Chapter 561. One Man Against a Tsunami Is Bad Math, So I Hired a Team With Thumbtacks

Chapter 561: 561. One Man Against a Tsunami Is Bad Math, So I Hired a Team With Thumbtacks

The morning after the catastrophe arrived with a cruel, bright clarity. The sun poured through the windows of Catherine’s quarters as if the previous day had been nothing more than a bad dream, but William knew better.

His body reminded him of every movement.

He sat on the edge of Catherine’s clawfoot bathtub, the porcelain cool against his thighs. His forearms were wrapped in thick layers of clean bandages, the white fabric already showing faint yellow stains from the weeping blisters beneath.

He stared at them at the evidence of his failure and came to a conclusion he should have reached months ago.

It wasn’t a matter of pride. It wasn’t about being the strong protector or the unshakable anchor.

It was a matter of brutal, unforgiving arithmetic.

’One man,’ he thought, his jaw tightening as he watched the sunlight catch the frayed edges of the gauze. ’One man standing against a tsunami.’

’Eventually, the water wins.’

’Eventually, the man drowns.’

’And when he drowns, there is no one left to catch her when she falls.’

He couldn’t be the only dam holding back that flood. If he failed again... if his bones snapped under the pressure of her magic instead of just his skin blistering, Ellie would be left alone in the dark with a power she couldn’t control.

And that was a death sentence for everyone she loved.

That afternoon, he called them together. He sat Lia, Kaela, and Olivia down in the quiet corner of the study.

He didn’t sugarcoat it. He told them about the convulsions, the unnatural pulsing behind Ellie’s shoulders, the way the air had turned to liquid fire, and the way the ground had screamed under her feet.

He told them he couldn’t hold the line alone anymore.

He braced himself for the inevitable questions: ’Is she dangerous? Can we stop her? What if she kills us?’

But the questions never came.

Instead, there was only a heavy, understanding silence.

Within an hour, the four of them had organized themselves into something nameless, something instinctive.

A unit.

Lia, with her terrifyingly efficient mind, immediately went to work on logistics. She produced a piece of parchment and drew up a complex rotation chart for supervised practice.

It was a masterpiece of bureaucratic warfare: color-coded blocks for energy monitoring, precise shift times, and a dedicated column for hydration and recovery responsibilities. She pinned it to the wall of Catherine’s study with four exact, decisive thumbtacks.

Kaela, true to her nature, decided that theory was worthless without physical barriers. Without being asked, she began dragging heavy, splintered planks and broken fence posts from the academy stables toward the Dead Field.

The rhythmic thud and scrape of wood against earth echoed through the courtyard as she began hammering them together.

"I’m building a shield wall," she announced grimly, wiping sweat from her forehead with a dirty sleeve. "Something that’ll stop anything short of a dragon breathing down our necks."

Then there was Olivia. She appeared with a fresh notebook and a quill that looked too delicate for her hands.

She claimed her position on an upturned bucket at the edge of the training area, her small face set in grim determination.

She began recording every detail: the duration of the light pulses, the color of the sparks, the exact moment Ellie’s breathing changed.

On the cover of her notebook, in tiny, precise script, she had written, ’Operation Warm Glow.’

Nobody had the heart to tell her it sounded like a bakery operation instead of a magical containment protocol.

However, even the most disciplined units have friction. The first spark of conflict ignited within ten minutes of the first official shift.

Lia stood before the chart, her finger tapping impatiently against the parchment. Kaela was standing nearby, drenched in sweat, surrounded by several overflowing wooden buckets that looked like they could drown a small horse.

"Kaela, we discussed this," Lia said, her voice carrying that clipped, instructional tone that usually signaled a reprimand. "The chart specifically states your first responsibility is the water shift..."

"It says you are responsible for hydration."

Kaela wiped her brow with the back of a hand stained with sawdust. "I am carrying it..."

"Look at all this water... I’ve got three buckets here, two more over by the fence."

"I’m drowning in water, Lia."

Lia pointed sharply at the chart, then at the massive, sloshing buckets. "The water needs to be in cups, Kaela."

"Controllable, measured portions... Ellie cannot drink from a bucket."

Kaela rolled her eyes, leaning heavily against one of the wooden staves. "She can if she’s thirsty enough."

"Ever tried drinking from a bucket during a training session? It’s faster."

