"I am really sorry for the conduct of the children," Charlotte bowed to Sian. "I won't let them come to bother you again."
"Don't worry about it, it was fun playing with them."
Taking Emily and Agnes off his shoulders, Sian put them down and looked at the children.
"Hey, I know you guys want to get stronger, so if you want to train, you can come here, I'll make you guys stronger."
"As I expected," Charlotte showed a calm expression. "Despite what everyone says, I know you're a good person."
"Even if you say that, you're still here to watch me, right?"
"Honestly, you're 20% of the reason I'm still here," Charlotte said. "The other 80% is because I want to keep my distance from my mother at the moment. Luckily, even though she was very strict and ordered me to go back, when I said I needed to stay here while I took care of business with you, she reluctantly agreed."
"To have to use my name to convince your mother, it seems she is a tough person." Sympathizing with her situation, Sian said, "Although it doesn't seem like it, I regularly made up excuses to get away from Ayze. She's quite selfish sometimes."
"My mother acts the same way," Charlotte agreed promptly as she nodded. "My mother is very stingy, she always-"
"Ahem!" Clearing his throat, Charlotte's butler, Winston, interrupted her. "Milady, you must not reveal your personal life openly to people."
"But I believe he can be trusted." Looking like a wronged child, she argued.
"Considering you two have known each other less than a week, I can't say you've earned his trust." Winston contested her words calmly.
"Mou, you are always so strict." Charlotte complained as she tapped her foot on the floor.
"I have to agree with him, my friend," Sian said. "You are too naive."
"I may even look like it, but I'm not. My intuition tells me I can trust you." Charlotte said with conviction.
"Even if you say so, your intuition told you that construction would take a few months, but it seems that is far from the case." Winston gestured to the wall and the base of the hotel.
Even though she seemed to want to argue, Charlotte didn't seem to know what to say. Giving her a little help, Sian said, "Most of the credit goes to Illianna, she's pretty proficient at that sort of thing."
"Are you talking about that super beautiful blonde girl who goes with Emily every night to the orphanage to tell stories to the children?" Charlotte asked.
"Yep," Sian affirmed. "It may not seem like it, but she understands a lot when it comes to building things."
"I see, since you two still have a lot to do, I won't be in your way anymore." Charlotte prepared to leave, but as if remembering something, she stopped. "Just to be safe, if the children come, what kind of training do you plan to do with them?"
"Hmm," Pondering a bit, Sian said, "If it's training to get strong, surely I have to take them to a hostile environment where they can constantly fight for their lif-"
"Please don't do it," Charlotte interrupted Sian with a worried look. "I don't want them to risk their lives."
"Don't worry, in case they reach a critical situation, I will heal them." He said confidently. "That's how I got strong."
"I'd rather they don't suffer as much as possible. If you're going to train the children, I hope you won't be so strict."
***
After that brief conversation, Charlotte went back to the orphanage with the children and soon after that, Sian went back to Illianna.
"You seem pretty patient when it comes to kids."
"They're just brats, there's no point arguing with them or taking what they say seriously."
"Now that you've spent much of the morning playing around, how about helping me now?" Illianna said with a bored expression. "I've already enhanced the parts you prepared."
"Let's go." Sian said.
"Wait," Illianna stopped him. "Before that, I have some demands."
With a questioning look, Sian waited for her to continue.
"Initially, I intended to have you clear the land and organize it when we finish construction. But since we still have the issue of employees to resolve, the faster we finish the construction, the better. For that, just those 3 won't be enough, we'll need more workers."
"Is it just to do manual labor?" Sian asked.
"Yeah, it's just the basic tasks that require physical strength."
"That's simple to solve."
Sian took out 10 palm-sized rectangular silver plates from the magic bag and threw them on the ground. With a brief chanting from Sian, each of the magic blue stones in the center of the plates began to glow.
"What are those things?" Illianna frowned.
"Those are my modified golems."
Right after Sian's words, the blue glow of the stones spread to the plates. In a few seconds, the earth slowly began to gather around them and in less than a minute, 10 clay golems with 2 meters high were formed.
All had taken on a humanoid form, but while similar, they were very different in appearance from humans. All of them had sturdy bodies with long arms that thickened toward their ends.
Same as their arms, their legs were thicker towards the base of the oval shaped feet. As for the head, they didn't have one, all that was in its place was something that resembled a thick clay trunk with a flat top.
Looking surprised, Illianna turned to Sian. "If you had those things, why didn't you use them before?"
"Because this is a new version of the old ones. I needed to finish enhancing them." Sian handed a round copper plate to Illianna. "This here is for controlling them, but I'll say in advance, they can't do complex tasks, so there's no point in asking for things like knitting a sweater with a drawing on it."
"No, first of all, why would I even consider asking a golem to make a sweater? I know they wouldn't be able to."
"No, they can knit a sweater," Sian said proudly. "They just can't make a drawing on the sweater."
Looking puzzled by what she just heard, Illianna expressed her doubts. "From what I know, golems can only do simple tasks like, attack, hold, lift, and the like."
"That's why these little beauties are one of my masterpieces," Sian inflated his chest. "They can do varied and more difficult tasks than normal golems."
"Are you sure?" Illianna looked at him suspiciously. "If that's so, wouldn't that make them as advanced as the golems created by the leprechauns?"
"Well, I admit I used their research to create my own decision algorithm. But after I added the knowledge I gained from Ayze, mine became superior to theirs."
