21st Century Archmage

Chapter 143 – Just Who Are You

In the Royal Castle of the Havis Kingdom, a nation that had undergone a stormy period of many changes in the last year, Princess Rosiathe, the woman wearing the mantle of the king, trembled after receiving a golden letter with a blaring Black Wyvern seal.

The letter had just flown in from the Bajran Imperial Family, clearly bearing the Emperor’s Seal. Inside was a courteous invitation requesting her participation in the newly crowned Emperor’s first banquet in the upcoming month of the Overseer of Fate, Romero. Along with the invitation was a statement that it was quite a shame that the Princess had not participated in the Emperor’s coronation.

‘What am I supposed to do about this?’

She had spent a truly hectic year and was finally about to take a break, but her plans were completely overturned by a rabid dog calling her. Havis’ information division had determined the reason for the Krantz Kingdom’s subjugation. The terrifying Emperor had purposefully made a mountain out of a molehill and destroyed a kingdom that had long since been Bajran’s ally in the span of a single morning, all in order to avenge a moment of disgrace from a decade ago. That same emperor was sending the Havis Kingdom a warning. Rosiathe had been unable to participate in Emperor Poltviran’s coronation because of the chaos in her kingdom. If she did not participate this time, there was no knowing what would happen to the fate of the kingdom.

However, she was still reluctant to participate. Rosiathe was well aware of the meaning behind the looks of sticky desire that the depraved Emperor had sent her in the past.

“Haah…”

She breathed out a sigh. The month of Romero was not far away. If she didn’t make a decision and depart within a few days, she would be late.

“Kyre… What am I supposed to do?”

Now that she was in danger, her thoughts naturally turned to a certain person. She suddenly had the urge to see Kyre, the man who always lived confidently and fearlessly, the man she could not see despite wanting to and cold-heartedly only visited her occasionally in her dreams.

The Emperor’s invitation letter fell from Rosiathe’s hand, landing on the floor. She would have liked to refuse, but the kingdom weighed heavily on her. The Havis Kingdom was like a newly born baby. She couldn’t simply abandon it. She could not allow the kingdom that had endured and survived hundreds of years of humiliation to end with her generation.

“I’m sorry. I must draw upon your wisdom this time as well.”

Rosiathe made her decision—she decided to make a visit to Kyre. The kingdom was important, but her feelings as a woman were just as important.

Count Kyre de Nerman.

To Rosiathe, he was an irreplaceable, precious gift from the gods.

* * *

“There’s no knowing what faults he’ll pick this time.”

“It has become a pain for our kingdom as well. With the collapse of the Krantz Kingdom, we now have to share a border with Bajran…”

“You’ve had an easy time of it so far, have you not? You didn’t have to worry too much about the empire and only had to send some ambassadors and gifts.”

“Tsk, that’s true. It feels like the days when I can drink with you at ease like this are numbered.”

At the entrance of the Kobionne Mountains that cut through the Kerpe and Tove Kingdoms, stood an old fort. It was built when the two kingdoms waged territorial battles in the past, but was now abandoned. In one of its watchtowers, two men were knocking down hard liquor in rough wooden mugs. The two had met on the battlefield and become friends.

One of them, a man named Duke Galphois, had a greying head of golden hair, a handsome beard, and bore the nickname ‘Trickster of the Tove Kingdom.’ He wasn’t very tall and had a memorable face with blue eyes as calm as a lake. In front of him, a man with flaming red hair and a crimson beard was gulping from his large wooden mug. He was Duke Hardaim, a man with the moniker ‘Red Dragon of the Battlefield, Protector of Kerpe.’ The man was over two meters tall and used a spear, an unusual choice of weapon for a knight.

These two men had been friends for thirty years. No one knew that the decisive reason why the two warring kingdoms eventually reconciled was because these two men had admired each other once they met. A hero recognized another hero—when they met on the battlefield, the two men quickly recognized the skills of their opponent and withdrew their weapons, and they had maintained a friendship for 30 years to the present day, with a tacit agreement that the two kingdoms would be peaceful until the day they died.

The two men had a tradition of setting a day to meet at this ruined fort and drink all night long. From things regarding their kingdoms, to nobles and even bawdy words about women, the two of them discussed everything they couldn’t talk about with other people over alcohol in the name of friendship.