"That is not a reasonable standard for a controlled training environment," Lia countered, her brow furrowing. "We need to monitor her intake and prevent choking or dehydration-induced magical spikes."

"It’s a standard that works for me," Kaela grunted, picking up a bucket with a wet slosh that sounded suspiciously like defiance.

The standoff between Lia and Kaela crackled with more tension than a charged magical circuit. They glared at each other across the cluttered space of Catherine’s study, the silence between them thick enough to choke on.

Lia looked as though she were mentally calculating exactly how many disciplinary notices it would take to break Kaela’s stubbornness, while Kaela looked ready to use one of those water buckets as a blunt force weapon.

From her corner of the sofa, Ellie watched them with tired, knowing eyes.

"You know," she interjected softly, her voice cutting through the brewing storm, "if it gets that bad... I could probably make do with a bucket."

The effect was instantaneous. Both women spun toward her with a synchronized look of such horrified, unhinged protectiveness that it bordered on the absurd.

Their eyes went wide, their postures stiffening as if Ellie had just suggested she wanted to walk into a dragon’s maw for breakfast.

Ellie stared at them for three seconds before she broke. A laugh bubbled up in her throat, a genuine, unguarded sound that ended in a small, startled hiccup.

"Fine!" Kaela growled, though there was no real heat in it as she stomped toward the door. "But don’t come crying to me when you’re thirsty and all you’ve got is a bucket of sloshing water."

She disappeared for several minutes, the distant sound of clattering ceramic echoing through the hallway.

When she returned, she dropped a pile of exactly eleven mismatched cups onto the table with a decisive clack.

Lia didn’t miss a beat. She grabbed her quill, marched to the wall, and crossed out ’Water’ on the chart.

In its place, she wrote CUPS in aggressive, capital letters, followed by a stern (MANDATORY). She then initialed the change with a flourish that looked suspiciously like a declaration of war.

The laughter faded, leaving behind a quiet, contemplative stillness. Ellie had moved to a tree stump near the edge of the clearing, her fingers wrapped around a warm mug, watching them with an expression that had grown uncharacteristically solemn.

"I do not want to be a burden," Ellie said quietly.

The words were small, but they carried the weight of everything she had endured: the fear of her own skin, the terror of the light that wanted to consume her. "I don’t want you all to have to... to manage me like a problem to be solved."

Kaela stopped mid-swing with her hammer, holding the tool upright like some crude, iron scepter. "Listen to me, my friend."

"You are not a burden." She paused, considering her words, before adding with grim sincerity, "You are the most interesting construction project I have ever been assigned to."

Lia didn’t even look up from her paperwork. "That is not a compliment, Kaela."

"It is a compliment from me," Kaela shot back without missing a beat. "In my world, ’interesting’ means ’worth the effort of not breaking.’"

"You’re supposed to accept it."

Ellie’s lips twitched. It wasn’t quite the radiant smile she had possessed before the disaster, but it was something real, a spark of something that wasn’t fear.

Across the clearing, William watched the small interaction, feeling a knot in his chest that had been coiled tight since the night of the explosion finally slacken by half an inch.

The peace was temporary, of course. Grock had emerged from his fury with a transactional offer: he would forgive the incident of the luminous undergarments on one condition: William would provide him with a fresh bar of high-grade lye soap and a spool of heavy-duty, industrial-strength clothesline.

In exchange, the dwarf volunteered his expertise to help build a proper practice hall.

It was to be a squat, fortress-like structure of reinforced stone and ancient timber, positioned at the far edge of the Dead Field.

Grock explained the design with gruff pragmatism: "Thick walls, heavy ceiling."

"If the girl decides to turn into a sun again, the damage stays inside... And more importantly, my laundry stays clean."

For three days, Grock worked with a terrifying, mechanical speed that made the rest of them feel utterly decorative. He moved like a force of nature, his hammer falling with the rhythmic authority of a heartbeat.

Between his swings, however, he made sure to articulate his grievances. He complained about the humidity, the way the dampness made his joints creak, and how the very air seemed to conspire against his comfort.

On the second day, the complaining reached a crescendo that made it impossible to ignore.

"It is the rain," Grock muttered, his face twisted in a grimace as he bent to lift a massive oak beam.

He winced sharply, a sound like grinding gravel escaping his throat. "Twenty years of this cursed rain, and every winter it gets worse."

"Gets into the bones... Gets into the soul."