Chapter 4: Foundation First

  We spent the rest of the morning gathering stones from the riverbank.

  Kallen showed us how to choose the best ones—dense, weighty, flattish on at least one side. Each rock we collected was wet with the chill of spring runoff, and the sun warmed our backs as we stacked them along the shore, forming rough piles. The air smelled of moss and silt and that faint iron tang of mineral-rich water. Somewhere upstream, frogs croaked lazily, undisturbed by the rise of civilization in their personal wetlands.

  I knelt to inspect a stone, running my fingers along its cool surface. “We’ll need to sort these by size and shape,” I said. “Elva, can you mark a clearing nearby where we can shape the keystone and supports?”

  Elva didn’t respond at first. He was turning one of the stones in his hand, squinting at it like it was trying to insult him.

  “Y’know,” he said slowly, “this one almost wants to be part of something.”

  I blinked. Was that… optimism?

  He caught my look. “Don’t get used to it,” he muttered as if reading my mind. He went off to stake out a clearing anyway.

  Sophia stayed behind with me, occasionally helping stack or ferry rocks. The sleeves of her dress were rolled up, and a streak of river mud ran from her wrist to her elbow. She looked radiant, despite the sweat on her brow. Or maybe because of it.

  “This isn’t what I expected from… you,” she said, with a smile that was warm but edged with curiosity.

  I raised an eyebrow. “From me?”

  “Well,” she said, brushing her hair behind one ear, “you saved my brother, volunteered to fix the bridge, and now you’re teaching us… this.” She gestured at the growing rock piles. “Most outsiders who stumble into our village just want food or directions. You’re different.”

  “Different,” I said, tossing a rock from hand to hand, “is a nice way of saying weird.”

  “I didn’t say that,” she said with a laugh.

  “But you thought it.”

  “Maybe.”

  I shook my head, chuckling under my breath. “Weird or not, I like building things. It’s simple. Honest. And when you’re done, it stays built. Not like… other stuff.”

  Sophia looked at me for a moment longer than felt casual, then nodded and turned to help Umbra lift a particularly stubborn stone.

  And just as I was starting to feel good about the whole “new life” thing—

  “You will rue the day you ignored me, pebble counter,” came the goddess’ voice, echoing in my head like a rusty flute in a tin bucket.

  Mute, I thought without hesitation.

  Silence. Glorious, perfect, self-righteous silence.

  “What was that?” Sophia asked, glancing over her shoulder almost like she heard a distance voice.

  “Nothing,” I said quickly. “Just… stepped on a bitter memory.”

  *****

  I made my way to where the others were. I saw Umbra struggled with a boulder the size of a baby cow, grunting as his boots dug furrows into the wet earth.

  “Need help with that?” I asked, adjusting the straps of my borrowed toolpack.

  “I got it,” he growled, lifting with all his might. The boulder lurched, rolled slightly—and then flopped back down with an undignified thud.

  I stepped forward, crouched low, and lifted the rock with a single clean motion. My muscles moved like clockwork, no strain, no shaking. The weight felt… light. Almost wrongly light.

  Umbra stared at me, wide-eyed.

  “I definitely loosened that for you,” he said after a pause.

  “Without a doubt, big guy,” I said with a wink as I set the rock down gently.

  I wiped the dust from my palms, but my mind buzzed. That was not normal strength. Either this world had weaker gravity or—

  Ding!

  A soft, golden chime echoed through my skull like a xylophone being politely played inside my brain.

  [SYSTEM UPDATE DETECTED]

  Class: Demon Lord (Unwilling)

  Subclass: Civil Engineer

  Level: 1 → 2

  Title Unlocked: “Foundation Layer”

  Perks Gained:

  – Strength +3

  – Passive Skill: Rocks? I Eat Rocks (Allows casual one-handed lifting of objects that should break a mortal spine.)

  – Village Reputation: +5 (Curious Glances)

  New Quest Unlocked: Build a Damn Bridge

  Reward: ???

  “What was that?” I muttered, blinking the notification away like an intrusive pop-up ad in a fantasy-themed dating sim.

  “You alright?” Kallen asked, handing me a smaller rock as if I hadn’t just hoisted a boulder like a toddler picking up a small pumpkin.

  “Yeah,” I said, shaking my head. “Just thinking.”

  “You were smiling,” Sophia noted, peering at me suspiciously.

  “I smile,” I lied.

  “Like once since I met you. And that was while you were unconscious in my bed.”

  This time I did smile, a little. “Then I guess we’re making progress.”