"Are you sure you used their research?" Illianna voiced her skepticism. "I've heard that other than the elves that protect them inside their territory, the leprechauns never share their engineering techniques with any other race."
"You're right when you said they don't share their research," Sian nodded. "That's why I had to steal it directly from the elves."
"D-did you steal the elves?!" With unsteady hands, Illianna nearly dropped the board that controls the golems.
The reason the usually calm Illianna was so exasperated was simple. Along with the dragonkins, the elves were one of the central continent's greatest war powers. Both races had countless means to defend their territory from invaders.
If that wasn't enough, the elves still had an unimaginably powerful guardian to protect them. With so much protection, even if someone managed to enter one of their restricted areas, it would be nearly impossible to leave alive.
"How did you manage to do that?!"
"At the cost of my near-death..." Sian felt chills throughout his body as he remembered how he was forced to desperately flee. "The matriarch of the elves has monstrous power. Although currently I think I can stay in equal terms with her, I hope I don't have to go back there anymore. Every damn place I stepped or touched had a damn magical formation ready to kill me."
"I don't understand, if you stole important research from them, why didn't they ask their Guardian to capture you?"
"It wasn't just one," Sian corrected her. "I stole as many as I could find, and I also took a few gallons of their water of life."
Satisfied by Illianna's perplexed expression, he continued. "And yes, they sent their guardian to chase me. As if out for a morning stroll, she quietly mopped the floor with me and made me return the things I stole. In the end, I still had to get down on my knees and apologize to the matriarch of the elves."
"You looted important treasures and only received this as punishment?!"
"How you can say 'only received this?' She broke almost every bone in my body," Sian retorted. "Luckily, I was able to copy the research."
"Instead of luck, you should be thankful that your teacher is a tremendously powerful dragon that would make people think twice before making an attempt on your life."
"Well, actually the guardian of the elves is also a dragon, so she wouldn't give a damn if my teacher is a dragon too. But she's a close friend of Ayze's and consequently an acquaintance of mine. Or rather, you could consider her to be partly my teacher as well. With that said, all I needed to do was use the good old bribe to get her to give me time to copy the research."
Trying to anticipate what she wanted to ask, Sian said. "If you're wondering why I got beat up even though we're acquaintances, well, it wasn't because I stole, it was because I got caught stealing."
With a dry laugh, he continued. "She said, 'It seems your skills are still lacking' then began a training session. Although it felt more like a torture session, everything ended well. After that, since she was acting as a guardian, she needed to keep up appearances, so I was forced to return the original research and some of the water I stole."
Speechless at the newly acquired information, Illianna struggled to utter her doubts. But apparently, she was still trying to digest what she had heard and remained as awestruck as a fish out of water.
***
"Here was I thinking you couldn't surprise me anymore. I have to admit, although in the wrong way, you are amazing..." Illianna expressed her admiration after recovering from her shock.
"Since I met you, I have my suspicions but," with a serious expression, her deep blue eyes looked directly into Sian's, "Are you the Divine Child?"
"No," Sian denied promptly. "Why did you come up with that out of the blue?"
"Considering all you're capable of, you're not a normal human."
"Well, you're not normal either."
"Of course I'm not, besides being amazing, I was also chosen by the gods and received unique skills. That's why I think you, a person who can do almost anything you want with magic, might be the Divine Child."
"Even if you say that, everything I have achieved is thanks to Ayze and my efforts."
"If that was all it was, that would be fine, but you're 25 years old. That means you were born in 113 382, right?"
"Yes," Sian confirmed.
Illianna's doubt was justifiable, after all, Sian's birth year coincided with the year the search for the divine child began.
Twenty-five years ago, the Gods sent an oracle that left the whole world in an uproar. They said that a 'Divine Child' had been born and that it would be a being of great importance to the future of the world. Because of that, they needed it to be found.
But even after a vigorous search that has scoured every corner of the world, that child has not been found. Despite that, even though many years have passed, the search has not stopped.
The reason for this was simple, during the request to find the Divine Child, that was the first time ever that all the oracles of the world were contacted at the same time. No matter which God was worshiped, be it the major or minor ones, all the oracles received the same message from the God who commanded the Gods, the God of Light.
Making people even more agitated, unlike the other enigmatic messages the gods always sent, this one was different. It was the first time the gods had sent a clear, concise, and easily understood message that got to the point.
In the 25 years of searching, even Sian himself and the children of the orphanage he grew up in were tested several times by the people of the church.
"Are you sure it's not you?" Illianna looked skeptical.
"I'm absolutely sure. I was also tested and it was negative."
"Since you had the same problem as Emily, isn't there a possibility that the test charged false because your mana receptacle was empty?"
"The church minions were warned about my problem, but they said that was a tool to sense divine power and not mana. I heard that all oracles were given similar tools sent by the gods."
"I've heard about it, but for the Gods to get to that point, I wonder how important this so-called Divine Child is." Illianna stood thoughtfully.
"For beings worshiped as powerful and divine, it's a shame they can't find a child." Sian shook his head in disapproval.
"There must be some circumstance they haven't talked about, but it's not for us to dwell on that, let's get back to work." Illianna urged.
Because she wanted to catch up and advance on the planned schedule, Illianna made Sian work even more. He was even deprived of his midday nap, preventing himself from distraction or idle talk.
Keeping a brisk pace, they quickly finished the slab of the top floor of the basement and began work on the structure of the next floor, stopping only at nightfall.