Balmond did not adjust well.
For the first day, he raged. He beat his fists against the barrier until they were raw. He screamed until his voice was a ragged whisper. He ignored the bowl of water and tubers Kazuto placed inside his cube using a small, temporary opening. He was a storm trapped in a glass jar, and everyone gave him a wide berth.
The overseer in the original cube watched this performance with what might have been professional interest. It had been the main attraction for weeks, but now it was upstaged by a louder, angrier act.
Kazuto's approach was simple: ignore the tantrum and continue working. The scouts had fled, but they'd report. Time was now measured in arches, not days. He pushed the Canopy Project harder, the transparent geometry creeping further across the basin's sky.
On the second day, Balmond's rage burned down to embers. He sat in the center of his cube, staring at his hands. He watched the life of Delivery move around him. He saw dwarves carving neat rooms into rock. He saw the lizard, Lunch, hauling slabs. He saw goblins on the rim communicating with clicks to direct the lizard. He saw the witch drawing on her slate and arguing with the dwarf leader about load-bearing stresses.
It made no sense to him. This was not a fortress. It was a… workshop. A very strange, quiet workshop.
On the third day, he spoke. His voice was rough from disuse and screaming.
"You." The word was a low growl aimed at Kazuto, who was using a chisel made from a sharpened barrier-shard to smooth a door frame.
Kazuto looked up.
"What is this?" Balmond asked, gesturing vaguely at the basin.
"It's a settlement," Kazuto said, going back to his chiseling.
"It's a hole in the ground with crazy people in it."
"That too."
Balmond was silent for a long moment. "Why am I alive?"
Kazuto stopped chiseling. He walked over to the cube. "Because killing you doesn't solve anything. It just makes a mess and tells your boss I'm a killer, which means she sends someone worse."
"I am worse," Balmond snarled.
"You were a problem," Kazuto corrected. "Now you're a contained problem. There's a difference."
"What do you want? Information? I'll tell you nothing."
"I don't need information. Mavis already told me everything." Kazuto pointed his chisel at the witch, who glanced over and gave a cold, confident nod. "I need labor."
Balmond stared. He blinked. "Labor."
"The dome," Kazuto said, pointing upwards with the chisel. "It needs to be finished. The bricks need to be moved. The tunnels need digging. We're behind schedule."
The berserker looked at the partially transparent sky, then back at Kazuto. He let out a short, disbelieving bark of laughter. "You want me… to dig?"
"Or move bricks. Your choice."
"I am Balmond of the Cinder-Fist! I break cities! I do not… dig!"
Kazuto shrugged. "Suit yourself. The food and water will keep coming. The view doesn't change much." He turned to walk away.
"Wait!"
Kazuto paused.
Balmond's face was a war of pride and a deeper, more terrifying emotion: boredom. The rage was gone. In its place was the utter emptiness of a weapon with no target. "If… if I do this 'labor.' What then?"
"Then you work. You eat. You get a real roof over your head eventually. Same as everyone else."
"I am not 'everyone else'!"
"You are here," Kazuto said, his voice flat. "That makes you part of Delivery. Your job description just changed."
He walked to the cube wall. "I'm going to make an opening. You can stay in there, or you can come out and help move those stone blocks for the southern foundation. Your call."
He focused. A man-sized opening appeared in the barrier.
Balmond looked at the opening, then at his own massive hands. He could surge through, tackle the strange man in blue, try to crush his skull. But he'd seen the arrows curve. He'd felt the unbreakable wall. He'd been trapped without a touch.
The fight was… pointless. That was the most shocking realization of his life.
Slowly, stiffly, he stood up. He ducked through the opening. He stood outside the cube, free, for the first time in days. No one attacked him. The dwarves just watched, wary but curious. The goblins on the rim pointed and chattered.
Kazuto pointed to a pile of heavy, rough stone blocks that had been quarried from the tunnel dig. "Those need to go over there, by Mavis's markings." He handed Balmond a pair of thick leather gloves, traded from the goblins for bricks. "Don't strain your back."
