On the other side, empty shelves surrounded the seating area, and a simple chandelier hung over a coffee table between four sofas.
The room was painted white and the floors were wood. Bill liked it. Nothing extra, but not cheap either.
Assessing the situation and opening the shelves, he discovered four cut-out recesses for safes hidden inside.
It was all very pleasant, and he told the others that he liked everything when he sat down with Mayor Fabre, the chief engineers, and Rance.
After everyone had sat down, he thanked everyone for their work, but was immediately interrupted by Mayor Fabre.
- No, we should thank you! Without your efforts, our home would be open to pirate attacks.
This feeling was shared by the chief engineers, who thanked Bill for giving them a new home and freeing them from slavery.
He accepted their thanks politely, but Bill was always wary of such strong feelings, especially when he was handed a stack of papers from the chief engineers.
A quick glance at the big numbers revealed that they had only built 40% of the planned houses and completed 60% of the water system.
Of course, he had been in touch with them since he left the hospital. Although these numbers seemed low, there was a reason for that.
The thing was, there were simply no quarries on Little East Blue, and since they couldn't risk mining the stone on the plateau at the back of the island, they had to rely on what they could bring from the neighboring islands.
It was acceptable, but the distances made it take longer.
However, he had a plan, and putting the papers aside, he looked at Mayor Fabre and asked:
— Have you had any seismic activity since you've been living here?
"Seismic activity?" Fabre asked, and Bill clarified:
- I mean earthquakes and things like that.
Fabre shook his head and said no. Bill then turned to the chief engineers and asked what their thoughts were on the earthquake risks after their visit to the maze of tunnels on the back side of the island.
"There are no obvious faults… this island is probably an extinct volcano," one woman answered, and her husband agreed with this hypothesis.
Bill thought so too, because the shape of the island confirmed that it had once been a huge volcano. The eruption probably tore off its side, and that was how the island's levels were formed.
- That's good news. We won't be receiving cargo from Egghead Island for several weeks, and in the meantime I've decided to deepen the harbor.
"Dredging the harbor?" Rance asked with a smile before continuing, "We can't drain the water, so what, buddy, are you planning on diving and mining the seabed?"
Smiling at his friend, Bill replied:
- Well, I'm going to. You'll have to take some people and go back to Clock Island to get some scrap metal.
It was a difficult task, made even more difficult by the fact that Sasha and Ricky remained with the Blue Bird to continue collecting money from the merchants.
When he said this, Rance looked at him with disbelief and asked:
- Can you really deepen the harbor on your own?
Bill nodded, seeing the fire in Rance's eyes. Sure, he had always been the strongest of his friends thanks to his mastery of Life Return, but now Bill wasn't just stronger than the others, he was in another league.
It didn't make Bill proud, he never compared himself to his friends. He also understood that in some ways Rance and Sasha had been delayed in their development over the past year, as their training always came after other duties.
But now that he's working on the city, they'll have a break to get back to their full training.
After Bill made this statement, Mayor Fabre and the chief engineers did not know what to say, and Bill reassured them by promising that everything would be fine - he would raise the stone from the bottom of the harbor.
His plan was to deepen the entire area by about two meters, which in practice meant millions of tons of rock.
This stone will initially be used to complete the construction of houses, ramps and piers, and the surplus will be used to expand the island to the east.
Since a ton of two-inch thick stone would cover about four square meters, and the island would not need that much, Bill decided to cut the stone used for the roads into six-inch bricks.
It was hard work, but in a world where superpowers existed, the only alternatives were either that or just use concrete.
Although the island's three leaders were unsure about the plan, they did not object and said they were looking forward to good news. After discussing other matters - particularly food - they left the office.
As they left, Bill told Rance that he would need to keep an eye on new Marines in the coming months to see if anyone was capable of mastering one of the Six Forces.
His original goal was to have at least twenty Marines under his command who were capable of using the Shave technique, but after Nelson's words, his goal changed to twenty who were capable of using the Iron Body.