Originally, in Leah’s plan, this matter should have had a rather “perfect” ending.
The kind hero, with the help of his adorable Pupu companions, would find the mastermind behind the scenes.
They would kill the culprit in the name of the Demon King, shaking the Thousand Rivers Territory to its core.
The nobles, terrified by the lingering prestige of the Demon King, would surrender to the hero.
The City Guard, who had originally been slacking off, would become high-spirited and rescue the disaster victims from the river.
Peace and harmony would return to the world.
—This was the story she had originally planned to show the hero.
But in reality, there were no fairy tales.
The City Guard fooled the nobles, the nobles fooled the lord, the lord fooled the emperor, and was Leah herself not also fooling the hero?
The moment she heard the reason “Magic Slaves replacing farming,” Leah realized instantly that this matter could not be resolved properly.
If the person competing with her were simply targeting the hero, it would be easy to handle: just kill the mastermind and be done with it.
But if it was for profit, for making money, then the situation would fall into a dead end.
A competent merchant would not just make money for themselves; they would set up a scheme and invite all the powerful elites to participate.
By doing so, their position—representing the interests of the powerful—would be secure, and the scheme itself would become indestructible.
In fact, that was exactly what happened.
Jera was cunning enough not to hog all the profits.
Instead, she generously handed over the “land annexation” part of the business to various nobles.
In this way, the plan could proceed rapidly, and all the nobles would naturally become her allies.
At this point, anyone wanting to save the disaster victims would be setting themselves against the entire Thousand Rivers Territory.
It was just as Jera had said: “It’s not that we are targeting the hero; it’s the hero who is targeting us.”
Even if Jera died, the remaining people would simply elect a new leader and keep the plan moving forward.
Jon indeed had the power to break the deadlock—he could easily use the Demon King’s name as a pretext to slaughter every noble in the Thousand Rivers Territory and then reintegrate the local forces himself.
The problem, however, was that time was running out.
The golden window for flood rescue is the first seventy-two hours.
The further it went, the more the survival rate would plummet.
Nearly half a day had already passed.
By the time Jon finished killing the nobles one by one and calmed the City Guard units across the land… the victims would likely all be dead.
The final result might not even be as good as letting the guards continue their slothful work.
In Leah’s original calculations, accompanying the hero to kill the “mastermind” and doubling or tripling the number of people saved would already be an incredible improvement.
Surely that would be enough to appease the hero, right?
But Leah never expected that she had performed too well before, teaching the idiot hero how to be clever.
He seemed to have realized a deeper problem.
It wasn’t that someone had a grudge against him, or even that someone had a grudge against the victims, but… the nobles of the Thousand Rivers Territory felt that “high-efficiency Magic Slaves” could replace “low-efficiency Dust People.”
They wanted to turn the cold corpses of disaster victims into warm Gold Kourons.
More terrifying than malice was the sentiment: ‘The Lord doesn’t care.’
Jon never took off that suit of armor.
The pitch-black spines rose from his back, making him look like a predatory beast about to devour someone.
“Development, development… just because they’re useless, they deserve to die?”
He muttered to himself, his raspy voice mixing with an indescribable emotion.
It was like a fire that had just gone out, a flickering glimmer in the charcoal.
“Um…”
Leah didn’t know how to comfort him.
At the end of the day, even she felt the situation was hopeless.
Compared to those fools who naively believed “Magic Slaves replacing farming” would succeed, Leah was more clear-headed.
She knew exactly what kind of mess this ridiculous concept would eventually become.
But there was no helping it.
That was how the world worked—mistake after mistake, link after link.
Until the final result came out, nobody knew what was right.
If you won, you were an emperor for the ages; if you lost, you were just a group of amateurs.
There was always a way to find an explanation.
As for those who bore the cost of the trial and error along the way…
They could only “watch the bitterness and swallow their tears,” becoming a string of cold numbers in history books.
All beautiful memories would eventually wither in time, like tears lost in the rain.
Growth was inevitably accompanied by powerlessness and pain.
But seeing Jon like this, Leah couldn’t find it in her heart to be happy.
She couldn’t help but feel downcast along with him.
Thus, Leah hopped onto the grass and picked up a Pupu. With a few quick movements, she used [Modification] to mold the Pupu into a brand-new shape.
“Ha~”
She took a deep breath, her petite body puffing up.
“Hoo~”
She blew all the air into the Pupu’s body.
After a few breaths, the Pupu inflated, taking on a shape like a tire.
The Pupu’s dim-witted eyes rolled around curiously.
When it hit the ground, it bounced like a ball with a duang, duang sound.
Finally, it leapt into the nearby stream, floating on the surface and swimming rapidly.
“Friend! Friend! Look! A Pupu Lifebuoy!”
Leah tapped on Jon’s helmet and pointed at the Pupu Lifebuoy like she was presenting a treasure, attempting to cheer him up.
“As long as you put this around your waist… even people who can’t swim or are exhausted can move freely on the water.”
She explained how to use it with a flowering smile.
It was impossible to tell what kind of expression was behind the helmet.
Jon stared blankly at that Pupu.
Unexpectedly, three seconds later, Jon said something that both surprised and impressed Leah.
“Lili, can you make the Pupus into an inflatable shape like this, but one that can be worn like clothes?”
“Gua?”
Leah’s pink eyes widened.
—The idiot hero had been pushed to a dead end and invented the life jacket a generation early?
‘Hmm, it seems possible! Lili will try!’
With that, Leah used [Modification] again, molding another Pupu into the shape of inflatable clothing.
Then, after another round of “Ha~” and “Hoo~” inhaling and exhaling, a Pupu Life Jacket was finished.
Jon picked up the Pupu Life Jacket, his voice sounding a bit more relieved.
“If we have enough of these, even people with weak physical strength can go into the water to help. We won’t need the nobles or the City Guard; the Dust People can save themselves!”
Leah’s scalp tingled slightly.
With her current command reach, as long as she raised the rank of the Queen Pupus, mass production wasn’t impossible, but…
It would be very tiring.
Fine.
She would treat it as coaxing the idiot hero to keep him from losing his mind and destroying the world.
“Lili needs magic crystals!”
She hopped twice and proactively stated her condition.
“Friend! Lili needs lots of magic crystals to raise the level of the Pupu friends!”
“Would the consumable magic crystals in the City Guard’s logistics department work?”
Jon’s fighting spirit was reignited.
“Yes!”
“I’ll go empty out their logistics department for you.”
Jon was about to leave immediately, but Leah quickly pulled him back.
“Wait, wait! Remember to leave a trail! Once you’re done moving things, write on the wall: ‘Demon King Leah was here’!”
“Good idea.”
Jon gave a thumbs-up.
In the next second, Jon disappeared from the spot.
Amira, who had been secretly trying to escape halfway through, was tossed back by Jon as he passed by, leaving her to stare blankly at Leah.
“So you really were the one playing the Demon King?”
An awkward Amira tried to strike up a conversation with Leah.
“You played it so well! So majestic! Hey… um, I need to use the bathroom. Can I leave for a bit? Just a bit! Seriously!”
“Heh~”
Leah gave a contemptuous sneer, not bothering to acknowledge her.
She lowered her head and continued to ponder how to improve the Pupu Life Jacket.