157 Dekan’s Underworld Creation
As Morion curiously studied the “Get-Rich-Quick Mask” that Dekan had temporarily lent him,
“Meow!”
Teacher Cat emerged from Cornelia’s shadow and leaped towards Dekan.
“Oh, you’re here too, excellent.”
Dekan caught Teacher Cat, rubbed its head, and then tried to hand it back to Cornelia.
“There’s not a shred of emotion in your tone! You obviously don’t care about me at all, meow!”
Teacher Cat was clearly upset with Dekan’s dismissive tone.
“How could that be? You’re my cat.”
“Meow Meow!! I’m your teacher!”
“Sure, sure, Teacher Cat.”
In Dekan’s memory, Bachelor and Olive were also teachers.
“Dekan, as a paragon of morality, I will certainly supervise you, meow!”
This time, Teacher Cat had received instructions from the school.
Because the broadcast range had expanded to the Norton Kingdom,
the school hoped that it could kindly remind Dekan to harmoniously navigate the Shadow World and reduce the damage to the school’s reputation.
“Don’t worry, I’ve always been a law-abiding young man.”
Dekan waved his hand and said confidently.
Teacher Cat showed great disdain.
It felt that Dekan’s biggest problem lay in—
Dekan really didn’t think he had any issues.
But before Teacher Cat could catch Dekan in a verbal slip, there wasn’t much it could say.
After a short division of labor, Dekan, Cornelia, and Morion began their respective preparations.
The goal was to earn a large sum of Holy Coins in the early stages, thereby greatly reducing the difficulty of passing through the Shadow World, and ensuring a pleasant travel experience later on.
…
The next day, when the construction team arrived at the cliffside again,
the mayor was already waiting on the other side of the cliff.
He hadn’t slept well last night.
He was somewhat worried whether the bridge construction would run into problems.
He was even afraid that the engineers might run off with the money.
Now, he finally waited until the engineers arrived with the agreed-upon workforce and materials.
However,
the mayor frowned deeply.
He noticed that this construction team seemed a bit different from the previous one!
Why were they all wearing prisoner uniforms?!
And there were a few prison guards supervising them?!
Was this a legitimate construction team?
The mayor was anxious, but the prisoners had already diligently started working,
making the mayor quite flabbergasted.
Actually, this was the free labor Morion had found.
Yesterday, Morion used his authority in the Chamber of Commerce, went to the city-state prison’s Warden to negotiate, and persuaded the Warden.
He successfully signed a “Prisoner Labor Reform Plan” on behalf of the Chamber of Commerce.
This would be a long-term cooperation between the Chamber of Commerce and the Warden.
The Warden provided inexpensive labor, and the Chamber of Commerce would pay the Warden a fee.
Moreover, on the accounts, Morion had already tampered with the books for the Warden, ensuring that most of the money would go directly into the Warden’s personal pocket.
With such a risk-free and highly profitable contract, the Warden was naturally very pleased.
Thus, Morion easily obtained a group of poorly disciplined laborers and prison guards as overseers from the Warden.
The first lesson of labor reform was to train these unruly ones into qualified construction workers.
During the training period as stipulated in the contract, the prison side would not charge any fees.
Therefore, Morion could now use the unlimited free labor with abandon.
Though these prisoners were a bit uncooperative at first,
now they were as obedient as little rabbits.
That’s because, aside from the prison guards escorting them,
there was also a knight wearing a white mask and wielding a warhammer closely supervising them.
This white mask knight was much more terrifying than the most brutal prison guard in the prison!
Although she was petite, she had demonstrated her power by smashing the ground with a single blow in front of all the prisoners right from the start.
If anyone slacked off, the knight would look at them, then approach them with her hammer in hand.
The prisoners were too terrified to slack off, and they worked diligently.
Once they slacked off, a terrifying killing intent would instantly lock onto them.
They knew clearly that if they didn’t hurry up, their end would surely be to turn into minced meat!
Thus, under the concerted efforts of the unscrupulous contractor, the eerie designer, and the harsh overseers, the miracle occurred, and the bridge was completed in just one day.
…
The next morning, the mayor, not really expecting much, came to check on the progress of the bridge construction.
