Chapter 31: No Flirting This Time

The armor I instructed them to make is made out of the pelt of the wolves the soldiers killed (I only killed one, and turned it into a pool of blood), like I said a few days ago. The armor is made out of a very little amount of normal fabric and made of entirely leather, in this regard, I have to cancel my idea to make leather clothes for my civilians and find another means to provide them with proper clothing, this is to preserve some remaining pelts and leathers for repair after the post-war management.

For now, all of my normal civilians and my soldiers if they are not on hunting duty will have to make use of leaf-made clothing that will be disposed of for about two to three days. The ladies of course have covers in all of their areas, after all, the breasts and the genitals are private parts, and it would not be appropriate if it's not properly hidden. The men only have shorts made of leaves, huge leafed trees and plants are scarce and we don't have an infinite amount of them, so I make the men "bold".

And men, in any world want to showcase their smoking hot abs, though it's just weird to find green-colored six-pack as attractive.

[You're the weird one, you know that?]

... Back to the leather armor, this armor may be just crafted with leather and you have this prejudice that it's weak, but the leather used in this is boiled (search for it), this armor also is from creatures who have some fire resistance and magically enchanted to some degree, thus, whether arrows from longbows or short bows, swords spears or daggers will not deal even a shit of damage in this armors as long as the weapons are not smeared with magic.

Plus the part that is not leather is the undershirt part, so yeah, I am pretty confident on this one. I nodded with a smile as I finally bid my goodbye to the leader of the leather armor workshop who is just about to pass out because of my presence.

"Alright then, continue your good work."

With that, I left the workshop situated just several steps outside the civil area, this is so that the building will become bigger according to my will and not obstruct the civilian area.

"Hurk... Y-yes, we will..."

The leader of the workshop is already trembling like mad, thus I decided to leave the building with a last wave of my hand. I hear vomiting sounds echo when I went out of the workshop.

Well, time to look for Eleanor once more.

[You two gonna flirt again?]

We never flirted okay? She thinks of me as a child... sadly, but well I will evolve into a full-grown adult soon so I just have to be patient. And yeah, it is not the time to do things with ulterior motives, first I have to go look for the construction leader for I have something to ask him to do.

"Lyra, where's Kabra?"

I went out for a moment in the settlement and can see Lyra managing the lumber team as she assigned a proper site to build the carriages.

"In Eleanor's quarter, for the final touches of her labor- HEY! MOVE IT FASTER!"

She did not even look at me as she shouted to a frail-looking pair of goblin dudes carrying a trunk with already removed leaves but still have branches on it... You could have been more gentle you know?

Anyway, I immediately went and looked for Kabra, by the way, why does he need to go and personally meet her if it's just the final touches? Furthermore, woodwork and carpentry don't have anything to do with each other... no wait they seem to have, but still, it doesn't change the fact that he's busy and can just leave the matter with his subordinates.

I then, with more hurried strides than before went to Ellie's lab and saw Kabra instructing his subordinates how to build a medieval-style Bunsen burner and a bunch of test tube racks, he is also pointing at the interior designers of the crafting team where to particularly place this equipment, after all, you can't expect a Bunsen burner casually sprawled around the lab right? Ideally, because of its size, it should be in the center of the facility, but it depends on the owner.*

Well, all in all, it's a good thing that Kabra knows his limits huh?

[Crisis Averted.]

Huh? What crisis are you talking about? Anyway, after another thirty minutes when his subordinate of his already knows what to do and is about to ask for helpers, I spoke to Kabra, he have this aura of seriousness on him, so I patted his back a little, I'm too small and can't even reach his shoulders. Damnit.

"Eeeep! Oh... Hara... Sophia..."

But all serious people will have something they are afraid of, so I just held back my smirk at his sudden jolt and immediately gave him orders.

"Make proper furniture for me too, I only have a stone table carved for me in there, the sit is too cold to use, I also want a bed rack with a palm-woven sleeping mat on it, and a hammock, please."

He, with a serious expression on his face, nodded, seemingly not even a tad bit scared of me. This is refreshing.

"Oh and as for the layout, do it like this."

It then created a slab of stone using magic and then presented him with a layout of my desired room, with a quick nod, he received it.

"Understood."

He then looked briefly at his other subordinate and then nodded at me before saying.

"Let's go."

He commanded his other helper as such and then went in the direction of my room. I looked at his disappearing figure for a while and then looked at the lab, I walked casually inside as I see Eleanor looking intently into the Bunsen burner without even noticing me practically trespassing into her place.

"Hey."

I then tugged the hem of her priest robe as she finally noticed me, she gently held my hand and carried me in her arms.

"Please put me down, I have something to say."

I requested as I savored the soft lump of flesh in her chest area pressing on my feet for one last time as she put me down with a "Sorry..." Escaping out of her mouth.

"Anyway, I need your help on something."

She then put down her test tube into a rack and then looked at me with a confused look.

"What do you wish my assistance for?"

I immediately pulled her hand and then dragged her out of the laboratory as I immediately make a rundown of the situation, the war, the monkeys, and all of that was explained in the most concise way possible.

