Ethereal Life, Chapter 27: Danger Avoided, Building The Castle's Foundation

Argar looked at the dim grassland; it was eerily quiet. He was thoroughly silent; the scheme he had devised in his mind was doomed to fail.

"I was originally going to assassinate him at night. But..." With this environment, how can he find courage to tread the grassland with a few of his men?

In the end, after staring for a while, The hesitation in his heart grows. He sighed, his eyes gleaming with dangerous light.

Looking in that particular direction, it was as though he saw that young man. "It's not that I hate you. It's just your holding something that's meant not to be yours, but you won't give it to us."

Argar lowered his tense muscles as he decided, "I'll let you go this time. Be happy for your remaining weeks." He mocked in his heart before shaking his head at the three men not far from him.

His meaning is clear; they're not doing it today. The three men looked at each other as they sighed in relief in their hearts.

Truth be told, they don't want to do it. Killing someone, even in this era, is hard for their conscience to bear.

What's more, they were instilled with the belief that people's lives are getting more and more important because of their dwindling population.

Seeing Argar leave to sleep, the three men sat beside each other as they surveyed the surroundings as watchmen.

"Can't you persuade the elder?"

"I can't; don't look at me like that. I already tried, but..."

"I see. Then there's no need to say anymore. We're just going to follow the order."

"Although I pity that young man. For the sake of the whole village, it's better for the miracle water to be in our hands than in the hands of an outsider."

If Nai were to hear them right now, he would definitely display a sneer on his face. His heart would also turn colder toward them.

He might even do the things he hates the most if he were here. Just to prevent any future trouble.

The other man sighed in his heart. The joy of his village surviving the disaster vanished; it was replaced by the heaviness of how wicked the hearts of his co-villagers.

"People just wouldn't change."

...

"The elder didn't do it in the end." A whisper came to the old man's ears. Accepter Garut opened his eyes slightly as he whispered back, "Hmm, continue to monitor.".

A while later, the movement of the grass beside him vanished.

He moved a bit and saw Argar leaning on the water buffalo not far away. "Brave to kill but afraid to traverse...what a lousy man."

He finished murmuring and returned to his sleep. Not caring about his surroundings anymore.

...

When morning came, Nai woke up with a start. His biological clock kicked in.

"Hmmm...ngh. Wah~!" Stretching his limbs and feeling the aftereffects of not moving his whole body all night after a day of work, he sat up and drank some water to lift up his drowsy mind.

Eyes clear, he stood up, feeling refreshed. "Another day, another tiring day."

The sun's rays had already peeked out from the horizon. Somehow, as Nai stood atop his shelter, he seemed to feel the overflowing vitality of the land with his every breath.

The world seems much more colorful in his eyes. He even saw Browny coiled on top of its own shelter. "Good morning, Browny!"

It doesn't matter if it heard him or not. Nai was satisfied to see some living beings not far from him. Of course, he can only be happy from afar.

"Don't come and scare me, okay?" He muttered, pleading with him. Then he laughed out loud.

After having breakfast, he resumed his work. While transporting the gravel and stones from the creek back to the walls.

He was also thinking of many things. "I must not destroy the miracle water pond. If it really does work because of some kind of earth formation, I better avoid it."

"Then it's a stupid thing to dig around it. I can just make the foundation above the land. It doesn't matter if it caves in afterwards. As long as it doesn't destroy anything from digging."

"The castle will be modified. It would be widened, and there would be a wide open space at the very center of the castle where the pond area would remain unharmed."

"The inner walls around me right now will be the area measured for that. That means my castle will act like the final defense wall for the pond."

"Naturally, as it is an open area, there will be no roof or whatever."

"This is a big project. I am a programmer who worked his brain out and now works his body to tire himself bad."

Nai thought that he really had worked really hard since coming into this world. But what can he do? If he doesn't work, he won't be able to survive.

"The modern world relies on scheming, capitalism and making money, while here, we rely on hard physical work and unity." The difference, Nai shook his head.

"I hope Agah Village won't be tainted early." Human hearts are born wicked from the start. If you don't feel that way, that means you haven't met things that would trigger it yet.

Nai click his tongue. It's too early for that. "There will be time for that. But now, I'll start by creating the foundation first."

I hope the land around the pond has nothing to do with its properties. He thought in his heart.

Days soon passed like a flowing river. Transporting gravel and stones while making mud and bricks mixed with them.

The walls he initially thought would stay as walls have now become part of the foundation for his castle.

The castle's foundations were built on top of the land and not under it. So it looked like Nai was building a huge square frame stage that would surround the pond.

As time went by, the sun rose and set. Moon appears and replaces Day and night alternate.

With his superb physical strength from constant nurturing from the Moon's Blessing. He didn't expect to build the half of the foundation of his castle for only a month.

"I underestimated myself. So this is what a human with this strength can do." Seeing the huge and wide stage not far away while pulling the cart forward

Nai felt proud and satisfied in his heart and body. He made that with his own hands and feet! Who else can do that alone?

This is the first time Nai has truly felt the incredible usefulness of strength aside from fighting.

He sneered, "All those protagonists know is to swing their blade and kill. Barbarians and lawless."

"Well, what should we expect from their pig brains? They only know how to please women and act cool in front of them. Be manipulated, and then what? Go running around in some competitions or a forest of death or something."

"Hahahahaha, all stupid with no goal in life, like me. They all talked about how they could have had beauty, wealth, status, and fame in the past, but when they really did have it, they stood above indifferently. All of them became eunuch!"

"Can't even touch a girl, what? Does cultivating them make them impotent? Hahaha." 

"What? Didn't want to move away from a road when a reckless carriage speed by? Idiot! Pride! Feeling hero, all luck in the world revolves around you!"

"Woah, woah there, calmed down myself. I got little too carried away." Nai felt like something had just come out of his heart that he had long forgotten. Triggering his anger to those novels he read in the past.

He thought about it a bit and remembered it immediately. "I see, I remember it now."

"I hate confidence, pride, ego and societal-justice... That's why, when I read those novels in the past where the protagonist changed from his mortal self to a 'looking down on all things as ants" personality above."

"It was as though all their hard work was for naught. In the end, they all get what they want. Power and abilities are illusory in the end."

"Trouble and killing—all it takes is for them to forget who they really are."

"Because in the end, their journey was all a dead end from the start. A change in mentality and accepting it without questions means a lot of things."

"You are not you anymore."

"What am I muttering about?"

Silence...

Emotional outbursts through words. "Is this truly what I felt?"

Nai had been shaking his head for a while now. He would just work for now. "Even if I grow to the point of changing the world at my whim,"

"I won't change my personality." He vowed in his heart that no matter what happened, He would retain his mortal self even if he ascended, if there was an ascension.

Taking a deep breath, he threw those emotions away. "Focus on work for now. The sooner my castle is built, the sooner my kingdom will happen."

And so another month passed. The whole foundation stage-like thing was further expanded in size after he found it too small for a castle.

The pillars were slowly being shaped, though they were not yet completely decided.

There's a blueprint drawn using charcoal on a flat piece of timber. But such a blueprint is just a drawn shape and is not detailed.

He can only rely on his thinking and, step by step, improvise.

"They should be coming back soon." Yes, it's been two months, after all. Nai looked at the horizon and expected the caravan to come in the afternoon or tomorrow.