  We set to work sketching the arch on packed dirt near the river, while Elva went back to the village to grab a few more men.

  Umbra began hauling stones to the river’s edge two at a time. Kallen spent his time chopping tree limbs for temporary scaffolds. Sophia, bless her, insisted on carrying smaller stones herself—until she dropped one on her foot and spent the rest of the hour supervising me like a disappointed teacher grading a group project. Once Elva had returned, I guided his carpentry crew on creating the wooden support frame that would shape the bridge.

  “Make sure the curvature is tight here,” I said, crouched with a stick to draw a shallow arc. “This is where the keystone will go. It’s the key—hence the name.”

  “I don’t like how smug you looked when you said that,” Elva muttered.

  “It’s not smugness,” I replied. “It’s pure, uncut educational bliss.”

  By midday, the wooden arch frame was half-built, and our worksite had begun to look less like a riverside accident and more like a proper construction zone. The scent of sawdust, river spray, and sun-warmed mud mingled in the air, and I couldn’t help but feel something I hadn’t felt in a long time.

  Satisfaction.

  The river burbled softly beside us, reflecting the golden noon light in sharp flashes that danced across the stones. Umbra had stripped down to his undershirt and was moving stone stacks like a warehouse golem. Elva—grumbling all the while—carved braces and joints for the framework with increasingly precise strokes. Even Kallen, usually quiet, had begun humming as he whittled pegs.

  “You weren’t kidding,” Elva said, squinting at the layout as he wiped his brow with a scrap of linen. “This arch idea of yours might actually work.”

  I leaned over the sketch I’d drawn in the dirt, anchoring the curve with rough pegs and string. “Of course it’ll work. It's not magic. It’s math.”

  Elva grunted. “Same thing, far as I’m concerned.”

  Then came a sharp crack.

  The sound was unnatural. Not wood. Not stone. Something… worse.

  We all turned toward the bridge just in time to see a portion of the old clay-and-log span shear off at one corner and collapse into the water with a wet, crunching splash.

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  Feno and the other children—who had been watching from a nearby tree stump—screamed and scattered like mice from a kicked basket.

  “Damn it!” I barked, rushing forward to inspect the damage. A large piece of the bridge’s edge had completely given way, exposing the sodden remains of older, waterlogged support beams that looked like they hadn’t been replaced since the original fur trappers first crossed the river.

  Sophia caught up beside me, her face pale. “If anyone had been walking on that…”

  “They weren’t,” I said firmly. “Let’s focus.”

  “Rend,” Umbra called, pointing to a beam. “This whole side’s rotted straight through. It’s a miracle it held up this long.”

  Ding!

  [SYSTEM ALERT – Hazard Recognized!]

  Bridge Status: 21% Structural Integrity Remaining

  Environmental Modifier: Wet-Rot Collapse Imminent

  Updated Quest: Build a Damn Bridge → Build It Before It Kills Someone

  Bonus Reward Added: Title - “Insurance Nightmare”

  Skill Gained: Construction Intuition

  – Grants an instinctive sense of structural failure and reinforcement points

  Passive Stat Increase:

  – Intelligence +1

  – Constitution +2

  – Strength +1

  “Great,” I muttered, rubbing the bridge of my nose. “Now I’ve got structural precognition.”

  You should’ve conquered a castle by now, came the goddess’ voice, but nooo, you just had to fix an OSHA nightmare instead.

  I muted her again without hesitation.

  “Everyone,” I called, turning back to the group. “We’re not patching. We’re replacing. Fully. From the ground up.”

  “Thought you’d say that,” Elva said, stepping forward with a newly cut support beam slung across one shoulder. “I’ll go sharpen the chisels.”

  Kallen nodded. “I’ll start organizing a team to gather rocks."

  Sophia placed her hand on my arm and gave it a gentle squeeze. “What do you need from me?”

  I hesitated for a moment, taking in the rising smoke of effort in the air, the rhythm of people working not because they were forced to—but because they believed in the outcome.

  “Just keep doing what you’re doing,” I said. “That’s more help than you know.”

  *****

  “You said we’re rebuilding it from the ground up,” Elva said, squinting at the crumbling riverbank. “Well, the ground’s currently underwater. Unless your next trick involves summoning a river nymph to part the stream, I’m not seeing how this works.”

  “We don’t need to summon anything,” I said. “We just need a coffer dam.”

  Kallen raised an eyebrow. “A… a what now?”

