The Ethersmith Novel B2 Chapter 42 - Rebuild and Recover

Vivi lifted the odd bar that had a weight on each side. She lowered it down, and she lifted it again.

Lucas had called it a “dumbbell.” It was an exercise device to gain strength back. Vivi was supposed to lower down to a squat with it in her hands, using no ether, and then stand back up a total of ten tis. And with a lighter dumbbell she was supposed to strengthen her arms alone, lifting it up and down.

The lighter dumbbell had been too weak for that, so Vivi just used the heavier one for her arms. And for the squat things, instead of doing ten, she did a hundred to get a bit closer to exhaustion. She did the exercises, mildly out of breath, but far from spent, and placed down the dumbbell.

Then collapsed onto bed, burying her face on her pillow.

She stayed there for an hour, doing nothing at all. This had been her daily routine for a few days now. She ate with Senith, talked to her a bit, and she did her exercises to recover her muscles. With everything done, she lay in bed for the rest of the day, doing nothing at all.

“Vivi…?” Lucius asked with a quiet voice after another fifteen minutes of burying her face in the pillow. “This might be a weird question, but… Are you still dying?”

What is that supposed to an? Vivi asked.

Lucius thought about his words for a mont. “You’ve been quiet. You’re not enthusiastic about learning. You’re eating the bare minimum every day. You stay in bed for hours upon hours. We are millionaires of ether, but you don’t seem to care? There must be sothing wrong with your body. An illness?”

You’re a funny cat, Lucius.

He blinked in confusion. Ythar bless him, Lucius genuinely didn’t understand humans.

Not that Vivi understood herself either. The last two days in the Nemonns’ mansion had been tireso. The dark cloud had mostly cleared from her head, but it had been replaced with sothing. Not a deep gloominess, but just a constant feeling of tiredness.

Her smithy was still being repaired. Lucas had offered to bring her to another smithy if she wanted to continue working, but Vivi felt too tired.

Nobody questioned her. They just let her sleep and recover from abusing ether. Except for Lucius, of course, who kept pestering her.

My head is just clogged up, Vivi tried to explain. She turned around and lay on her back, eyes looking up. It’s a slump.

Lucius crossed his paws, frowning at her. “Vivi, you haven’t moved out of this room in days. You must be ill.”

Vivi sighed. In a way, Lucius was right. She hadn’t really done much of anything throughout the last few days except eat and talk with Senith. She had channeled ether a little every day to keep Lucius satisfied, but practice had only mild progress.

“Sorry,” she said. “I guess I have been a bit pathetic?”

“You are not pathetic!” Lucius said. “I don’t understand why you keep saying that! You are a millionaire. The best runesmith in the world! You’re the last person who can be called pathetic! You must be dying sohow. There’s no other explanation for your condition.”

“Ether has nothing to do with one’s worth,” Vivi said. “That was true when I had minus hundred thousand ether, and it’s still true when I have a million.”

Suddenly, Vivi’s door opened. She flinched.

“That’s… Surprisingly wise,” Senith said. “Were you talking with Lucius again?”

“Yes,” Vivi said, but got out of bed. “Please don’t eavesdrop on us.”

“Sorry,” Senith said with an awkward smile.

Yesterday, Lucius had decided to introduce himself to Lucas when Vivi and he were talking. Lucius had probably been bored. Not that he wasn’t allowed to show himself—Vivi had agreed that Lucius was allowed to be present. Explaining his presence to Lucas had been an embarrassing conversation, but nobody seed surprised or doubtful about Lucius’s identity.

“I still can’t believe you’re connected to a demigods’ spirit,” Senith said. After a pause, she added, “What was that about debt? A hundred thousand?”

“I was born in debt,” Vivi said. “I never owned a single wisp of ether until I was seventeen. I had to fight for my right to live in a dungeon.”

Senith blinked. “Seriously?”

Vivi shrugged. “It’s over now. I don’t need to worry about it.”

“Wow.” Senith was lost for words. “Vivi… How does everything that happens in your life make

want to cry?”

“Please don’t cry for

anymore,” Vivi said.

“Will a hug suffice?”

“Sure…” Vivi looked away.

Senith wrapped herself around Vivi. The noblewoman had given Vivi an embarrassing amount of hugs throughout the last two days. Any ti Vivi tried to hide herself in a corner, Senith was the one to seek her out, forcing her away from her dark thoughts.

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Eventually, Senith let go of the hug. “Sorry. I’m a bit annoying, aren’t I?”

“No,” Vivi said. “You’re not.”

“I just can’t help it,” Senith said. “It’s embarrassing, I know. Everyone says I’m too emotional. Every ti I see you, my eyes start welling up. I feel like I have to hug you, or you might disappear. I’m not even the one who lived through tragedies, but I’m the one who feels bad?” She took a deep breath. “I’ll try to stop ambushing you with hugs, Vivi, I know you don’t like them.”

“No, don’t stop,” Lucius said. “Every ti you ambush her, light returns to her head. Please ambush her again.”

“Lucius!” Vivi’s face reddened like a beet. She grabbed Lucius and pressed him back to her chest.

“That’s just the truth,” Lucius called, his voice echoing from her core. “Vivi definitely likes hugs!”

Senith, Vivi realized, was red as well. “So… I’ve helped you feel better?”

Gods, Vivi felt so stupid. “You have helped a lot. Thank you.”

A few tears were welling up on Senith’s eyes. She laughed, wiped her eyes, and said, “Sorry.”

Silly woman, Vivi thought, but smiled.

“The workload is done, by the way,” Senith said.

“What’s done?”

“The Lost Raindrop,” Senith said. “Everything is done. I ca here to say we’re ready to show it to you.”

Vivi lifted her head.

