With the bat in his hand, Caelus rapped Sampo on the head, raising two large bumps.
"Try to run again, and next time, I won't be aiming up here."
He tapped Sampo's leg below the knee with the bat.
Sampo's face went pale. He ignored the lumps on his head and slapped both hands over his crotch, assuming a stance of sworn protection.
"Big bro, no, no, no! I'm quite satisfied with my current size, no need for any surgical enhancements!"
Caelus paid him no mind. He turned and walked back to his crafting table, stuffing the rest of the logs from his backpack into the grid and converting them into wooden planks.
Dan Heng and March 7th were still unconscious from Sampo's knockout smoke. Caelus tried shaking their shoulders; Dan Heng's eyelids didn't even twitch, while March 7th just smacked her lips, rolled over, and continued to sleep like the dead.
It wasn't that he couldn't carry both of them and keep going, but he would also have to keep an eye on the perpetually scheming Sampo. Trying to travel with two unconscious teammates and a Masked Fool whose mind was constantly churning with new plots… it felt completely unrealistic.
Unless… I take care of the problem once and for all?
Caelus narrowed his eyes and glanced back at Sampo, who was still sitting in the boat. The moment their eyes met, Sampo immediately flashed an obsequious smile.
Forget it. They were strangers in a strange land on Jarilo-VI. It was rare enough to run into another living person; even if he was a Masked Fool, they still had to pry some information out of him.
---o---
When it came to interrogation, Caelus had all sorts of Redstone technology at his disposal.
As for today, they would just have to rest where they were.
Sampo sat in the wooden boat. His upper body could still move freely, but his lower half seemed to have fused with the boat's planks. He twisted his waist with all his might, but his rear end didn't budge an inch. He surreptitiously tried to pry his own leg free, but the leg didn't move, and he nearly broke a nail.
Giving up the struggle, he looked up at the sky.
The sight made his heart sink.
Grayish-white clouds were rapidly gathering overhead. The wind, now blowing from the northwest, carried stinging shards of ice that pelted his face. The temperature was dropping at a visible rate. Having lived on Jarilo-VI for so many years, Sampo was more sensitive to changes in the weather than anyone.
A blizzard was coming.
He turned his head to look at Caelus, who was still squatting in front of the crafting table, fiddling with something, showing no intention of finding shelter.
"Hey, big bro! A blizzard's about to hit! There's no cover anywhere on these plains! If we don't find a place to hide soon, we're all gonna be goners!"
Caelus didn't even lift his head.
Sampo's mouth opened, then closed again. He hunched his shoulders and pulled his coat tighter. The wind was already starting to seep into his collar.
Within minutes, the snowfall intensified. Sampo squinted through the increasingly dense curtain of snow at Dan Heng and March 7th, who were still lying on the ground. At this rate, even if the knockout smoke wore off, they'd freeze to death.
Just as he was about to shout again, Caelus moved.
Caelus stood up, a single, palm-sized wooden block in his hand. He walked over to Dan Heng and March 7th and casually slapped his hand toward the ground.
His palm was still a good ten centimeters from the surface when a one-cubic-meter block of wood materialized on the snow.
Sampo's eyes nearly popped out of his head.
Caelus's hand never touched the ground! How did that block of wood just appear? He had seen it clearly—Caelus had just made a downward slapping motion, and the block had embedded itself in the snow, its four sides perfectly flush, the snow beneath it having vanished into thin air.
Sampo opened his mouth to ask, but the words caught in his throat and he swallowed them back down. Given his current situation and identity, it would be a pointless question; Caelus would never answer him.
Caelus didn't stop.
A second block was slapped down next to the first. A third followed immediately after, then a fourth, a fifth, a sixth… a continuous series of dull thuds echoed across the snowy plain.
In less than two minutes, a flat wooden floor was laid out. It wasn't large, but it was big enough for a few dozen people to stand on.
Caelus packed up his crafting table and took out the wool he had collected back on the Herta Space Station. After a flurry of movements over the crafting grid, three beds were formed one by one. He placed the beds on the wooden floor, walked over to Dan Heng, and bent down to lift him onto the innermost bed, pulling the covers up to his chest.
Next was March 7th.
As Caelus picked her up, her head lolled onto his shoulder, and she mumbled something unintelligible. He placed her on the middle bed and tucked her in.
With the two of them settled, Caelus began to build the walls.
Wooden blocks were stacked one layer at a time, enclosing the area on all four sides. With each new layer, the sound of the wind grew fainter.
Meanwhile, Sampo was still sitting in his boat outside. The snow had already piled up to his thighs, and he was shivering like a leaf in the wind, able to do nothing but watch as Caelus single-handedly laid the floor and raised the walls.
By the time Caelus sealed the roof, the entire structure's exterior was complete.
It was a perfect, angular box. The walls and roof were a uniform color of wood, with no windows, no curves, and no extra decorations. It looked for all the world like a matchbox magnified a hundred times over.
It was a bit ugly, but at least it was perfectly sealed.
Caelus then placed a campfire inside and stuck torches all over the walls. The once-dim interior immediately became bright and warm.
As a final step, he carved an opening in the wall directly opposite the entrance, installed a double wooden door, and gave it a push. It was a perfect fit.
Caelus took two steps back to admire his handiwork and nodded in satisfaction.
---o---
Outside the matchbox house, the blizzard was now in full force.
Sampo sat in his boat, the snow up to his waist. He hugged his arms, his teeth chattering uncontrollably. Through the crack in the door, he could see the orange light of the campfire dancing within.
"Big bro!" Sampo yelled toward the house at the top of his lungs. "Did you forget you have a prisoner freezing out here?! Big bro? BIG BRO!!!"
Caelus opened the door with a deadpan expression.
Truthfully, if he didn't need to interrogate him, Caelus couldn't care less if Sampo froze to death out here, especially after he had ambushed Dan Heng and March 7th.
"Row yourself in."
"You got it, big bro!"
A will to survive erupted from Sampo with unprecedented energy. He grabbed the oars on the side of the boat and began to paddle forward, the boat scraping across the snow with a piercing shriek. He wasn't fast, but his attitude was enthusiastic, his hands moving with the fervor of a doggy paddle.
Caelus had deliberately broken four blocks behind the door to make a space for Sampo to park his boat.
The temperature inside the house was a world apart from the outside. The campfire was roaring, and Dan Heng and March 7th were wrapped in their blankets. Their complexions had improved considerably. March 7th had even turned over, rolling her blanket into a tube and curling up inside, only a tuft of pink hair visible.
Sampo rowed his boat to a stop next to the campfire and held his hands over the flames to warm them, letting out a long, comfortable sigh.
"Big bro, thanks a lot."
Caelus sat on the edge of his own bed, his baseball bat resting across his knees. He glanced at Sampo, a cryptic smile on his face.
"You're thanking me too soon."
Sampo blinked. The intuition he had honed over many years in the underworld was telling him that he might be in deep trouble.
"Big bro… how about you let me out, and I can start by kneeling for you?"
---o---