  “A temporary barrier to redirect water flow,” I explained, crouching and drawing a rough L-shape into the mud. “We’ll have a mostly dry workspace to lay the foundation if we block off the main current upstream—logs, earth, heavy rocks. Nothing fancy. Just enough to push the flow into that dry trench on the east side.”

  Umbra followed my gaze. “That weird ditch?”

  “Yup. ‘That weird ditch,’" I said, “looks like an old overflow channel. If we build the dam just right, we can funnel most of the current through it and get a mostly dry riverbed to work with.”

  “You want to fight the river?” Elva said. “With rocks and sticks?”

  “Temporarily. And politely.”

  We followed the water upstream, trying to find a spot that wasn’t too deep and where the flow was relatively slow. We didn’t have to go too far. We ended up maybe fifty paces from the bridge site.

  We split into teams. Kallen and Umbra began hauling logs—thick pine trunks and driftwood, some already conveniently waterlogged. Sophia organized a group of villagers to help pack earth and dig clay from a nearby hill’s edge, while Elva dug furiously with a flat wooden spade, muttering about “useless trench runoff” and “mud in places mud should never be.”

  Umbra, looking like a muddy colossus, stomped down another layer of packed dirt. “Feels appropriate that the descendants of fur trappers are building a beaver-like dam.”

  “They had the right idea,” I said, flicking a layer of mud from my hands. “Nature’s engineers.”

  “You better not start talking to beavers, outsider,” Elva warned. “That’s how wizard rumors start.”

  "No promises," I called back over the rush of the water.

  *****

  The work took most of the day. We reinforced the outer wall with layered stones and logs, then shoveled earth into the back, creating a sloping bulk. The river, lazy and compliant, began to shift its course, trickling faster toward the old runoff trench. Frogs croaked indignantly as their personal stream turned into a trickle.

  Sophia jogged up to me, face flushed and proud. “It’s working. The trench is filling up, and the flow’s dropped by at least half already.”

  Umbra wiped his hands on his pants and stared at the coffer dam like he’d just bested a dragon. “Now, that was fun!”

  Sophia leaned against a log, cheeks pink with sun and exertion. “That was exhausting.”

  “Both things can be true,” I said, flexing a sore shoulder.

  Then the goddess whispered in my head: Oh, you built a tiny mud wall. Adorable. Next, you’ll tell me you want to fix potholes instead of conquering nations.

  Mute.

  “Good. We’ll still have seepage, but with the bulk diverted, we can start trenching out the foundations tomorrow.”

  *****

  That evening the five of us camped under the starts near the river, wanting to keep a close eye on our dam.

  “You turned the river,” Sophia said, as we sat around our campfire, watching the new stream trickle by like a lazy snake. “It’s amazing.”

  Kallen was roasting several fresh-caught fish on wooden skewers on the campfire's edge while Umbra grabbed more apple wine from the tavern. Elva was lying down on a blanket, gazing up at the stars, lost in deep thought.

  “Still don’t like it,” he muttered, still star gazing. “But I’ll take dry boots over stubborn pride.”

  I glanced at our worksite. “We’ve still got the abutments to build,” I said aloud. “We don’t want this thing slipping into the river the first time it rains.”

  “Abutments?” Kallen asked.

  “Big foundations. Think of them as the bedrock shoulders the bridge leans into. If we don’t anchor the arch properly, everything collapses. Tomorrow, we are on digging duty.”

  Sophia nodded. “I’ll requisition additional digging tools from Hel first thing tomorrow morning.”

  And just like that, we had a plan.

  *****

  At morning’s first light, we returned to the dammed riverbank to find our coffer holding steady. A few minor leaks dribbled around the base, but nothing we couldn’t plug with more clay and pure, unfiltered optimism.

  With the upstream coffer dam holding strong, the river beside our build site moved with a lazy sort of dignity—like it had agreed to give us a grace period.

  “Alright,” I said, drawing a square in the dirt with a stick. “This is where we start the abutments—the foundations that hold each end of the bridge.”

  “We’re building on dirt?” Elva asked, raising an eyebrow.

  “We’re building into the dirt,” I corrected, already crouching to dig. “Deep. We go down until we hit solid subsoil or rock, on both sides of the river. Then we tamp in a mix of rubble and gravel, lay flatstones, and shape the weight-bearing surfaces from there.”

  He grunted. “Sounds like a lot of digging.”

  “That’s because it is.” I knelt in the exposed riverbed, brushing aside loose stones until I hit something firm. “We need to dig down until we hit undisturbed soil—or bedrock, if we’re lucky.”

