Tap the text to show or hide reading controls.
“S…so amazing…”
A voice suddenly came from behind me, so I turned around to see Monaka standing there with her mouth hanging open.
“D-did you build this, Leo-kun?”
“Yeah. I did.”
“It’s still not even noon… and yet… and yet…”
Monaka’s face flushed a rosy pink.
“A house this splendid…!? You’re amazing, amazing—amazing! Leo-kun, you’re just too incredible!”
Her eyes glistened as she made a tiny victory fist in front of her chest.
She acted so composed in front of other classmates, but in front of me she got unusually excited.
“If you like it that much, want me to build your house too, Monaka?”
Monaka blinked blankly.
“Huh? W-would that really be all right…?”
So I loaded newly felled lumber onto the handcart and left the forest with Monaka.
A huge crowd had gathered at the plot belonging to Monaka’s class, Class 1-02.
Onesuko—who called herself Monaka’s attendant—stood atop a rock and explained things to the people around her.
“I understand how everyone feels about wanting to provide Monaka-sama with a residence! But Monaka-sama is a future Great Saint, so her home has to be proper! So starting now, I will judge the houses you all build! We’ll choose the best one to become Monaka-sama’s residence!”
“All right! Let’s do this!”
“If I build a house with my top-tier construction skills, Monaka-sama is sure to like it!”
“Not so fast! Monaka-sama is going to live in our house! If Monaka-sama approves of us, we’ve basically won academy life from here on out!”
“We can’t lose to other classes! It’s time to show the power of us ‘production types’! Let’s work together and build the best house there is!”
It looked like some kind of building tournament for Monaka had begun.
But Monaka herself was glued to my side, apparently unaware of what was going on around us.
Figuring it didn’t really matter, I unloaded lumber from the handcart and began preparing to build.
Then mocking laughter rose up from around me.
“Hey, look at that! The trash guy’s joining the building contest too!”
“What an idiot—what’s he gonna do all by himself?”
“We’ve got construction skills and classmates helping us. This won’t even be a contest!”
“Bet the best he can do is build a doghouse! Then we’ll all laugh at him!”
But the moment the foundation started taking shape, all that laughter vanished.
“N-no… you’ve gotta be kidding…”
“How can he make a foundation that solid…?”
“Is that foundation… a two-story build!?”
“No way! Even us with building skills can barely manage a one-story shack! That’s a real house!”
“D-don’t mess with us! An unemployed nobody can’t be building houses! That’d make us ‘pros’ look like a joke!”
While they were still in an uproar, the house was finished.
I looked up at it and nodded.
“Yeah… it’ll do.”
I had found a Kinohi tree—high-end lumber—in the forest, so I used it for this house.
A Kinohi House seemed perfect for a refined young lady like Monaka.
She pressed close beside me, looking up with eyes wet with emotion.
“Leo-kun, thank you so much for such a wonderful house! I never imagined I’d receive another gift from you… I’m so, so happy!”
As if trying to contain her overflowing feelings, Monaka pressed both hands tightly to her chest.
“And you really worked so hard! Ah—your face is dirty, so let me wipe it for you!”
She pulled a white handkerchief from her uniform pocket, rose up on tiptoe, and dabbed at my face.
“Getting dirty is like a carpenter’s badge of honor, so it’s fine. Besides, if you get that close, the smell will rub off on you.”
“Hehe, Leo-kun’s smell is more than welcome! And when we were little, I used to do this a lot—bury my face like this…”
Smiling, Monaka lowered her face into my dusty, sweat-soaked shirt and started sniffing—sniff sniff.
But halfway through, she suddenly froze.
“S-sorry! I can’t believe I did something so rude…!”
As if horrified by her own excitement, she backed away with her ears bright red.
More importantly, I realized something—far too late.
Compared to the house I had just built, the houses the new students had made were unbelievably shabby.
The area looked like a slum.
Well, kids who had lived pampered lives until now were suddenly being forced into self-sufficiency, so it wasn’t surprising…
I used Appraisal on a nearby shack that looked like it might collapse at any moment.
“This is awful.”
I muttered before I could stop myself.
They probably hadn’t even selected their lumber—just used whatever trees happened to be nearby, even if they weren’t suitable as building material.
On top of that, the processing was sloppy, and the joinery and finishing were amateurish.
“At this rate, one small earthquake and they’re all done…”
Muttering to myself, I lightly pushed on the shack’s wall.
Then—
…CRASH-BANG!
The shack collapsed instantly, folding in on itself.
Worse than that, the impact knocked over the neighboring houses one after another.
Before I knew it, the entire “slum” of houses had toppled like dominos.
Everything returned to bare ground—except for the house I had built.
The new students crumpled to their knees like people whose homes had burned down in a fire.
“Ah… aaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!?!”
“M-my house! My house I finally built!”
“I worked so hard for hours to make it…!”
“Waaaaah! Moooooom!”
I felt bad enough that I considered teaching them how to build properly, but…
“Ugh… losing to an unemployed trash guy…”
“This has to be some kind of mistake! There’s no way trash can build a house like that!”
“Damn it! If it wasn’t Monaka-sama’s house, I’d burn it down!”
People were saying things like that all over the place, so my guilt vanished.
Reading Settings
