It took two days of continuous recovery efforts by my team and the rest of the volunteer. Two days until we could see a path forward.

  It could have gone on for a week or longer. Part of the problem was that so much stone and marble had to be moved so they could figure out what was something they could rebuild and what was something they had to trash. The damage itself was random. One block would have half its buildings destroyed down to the core while another block still had everything intact.

  The block beyond that just had the wood framing of the house. Just the framing stood tall.

  It was random. That's what happens in a battle like this. I spent far too long trying to make sense of it, moving tons of stone into a chain of people passing it to where it was needed or could be stored temporarily. From there we identified where the stone could best be sent to.

  It wasn't until Lee bodily broke me out for a bath and a long rest that I could really wrestle with the idea that there were things that only I could do that I was putting off.

  Sleep never felt better than that evening when she forced me into a hot bath and massaged the hell out of me. Seriously, I was a limp noodle in her hands by the end.

  In the morning when we both woke up together her cuddled in way too close to me, I felt it. In the back of my mind, this place had become my home and she felt just right.

  Or at least, something more than just the press of her warm body against mine, which in itself was all that I needed.

  She got up and looked at me. I mean she really looked at me, as if she was staring through my soul. "Joe, are you crying?"

  "Just a little bit of dust," I said. "Or sweat."

  I tried to prop myself up with one arm and get her into a bear hug. She was my little spoon and I loved her for that and I'm not going to lie, my thoughts drifted about. I felt like I had done enough but I also felt like I hadn't done anything.

  "Do you ever feel like you should be doing more but you have to stop because otherwise..."

  "You've done enough," she said. She grabbed my hand from around her waist and nestled in between her breasts. "Now I need you to be as nice to yourself as you are being to all those people out there. They're not the only ones that need you."

  In this entire exchange, I hadn't thought about how everything had affected her. I was surprised to realize that she was also crying. I didn't know what to say and I thought that if I said something wrong that I might mess this up. But then again, I wasn't going to be the guy who didn't tell his girlfriend how he felt.

  "Lee, I love you."

  "Then leave some for me," she said grabbing onto my hip.

  Spice

  I was not surprised to realize that I did have something left for her and that indeed, I had nothing more pressing to be that morning yet.

  There was an enormous amount of information that the team wanted to give me and I couldn't really parse all of it at once. There was one thing that they kept bringing up over and over. They needed me to be the go-between with the Mandarin.

  It sounded like he had been holed up in his estate for a while and hadn't come out to view the city at all. Understanding the role of the imperial government and their local Governor, I could imagine that he did not really care to go out there and do any Public works projects. The canals were the filthiest thing in the city besides me.

  That went a little the counter to my intent where the one hundred or so people that had basically become my adopted family in the former Red Fang compound began to work to rebuild the city. First, they figured out who could move back into their homes and then they started identifying people whose homes were destroyed and that could live with other people. This accounted for most of the displaced people of the city.

  Around eighty ompercsrable to shack up with a friend or a cousin or a family member in a different part of the city than they had originally lived in because that person still had an intact building. It was the remaining twenty that was the problem.112

  Joe, our first order of business was to get as much canvas as possible to build tents and temporary housing. Before this, people were just sleeping inside of the compound and around it. This worked fine because everyone was strong and there was a watch and it was a community of people who had all been through something terrible.

  Was that it had not happened in my time then I would have had a better day. But it had happened and that was a problem.

  Now what I was going to have to do was arrange to get the imperial government involved. Because if the demonic cultivators were this braise and then they're attacks, this would not be the only place that they hit. If they were trying to make an example, then there would have to be a measurate response from the government. Otherwise, what even was the government if they couldn't respond to this kind of excitation level threat.

  So I found myself at the office of the chief of staff of the Mandarin, standing outside. Awaiting his pleasure as he took My information down. I wasn't one of many petitioners that day, but I was the highest ranked. One. Is a fourth realm cultivator before, the Mandarin had specifically asked me to volunteer to help out as I could.

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  As a fifth realm cultivator, I was supposed to be able to have a direct line to the Mandarin because he would expect as much from me.

  You see the thing is, I had no problem waiting in line for something. I had waited in line at school. I had waited in line for clients. Heck, school was just a big waiting line until you graduated. There was work to do yes but it was like a holding cell for people that would someday become this world's equivalent of social workers. It wasn't like there was a national certifying body. They would have to train with us.

  The attendant sent a runner. The runner looked dead on his feet but complied, taking a piece of paper away.

  "I take it that.the Mandarin has a lot.od competing priorities right now?"

  "That he does."

  "Safe to say that he is looking for some extra help?" I put some emphasize on help.

  The attendant stared at me for a long time, as if wondering if I would be the one customer a year that he could fight without consequences. He was strong, of course but the sight of a sign saying that he was allowed to duel one person a year.

  It was of course above another sign clarifying that this work perk had not been utilized yet.

  He was eyeing me like it was his job, which truth be told, it was.

