Chapter 190
Isn’t this how you rack up points quickly?’
The smile he flashed as he looked back at me—
Wicked. Happy.
Irritating, and yet strangely satisfying.
So I thought.
‘He’s serious.’
Lloyd Frontiera.
The young master I serve.
In the past, he’d been an infuriating troublemaker, a complete good-for-nothing.
So how does someone like him come up with ideas like this?
How does he carry them out without a moment’s hesitation?
Javier was genuinely curious.
And at the same time, he found himself wondering about human nature itself as he lifted his head.
The plaza was packed, even in the dead of night.
The citizens of Kandara.
“Alright! Line up, line up! Don’t forget your buckets or bowls!”
At the very front, Lloyd shouted with the satisfaction of a man who’d just pulled off something brilliant.
He lined up people who were still half-asleep. He guided those yawning into their hands. He directed those blinking around in confusion.
And then he handed out water, one by one.
“Alright, Hamang?”
“Hmmung?”
“You know, right? Spit it out little by little so it doesn’t overflow.”
“Hmmumung!”
The giant water balloon—no, Hamang, a seventy-meter monster of a water sack—answered in an absurdly cute voice.
And he followed Lloyd’s instructions faithfully.
“One bucket, please!”
“Hmmung!”
Splish-splash-splish!
Hamang spat water through the straw clamped in his mouth.
Water from melted perpetual snow, gathered from a high mountain range dozens of kilometers away.
Incomparably pure.
First-class clean water that filled the bucket in an instant.
Lloyd’s pearly white teeth gleamed shamelessly as he smiled.
“Here. Use it to get through the day.”
“Ah… yes…”
One citizen, still dazed, mumbled as he lifted his full bucket and walked off.
But as if he couldn’t shake the absurdity of it, he kept looking back.
Once at Lloyd, smiling like nothing was strange.
Once up at Hamang, huge as a mountain.
Once more at the clear water sloshing in the bucket.
It felt like a windfall dropped from the sky.
So he tilted his head again—
And carried enough water to live comfortably for a day back home.
Most of the citizens were the same.
Meanwhile, a deeply satisfied smile bloomed thickly on Lloyd’s lips.
‘Good. Really good. This is how you do good deeds. Make them blatantly obvious.’
It was true.
You had to make them obvious.
Otherwise, it became a problem.
‘A good deed done in secret? Then nobody even knows.’
You work yourself to the bone.
You put in effort, and nobody acknowledges it.
Then the reward and compensation you could have gotten turns into nothing.
And that was never what he wanted.
‘Because I’m not that great of a person.’
There were truly great people in the world.
People worthy of respect.
Especially those who did good in silence.
Those who endured hardship, expected nothing in return, and didn’t even hope to be recognized—
Just wishing someone else would be happy because of what they’d done.
There were plenty of people like that.
But Lloyd?
‘That’s not me. No. I can’t be.’
He wasn’t that great.
He didn’t even dare to pretend he could be.
And unlike them, he was expecting clear compensation for his good deeds.
Meaning he wasn’t giving without reward.
‘I’m doing this to gain something. Like the cooperation of the residents.’
Lloyd watched the residents receiving water.
They looked caught between shock and disbelief.
And even so, their eyes were still cold.
Wary.
Suspicious.
Asking what he was after.
He could feel that chill packed into their gazes.
That was why.
‘I have to change those eyes. Melt their wariness. Win their goodwill. That’s the key to this project.’
Qanat.
The facility he’d boldly promised the Sultan he would build.
But building it wouldn’t be easy.
‘The distance is too far.’
He remembered the mountains he’d visited earlier that day.
The straight-line distance from his survey was thirty-six kilometers.
Put that into Korea—
It was the distance from Seoul Station to Munsan-eup in Paju, straight shot.
From the center of Seoul to near the Armistice Line.
Or, if you stretched it east to west—
From the far eastern edge of Gangdong-gu to the far western edge of Gangseo-gu, near Gimpo Airport.
You could even go from Seoul Station down to Suwon.
It was an enormous distance, no matter how you sliced it.
‘If we do this by digging everything ourselves, it’ll easily take over a year to finish the whole Qanat.’