Balmond took the gloves. They were too small. He looked at the blocks, each one weighing as much as a small person. He looked at Kazuto's retreating back.
With a grunt that was more confusion than effort, he bent down, wrapped his arms around a block, and lifted it. He carried it to the spot Mavis had indicated with a painted rune on the ground. He dropped it. The thud was satisfying.
He went back for another.
It was mindless. It was physical. It was, in a way he refused to admit, a relief. The furnace in his mind needed fuel. Rage had been its only fuel for years. Now, simple exertion would have to do.
He moved blocks for an hour. No one spoke to him. They just worked around him. A young dwarf struggling with a smaller block nodded his thanks when Balmond casually lifted it one-handed and placed it for him.
At midday, a bowl of stew and a hunk of hard mushroom-bread were placed on a flat rock near him. He ate. It was bland. It was food.
In the afternoon, Kazuto approached him again. The pile of blocks was gone. "Good. Next, we need to reinforce the western wall of the new tunnel. The rock is loose. We need support beams."
"I am not a carpenter," Balmond growled.
"You're strong. You'll hold the beams in place while Doom secures them."
Balmond followed him into the tunnel. It was cool and dark, lit by faintly glowing moss. Doom was there, with a pile of smooth, perfect stone beams Kazuto had forged.
Doom eyed the berserker but didn't flinch. "You. Hold this. There." He pointed.
Balmond held the heavy stone beam against the wall. Doom used a mixture of crushed rock and clay to mortar it into place. They worked in silence for a while.
"You swing that axe like you hate the wind itself," Doom said suddenly, not looking up from his work.
Balmond was caught off guard. "What?"
"Your technique. All power, no balance. You'd shatter your own spine on a real opponent's parry."
Balmond's anger flickered. "I have shattered armies."
"Armies of frightened conscripts, maybe," Doom grunted, tapping a beam into perfect alignment. "A real warrior respects his tool. Your axe is a crutch for your temper."
Balmond had no answer. In all his life, no one had ever criticized his fighting. They had only ever died.
They finished the supports. As they walked out, Doom pointed to Balmond's axe, which was still leaning against his old cube. "That edge is a disgrace. Chipped, blunt. A child's toy has more bite. Bring it to me tomorrow. If you're going to be here, your tool won't embarrass my forge."
Balmond just stared as the dwarf walked away.
That evening, Balmond did not return to the cube. No one told him to. He sat apart from the main fire, but within the circle of light. He watched. He saw the dwarves talk, laugh quietly. He saw Kazuto and Mavis arguing over the slate again. He saw the goblins lower a basket on a rope, containing a few freshly caught fish in exchange for bricks. The basket was hauled back up.
It was orderly. It was peaceful. It was the most alien thing he had ever witnessed.
Kazuto walked over, holding two cups of bitter well-water. He handed one to Balmond. "Tomorrow, we start on the southern canopy arches. The big ones. I'll need you to hold the guide ropes from the rim."
Balmond took the cup. "Why?"
"Because you're tall, you're strong, and you're not afraid of heights." Kazuto took a sip. "And because the job needs doing."
He walked back to the fire.
Balmond sat in the growing dark, holding the clay cup. The overseer in the original cube was watching him. Their eyes met across the basin. The overseer slowly shook its head, a look of pitying understanding on its reptilian face.
It knew. The first stage of capture was over. Now came the confusing, unsettling stage of belonging.
« NOTICE: HIGH-THREAT ENTITY 'BALMOND' SHOWING SIGNS OF INTEGRATION. HOSTILITY INDEX DECREASING. »
Kazuto looked at the message in his mind. He didn't need a voice to tell him. He could see it in the way the berserker sat, not like a coiled spring, but like a tired man after a long day's work.
He looked up at the stars visible through the ever-shrinking gap in the dome. One problem at a time. One delivery at a time. Today's delivery was the hardest kind: a change of heart. And it was, against all odds, on schedule.