However, the mood was heavy today. Because of the newly crowned emperor, who was secretly called “Bajran’s Rabid Dog,” the two kingdoms were plunged into a state of tension. The Kerpe  Kingdom was next to the Bajran Empire, and the Tove Kingdom ended up sharing a border with the empire because of the Krantz Kingdom’s demise. Both kingdoms were in an invisible state of emergency, and as dukes holding important positions of authority within the kingdom, they were all too aware that they would no longer have the leisure of drinking together for the time being. No matter how important their friendship was, they never lost their loyal attitudes as knights. They never lazed around when it came to the safety of their kingdoms.

“The Tove Kingdom will also have to prepare itself well this time. For a young man, he sure has a lot of greed, and if we permit his greed, the kingdom will be shaken down to its roots.”

When Duke Hardaim talked about the crazy emperor’s greed, shaking his head, Duke Galphois also made a bitter expression. “The rumors have been flying around regarding that already. That crazy son of a bitch ordered the ambassador to include Princess Odrianne in the tribute. That depraved fucking dog…”

Duke Galphois was normally called a man of wisdom in the Tove Kingdom, but he uttered vulgar obscenities a mercenary might say as he gulped down his liquor.

“Puhahaha. He’s crazy, yes, but at least he’s properly crazy.”

Duke Hardaim guffawed, but there was a rage inside his eyes that didn’t match his laughter.

“I hear most of the Krantz Kingdom’s nobles have surrendered. To think that they can’t put up a single decent fight because the Prince and all the Skyknights left for Ibartz Island… I do have a feeling that the late King Vekadrian prepared something up his sleeve…”

“Galphois.”

“…..?”

Galphois looked up at Duke Hardaim’s call.

“You know it well enough, don’t you.”

Fwip.

Duke Hardaim tossed away the bottle of alcohol, which had been emptied in no time.

“Haha, I guess you knew as well.”

Duke Galphois laughed heartily at Duke Hardaim’s meaningful words. Though they’d once been enemies, they were now friends of 30 years. They could figure out the other person’s feelings from their gaze alone.

“The Empire hasn’t always been an empire. At one point, Bajran also had its start as a small kingdom. Right now, with the empire’s fortune at an end and the appearance of a crazy emperor, this is an opportunity granted by the heavens, is it not?”

“Huhu… An opportunity granted by the heavens indeed.”

“After sorting out the Bajran Empire, the Kerpe Kingdom will turn a blind eye to the Tove Kingdom’s occupation of the kingdom to the south. Even if the old enemy of your nation, the Onsk Kingdom, were to face destruction, our kingdom will never assist them.”

“Haha, can you do it? The current queen of the Kerpe Kingdom is a princess of Onsk.”

The nations on the continent had been calm for the last few decades. They had all accumulated their strength, biding their time for the moment the continent began to shake. And now, a bloody wind was brewing on the horizon.

“You establish contact with Prince Veyons, who fled to Ibartz Island. I’ll handle the Andaine and Kuviran Kingdoms.”

“Got it. Our kingdom will make preparations as well. If need be, we can lend you a hand.”

“Hahaha. Thank you, my friend!”

The storm of war blowing over the Kallian Continent was something created by humans anyway. Here, in the ruined fort, yet another plot and plan was devised and about to be acted upon.

There are those who run, those who fly above them, and those who aim an arrow at the ones flying.

The world was a funny playground where such people danced, aiming to outsmart each other.

* * *

“I didn’t know glass could be made like this. Kyre, just what is your identity?”

When I extended a blueprint for a glass production factory as out of the blue as ever, the Dwarven Patriarch Cassiars pulled his gaze away from the blueprint and asked me exactly who I was.

To that, I simply smiled. In all actuality, it was impossible for a regular Korean kid like me to come up with such a detailed blueprint. Thanks to the forceful magic knowledge transfer Master Gandalf Bumdalf performed on me, there was also magic and modern scientific knowledge even I didn’t know about living rent free in my head. I could only be grateful.

“Please make a crucible to contain the molten glass. With your guys’ skills, I’m sure you can make it in a few days, right?”

“Just trust me. We can make a crucible that can melt glass in no time at all.”

‘Can the dwarves make glass? Why is he so full of confidence?’

The craftsmen dwarves were blacksmiths who had nothing they couldn’t do.

“By any chance, are the dwarves also able to make glass?”

