.

"What's going on out here?" Gren thought that the echo he just heard took longer than usual to reach his ears and for some reason it sounded like it Claire's voice instead of his own. Turning around, Gren could see that Claire was looking at them with a dumbfounded expression on her face.

"They're just getting warm and we'll be ready to go in a little bit. These are the friends that I was talking about." Gren introduced the other women to Claire as they left the igloo. He wasn't sure that she remembered their names but it didn't really matter as long as she could still guide them to the places that needed assistance. Her job was just to tell the citizens what they were there to do and get their permission to help since they most likely wouldn't trust Gren's group.

Claire didn't know which buildings had been buried so they needed to patrol the slums looking for people that needed assistance. Since the newer buildings were more vulnerable it was decided that they'd search the shanty town first before moving back over to the old district. Although there were a mix of both building types in each area they were still labeled differently to people that lived in the slums because the shanty town had significantly more shacks while the old district was more evenly split between shacks and old buildings. The old district was a bit wealthier and also had more permanent businesses so they'd be more likely to have people helping them already.

The first group of collapsed buildings they came across were at the edge of the old district. There was a group of people around a bonfire in the middle of the road--many of the people were covered with blankets and huddled together. The bonfire itself had bits of destroyed furniture and buildings being used as fuel.

Claire went ahead to talk to the citizens while Gren and his allies stayed behind; he could hear them ask about the cost but Claire made sure that they knew that his services were already paid for. After her little conversation, Claire came back to inform Gren on what they decided. "It's all clear. They've chosen to accept your help and are making sure people get away from the buildings now."

Gren stepped forward after seeing that everybody was gathered around the bonfire. He had to walk around the destroyed buildings to let the system scan the damage; this way he could figure out if there would be any structural damage if he moved any of the snow and if there was anybody buried underneath. A few of the buildings were damaged beyond repair and would collapse if he removed the snow so he used one hand to create solidified dirt pillars to support them while slowly removing the snow out of the way of the pillars with the other hand.

After the buildings had enough support he focused on removing all of the snow from the buildings and using the compacted snow to temporarily form an ice barrier--the ice barrier would be used to protect the buildings against the wind. Gren would need to remove the ice before the snow fully melted but this would give the citizens the opportunity to rebuild their houses. If they all worked together then it wouldn't take more than a week to repair the entire destroyed buildings in this area.

Gren returned to the bonfire to inform them that he was done with the job. The hourglass he set down before he started the job was almost empty. "Sorry for taking so long. I didn't think it'd take that long to survey the damage. Also, there are a few buildings that I needed to hold up using dirt so be careful of them." He could have done more to help but there were more people left without homes in the slums and there would always be time to help them rebuild later on. Usually by now there would be a response but everybody was staying quiet, causing Gren to tilt his head. Was there something wrong with them?

Claire's response quickly cleared up his confusion. "What do you mean you took a long time!?" Gren wished that she would quiet down a bit since her shouting hurt his ears. "Even if everybody else grabbed a shovel and started digging it still wouldn't be done in such a short amount of time! You never said you'd be using magic!"

It's true that he forgot to tell Claire that he was going to be using magic to clear the snow but why were his own guild members confused? "Why did you have us bring the shovels?" Gren didn't know how to answer Korra's question. When you cleared snow you usually needed a shovel but with his magic did they really need to bring the shovels?

"Just in case, I guess?" That was the best answer that Gren could give them. The girls were at least useful if there was a fight but they all had claws or strong arms that made the shovels pretty much useless. Even the dirt was able to be moved around using magic. It looked like the shovels were completely unnecessary.