Chapter 93

Chapter 93: Why Are You Doing This to Me? (2)

One month later, once again, at the coast of Mudside.

Hardin, Malion, and a few retainers sat by the shore, staring tensely at the horizon.

Hardin let out a deep sigh and moistened his dry lips with his tongue.

‘Let’s confirm it first. The tidal wave... was it really just a coincidence?’

When the first tidal wave hit, he had thought it was just bad luck.

But when it happened a second time, he instinctively knew.

That the recent occurrences in the waters of Mudside weren’t simply a string of coincidences.

That’s why he had halted all port construction and waited a full month.

Depending on what happened today... they would find out whether it had truly been an extreme stroke of bad luck or something inevitable.

‘Please, let nothing happen.’

‘It has to be a coincidence... it has to be.’

Someone gulped nervously, while another clasped their hands in desperate prayer.

And then, just as the sun was being devoured by the sea—

“It... it’s coming.”

Swooooooosh!

Everyone’s eyes widened in shock as a massive wave rose near the horizon.

Like a raging beast, it surged forward with great force.

KWAANG!

It slammed violently into the coastline.

The unloading dock and various construction sites were instantly shattered, with materials swept away into the sea in a devastating scene.

“Huhhhhhh...”

“Dear god...”

“Brother Hardin...”

As everyone stared blankly with grim faces—

“Haaaaa... I’m going insane.”

Why the hell was this happening...

Hardin squatted in place, clawing at his head in frustration, his face full of distress.

---

Some time later, inside the meeting room of the Daphne Viscounty.

Malion, Viscount Cobalt, and the retainers all sat with heavy expressions.

Especially Hardin...

“Damn it... Damn it... Daaaamn it...”

He was visibly pale, his face hollow like his soul had left his body, letting out hollow laughter.

He looked as though he had completely lost his mind.

Everyone watching him had sympathetic expressions on their faces.

‘He’s mentally broken.’

‘It’s understandable.’

Then Hardin grabbed his head and shouted.

“Noooo! What kind of tidal wave comes crashing in exactly every month? You said it never happened before, right? Are you sure you checked properly?”

Malion let out a sigh and spoke in a firm voice.

“There’s no mistake.”

“Then why the hell is this suddenly happening...?”

As Hardin slumped lower in his chair like he was about to melt, Malion continued.

“Based on my investigation...”

At that moment, Hardin cut him off.

“Subjugating Kreveion caused a disruption in the local ecosystem, and as a result... the ocean currents changed? Is that it?”

"That's correct. How did you know?"

Hardin scratched the back of his head as he replied.

"Because that’s the only thing that changed. That’s it."

"I’m glad you’re aware."

When Malion gave a slight nod, Hardin pressed his fingers against his temples.

‘This doesn’t make any sense.’

Why did the currents suddenly change? Seriously.

Was this land actually cursed by the gods or something?

No, they’d subjugated monsters to build the port, squeezed money out of the princess, done everything they possibly could... and this was the result?

As sighs kept spilling from Hardin’s lips, Viscount Cobalt spoke.

"Hardin, I’m truly sorry this unfortunate incident happened. But precisely because of it, we need to firmly decide what to do going forward, here and now."

"Yeah... So what do you want to do?"

"I believe there are two main options."

Viscount Cobalt raised two fingers as he spoke.

"The first is to abandon the port construction and return the remaining investment to Princess Medeia."

"What?"

Hardin’s brow furrowed.

"The second is to build the port at a different coastline instead of Mudside. However... in that case, due to the depth of the sea and the shape of the shoreline, the scale of the project would be reduced somewhat."

The retainers nodded at that.

‘It’s a reasonable approach.’

‘Given the circumstances... that might be the best option.’

This project had been launched with Princess Medeia’s investment, not the house’s funds.

So to prevent any trouble down the line, a clear and swift decision had to be made.

Anyone could see that the two options proposed by Viscount Cobalt were the most secure and practical choices under the current circumstances.

But Hardin jutted out his lower lip and replied bluntly.

"I don’t like either of them."

"...You don’t like either?"

"Right. I don’t want to scale it down, and I sure as hell don’t plan to scrap the whole thing."