Even if he mobilized Bangul, that high-performance excavation machine, and paired it with Javier’s Detonation—
At best, they’d barely drag it down to that.
That was not acceptable.
‘No. Absolutely not. Am I insane? Rotting here for a year? That’s nonsense.’
And it wasn’t even his own territory.
It was someone else’s land.
Someone else’s neighborhood.
All so he could force negotiations with the Sultan.
He wasn’t about to sacrifice a year of his life for that.
That was why—
‘I heard there are tunnels all over the underground in this region.’
He recalled Knight of Iron and Blood.
It said the underground of Kandahar was laced with tangled tunnels.
Not natural caves.
About a thousand years ago, maybe.
Monks fleeing religious persecution had dug them.
They dug and dug, for over a century.
They lived in seclusion through three generations.
And most of those tunnels still remained intact.
Which was why rebels who rose against the Sultan later used them as hideouts.
Lloyd intended to use those tunnels.
From the mountains to here.
Rather than digging a brand-new route from scratch—
It would be far more efficient to connect what already existed.
‘I probably can’t connect them in a straight line. But that’s fine. I just need the optimal route.’
A route that linked the scattered tunnels with the shortest possible connecting stretches.
A route that minimized excavation.
And a route where water flowing underground wouldn’t leak out elsewhere.
That was all he needed.
Survey it. Design it. Execute it.
And using existing tunnels had another advantage besides cutting time and labor.
‘Those tunnels were dug underground. They’ve already got waterproofing.’
Meaning they were designed to keep groundwater from seeping in—or water from leaking out.
And that was critical.
The key to a Qanat was preventing existing groundwater from contaminating the channel.
Only then could the mountain water stay clean.
So if he used already-waterproofed tunnels, he could reduce risk—
And cut down even more effort.
‘So that’s it. That’s why I kept scanning underground earlier… but…’
He couldn’t find them.
Even running [Underground Scanning] until his eyes felt bloodshot, nothing showed.
Which meant only one thing.
‘The monks’ tunnels are deeper than five meters.’
Five meters was the limit.
He couldn’t see deeper.
‘But I can’t just dig randomly until I hit one either.’
Too inefficient.
Even if he got lucky and found one tunnel by chance—
He’d still have to find dozens more, scattered independently.
‘If I’m going to do that, it might honestly be faster to spend a year digging from scratch.’
The efficiency was garbage.
And that was not what he wanted.
‘So the only option left is this.’
Lloyd made up his mind.
Melt the residents’ wariness.
Win their goodwill.
Earn their trust.
Because they were natives.
Some of them were probably already cooperating with rebels.
If he could earn their trust, he could ask them where the tunnels were.
And with that single-minded goal, Lloyd doubled down on good deeds that were blatantly obvious.
After distributing water to the residents, he mobilized Ppodong.
“Alright, from here to here. Dig it out. All the way.”
“Ppodong!”
Hobababat!
Ppodong dug a clean square into the ground.
Lloyd laid flat stones like tiles, neatly lining it.
Then he poured the remaining water into it.
“Hamang. You know, right?”
“Hmmumung! Oooaak—”
Hamang vomited out all the remaining water.
The pit Ppodong had dug and Lloyd had refined filled to the brim.
A temporary pool.
No—a reservoir.
“Alright. Now set up shade around it so it won’t evaporate during the day.”
Pillars went up around the reservoir.
A large cloth was stretched across them.
A temporary canopy, blocking the harsh sunlight.
“Whew.”
By the time everything was done, dawn was breaking.
But Lloyd didn’t stop there.
“What is that?”
“A sign.”
Lloyd smiled faintly at Javier’s question and, with theatrical flair, planted the sign in front of the reservoir.
It read:
[This is a temporary reservoir created by Lloyd Frontiera for the citizens of Kandara City. Water usage is free, and anyone may use it. Clean water will be fetched every night and stored here.]
“……”
Javier’s pupils shifted as he examined the sign.
Then he noticed the smaller text written underneath.