"Eh... you're going to start a war against monsters who have better conditions than you... With the only advantage of information... And then someone is even holding a significant amount of information about you?"

I nodded nonchalantly as we weaved through corridors to go out of the cave as I spoke.

"And that person has a very blurry stand about this matter. Though initial investigation suggests that she will not interfere."

I then trailed a little.

"She said she knew who I was pursuing..."

Eleanor looked at me for a while but seems to not hear what I said, I sighed in relief. Good thing she did not.

"That will be tough, we don't have enough resources to reduce the gap... If you... Hmm, I don't know, I am always in the backline support when there are wars that are already  rare to happen the time I became a caster so I don't know how can I have any help in planning."

I snickered a little as we finally reached the more bright part of the settlement,  the hustling and bustling of the goblin people working for their daily needs can be seen in every corner of the place

"I don't need any help in the planning, the board is already on the table and the pieces are already in place, except for one."

I once again smiled as we passed the residential area, several people bowed at us and continued with their daily lives as I continue speaking.

"You see there is this aspect in my plan that needed magic, and of course normally it would be simple enough for me, however, it seems like it is more complicated than I thought... You see, I intended to..."

In my plan, there is an integral part that intends to bridge the gap between the soldiers of the two opposing forces by the use of my specialty, magic. This weapon will be my trump card against the army of monkeys, it will incorporate the attributes they are weakest against, the earth and the water attribute respectively and the weapon will be in the form of landmines.

"I see, with this then, there is no need to engage in a head-to-head battle, it can also be used to disorient the opposing army and engage in a surprise attack, it is suitable."

I then nodded as we went outside of the cave and went to the direction of the clearing I used last time to do experiments with my new powers.

"Well, that's what I intended but then, a problem occurred."

I then made water with whirling contents on it, there are two tornadoes inside that clashed inside and a huge storm of pure water was seen, the orb I made turned unsteady after some time, but then stabilized itself, but the storm inside still did not calm down at all, this storm shall not be extinguished until it was said according to my will.

Yeah, that's cool, but then the annoying will happen when I do this: I made a large lump of earth in my other hand and then coated the water orb with the sand I made, and then immediately tossed it in the air.

"Ah."

Eleanor looked at the pulsating figure of the magic spell I just tossed and then formed a shield made of small rocks, an explosion was heard and several water shockwaves blasted the land surrounding us, creating deep slashes on it until the storm of water blades finally subsided.

"Well, as you can see, it's not working."

I made a bitter smile in front of her, she also made one as she scratches the corner of her cheeks and surveyed the destruction my messed up landmine have caused.

"Of course, it won't... So that's why you need my help."

I then nodded as I once again made an orb that have a  storm of pure water raging on it.

"Yes, can you understand where I went wrong?"

She then smiled lightly as I looked at her for a while.

"W-what?"

I asked, I am starting to get annoyed by her continuous stare. She then jolted up a bit and then replied.

"Well, I thought you are a person who will not accept that you cannot figure out something... But I was wrong."

I started to play around with the orb in my hand making it fly all over me as I replied.

"As they say, a person who asks is a fool for a moment, but a person who doesn't is a fool for eternity."

She then nodded again as I prompted her to give me a lecture about magic.

"Well, can you help me now?"

"Oh, of course, you see. Magic of the different attributes cannot normally mingle with each other, they will just explode if one who doesn't have enough talent attempts to do that. Even so, people who have talent still need a magic circle to combine magic successfully..."

While she explained this to me, I combined fire and wind attributes, creating a mini tornado of flames in which she just smiled.

"And of course, you can do that, without circles too, but the thing is, if you combined water and earth, it will create mud. And if you did not properly combine them like what you did earlier, it will create that mess..."

She then pondered for a while.

"Hmm... The best solution is to directly control a physical lump of earth with pure mana and then make it coat the orb... Like so."

She then grabbed a palm full of dirt let it float using pure mana and then stick it into the water. I got startled for a moment, but after a while of it not exploding, I retracted my cautiousness.

"See, it worked."

All this while, I am just staring at her finding a solution to this problem of mine and can only continuously admire her as she successfully solved my problem.

"Lady Sophia?"

I went out of my trance, looked at her again, and smiled.

"A-amazing... I could not have done it without you."

"I'm happy to return the favor of you fulfilling my dream."

With that conversation we started to put this landmine project to work, we asked goblins to dig dirt as tall as an anthill and then I  will create water rasengans and then Eleanor controlled the anthill dirt with pure mana and then coat the water orbs, we continued to work on this until the clearing I just practiced with became a crater two meters deep, we will continue on this until we made a mountain of landmines.

Seems like lengthy work, but I and Eleanor persevered until we finally reached our goal.

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*I don't know how to explain this, but in our school, we have this large metal construct with a set of properly rowed bunsen burners, these burners are connected to a gas tank and are restricted lab equipment.

If you are so kind as to enlighten me on what that is called, please do so.

Special Chapter: 

[Guide] As he watched all of this transpire: I can also help you with that you know? I knew it, you chance grabber.

But in all seriousness, Sophia immediately learned the level 2 of magic that is the mana conversion into an attribute, while that's amazing, that means she does not know what mana can do, and one of its abilities is to control physical things