“We did our best to replace everything,” Senith said. “The n missed half of the details, of course, but I did my best to help. I tried to add so order and character into the shop. It’s not perfect, but I hope you’ll like it.”

It won’t be the sa, Vivi thought. The Lost Raindrop was Vivi’s smithy because she built it. Nothing in her smithy was expensive. Everything was a result of Vivi’s shopping spree.

Knowing Lucas and Anthony, they had probably improved the facilities and made the place look nice, but everything Vivi herself had worked for was lost. The smithy just wouldn’t be the sa.

But Senith had also worked hard to rebuild it. Vivi had to at least check out the results of her effort.

Hauling herself out from the room took so effort, but with Senith next to her, Vivi had more energy than usual. Senith’s smiles were the type that spread. Vivi just couldn't’ feel down around her, if only because Vivi’s sadness would spread and overpower Senith’s happiness.

A carriage already waited for them outside with two drivers and another two guardsn accompanying the ride. As always, the nobles took excessive asures for sothing as simple as transport.

“Lucas insisted on adding surgeways and pipes underneath, and upgrading the building itself, just so it doesn’t collapse.” Senith smiled awkwardly. “I also added a few… details I thought you’d like. I hope we didn’t go overboard. We tried to stay faithful to the original store.”

Vivi didn’t have high hopes. The Lost Raindrop she knew was gone. Regardless, she said, “I appreciate it.”

They arrived fifteen minutes later. Senith looked nervous and excited at the sa ti. She grabbed a blindfold and insisted Vivi put it on.

With Vivi’s eyes covered, she was led out down the steps of the carriage. Sniffing the air, the Lowmoor district slled less like booze and more like fresh construction: there was a lot of dust and sand in the air combined with the scent of new wood.

“Ready?” Senith asked. “Surprise!”

The blindfold flung off, revealing the block of a house Vivi called her ho.

The door had been fixed and replaced. The rolled roof was slanted, making the building have a little more depth. The walls themselves were a lot smoother with a fresher color. The entire building seed to have been renovated.

Surprisingly, the house still looked like her ho. The art on the facade had been kept and strengthened, clearly done by the sa artist Vivi had hired. More rain droplets had been painted across the walls. The banner above the doors was new, but it followed the sa design Vivi had drawn on her old one, just with slightly more sophisticated text.

The street itself leading to the store was improved. The crumbling cobblestone path had been upgraded to a paved street. Construction workers and a lot of n stood nervously on both sides of the street. The widest grin ca from Eli. He was waving at Vivi.

“That man helped us a lot with the design,” Senith said. “He claid the store was nad the Lost Raindrop for a reason.”

Vivi raised her eyebrows, genuinely surprised. The outside of her store looked good. Really good.

“Shall we head inside?” Senith asked with a grin. She took Vivi’s hand and opened the door.

Peeking into her smithy, freshly renovated, having received far more care than it deserved, Vivi paused at the doors.

The decorations and colors had turned into a lighter shade of blue. The lamp was a little brighter than Vivi’s old one. The weapon display rack was more expensive with more layers. The counter no longer slled like old wood.

But this was definitely her smithy.

The walls were adorned with not one, but two paintings of rainfall—ones that actually looked good. The layout was loyal to Vivi’s original smithy with decoration and knick-knack placed on the sa spots Vivi had decorated. The curtain separating the smithy and the store was a cute blue one.

Everything was in order. Vivi couldn’t believe it, but the store actually looked good.

On the round table was a plushie. Vivi picked it up. It was a weird mixture of a fox and a cat with a cute face. The fox sat upright, holding an umbrella, and wearing a miniature grey raincoat. Vivi’s mouth hung open.

“I picked that one,” Senith said with a grin. “I also wanted to add a small fountain that actually sprays water on it, but that was apparently too much. I hope this is—”

Vivi hugged her. Her vision blurred, and her throat was tight. This ti, the pressure didn’t push at her in a way that ate her soul. She wasn’t shaking. The tears ca through a different feeling entirely.

It still felt embarrassing to cry.

“Do you, um, like it?” Senith asked.

“It’s beautiful,” Vivi said. “Thank you. So much.”

Senith smiled awkwardly. For once, the Senith didn’t seem to know what to do with Vivi.

Lucas stepped in. “The business is ready to open again. We also handled taxes, and I hired a butler to handle custors at the doors. I heard you had a problem with alcoholics trying to enter. That should be fixed. We didn’t hire a clerk, since Eli claid Lucius had that position covered.”

Lucius flew from Vivi’s core proudly. “Hehee.”

“The bigger concern I have is the smithy itself,” Lucas said. “None of us have the faintest clue on how an inside-carving runesmith operates. We knew you required a blacksmithing forge, but we might need to work together to rebuild so of these facilities.”

He opened the curtains to the smithy. Vivi followed him.

Her bed had been rebuilt with a soft mattress and a woolen blanket. Vivi’s dress, the one she’d bought from the Threads and—whatever the shop’s na was—was sohow back in one piece. It looked like they’d bought a new one of the sa make and size. Lucius’s duck statue had been rebuilt, which prompted an “Oooh!” out of the spirit.

A small extension had been built into the house itself at the back. An open door revealed what looked like a bathroom.

Mostly, however, the smithy was already functional. Vivi summoned her tools from spatial storage and laid them out to their spots. Her tools had been kept in spatial storage for the competition while the house was raided.

“Thank you, Lucas,” Vivi said. “And thanks to everyone who worked on rebuilding this. I don’t know how I’ll repay this.”

“As far as I’m concerned, you’ve already repaid us with the sword you sold,” Lucas said. “We’ll gladly buy more if you put the smithy to use.”

Vivi bowed. “Yes! I will. Lucius, let’s get to work!”