The next morning, Takumi was woken up by Ann again and found that the space beside him was empty. He looked around.
Seeing that there was no one around, Takumi couldn't help but complain, "They are two workaholics."
That's the bad thing about the Artorias; they are too career-minded and basically don't enjoy life.
However, they might also feel embarrassed when they see each other after getting up.
Takumi simply didn't pay too much attention. After getting up, he washed himself under the service of several maids led by Ann, and then started a new day.
After breakfast, he walked around the fields and took care of them as usual, before Takumi arrived outside the Inner City.
Here, the new guest house was still under construction.
At the same time, the Lizardmen also gathered in the camp after a night's rest, had breakfast, and waited for arrangements.
Takumi came over with some drawings and a few girls with rich engineering experience, and began to arrange work for them.
The first step was to clear the forest.
Cut down trees and clear out the area to be built.
Takumi also came to help. He picked up the Universal Axe for the first time in a long time and chopped down the big trees that were difficult to fell.
Of course, he wasn't the only one doing it.
The Lizardmen were also assigned some tools enhanced by the King's Treasure and participated in the cutting together.
With the help of these enhanced tools, although they were not as fast as Takumi, they could still cut down trees quickly.
After an area was felled, the felled trees were processed into logs for use.
Also, the remaining tree roots had to be cleaned up.
The Lizardmen couldn't help much with this, because the root systems of the big trees that hadn't fallen were extremely developed, and ordinary pulling and cleaning methods were not practical. Unless assisted by earth magic, it would be impossible to pull them out by brute force.
But even if they knew magic, the Lizardmen were not good at earth magic.
Moreover, the time they had possessed the Divine Path System was too short, and their levels hadn't improved yet, so they hadn't learned many skills through it. They were all required to learn Mage Hand as their initial skill.
However, Takumi did not use a Universal Tool to convert these tree roots into soil or fertilizer this time. Instead, he used a shrinking spell to shrink the tree roots, and then let the Lizardmen pull them out.
After the tree roots shrank, a gap was created between the roots and the ground. The grip was no longer firm and could be pulled up without much effort.
After pulling out the tree roots and backfilling with some soil, the land was finally cleared.
Then came the second step: building houses.
However, this didn't mean they could just build anywhere. Various plans had been made for the Outer Dimension City, and the plan must be followed.
At the same time, the Lizardmen were unfamiliar with construction projects.
The tribes before them mainly relied on thatched houses or tents for housing. Not to mention reinforced concrete houses, they didn't even have much experience building wooden houses.
Therefore, the girls who came with Takumi earlier took on the important role of instructors.
While instructing them on what to do, they also taught them construction techniques.
Takumi looked on and saw that the Lizardmen were studying skills seriously and working hard, and couldn't help but nod with satisfaction.
Then, Takumi discovered a problem.
There were no elderly people or children among these Lizardmen. All of them participating in the construction were young adults.
This was a bit unreasonable.
Logically speaking, for a clan relocation like the Lizard Tribe, people of all ages should be involved. [thought_bubble]
But now, looking around, why were there only young adults?
When Takumi asked Daga this question, he got a heavy answer.
It wasn't that the Lizardmen didn't have elderly people and children, but they were all killed in a previous attack.
At that time, they were being retaliated against by the human army and hid in the middle of the swamp, often changing places to avoid the army that came to suppress them.
As a result, their camp was discovered by humans one time, and then attacked by human troops.
Even the human army, which lacked basic decency, did not attack directly but secretly waited until night before setting fire to the camp.
Many of the Lizard tribe who were still alive died in the fire, because there were human armies surrounding them outside the burning camp. The weaker individuals could not escape at all and could only be burned alive.
Daga's group managed to break through with their numbers, but the elderly and children couldn't keep up, and they didn't have the ability to lead them to safety.
In response, Takumi remained silent.
It was only yesterday that he learned from Tia how chaotic the outside world was.
Before, he only knew that the world had been fighting wars for many years, but he didn't have a clear concept because he had basically never been exposed to such things.
In the Dimension City activities so far, there had been very few conflicts with people. The opponents were either zombies, monsters in the dungeon, or monsters in the forest, which did not count as war.
The coup in the Harry Potter world was too childish, and the scale of the battle was actually not as big as a real war.
The fight for hegemony in the Akame ga Kill! world could be considered a war, but because the strength gap between the two sides was so large, it was more like a unilateral crushing than a war, and it couldn't be used as a reference.
After Tia's description yesterday and Daga's answer today, Takumi had a clearer understanding of this war.
This kind of evenly matched war was a cruel meat grinder, and it was a purgatory for everyone involved.
For a time, Takumi thought about a lot of things.
But then, Takumi shook his head and got rid of these distracting thoughts. "Forget it, why do I care about it? It's none of my business."
He didn't start this war. He had no interest in interfering, nor did he have time to intervene.
His Dimension City hasn't even been built yet! He didn't have the kind of free time to care about what was going on outside!
Anyway, the war in the main world couldn't burn the Forest of Death, so there was no need for Takumi to meddle in others' business.
As for victimized groups like the Lizardmen?
Takumi felt pity for them, but it was limited to the range that he could see. If he encountered them again in the future, he would take them into Dimension City if appropriate.
Just like in the original work, the centaurs who would be accepted later, and the castaways of the Minotaur tribe (let's call them Minotaurs, it's better than calling them Tauren, which always feels weird).
If he encountered other races, he could accept them if he thought they were suitable. After all, refugees were also a source of immigrant population.
But for those people he couldn't see, Takumi didn't bother to care. At most, he could only observe a few seconds of silence for them.
One, two, three!
Okay, end of silence.
Seeing that the construction of the Outer City had begun to get on track, Takumi didn't stay any longer and turned around to do other things.
At this moment, there was sudden movement from the Dimensional Gate.
Takumi instantly turned his head and looked over, and saw a man with a confused expression slowly walking out of the Dimensional Gate next to the construction site.