Say something that makes sense, damn it.

‘You want to slow down now? Then when the hell are we going to make our move?’

What Hardin aimed for wasn’t to become some middling house that lived comfortably and snorted in arrogance over its little corner of land.

He wanted to build a house with overwhelming power and influence, rivaling—no, far surpassing—the old Daphne.

To be honest, even the current trading port project wasn’t nearly enough for his ambitions... and now they were telling him to give it up or scale it down?

If he did that, this house would never rise to the level he wanted—not until he grew old and died all over again.

‘No way. Even if seawater gets in my eyes, I’ll never let that happen.’

But this was, ultimately, only Hardin’s personal opinion.

Viscount Cobalt shook his head firmly and said,

“You know very well that it’s impossible, Hardin.”

“What’s so impossible? We just need to build a breakwater, and that’ll solve everything, right?”

“It’s one month. One month. When a tidal wave crashes in every month, how are you going to build a breakwater?”

Of course, a breakwater only works effectively once it’s fully completed.

If they tried building an incomplete, makeshift breakwater, it would be swept away without a trace by the ruthless tidal waves that crashed in every month.

In other words... it meant they couldn’t build a proper breakwater in the waters off Mudside.

Except through one method.

“If we just finish the breakwater within that time.”

“What?”

“Let’s complete it within a month.”

Everyone in the meeting room looked at Hardin with bewildered expressions.

‘That’s absurd...’

‘If that were possible, why the hell would we have gone through all this trouble?’

Then Malion let out a deep sigh, adjusted his glasses, and spoke.

“How exactly do you intend to do that, brother?”

“Huh? What?”

“You just said it yourself. That you could finish a stone breakwater in a month. Then give us a convincing explanation.”

“Well, that’s...”

“You’re not saying you have no plan at all, are you?”

Malion raised his voice.

“Hey, hey, wait a second. Why are you getting so worked up?”

Hardin quickly held out his hand in a calming gesture.

But Malion continued relentlessly.

“Brother, think logically. It’s impossible to build a stone breakwater in a month. You won’t even have time to source and process the necessary stone materials, let alone complete the construction. So how do you expect to do it in a month?”

Mmmgh...

Hardin was momentarily speechless, desperately wracking his brain.

‘A way to build the breakwater within a month...’

The key was to dump and stack a large amount of stone into the sea within a short period of time.

There were a few ways to make that happen.

He could summon all the mages from one of the Five Great Magic Towers and drop a massive meteor spell using group magic, or raid the Dwarven Kingdom and steal their advanced equipment—that kind of method.

The problem was...

‘That’s not feasible right now.’

The ideas popping into his head were things that even the Daphne of its prime would’ve struggled to pull off.

‘Damn it, there’s got to be a way... some way...’

They say there’s always a way out, even when the sky falls, but why couldn’t he think of anything?

“You should listen to the Third Young Master, my lord.”

“This time... this time it absolutely can’t be done.”

“Be realistic, my lord.”

Voices chimed in from all around.

The complaints were so loud that his ears weren’t just ringing—they felt like they were bleeding.

“Ughhhhhh...”

Hardin covered his ears and furrowed his brow tightly.

But that didn’t stop the shouting.

“My lord!”

“Hardin!”

“Please think seriously, brother!”

The voices wouldn’t stop.

‘Enough already! Just shut up!’

And then—

“Ah!”

Hardin’s eyes widened as a memory suddenly popped into his head.

 “Varlach, want me to teach you an interesting construction trick?”

 “What is it?”

 “It’s kind of a shortcut... but it works surprisingly well.”

It was something a drunken dwarf had once rambled about during Hardin’s past life, back when he was playing around as a second-rate adventurer.

The guy always talked nonsense when he was drunk—but this one thing stuck.

Hardin’s lips curved into a smirk, and he shouted energetically.

“I found it!”

“...What?”

“I found a way to build the breakwater within a month!”

“What is it?”

There goes big brother again, talking nonsense...

Malion looked at him with a skeptical gaze.

“Everyone wait here! I’ll be right back!”

Taah!

Hardin sprang to his feet and dashed out into the corridor.