[To supply clean water like this, Lloyd Frontiera goes without sleep every night and travels the arduous path to the distant mountain range. All for the citizens of Kandara City! Until his feet are sore! While enduring exhaustion in his entire body! Even if he falls sick with a high fever! Even if he collapses from overwork! Yet without expecting any reward! Solely for your happiness and well-being! With an angelically pure heart, Lloyd Frontiera diligently fetches water again today.]
(T/N : Hahahahahahahahahahaha)
“……”
An angelically pure heart?
Javier stared at Lloyd.
Lloyd puffed air through his nose.
“What. Why. What.”
“……”
“Why are you looking at me with those dead fish eyes again?”
“Because it seems… too devoid of conscience.”
“Conscience? Me?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“To be honest, Lloyd-nim, didn’t you bring that water without lifting a finger?”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s the truth. Hamang-nim drank it, rolled all the way back, and fetched it.”
“…….”
“And Lloyd-nim sat comfortably on Ggoming-nim’s back and flew around.”
“……Ahem! That’s called advertising.”
“Advertising?”
“Exactly.”
Lloyd smiled brightly—like the most shameless employer in the world.
“Advertising for a beautiful result. Call it packaging. Do you think the people here care about the truth? Of course not. They care about the clean water. How many do you think will care about the process, or how I fetched it?”
“So you won’t hesitate to use exaggeration and falsehood for the result you want.”
“At least I’m not committing fraud in the actual distribution, right?”
That much was true.
The water was real.
First-class clean water from melted perpetual snow.
He’d just exaggerated the process a little and sprinkled in melodrama.
“For comparison, look at how many unscrupulous employers mess with food and drink. Compared to them, I’m practically a gentleman. I don’t fake the origin. I don’t mix garbage into the ingredients. And I’m not even charging money, am I? Hmph. There’s no one as beautiful as me. Right?”
“……”
Javier shut his mouth.
Strictly speaking, everything Lloyd said was correct.
But hearing it out loud was unbearably irritating.
So Lloyd planted the sign—generously seasoned with MSG-grade exaggeration and lies—right in front of the reservoir.
And his campaign didn’t end there.
“Alright, let’s go.”
“Yes?”
“What’s with that look? We have to go promote.”
“…….”
Promote? What, exactly?
With his mind still dazed, Javier followed Lloyd out.
The streets were bright in the morning sun.
And from that moment, Javier saw a new side of Lloyd’s true nature.
“Ah! Elder! Good to see you. How are you?”
“Huh? Yes?”
Lloyd grabbed an old man’s hand as he walked down the street, leaving the man stunned.
“You don’t remember me, do you?”
“You… well…”
“I’m Lloyd Frontiera. You remember me, right? You saw me at dawn yesterday, didn’t you?”
“Uh… that is…”
“Yes, yes. Of course. I remember you too. Because you were the twenty-third elder to receive water from me.”
“……”
“See? My memory’s correct. How is it that you look so dignified both at night and in the morning? How was the water last night? Did it suit your taste?”
“Uh, um… of course…”
“Ah, you liked it! That’s a relief! Thank you!”
“Uh, I…”
“It wasn’t too cold or too warm, right?”
“Naturally…”
“Perfect! The temperature was just right too. That’s wonderful. Thank you!”
He bowed deeply while shaking hands with both hands.
Like a hinge that never squeaked.
Like a clamshell phone snapping open and shut.
Lloyd’s waist folded cleanly to ninety degrees.
He greeted.
And greeted again.
And while doing it, he brought up and emphasized last night’s good deeds until his mouth would’ve gone dry if he weren’t so shameless.
“Then take care, Elder!”
“Uh… y-yes…”
The old man hurried off, confusion wrapping him like a blanket.
Lloyd’s expression didn’t change.
‘The more they react like that, the more shameless I have to be.’
Half-measures got him nowhere.
He had to make it clear he was on the people’s side.
So Lloyd hardened himself with the friendliness of a politician during election season.
And of course, he didn’t stop doing “good deeds” either.
Every night, he fetched water from the mountains.
He filled the temporary reservoir until it overflowed.
During the day, he greeted people and promoted his good deeds nonstop.
And after living like that for two weeks—
The first signs of change finally appeared in the way people looked at him.