“Why, of course! In the Ancient Magic Era, mages were scrambling to acquire the glass made by our ancestors. You might not know this, but the hardest thing about making glass is how much you can reduce the bubbles. Another important matter is whether the glass can withstand the cold air in winter and hot air in summer, or whether you can increase the temperature to make reinforced glass that can resist breakage.”

“…..”

‘Holy moly, it’s not just on the level of knowing a little.’ I was once again amazed by the dwarves’ diverse skill set.

“But I didn’t know there was a method to produce glass like this. With this blueprint of yours, I think it will be possible to melt everything at the same time. It should be capable of mass production in a short period of time…”

Cassiars was able to discern its mass production potential just by looking at the blueprint. He was marveling over the blueprint with the grilled pork belly I’d brought as a bribe held between his knees.

‘That’s right, while we’re at it, let’s go with the highest quality reinforced glass!’

I was already planning on treating the finished glass with magic, but it would be the frosting on the cake if we could make reinforced glass from the start.

I tossed out a sentence that would slightly prickle one’s pride. “It would be difficult to mass produce reinforced glass, I presume?”

“Nonsense! Be it reinforced glass or colored glass, worry not. We’ll make any and all kinds of glass you want, so don’t worry. There’s already a mineral mixture recipe with the glass manufacturing process in it, so what problem could there be? Just trust me.”

‘Huhu. Naturally, I trust you and then some.’

Where would you find people as precious as these guys?

“As expected of the Patriarch! I admire you with all my heart!”

I copied a phrase Derval liked to use on me word for word on Cassiars.

“Ahem ahem. Such a fuss for nothing…” The Patriarch harrumphed happily at the praise.

‘In a few days now, we’ll have to return the Laviter soldiers. And then, Chrisia will be coming.’

I felt a sense of urgency. It was distressing that I had to leave my still unstable-as-hell territory on a journey that would take who knows how long, but there was no room for choice. My mansion, made under the pretext of building a new castle, was quickly taking shape, and our magic crystal stock had hit the bottom of the barrel.

‘Laviter won’t attempt another attack immediately. The problem is Bajran’s crazy dog…’

I had a bad feeling about Poltviran. There was no way that mad bastard would leave siblings who could pose a threat to his imperial authority alone. He was someone we needed to guard against, lest we get caught by surprise in our sleep. If I could really do what I wanted, I would have liked to quietly fly to the capital and bury him six feet under.

“But is something bad happening in the territory?” asked the Patriarch while I was briefly lost in thought.

“What do you me—,” I began.

“Well, why else would you use so many minerals?” Cassiars interrupted. “You’ve used more in a single year than we dwarves use in decades. Even if you get mithril from the elves, we’re on the verge of needing to find more iron.”

I had nothing to say to that. Even I had to admit that we had used an enormous quantity of minerals. However, who was I? I’d already prepared countermeasures for everything.

“That is why I came up with a countermeasure.”

“Countermeasure?” echoed the dwarven gramps, blinking his large eyes.

“I’m thinking about building a city where the dwarves will live.”

“A-A city for us to live?”

“Yes. There so happens to be a site from a previous dwarven village on the plains just outside the cave, is there not? I’d like to build the most cutting-edge large-scale furnaces, including a magic furnace, a smithy, and a beer warehouse there.”

“Ohhh! A-A beer warehouse?!!”

Patriarch Cassiars clearly showed his happiness at the mention of a beer warehouse, more so than the furnaces and smithy.

‘It’s a factory expansion investment to get more goods out of you guys. Huhuhu.’

The poor dwarf was unaware of my black-hearted thoughts. The current cave Dwarven Village was okay, but it couldn’t keep up with our needs. The rather small entrance made it so that we had to transport large products in pieces. If I were to make a workspace outside, the things I wanted could be made much faster.

“I will make the beer facilities exactly like the one in Nerman Castle. What do you think, Patriarch Cassiars…?”

“We’ve got to do it. It’ll be a place where we’ll live, so I’ll take every remaining dwarf here and go make it. You don’t have to worry about a thing.”

“Haha. Thank you. Seeing my brothers so happy makes me happy as well.”

“Of course, we’re brothers, are we not. Hahaha.”

Cassiars gave a great guffaw. Even as his belly shook, his hand was firmly grasping the bark package with the grilled pork belly inside, protecting it from the dwarves that had gathered in no time at all.

It wasn’t hard to be a good neighbor. All you had to do was benefit from each other while laughing together like this.

