ALL NOVEL Chapter 182: A Generalist Mayor
The road clean-up continued on. The competition the next day wasn’t as fierce, but casting it as a town-versus-town battle for road-clearing superiority continued to make the work go just a little faster than it otherwise would have. By the time they were done, the rocks were fully moved off the road, then carted in appropriate numbers to where they’d serve as salvage for the newer, thicker walls Karra intended to put up.
She was planning for rammed earth walls, essentially two full-thickness walls encasing tons and tons of dirt and rock between them like the filling in an ice-cream sandwich. When the monsters breached the first wall, they’d then have to get past the packed earth and stones, which would then fall down and smother them as they tried to reach the second.
It was a rad plan, based on what she was telling him, and most of the more-damaged rubble was being set aside for that purpose. The better-preserved stuff would go into the new wall, supplemented by new bricks and stone.
The now-cleared road changed from a cleanup project to a reconstruction, with all the town’s stone workers working to re-brick the pathway. Arthur had never realized how artful Karra and Rhodia’s road building had been until he saw the bed of the river restored beside the new road, just as it had been before being diverted and then ripped apart by thousands of terrifying monsters.
Halfway through yet another day of hard work, Arthur stood in front of the assembled population of three towns, covered in grime but smiling brighter than the sun.
“I never asked to be mayor, and frankly there’s a lot of the job that I’m not all that into. I don’t like telling people no. Gods, I don’t even like the idea of people waiting for me to tell them yes. I’m far too dumb to keep track of all the things I’m supposed to keep track of, and I don’t deal well with stress. At all. Ask my friends. They will tell you.” All of Arthur’s friends nodded in agreement as the other mayors looked on in sympathy. “But this? This I can get behind. I’d love to announce what’s going to happen, but I didn’t earn it. Karra, if you’d please?”
Karra stepped up, winged on each side by the Karra-equivalents of the two other towns.
“We managed to do two weeks of work in about four days. I can’t express to you how impossible that seems. Our road is fixed. Our walls are ready for rebuilding. And now, after today’s work, our river is ready to run again. It’s because of you all. You sweated with us, and we won’t forget this.” Karra looked up at Milo, who had his hand on a lever and nodded to indicate his readiness. “And now, it’s time for the river to flow. Milo, let it rip.”
Milo pulled his lever, and far off in the distance a rumbling sounded. The enchantress had laid just enough runes to activate one of Milo’s machines, which pulled open a small gate and then tucked itself under the road.
The water rushed in fast, filling the town’s river channel with burbling, rushing water. Arthur hadn’t realized how much he had missed the sound until it came back, louder than usual for a few seconds until the water settled into its normal sedate flow and filled the town with wholesome, natural white noise.
“Thank you, Karra. And thank you, everyone.” Arthur’s eyes teared up as he tried to steady his voice. “I can’t explain how much this means. I think I speak for the whole town when I say that you’ve done enough to repay whatever debt you feel over the monster materials. You have no idea what it means to have the river back. You can’t.”
Every Coldbrook resident cheered in agreement. Zelk looked like she wanted to disagree, but a quiet word from Crue apparently convinced her to accept it. The ledgers were balanced now. Nobody owned anyone anything.
The town took the rest of the day off. After an hour in which virtually everyone spent some time bathing, reclothing themselves, and otherwise getting fresh, the whole place was lively again. Arthur spent a few hours with Mizu before she went to talk with a member of Seaside’s infrastructure team about their water supply, then just sat around his shop watching other people enjoy their days until Crue found him.
“Hey, Arthur. Can I have another one of those teas from the yesterday? The really sweet one,” Crue said.
“Sure. You want any effect with that?” Arthur asked.
“Nope. Just normal is fine.” Crue stretched his arms above his head, popping his back in the process for good measure. “I’m feeling good enough now that the job’s done that I’m not sure what I’d even ask for.”
“Got it.” Arthur went and brewed some tea before adding a liberal amount of sweetener syrup and fruit to the mix, just as Crue seemed to like it. He took a deep draw from the drink, sighing in satisfaction as he chewed on a few boba pearls.
“That’s really good, Arthur. I almost feel sorry about what I’m about to do.”