He was astonished to find that the bridge was already finished!
The entire bridge looked perfectly normal, normal to the point of making the mayor feel like it was some kind of fantasy.
Morion was also waiting by the side of the bridge, seemingly already prepared for the mayor’s inspection.
Apart from Morion, there was only Father Red in the middle of the cliff and the white mask knight; the prisoner construction team had completely withdrawn.
The mayor wasn’t sure what those two were still doing there, but it didn’t seem odd.
Morion quickly approached the mayor, then had him walk back and forth on the bridge twice.
Ensuring that this seemingly problem-free bridge was also problem-free in use, the mayor’s expression visibly relaxed.
Morion: “How about it?”
“Great! Worth more than the price.”
The mayor was very satisfied.
Both the efficiency of the construction team and the quality of this new bridge exceeded expectations.
It seemed his worries were unfounded.
What a stroke of luck, having bumped into such a conscientious and treasure of a contractor.
“So, Mr. Mayor, I still have to help the priest with the renovation of the Church and may need to stay in the town for two or three days. If you have any other needs, feel free to contact me.”
Morion said.
“No problem.”
The mayor responded quite readily.
…
After seeing the mayor off,
and confirming that there were no others around except for his team,
Dekan quickly walked to the side of the bridge.
He lightly raised his hand and summoned with a gesture.
Instantly, the main body of the bridge disintegrated into glowing particles and coalesced back into a card in Dekan’s hand.
[Big Wooden Golem]
[Category: Summoning Card]
[Rarity: Purple Rare]
[Class: 3]
[Effect: Can significantly increase its own durability.]
[Note: The Big Wooden Golem, specially designed by the designer, can transform into the shape of a bridge.
Since Teacher Cat had brought the card-making tools and white-grade quality cards that could be decomposed into materials, Dekan had bought some high-quality magic cores of Tree Spirits in this world and started card-making overnight.
He spent most of the budget on making this summoning card, which served as the main body of the bridge and could be removed and loaded at any time.
The main task of the prisoner labor force was to renovate the sides at both ends of the bridge, ensuring that Dekan’s [Big Wooden Golem] could be perfectly installed.
Now that Dekan had retrieved the [Big Wooden Golem],
only the bridgeheads at both ends remained.
The main body of the bridge in the middle was gone.
It looked quite battle-worn,
almost as if it had been deliberately destroyed again.
“Let’s go, when the mayor discovers that the bridge is broken again, we can earn another fortune.”
Dekan said smugly.
Later, when the mayor saw that the bridge was broken, he would have to find someone else to repair it.
And this corrupt mayor would most likely find Morion, who claimed he would stay in town, offering reasonable prices and high efficiency and reliability.
At that time, they would charge 300 Holy Coins again for repairing the bridge, and Dekan only needed to summon the [Big Wooden Golem] and install it.
After passing the inspection, he would retrieve the [Big Wooden Golem].
By figuring this cycle out, they could earn another 300 Holy Coins.
If they wanted to deceive the mayor a third time, perhaps some more fraudulent details would be added.
But it wasn’t a big problem; with Dekan and Morion’s silver tongues and mental magic, deceiving the mayor three or four times wasn’t difficult.
When the situation finally blew up, they would simply blame it all on the vampires.
“You two are the real vampires! Meow!!”
Teacher Cat could no longer hold back, jumping out of Cornelia’s shadow and onto her head, glaring at Dekan and Morion.
It had heard long ago about Dekan using a Demon Baron to complete the Shadow World quest.
And now it was witnessing such a tactic firsthand.
Just as Teacher Cat wanted to seize this opportunity to criticize Dekan, Dekan shrugged.
“Everyone knows that no contract in this world stipulates—‘After the bridge is built, the designer cannot take the bridge away.'”
Dekan explained perfectly,
“Isn’t this common sense, Teacher Cat? Did I violate any contract?”
“Meow… But… this…”
Teacher Cat wanted to argue but felt that Dekan’s logic was unassailable; it was at a loss for words.
The more it thought about it, the weirder it felt.
Your common sense is somewhat pathological!
There are no bridge-stealing designers in this world!!
