Published: August 2, 2025
Morning
Normally, it would be time to leave the house.
But starting today, I decided to delay my departure and begin building the house.
“For now, a basic shape should be fine…”
I adjusted the image as I edited the design drawn on the ground— a long, horizontal house wall with windows and doors.
The facilities necessary for daily life could be sufficiently handled by modifying the abandoned mine shaft, so the house only needed to be a place to sleep and stay. …No, lately, some ruffians have been coming to the shop again. If someone were to come as far as here to attack, this setup might not be enough.
However, making something sturdy would require considerable effort.
“Maybe I should just make the house a decoy.”
I would continue using the abandoned mine shaft as the living base and use the new house as a decoy in case of an attack.
“If I build the house to block the entrance to the mine shaft, making people enter through the house first… it would definitely look like someone lives here.”
That way, I could buy time and prepare either to escape or to fight back. I could even set traps…
“But if I get too elaborate, it’ll take even more time…”
For simplicity, I considered placing slime to splash acid, poison, or sticky liquid on intruders… Acid and sticky liquid are straightforward, but poison only works if it enters the body. Poison gas would be more efficient. It would be good if someone could use poison magic, but I don’t have anyone yet. If we could use fire, maybe we could make some kind of poison smoke…
My thoughts were drifting into complicated territory. For now, traps with acid or sticky liquid would suffice. In any case, I had to build the house first.
“But if that’s the case, it needs to be easy to repair.”
There was a possibility that the house would be damaged in an attack. The minimum requirement as a decoy was to maintain its appearance while being quick to build… So maybe prefab construction would be best.
Prefab means building parts are made in advance at a factory and assembled on-site, speeding up construction. It also has the advantage of consistent quality when building identical buildings.
Since there was no factory to order from now, I’d have to make the parts myself, but once the standard parts were created, it would be easier. I had already proven that with the ‘create block’ magic, I could produce stone blocks of a consistent size, so with some tweaks, I should manage.
“‘Create block’.”
I started with an experiment. I modified the shape of the stone materials. First, I enlarged a basic brick shape, then hollowed out the center to make it like a concrete block… This was simple enough.
To stack these into walls, I’d need cement or adhesive liquid. Instead, I tried adding indentations and protrusions to the top and bottom of the bricks. If the bottom dents and top bumps interlock, they could be temporarily fixed in place.
Taking a square block as the base… Having only one protrusion seemed risky if it chipped. I divided it into four parts, making four protrusions and four dents. Since sharp protrusions could cause injury, I rounded their edges…
“...It’s just like LEGO.”
Before I knew it, the stone blocks had turned into the globally famous toy blocks.
Was that totally wrong for my purpose?
At least it helped with the image.
I named the magic that creates these stones ‘Building Block’…
“‘Building Block Cube.’”
“‘Building Block Rectangle.’”
Now I could freely make square and rectangular building blocks by specifying the shape.
I tried making a wall with these blocks; their weight alone made them stable against moderate force. When I applied soil transformed into clay by magic and hardened it, the wall had no problems in strength or appearance.
This was basically precast (P) concrete (C) construction. If I continued making parts this way, prefab construction would be possible.
…Maybe it’s about time to head to work.
“Good morning. How is everything? The shop’s situation?”