  Elva scowled, shovel in hand. “And if we’re unlucky?”

  “We build a foundation raft,” I said cheerfully. “Basically, it's a giant underground dinner tray that spreads the bridge’s weight over a wide area.”

  “Wonderful,” he muttered. “A bridge that sits on a tray. Very stable-sounding.”

  We got to work.

  Kallen took the lead with digging. The man had the quiet intensity of someone who considered dirt a personal rival. He drove his spade into the earth with calm efficiency, tossing up mud and river silt in neat piles. Umbra followed close behind with a massive flatpan, scooping out heavier rocks and hauling them away like they were paperweights.

  Sophia sat on a stone with her sketchbook, trying to copy the rough layout I’d drawn in the dirt. “You really think two wedge-shaped abutments and a stone arch will be enough?”

  “Enough?” I said. “This design has lasted thousands of years on Earth.”

  She looked confused. “Where?”

  “Uh… somewhere in the uh...far east,” I lied.

  “And if it doesn’t hold,” Elva grunted as he unearthed a large stone, “I can say ‘I told you so’ while we’re falling into the river, where I just might drown you.”

  “Fair,” I called back.

  *****

  After an hour of digging, Elva jabbed his shovel into the bottom of the trench and thunked against something hard.

  “Bedrock,” he said. “I think.”

  I slid down into the hole and scraped aside a layer of muck. Smooth. Unyielding. A perfect foundation surface.

  “Alright!” I said, a bit too loudly. “This is it. We set the base stones here, slope them inward slightly, and backfill with river gravel for drainage.”

  “You say that like we have gravel,” Kallen said.

  “We do, literally everywhere,” I replied, waving at the riverbank. “We just haven’t liberated it yet.”

  Cue the great gravel harvest.

  By midday, we had dug enough to form a thick, stable layer beneath our future abutments. Elva and I placed the first few stones with exacting care, aligning them next to one another like puzzle pieces on a flat table. Each block settled with a satisfying clunk, held fast by nothing but weight and friction.

  “Won't the stones shift?” Sophia asked, watching intently as our abutment tower grew stone by stacked stone out of the ground.

  “Nope. Compression is king,” I said. “These stones want to stay put. You press down from above, and the forces drive into the foundation—not out.”

  Elva leaned over a corner block. “And the arch will push inward, correct?”

  “Exactly.”

  “I still think this bridge is going to kill me,” he added helpfully.

  I patted his shoulder. “You’re too spiteful to die. That’s why you’re on abutment duty.”

  Umbra, meanwhile, had stacked up the next round of heavy blocks with the smug strength of a man who thought teamwork meant doing 80% of the labor. Kallen measured angles with a notched stick he’d carved himself, adjusting placements like a grizzled feng shui artist.

  We took our time. Each abutment was about as wide as two ox carts, set at opposing ends of the river crossing. By midday, the rubble cores were layered and tight. By late afternoon, the shaped stone faces had been placed with a level of precision that even made Elva nod without protest.

  Umbra sat down on a flat rock with a satisfied sigh. “I like this. Digging, building, eating lunch outside. This is good, honest work.”

  "I am beginning to enjoy it too," Sophia added, taking a seat next to me.

  I took a long look at the abutments before we packed up. They were ugly—just stacked gray stones and hard angles—but to me, they looked like trust. Like something that would outlast weather, time, and probably even me, unless demon lords had a lifespan of several thousand years.

  “They’re solid,” Elva added, tapping the right abutment with his knuckle. “I’ll give you that.”

  “Thanks,” I said, brushing dirt from my shirt. “Tomorrow we’ll start building up from here. The arch will spring from these.”

  Sophia handed me a canteen. “You have dirt in your ear.”

  “Engineering tax,” I said with a soft laugh, sipping gratefully.

  Then a familiar whisper slithered into my thoughts.

  Why are you building bridges when you could be raising fortresses of bone? The goddess hissed.

  Mute.

  I looked at our progress: the glint of stone in the sun, the curve of the trench ready for the arch, the people around me—muddy, exhausted, and grinning despite themselves.

  This was my fortress.

  And it was perfect.

  Ding!

  [STRUCTURAL FOUNDATION COMPLETE – “Anchor to the Earth”]

  Skill Gained: Geotechnical Intuition

  Stat Increase: Constitution +2

  Perk: +10% stability on stone-based construction

  Villager Respect: +2 (Elva)

  Villager Fear: +1 (a child saw Rend lift a half-ton slab and now calls him “The Stone Lord”)