“H-Hardin!”

“Brother? Where are you—”

Cobalt and Malion rushed after him, but the hallway was already empty.

“Father, what do you think he’s trying to do now?”

“I... I’m not sure either.”

Somehow, they both had a very bad feeling...

Worry clouded their faces heavily.

---

At midday, under the shade of a tree by the training grounds.

The knights of Daphne sat resting, wiping away their sweat.

They were taking a break in the middle of training.

Mikkelsen, who had been idly scratching the ground with his finger, glanced sideways at Beryl and asked,

“Brother, what’s going to happen to the trading port now?”

“Doesn’t look good, does it? I mean, building a port where a tidal wave hits every month... that just doesn’t sound doable.”

“Uuugh... Then what the hell did we go through all that suffering for?”

“My thoughts exactly.”

A gloomy look spread across both their faces.

‘Damn it... all our efforts...’

From the Kreveion subjugation to the expedition to Ruslan Fortress...

They were reminded of all the time they’d been pushed by Hardin for the sake of building the port.

Just as the two were slumping over in defeat—

“Such weak words.”

“Huh?”

They looked up to see Manton standing above them with his arms crossed.

“What’s so weak about what we said?”

“You’re knights of the house. If men like you start whining over a trial like this... morale’s going to crumble.”

What nonsense now?

Mikkelsen twitched his eyebrows and asked,

“Isn’t that just because you didn’t suffer as much as we did?”

“What did you say?”

"Come on, let’s be honest. Even if you came along for the Kreveion subjugation, we were the ones who risked our lives at Ruslan Fortress. Of course it’d mean more to us."

"What the hell kind of nonsense is that?!"

Manton clenched his fists and shouted, while nearby Maw unit members muttered among themselves.

"Nonsense? He’s just telling the truth."

"While we were breaking our backs under the princess, those guys were just chilling out here..."

"What did you say? You want to repeat that, punks?!"

That hit a nerve.

The former knights of Daphne—now members of the Jellyfish Unit—turned red in the face and began shouting back, led by Manton.

Then Beryl and Mikkelsen jumped to their feet and raised their voices.

"Hey, watch your mouth, damn it! We’re knights too! Don’t go disrespecting us like that! I swear, I’ll punch you right now."

"What? What did you just say?"

Grab!

Before long, they had each other by the collars, faces twisted with fury, ready to throw punches at any moment.

The atmosphere was on the verge of explosion—until…

"What the hell are you all doing over there?"

"Huh?"

"Y-Young Master?"

When they turned their heads, Hardin was standing there, staring right at them.

"Don’t tell me... you were fighting?"

His face was full of anger.

The knights shook their heads violently.

"...Ahem. No, not at all."

"Fighting? Come on, we’d never do that between comrades."

But Hardin looked at them with disdain and said,

"Bravo. Seriously. You call yourselves knights? The house is in crisis, and instead of being helpful, you’re out here brawling like children."

"That’s not it, really!"

"Young Master, there’s been a misunderstanding—"

"Misunderstanding, my ass."

Whack! Whack! Whack!

"Ugh!"

"Agh!"

"Argh!"

Hardin’s fists rapped the tops of Beryl, Manton, and Mikkelsen’s heads in quick succession.

‘It’s your fault!’

‘Are you serious right now?’

The three of them stared at him, faces full of injustice and frustration.

Hardin pointed a finger and said,

"Enough nonsense. Get ready and follow me."

"Follow you? Where are we going?"

Mikkelsen asked, confused, and Hardin replied flatly,

"You lot are coming with me to build a breakwater."

"...What? Us?"

"Are we heading to the construction site?"

Manton raised his hand and asked, and Hardin replied in disbelief,

"Why would you be doing construction? There’s more than enough laborers."

"But... didn’t you just say we’re building the breakwater?"

"Yeah, and that’s exactly why you need to hurry up. We’re short on time, so move!"

As Hardin stomped his feet impatiently—

"Y-Yes, sir!"

"Understood!"

The knights flinched and quickly ran off toward the barracks.

‘What the hell is he planning?’

‘He’s not about to make us do something weird again, is he?’

Their faces were filled with suspicion.

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