novelraw Chapter 230: Realism and Idealism
Chapter 230: Realism and Idealism
After getting Robin’s agreement, Leon followed her, wanting to see how she worked.
But to his surprise, Robin got into her truck.
“Weren’t we going to remodel the kitchen?” Leon asked, puzzled.
“I’m not planning to redo your kitchen’s piping, so I need to go back and get it,” Robin explained.
“Right, that was dumb of me. Safe travels,” Leon replied awkwardly.
“Don’t worry, I’ll be quick. I keep those materials in my Pelican Town warehouse. If I kept everything at home, it’d be a huge hassle to haul them back and forth.” Robin said, then drove off.
Leon waited on the farm for about twenty minutes before hearing the sound of an engine.
“Leon, mind lending your gentlemanly hand to help me out?” Robin teased as she got out of the truck and lowered the tailgate.
“It’s my honor to serve you, madam,” Leon answered playfully, moving over to help her unload the neatly stacked pipes.
“I’ve always been jealous of your storage ability. If I had it, I wouldn’t have to drive this old clunker everywhere,” Robin said without missing a beat after unloading.Leon remained calm, neither showing fatigue despite them having moved dozens of pipes of various sizes.
“So, what exactly is this family ability of yours?” Leon asked with a shrug.
“Hehe, you’ll find out in a moment.” Robin winked mysteriously, then pulled out a hammer and two boxes of nails before getting to work.
“Leon, get me the wood and stone. I need to tear down this pile of junk first.”
Hammer in hand, Robin stood in front of the temporary kitchen and shouted to Leon.
Leon nodded. In the next moment, one hundred pieces of wood and one hundred stones—already prepared—appeared neatly in two piles beside Robin.
“Now that’s a great ability,” Robin sighed, then strode into the temporary kitchen and began dismantling Leon’s makeshift carpentry.
The process looked no different from an ordinary carpenter’s—pulling things apart piece by piece—but Robin’s speed was incredible. One strike with the hammer, one tug, and a nailed plank came loose.
The nails that had held the planks together seemed almost alive, popping out on their own without any prying at all.
“Magnetic manipulation? Magneto!” Leon quipped.
“Nope. Just material command,” Robin replied, shaking her head at the unfamiliar name. “I can control any building material’s position and state as I want.”
“Then why not just make the planks dismantle themselves?” Leon asked.
“Because that’d be a waste of effort. This ability is exhausting. Why waste energy when I can do it by hand?” Robin said.
“Does it drain stamina or mental energy?” Leon pressed.
“Both, I guess. I never paid much attention. All I know is if I try to slack off using it too much, I end up really tired. But a good rest and a big meal usually fix that,” she explained.
“Impressive,” Leon said, giving her a thumbs-up. This was basically the physique of a master carpenter.
He stood by as Robin tore down the entire temporary kitchen he’d spent an afternoon building—floor and all.
This wasn’t remodeling; Robin was clearly rebuilding from scratch.
“I’ll hook up the pipes first. Don’t get too close, or I’m not responsible if something hits you,” she warned, then got busy.
The pipes in Robin’s hands seemed alive. As soon as she set them on the ground, they burrowed into the soil, their destination unknown—but Robin clearly knew.
When she was nearly out of pipes, the last few she laid down connected themselves, one end rising upright above the dirt, the other disappearing underground.
Forming a circle around this upright pipe, Robin began laying stones for the foundation. Under her command, the separate stones fused into one solid piece, half of it sinking into the ground to anchor it. Leon was stunned.
She then began building the wooden floor on the foundation, hammer and nails in hand. Her movements were fast and smooth, and soon a four-by-six meter floor was in place.
“I think you could replace an entire construction crew on your own,” Leon remarked as she moved on to the walls.
“I can handle small projects alone, but for large-scale builds, I’d be overwhelmed,” Robin replied, shaking her head. “Besides, I don’t get those jobs. Joja Corporation’s construction division monopolizes the big contracts.”
“Even in Pelican Town?” Leon asked.
“No. The small jobs in Pelican Town are mostly mine. Joja’s crews only take big projects. That way they still control half the construction market without provoking the Craftsmens’ Guild,” Robin explained.
“Makes sense. If they hogged all the work, Joja would make too many enemies. Nobody likes it when one group eats the whole cake,” Leon said.
“Exactly. You really do have a sharp perspective for a city boy,” Robin teased.
“You hear enough, you see enough, you understand. Basic rules of society,” Leon shrugged.
“By the way, does Joja have construction workers with special abilities?”
“No. They rely on heavy machinery and trained specialists. People with special abilities are rare in this world, and those tied to construction are even rarer—mostly from carpenter or mason families like mine. We’d never work for someone else,” Robin said with a smirk.
“Joja once tried to hire me with a fifteen-WG annual salary, but I didn’t want to leave Stardew Valley or join a heartless, profit-obsessed corporation. So I turned them down.”
“Fifteen WG? That’s a lot,” Leon said, surprised. In this world, that was serious money.
“But without freedom, a job’s just a prison. No matter the pay, if you can’t be with your family or live the life you want, it’s meaningless,” Robin replied.
“That’s because you’ve got a valuable skill. Ordinary folks don’t have that luxury. They have to grind through repetitive jobs just to scrape by,” Leon said.
“That doesn’t sound like something I’d expect from a farm owner,” Robin remarked. “Farmers here are at the top of the professional ladder—our status is way above carpenters, masons, or blacksmiths.”
“Before I came to Stardew Valley, I was just another wage slave,” Leon said truthfully.
He wasn’t lying. In both his past and present life, he’d been an office drone—working for a big corporation in his last life, and in Joja Corporation’s logistics department in this one. Both were nine-to-nine grindfests.
If not for inheriting Red Star Farm, he might still be stuck at Joja’s headquarters, clawing for a promotion.
This time, he really did have the right to say those words.
This chapter’s a bit grounded in reality. I wrote it on a wave of inspiration—if you guys don’t like it, I can cut it.
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