Finally, around two weeks after the Walpurgis and the war had simultaneously come to a close, Gabil accompanied Risa back to Tempest on her way back from a short little visit with Milim, who was currently dealing with logistics (with Frey's… enthusiastic help) from the construction site in Eurazania, which, due to its useful location between all three of the lands occupied by Milim's 'generals', Frey, Carillon, and Middray, had been deemed the capital of Milim's new lands.
Under the excuse of aiding with the architectural planning for the new capital, as well as helping the mixed workforce integrate (both things that, while she did, and effectively, she very clearly didn't care about in the least), Risa had visited the city several times, to spend time with Milim.
Ironically, she'd actually accomplished quite a few unexpected things that made her time there worthwhile, such as when she managed to pester Middray into agreeing to train Gabil's team in the art of Draconification (Which I didn't ask Isis for more details on. There was already too much going on in my brain right now).
Due to that, when I ran into Gabil in town, he looked like he'd lost several pounds, along with a large portion of his will to live.
Kind of reminded me of Gobta after a training session with Hakuro. Gabil was still able to puff up his chest and boast that his team was handling everything like the dedicated Tempestians they were, though, so I just gave the guy a pat on the back and some encouraging words.
He'd have to return to his duties with the rest of Team Hiryuu in Eurazania after a couple of days, but he'd taken a few of his subordinates back to check on the Hipokute farm that it was their job to oversee.
Then, the day after Gabil teleported in, Geld did, too. Unlike Gabil, he had a fair affinity for Space, and could use Spatial Motion to teleport in by himself.
But unlike Gabil, who was having a fun, but physically stressful time in Eurazania, Geld was dealing with the actual prisoners, and his Tempestian help was restricted to a small skeleton crew of High Orcs, and whatever small bits of help he could get from Gabil's people when they had time to volunteer.
While it wasn't particularly demanding for the Orc King physically, I couldn't blame the dependable, perfectionistic guy for being at the end of his rope.
After all, I'd only chosen him because nobody else on my construction team had the physical strength, technical skill, and leadership ability to keep such a rough group all working together for a common goal.
Still, it'd been an incredibly trying situation for Geld. Even once he'd managed to successfully relieve the prisoners of their fear that I'd just get rid of them one they were done working, communication was a pretty big issue.
After all, while the Tempest workforce always worked like a well-oiled machine thanks to Aether, providing basic skills such as unblockable Thought Communication to everyone connected to it, we couldn't actually extend that same connection to the beastmen, dragonkin, harpies, or pri-... former Dhistavians, and each faction had their own cultures and thoughts about the other factions.
For example, the dragonkin from Milim's domain didn't have any prejudices at all, and were valuable workers, they were highly used to working with each other, and tended to have problems getting their point across, or understanding people from other factions, due to their closed culture.
Meanwhile, the faction formerly from Dhistav was the same way. They only really cared for strength, and cared little for anyone that they considered beneath them. They were a rambunctious bunch that tended to look down on just about everybody equally, though they were getting better and better over time.
Then, the beastmen and the harpies. To be completely honest, they had two polar opposite worldviews.
Harpies had a female-led culture, where women tended to hold higher statuses, and could even marry multiple men, if they felt like it. On top of that, they valued elegance and had a preference for high altitudes, looking down on anyone who didn't have wings.
On the opposite end, beastman culture, while it didn't exactly promote gender discrimination, had a small tendency to favor men. Women marrying multiple men, while technically legal, was essentially unheard of. Meanwhile, it was common for men to take multiple wives. They tended to have a militaristic mindset that overwhelmingly favored efficiency at the cost of elegance, and tended to look down on anyone who utilized trickery such as flight in order to win battles.
And all of those miscommunications and infighting between the various factions inevitably led to problems that landed directly at Geld's feet, such as small errors that ended up requiring entire sections of the city to be torn down and rebuilt, sometimes multiple times.
Actually, technically that wasn't always required, but Geld couldn't help but hold his work to an extremely high standard.
Nobody could really blame him, either. Risa had designed a large part of the blueprints that they were going to end up working from in the later half of the construction effort, after all. That naturally meant that the city that would end up resulting would end up being one of the most beautiful pieces of artwork on the entire planet once all was said and done, with some of the final sites literally mocking the very concept of 'physics-defying'.
It was insanely ambitious, in all honesty. Without Aether bringing the entire workforce together, it may very well have been impossible, in fact. Even the best estimates had it taking five years or more, and this was under the same lead engineer that had built the city of Rimuru, along with two of the largest roads ever seen on the face of this planet, in under two years.
Carillon, Middray, Frey, and Milim all agreed that it'd be fine even if it took fifteen to twenty years, though, after looking over the diagrams of the finished city. Each loved it for differing reasons.
Carillon and Middray loved the fact that the city's design made it so that, once finished, it'd be the world's largest, multi-layered magical protection array. It wouldn't stand against a blast from someone like Milim, but just writing the diagram down on paper with a special type of liquefied magical focus turned a regular piece of parchment into something almost as tough as magisteel, that wouldn't ever degrade.
Apparently, Carillon went on to have Risa put it on a Magisteel plate, which he used to practice his Beast Roar on.
Naturally, the plate couldn't quite handle that, but the fact that it held on for even a moment was utterly ridiculous. Pre-Evolution me would've been screwed against that attack, after all.
And Frey loved the fact that the city was designed so that there'd be a second 'city' high above the clouds, due to the height of specific, carefully positioned skyscraper-like modernized towers.
Theoretically, the finished palace itself would have a full height far eclipsing anything in both this world and Earth, by quite a bit. It'd be so tall that the top floors actually had their own special systems for oxygen generation to deal with the lessened amount in the upper atmosphere.
Which was why we'd organized such a massive multi-ethnical workforce for the project. It was a way of proving just how much we valued our relationship with Milim and her people. Even the four buildings in New Farminus would incomparably pale in comparison to the majesty of Eurazania's new capital.
Still, as I drank in the bar, listening to Geld's complaints, I knew that I'd chosen the right person to lead it all. Geld could do it.