After Yuuji left, Yami stayed in the Amazon village doing absolutely nothing.
Out of respect for Yuuji, Yami was escorted directly by Reina, the queen of the Amazon tribe, and was even seated in a place next to the royal throne.
There, Yami simply sat without speaking, eating a taiyaki that no one understood where it came from.
"Queen, the houses are collapsing!"
"Queen, the reconstruction is progressing slowly!"
"Queen, the meat is going bad!"
"Queen, the celebration is not worthy!"
"Queen..."
"Queen..."
Or at least that was her intention, but after ten minutes of listening to the warriors' complaints to Reina and Reina's useless responses, things like "build them better" or "bury it so it does not rot", she got fed up and could not help but mutter with irritation.
"What a mess"
And despite saying it quietly, Reina, right beside her, heard it perfectly.
"'What a mess?'"
"Nn" Yami nodded before taking another bite of her food, once she swallowed, she finished speaking. "Your village is a mess."
"What do you mean by that?! We all work very hard to maintain the village!" Reina shot back angrily.
"What is the point of working hard if you are an idiot?" Yami said, not really trying to offend, simply being direct.
"Oh yeah? Then show us!"
Yami frowned, feeling it was a hassle, but at the same time she knew it was something she caused, the fact that Yami hurts others by accident does not mean she does not notice, it just happens to be her personality and, even if she knows it is wrong, she cannot change it.
In the end, she could only nod, regretting not staying quiet.
"Alright"
...
"What happened?" she asked upon seeing the large number of collapsed houses and others under reconstruction.
"There was a storm recently" Reina replied.
"I see"
"Then show us how to do it, us idiots"
Yami frowned, sensing the provocation, but since it was something she herself had started, she could not complain.
Instead, she approached one of the houses under reconstruction, where several people were carrying logs in groups.
They were all logs from nearby trees, so they were quite thick, long, and heavy, this made it necessary for almost ten people to carry just one.
Yami approached them and, before they could react or understand what she wanted, her hair transformed into a giant hand that grabbed the log with ease and carried it to its destination.
Something that was not hard to find, since there was a rectangle drawn with four holes at its corners.
Clearly, their plan was simply to plant four logs, then add horizontal ones for the perimeter and finally fill the area with some material from the forest that Yami assumed they would not be stupid enough to make out of leaves.
Once in front of the hole, Yami buried the log with ease, but when she felt it moved easily, she transformed her hair into a giant hammer and drove it even deeper.
Under the amazement of the others, she repeated the process three more times, filling the four holes with the huge logs by herself.
But while everyone around her was amazed by the feat, Reina was not happy at all.
"That is impossible, it is not because we are idiots, it is just that we cannot do that" Reina replied.
"Oh" Yami opened her mouth in surprise for a moment, realizing she was right.
"Then I will simply help you" she said after thinking for a moment.
Without giving Reina time to respond, wings appeared on her back allowing more agile movement, she transformed her hair into several hands that spread across the destroyed area, repeating the process like a machine.
The arms moved all over the place, grabbing the logs others were carrying and placing them into position.
She did not stop there, when she finished, she cleared the destroyed houses from the area and transformed her hair into other tools like saws or similar to cut trees, split them, and strip them before repeating the previous process.
Then, she assembled the entire frame of the houses with other logs she cut herself, completing all the structures.
"Done" she said, after doing in one hour what would normally take the entire tribe days.
"Amazing!"
"She is a goddess!"
"The goddess of construction!"
"Thank you!"
"Thank you so much!"
"Thanks to the goddess!"
Everyone immediately began praising her, and Yami, satisfied, looked at Reina with a bit of smugness.
But Reina still did not look impressed.
"As I said, that is not because we are idiots, it is just that you are more powerful" Reina explained dismissively, but then her expression changed immediately, she no longer looked like an offended girl, but like a queen concerned for her people. "Even so, thank you very much, you have helped the village and we will remember this favor."
"...Alright" Yami said indifferently after a brief surprise.
"Good! This is not the time to rest. Now that the frame is done, let's start with the walls and the roof!"
Reina wasted no time, immediately ordering all the amazons in the area to begin working on the rest of the houses.
Yami, satisfied despite losing the argument, returned to her thing, which was doing nothing and watching everything with disinterest while eating.
At least for a few minutes.
"This has to be a joke" she said in disbelief a while later when she saw what the amazons were bringing.
They were preconstructed walls and roofs, the problem? Just as Yami feared, they were made of leaves. Many, very large ones, woven together, but leaves nonetheless.
Without waiting, she stopped eating in annoyance, stood up, and approached one of the groups carrying one of the preconstructed walls.
"Oh! Goddess of construction, are you here to help us?" one asked excitedly while the rest looked at her with shining eyes.
But to their surprise, Yami turned her hair into a giant hand, yes, but instead of grabbing the frame, it clenched into a fist and smashed through the wall in one strike.
"Hey, what are you doing?!" Reina was the first to react, reaching her instantly.
"Leaf walls? I told you, you are an idiot" Yami said.
"If not leaves, then what?" Reina asked indignantly.
"Wood?" Yami was not completely sure, she had been to many planets and they always used different things to build houses.
However, it is true that they always use durable materials obtained from the environment or created from them. So upon seeing trees, many times stronger than simple leaves, she said it immediately despite not being certain.
"Who is the idiot? The logs are not that wide" Reina mocked.
"Just join them"
"Join them? How? You do not expect us to use rope, right? Too weak and useless for joining non round things."
'Non round things? What kind of... never mind'
Yami simply looked at Reina once again with the look you give to an idiot before shaking her head, deciding not to argue.
Deciding to do it herself again, she repeated the process, turning her hair into multiple arms and tools.
This time the process took longer, because after cutting the logs she had to turn them into planks, and only when she had enough did she continue.
However, even though she mocked Reina for thinking rope would not work, she did not use it either.
Instead, she created wooden nails that she shot with enough force to easily pierce the planks.
Thus, she ended up building in two hours almost thirty houses that looked like rectangular wooden cubes.
"Done" she said again.
"Amazing!"
"The goddess of construction did it again!"
"She created new walls made of trees!"
"Thank you, goddess of construction!"
"Thank you!"
"All hail the goddess!"
Of course, Yami did not pay attention to any of these praises, her focus was on Reina's mocking expression.
"What is it?" she asked irritably.
"You joined those thin logs with wood. Using the same material like that is only possible with incredible strength like yours. Also, without your abilities, making those thin logs all identical is impossible" Reina explained.
"It can be done with rope" Yami said irritably, clenching her fists.
"Then why did you not do it?"
"Because... this way is stronger"
"I see. Thank you for that then" Reina acknowledged her help.
But Yami was not happy.
"The rest. Show me the rest of the requests" she demanded irritably.
"Alright" and Reina accepted the challenge.
...
In front of several hundred kilos of meat from different animals, stored in wooden crates inside an underground cave, Yami frowned again.
Realizing she had once again spoken too quickly.
Because once there, she realized she did not know how to fix the problem with knowledge alone.
Of course, that did not make her give up.
She transformed her hair into several futuristic looking devices that literally froze all the meat, turning it into large blocks of ice.
Yami made sure to freeze them separately, some more intensely than others, to control thawing times so the meat would last longer.
But despite doing this, she felt she had lost again.
She did not even need to turn around to hear Reina's smug laughter behind her.
______________________________________
+15 chapters in advance on Patreon.
p-atreon.com/IAMME26
(just delete the hyphen)
80 power stones = 1 extra chapter (cumulative)