“Oh?” Arthur wasn’t that worried about Crue, but gave him a closer look anyway. The badger really did appear nervous about something, or regretful, or some other emotion in the generally negative range of things. “And what’s that?”
“I’m going to tell you that you can’t be mayor anymore.”
Arthur opened his mouth, then closed it as he realized he didn’t know if he was trying to agree, disagree, or just register general shock. To buy time without looking like a glitched robot, he poured himself a light-flavored tea from his always-ready stock of more generic bases and took a sip.
“I see I’ve confused you.” Crue winced. “My fault. I don’t know a good way to say this. It’s gonna sound weird.”
“Weird is normal for me. Just go ahead with it.”
“You don’t want to be mayor. You probably never did, right?” Arthur thought for a moment, then nodded. Him being mayor was entirely other people’s idea. He had done his best to return that trust with real positive results, but it had never been his idea, just his responsibility. “And you don’t have any skills for it. In terms of your system class, I mean.”
“I don’t, at all. I just make tea.”
“And it’s incredible tea. That’s a big deal, Arthur. It’s just that it doesn’t help you much with actually running the town. Like, who has been telling you how to do the more complex stuff?”
“You know Spiky and Leena?”
“Yeah. The librarians, right?”
“Right. They do all the math stuff for me. Everything else is a combination of other people giving me advice, or just flat-out telling me what to do.”
“That’s what I’m saying. In a mining town, the mayor is almost always a miner because they get a synergy with what the town is trying to do. The mayor of Seaside is a net-maker and that makes sense for them. Coldbrook isn’t specialized like that, and even if you were, it’s not in tea. You need a generalist mayor, Arthur. Someone who understands more, and can use the mayor skills better. I think you know that.”
If Arthur had to find an Earth-equivalent of Crue, the badger was like one of those hardened people you’d meet in a bar. Someone who had seen things, done things, and knew enough of the world to be confident of his interpretation of things, even if it was sometimes wrong.
In the demon world, he also had a special level of credibility, simply because he turned down his own mayor role for the sake of his town. If anyone had asked Arthur yesterday to stop being mayor, he would have voiced a strong rejection. But a part of him also knew that it was the right thing to do. He had even said that much in his speech today.
“I can’t say you are wrong. But won’t it set us back? I just got access to the defensive stuff for the town.”
“It will set you back. But if I understand what’s happening right, now’s the safest time for a transition you’ll ever have. Once you get a defensive rune array in place, it should transfer power between mayors more smoothly. But I think even now it’s gonna be fine.” Crue, for all his loud confidence, looked supremely uncomfortable by this point. “I hope I haven’t… you know. Been rude. But I felt like you needed to hear this from someone. And it wasn’t going to be any of your friends. They love you too much to even think about choosing someone else.”
“It’s gonna be weird. I’m so used to being… part of things. Not about being in charge, but just there.”
“Oh, you still will be. Some people are in charge on paper, but every place I’ve ever lived has had other people who advise those people, or who smack them down when they need it. It wasn’t that way where you came from?”
Arthur thought back to the city. Pico had definitely done a good job as the mayor but he wouldn’t cross Ella unless he absolutely had to, and seemed even less eager to take on Itela. They weren’t in leadership positions but they were leaders, in their own way.
“Yeah, it was,” Arthur admitted.
“If I’ve got the feel of everything right, you aren’t respected because you have a title. You have the title because your friends respect you. The respect won’t go away if you give away the title. If anything, it will grow.” Crue finished his drink, swirled the ice, and handed it back as he slapped another coin down on the counter. “I want another one of these. And I hope I haven’t been too forward, here. Believe me, I know it’s not really any of my business.”
“No, it’s okay.” Arthur dumped the glass and started mixing another brew. “It’s not like you are wrong. I just don’t know how to have those conversations yet.”
“What do you mean?”
“You saw how the speech went today. When I was talking about how I didn’t fit the job very well, people rolled their eyes. They think I’m kidding.”
“You sort of were.”
“Maybe. But when I go talk to them, they’re going to tell me I’m overreacting.”
“So don’t leave it up to them. You might not be the mayor for much longer, but you are right now.” Crue took his new drink, stood up, and started to walk away. “You have authority at the moment, Arthur. Use it.”