Chapter 77 Beef My Wasteland Ep. 3 - Water And Electricity
"Wait... what?" Leon asked while staring at Auburn with shakey eyes.
"I lost a bet with your god." Auburn replied with a salty expression. She averted her gaze while fidgeting with a long lock of curly hair nervously, "So I have to work for you"
Leon scoffed in disbelief. "You don't have to work for me. I'll never accept a woman in Harem City if she doesn't want to be here, let alone make one work for me against her will."
Auburn's eyes widened in shock. "You do understand I'm a Level 281 demigod, yes?"
"Of course." He laughed breathlessly, "You keep acting as if that impresses me. Valuable asset? Sure. But if you look down upon me and my women, you're less than nothing to me."
Her eyes widened in shock, and her eyes filled with humiliation. "You understand you're courting death speaking to veteran candidates like that, right? Not everyone is as stupid as Anya."
"Courting death?" Leon chuckled, "We can't stop any veteran demigod from attacking us. So if you want to attack us, we'll have to face you regardless. So don't call me stupid."
Auburn scoffed and turned away. "You're naive."
"And you're just as stupid as Anya for underestimating me and just as shameless as Freyja for threatening my death because I wouldn't sleep with you. " Leon laughed while turning away his head.
Her eyes widened in shock before developing a wry smile and turning away in apologetic shame.
"Now, if you want to be part of Harem City, you're welcome." Leon said in a serious tone.
Auburn looked at him in confusion. 𝗳𝓇ℯe𝓌𝚎𝚋𝓃𝚘𝚟𝘦𝑙.𝑐𝚘𝙢
"Haremite is a term for citizen." He explained while walking away, "And if you join us, you can enjoy the luxuries we provide. Leave if you're not interested, but consider sticking around to see what we're building."
Auburn watched his back with a wry smile. She didn't like the blatant humiliation she faced in the Forbidden Library, but she deserved it. Leon didn't ask for her to play games with him, but he was still courteous. So she decided to continue listening to what they were building.
When he reached his next target, Leon took a deep breath to regain focus and then began asking her questions with a smile.
"Is this really necessary?" Cynthia asked with an annoyed expression.
"Let me ask you, Cynthia." Leon said with a charming smile, looking into her amethyst eyes.
"Do you find this exclusively inefficient, or are you afraid to show off your incredible skills on camera?"
The elf's eyes widened in shock, and she blushed lightly, turning away. She returned her eyes with a murderous expression.
Gift notifications flashed in the corner of Cynthia's eyes. One was from Loki, a t-shirt that said [Judge Me, I'm a Tsundere].
Now that she knew what that word meant, she took a deep breath with a crazed expression.
"See? People love you. Now please, tell me what you're doing." Leon chuckled.
Cynthia now understood Leon's game, so she complied.
"Right now, we have the five electricity mages and five architects appraising the buildings around this park." She said in defeat.
"We'll need to reappraise the piping in the area and the electric circuits to figure out which buildings are worth renovating into housing and stores.
We also have five architects working with other mages to build a water tower to the south."
The elf pointed to a group of women processing metal sheets delivered from the wreckage team and shaping them into curved pieces that would eventually be fused to make a dome at the top of a tower.
"Is it really possible to restore water faucets and electricity to the city in the apocalypse?" Quinn asked.
"Is that for the viewers, or are you just asking a stupid question?" Cynthia asked in annoyance.
The redhead's eyes trembled, and she turned away in anger. It was a normal question! Most people would ask the same thing!
Cynthia glanced at Leon, who was giving her a mocking smile. She took a deep breath and explained.
"Anything existing before the apocalypse can logically exist after it, yes?" The elf asked rhetorically.
"Of course." Quinn replied dryly.
"It's just a matter of understanding how it works and how to recreate it." Cynthia continued, "Luckily, we have 25 people that can do just that."
"Let's start with the water tower. What are they used for?" Quinn asked.
"Go ask them yourselves." The elf snapped before turning around and walking away.
Leon chuckled, "We'll come back when we talk about city planning."
The redhead took a deep breath and nodded with vicious green eyes. She stormed over to the group of architects.
"Can you explain what's going on, by chance, Layla?" Quinn asked.
A human woman with a shaved head nodded.
"We're creating a water tower using metal processed by the wreckage repurposing team." Layla explained, "We're currently taking anti-bacterial steel and shaping it."
Blue light illuminated the area as a woman took a metal sheet and cast a spell on it. It immediately curved at a perfectly smoothed area. The curve was extremely subtle but elegant.
"Since we cannot create sheets of metal large enough to turn into a dome yet, we are using a magic blueprint to keep the curvature constant, so it eventually creates a circle." Layla explained, "Then Klash connects the two pieces to weld them together."