  I was about to give him so much bullshit paperwork to do if he didn't send me down to the Mandarin that he might be there until past his retirement. Which honestly I didn't even know they had a retirement system here. People could live over 100 years. You had to think of unique ways to fix your problems.

  A door opened in front of me. I entered directly. The last time I'd seen him I was a realm lower and this time he felt slightly weaker. He was still strong but now I could feel his world weariness leaking out like a kid yelling her parents business at the playground.

  He sighed upon my entrance, then perked up. They hadn't told him about my advancement and it had just clicked for him.

  "Mandarin," I said.

  "Cultivator Joseph Pidge. What a pleasure to hear these reports that you're already working on the rebuilding."

  He paused to pull out a long smoking pipe, then lit it. He took an epic drag before returning to the matter at hand.

  "I'm not going to lie to you. That battle against the Red Fang took something out of me. I almost feel lost myself with how much of a mess they created out there."

  I waited, getting into therapist mode. He had never been so forthcoming and direct. Either he needed something or he stopped caring about propriety.

  "Is there something I can do?"

  "That is part of it. The emperor wants you for your skill. However we need you here. My advisors believe that they may have left several members among the populace. The catastrophe would be the perfect time to insert agents here."

  I knew what was coming. Unless heaven mandated me to leave I was going to be following leads. Or they would be bringing suspect people to me.

  "I can root out some of these people if you sent them to me or if you tell me where to look. What I can't do it post myself at the docks to examine every passenger on an airship. They would probably travel a different way next time. Not that there can even be that many of them left."

  Now it was his turn.

  "The emperor has put his personal emphasis on this."

  He didn't elaborate on how the emperor presented it. I can imagine the same. One letter that I received. It might not be a form letter. It was more like something that the dam n guy had dozens of bureaucrats just sitting in a room using the exact same format and handwriting to create. I could appreciate the Majesty of his majesty deciding that we were worthy of his wise words. It didn't make him ineligible for my ire.

  "What does the emperor require of us." It was the only appropriate response and the only thing that I could say without raising my own hackles. If the emperor asked? We would jump.

  "Once the situation has been dealt with, I expect that you will be on the first airship back. It's understood that he is having problems with the court."

  I felt like him adding that last part was just adding a little bit of salt to the wound. The man had openly allowed demonic cultivators into his court. There was every chance that the eighth realm cultivator who had power I couldn't even imagine was doing that on purpose to put them into a sense of security. If I could determine what someone's face of cultivation was by examining them with my senses, then the emperor should be as well. He might think that that was beneath him but problem.

  He should be doing this.

  Well, at least he should be the one directly talking to the chief law enforcement officer that is responsible for this. If the demonic sect was able to flex someone powerful enough to tie the Mandarin down, they might be their own shadow government.

  I had enough problems with the government I had here that having a secondary shadow government might just cause me to have one too many aneurysms.

  "I'll wait on the notice to leave. Until then, the people of Western Jewel need you."

  For the first time in our entire discussion, he looked up from his desk where his papers had only gotten more messy. In our brief discussion. The J table was definitely more suited to a type of working environment of someone who had no time for showmanship. I had seen the actual office he used to greet people in. This place looked like it was functional and utilitarian. He was serious about this.

  I didn't really follow the politics of workspaces here. It wasn't like there was a underground movement to keep offices remote or something.

  He gazed into my eyes as if it wasn't a front to him for someone to actually ask him something. But he gestured for me to go on.

  "We've done a lot of release and recovery efforts. I've cleared about three three districts myself. The issue we're having is food."

  "What is the issue?"

  "Some higher ranking nobles seem to think that the deliveries of food need to go to them first."

  I was thinking he was about to give me some noblesse oblige argument. I could tell Vanessa where he was coming from with that. That's the way that things had been. But if you never change, then you never actually get better. It was a small issue in the grand scheme of things but if he could fix that for us then I wouldn't have to rob every single person around to pay for food for the soup kitchen. Ultimately, the soup kitchen gave things away for free so I should have start charging for therapy.

  "I will send a letter to the nobles. They will comply. Is there anything else?"

  "I think you need to come down and walk the streets."

  He might have been writing the entire time but at that juncture, he laid his quilt down and gave me his full attention. Attention. It was as if I'd asked him to diagnose a koala with epilepsy. I don't think that it was a sentence he'd ever heard. It was like I was asking the president or the governor to come down and do a site survey of natural disaster. Only the governor in this this circumstance was actually the most powerful single individual and more akin to a walking nuclear bomb than a figurehead.

  Yeah he was nice but only to the people he wanted to be nice to. Yeah he was strong but only for those that beth went in defense of the city that he was mandated to govern.

  "Why should I do that?"

  "Sometimes we all need to get outside of the office."

  I wanted to leave it there and leave but according to the rules of propriety here I had to wait on him to dismiss me.

  He sighed deeply and then pushed away from his desk.

  "Very well. At least I'll get out and be able to take care of this."

  At that, he stood up and began checking over his robes thoroughly. He took it a breath and his entire outfit shrunk around him into a muscle type uniform.

  https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/110555/villainess-fix-the-damn-plot