The system had suggested crying. What a crazy system! Raga felt like this bizarre interface was a machine designed purely to mess with him. Better to run; he grabbed Princess Naria’s hand and they bolted. Unfortunately, they were cornered once again. A fight was now completely unavoidable—could he really pull off being an expert construction worker in a pinch?

Raga had no idea what mana was, and he didn't understand sword magic either. But he understood gravity and the center of gravity like the back of his hand. To a laborer, an unstable pile of materials was the ultimate enemy. And right then, in Raga’s eyes, the three arrogant rebels standing before him were nothing more than a "poorly stacked pile of debris."

"S.I.N.I.! Give me a structural analysis of the enemy! Right now!" Raga yelled inside his head.

[System: Analyzing... Scanning load-bearing pivot points... Processing construction data... Complete. Recommendation: Exploit their foolish placement over the soggy, loose soil of the former riverbed. You have five seconds before they decapitate you.]

The three mercenaries sneered. They didn't view Raga as a threat; they saw him as a joke ripe for slaughter. One of them stepped forward, swinging his longsword lazily.

Raga didn't draw a sword to counter. Instead, he sprinted toward a pile of timber scattered along the edge of the path—leftovers from a fallen tree that, according to Raga’s foreman instincts, rested in a dangerously unsafe position.

"Hey, beggar! Where do you think you're going?" one of the soldiers cackled, giving a casual chase.

Raga reached the log pile. He didn't attack the mercenary directly; instead, he targeted the bottom support logs holding the heavy weight above in place. With a powerful shove—using the exact technique he used to topple blocks of hardened cement—Raga kicked the anchor log out.

Crack!

The sharp groan of wood echoed out. The massive stack of logs lost its equilibrium in an instant. Raga threw himself aside in a roll, while the pursuing mercenary halted dead in his tracks as the giant logs cascaded down upon him like a construction site landslide.

THUD!

The first mercenary was trapped beneath the heavy timber, letting out a muffled shriek as his leg was pinned flat.

[System: Ah, the 'Material Landslide' technique. Score: 6 out of 10. A bit messy, but it successfully made the enemy look like a wriggling worm beneath a log.]

The remaining two mercenaries went wide-eyed. "You bastard!"

They charged Raga in unison. Raga took a deep breath. He grabbed several large rocks and deftly arranged them across the slick dirt—just like laying down a building foundation. The moment the two mercenaries stepped into the area Raga had "prepared," their footing completely gave way because the ground stability had been severely compromised.

CRASH!

Both of them hit the dirt in a deeply humiliating fashion. Raga wasted no time. He snatched a small crowbar—which was somehow stashed in his cargo pants pocket (a parting gift from the System)—and slammed it down against the foundational stone anchor, creating a secondary trap that wedged both of their legs tightly between the rock crevices.

In the blink of an eye, the three mercenaries were completely incapacitated. They groaned in pain, trapped within a "trap structure" Raga had engineered in less than a minute.

Princess Naria, who had been cowering in fear moments before, slowly pulled herself up. Her gorgeous eyes widened in disbelief, staring at Raga with her mouth slightly parted. She had never witnessed combat like this. No fancy swordplay, no spell-chanting, just... stacked timber and stones arranged with lethal precision.

"Who... who are you?" Naria asked, her voice trembling with a mix of awe and bewilderment.

Raga wiped the sweat from his forehead with his torn yellow rubber glove. He stared at Naria, then glanced back at the pile of whining mercenaries.

"I’m Raga. A builder," he answered briefly, then looked down at the floating blue screen blinking before him.

[System: Congratulations! You have successfully neutralized three hostiles using 'Construction Laborer Techniques'. Earned +50 Experience Points. Warning: Princess Naria is currently admiring you. It is strongly advised not to look entirely foolish while speaking to her.]

"What was that?" Naria stepped closer, inspecting the trap Raga had just set up. "You moved those logs with such bizarre precision. Is that magic from some distant land?"

Raga scratched the back of his head. "That's not magic, Your Highness. That's structural physics. If you place a load on the wrong stress point, the whole structure collapses. They were just too stupid to realize it."

Naria blinked. "Structural... physics? I've never heard of such a thing at the Eudor Academy of Magic."

[System: Of course not. They study fire and frost magic, not carpentry and masonry. Tell her you can build a ten-story building with just a smile. It will impress her more.]

Raga hissed internally at the system. "Shut up, S.I.N.I.!"

"So," Naria looked at Raga with a probing gaze. "You came here to rescue me? But you didn't bring any weapons other than those rubber gloves?"

Raga looked down at his hands, then back up at Naria. "I don't need weapons, Princess. I need a cup of coffee and some quiet time. But it looks like right now, what I really need is to escort you somewhere safe before more idiots show up to ruin my break."

Naria offered a small smile. It was a smile so sweet that Raga almost forgot he was stranded in the middle of a deadly forest wearing dusty, sweat-soaked manual labor clothes.

"Thank you, Raga the Builder," Naria said softly.

[System: 'The Builder'? Wow, what a majestic title. I'm practically weeping. Would you like to tack on 'Grand Foreman' for extra prestige?]

"Shut your mouth!" Raga scoffed, turning his back to Naria to hide his slightly flushed face.

"We need to move now," Raga said, forcing his tone as cold and detached as possible. "The sun's going down soon, and I hate working in poor lighting. It's an occupational hazard."

Naria giggled—a sound Raga had never heard back in his original world: clear, unburdened by work quotas or an obnoxious boss's demands. As they started walking deeper into the thick forest, Raga knew one thing for certain: this journey was going to be the craziest project he had ever taken on.

And he still had thirteen more chapters to survive before he could go home with that chest of gold. Damn it!

[System: Rescue Mission Progress: 10%. Raga, you've officially caught the princess's attention. Careful—love can cause more structural damage than cement curing too fast.]

Raga let out a long sigh. A laborer's adventure in a fantasy world had just begun, and it seemed this realm needed a reliable handyman far more than he could have ever imagined.