Klash, a green battle orc that slaughtered flying creatures en masse during the Paradise Road event, put her hands on metal two people held together with gloves.
"Blue Fire Wall." She gruffed.
A cute, miniature wall of fire spread across the two pieces of metal, melting them at the center. Then the two people pressed the two pieces together.
"Usually, welders rock back and forth, creating a bead that fuses the two pieces together." Layla continued, "However, we're adding another two inches on each side so the melted metal can fuse directly, making it stronger."
"Wow…." Quinn said in amazement. The skill that the fire orc showcased in using battle magic to a precise degree alone was amazing.
"What is the purpose of the water tower? I've always been curious."
Layla nodded and explained.
"Water in faucets is constantly present." She explained, "Gravity presses down on water forces it into a building's pipes at all time. When someone turns on the faucet, it simply releases the water at the rate that the faucet head allows it to."
It was a beautifully simple concept, but it was something that most people didn't know.
"Water towers are high up on the ground. When the water drops from the top, the gravity pushes it down in the pipes, keeping the pressure high at all times." Layla continued.
"That's how the pipes retain water. We'll pump water into the tower from a reservoir we're building to the north in the future to the top. It will constantly supply water and refill as people take showers."
"D-Did you just say showers?" Quinn asked in disbelief.
Layla gave her a knowing smile. "Of course. It's just another pipe on a faucet with multiple holes."
"How long with this take?" Leon asked in interest.
"The longest part will be rebuilding the pipe network and setting up the faucets." Layla replied.
"But for now, we're creating a public shower building we'll connect by week's end.
Once that's done, we'll open the top of the tower, and water mages will create water, filling the tower, which will supply cold water for a week.
Once a day, we'll have the fire mages like Klash heat the water in the shower building, allowing everyone to take hot showers."
"Hear that, women?" Leon asked with a grin, "If you come to Harem City, you'll have a hot shower when you show up."
The haremites following him burst into laughter. Everyone watching the city forecast around the world was stunned. Leon now had fifteen thousand candidate followers and a hundred thousand god followers, so word spread quickly.
"I can't believe we'll be able to shower." Quinn said with sparkling eyes.
"Me either," Layla chuckled, "Magic is something else. It's unbelievable, but I'm not complaining."
"Me either." The redhead replied, "Now we'll move on and talk to Angelica working on electricity."
Leon, Quinn, and the haremites strolled over to Regina, a short Hispanic woman with beautiful olive skin, dark black hair, and brown eyes.
"Hello, Angelica." Quinn said with a smile.
"Hi, Quinn, and L-Leon." Angelica replied, noticing him for the first time. He wasn't a scary figure, but he was larger than life.
The man felt more like a military general than a normal politician, so he caught her off guard.
"Don't mind me." Leon chuckled, "You're doing great work. We're just interviewing people on the process for our live broadcast."
Angelica's eyes widened. That pressure was worse!
"Don't worry, everyone's eyes are on me." Leon laughed, "They get close ups every few seconds, watching my eyes glaze over as people explain smart people stuff to me."
Everyone burst into laughter.
"Okay, then I'll explain smart people stuff." Angelica giggled, triggering more laughter.
"The wreckage processing team is sending us raw copper, and our mages are processing it into wires. They're connected, creating a grid.
Once established, electricity is supplied to the wires around the clock like water in pipes. Just as water flows out when someone flips the faucet, electricity flows out when someone flips a switch.
The only difference is that two wires connect to allow energy to reach the light bulb."
"That sounds… too simplistic." Quinn laughed.
"It's as simple as it sounds." Angelica giggled.
"It's just incredibly difficult to create. Without magic, an engine has a wheel that has to spin at an ultra-precise rate around the clock to supply energy and not create more electricity than electronics can handle.
It requires constant resources and machinery, but with magic, we can just supply electricity at a precise rate out of thin air.
So until we procure and build generators, we can supply the city electricity during night shifts."
"How long will it take to creating lighting for the salvageable buildings?" Leon asked curiously.
"A few days." Angelica announced excitedly, "We have an entire city to find working products. So we'll have main buildings up and running almost immediately."
"Do you hear that, ladies?" Leon asked the sky with a charming smile, "Showers and electricity. So hurry over to Harem City. It's magical."
—
[A/N: I'm accepting feedback on how in-depth the information should be. If it confuses you, let me know immediately! I don't want anyone's eyes to glaze over.
Disclaimer: While I'm not an expert in any of these subjects, everything I've written is at least 75% true. But I don't go around riddling off "facts" you got from a harem web novel XD. Enjoy!]