* * *

Whoooooosh.

The warm energy of the sky felt good on my face as it passed by.

Flap, flap.

There was no hurry, so Bebeto flapped his wings at a leisurely pace. From his back, I enjoyed the wind, which still bore a touch of coldness, with my helmet removed.

‘No matter how many times I see it, it makes me happy.’

At one point, Nerman was a savage neighborhood where orcs scampered around and ogres played hide-and-seek. But now, the area occupied by monsters was cut by approximately half. There were only monsters—left to be nurtured as wyvern food—on the other side of the dirt barriers in the east and Orakk Castle in the north, as well as near the Kovilan and Rual Mountains. Thanks to the Skyknights running special patrols every day and the cavalry that was dispatched during group attacks by the monsters, the territory was becoming safer at a rapid pace.

‘Only 1/10 of the territory has been developed. Actually, it’s probably more like 1/20.”

After meeting the dwarves, Bebeto and I flew around the territory once and were now on our way back to Denfors. The grasses that had begun to grow following the disappearance of the monsters lent a light green glow to the plains. This was fertile land where crops could prosper immediately if the land was developed.

Simply looking at the plains stretching endlessly even from my elevated viewpoint in the sky made me happy. I didn’t know when it would happen, but one day, the low hills would be planted with dense orchards, and the fields would sway and dance with golden grain. The people of Nerman would sing the song of peace to their heart’s content.

‘It’d be nice if we could make every barrier with bricks, but that’s far from possible. We’ll have to slowly expand the villages while slowly constructing small forts.’

Thankfully, the slaves from the Havis Kingdom didn’t cause much trouble. They too were well aware that they’d been granted a second chance at freedom despite having to live as slaves their whole lives. Of course, there were still some people who caused problems. Those who sowed discord and scorned the people of Nerman, unable to forget the dirty wealth they had once possessed, were quietly sent off to the coal mines.

Once you missed it, great fortune didn’t often come twice. I had no desire to be magnanimous to those who kicked away their futures with their own two feet.

‘By tomorrow, the large-scale civil engineering we’ve been doing will come to an end. In three days, we have to send back the soldiers.’

Time had gone by truly quickly. Using the Laviter soldiers, the urgent construction projects in the territory were mostly finished. If I were being greedy, I would have liked to use them for about a year, but I had promised the Laviter prisoners soldiers that if the empire wanted it, they would be freed.

Of course, no one in the history of the continent was as generous as me when it came to prisoners of war. You could earn a huge profit as soon as prisoners were sold as slaves, and even a child knew that as long as the soldiers weren’t turned mentally deranged, they could once again raise their spears against you if they were sent back.

However, I wasn’t a fruit fly or moth that blindly chased the profits before me, and the profit I gained from releasing them wasn’t anything to scoff at, either. Unbelievable change was occurring in Nerman. Thanks to us having brought the Laviter Empire down a notch, it was probably common knowledge now that Nerman wasn’t easy prey, but I doubted that there were rumors yet about the people living peacefully with full bellies under their benevolent lord. But when the mouths of 180,000 Laviter prisoner soldiers opened here and there, Nerman’s great feats would be made known. Even prisoners were blown away by Nerman—here was a place where the elves of history books helped humans build roads and castles by calling their spirits, and dwarves raised their hammers and personally made castle walls and goods. On top of that, the taxes levied on soldiers and civilians was the lowest in the continent, and the sick were treated by the hand of a saintess serving the Goddess Neran. It was a land of miracles. To the people of the continent who barely eked a living under the cruel harassment of their lords, Nerman would become an Eldorado they would hope to meet even in their dreams.

‘We can easily accept 10 million new residents.’

Considering the territory’s size and production capability, Nerman could easily handle a population of 10 million. I smiled with satisfaction as I thought about the new residents of my paradise, where only the chosen could live.

‘The way it stretches out is exactly right.’

Even without a navigation system, Bebeto flew unerringly towards Denfors on his own. Before long, the long, long road cutting through the plains came within sight. And on that road, people who appeared to be merchants were busily dragging along carriages.

‘Oh right! Today’s the day the first salt is produced.’

I recalled Derval’s excited voice as he reported the salt production early in the morning. The weather was still cold, but we had no rain and plenty of sunshine, so the salt was produced sooner than expected. The seawater evaporated, leaving the gleam of salt that sparkled like white pearls. It would have been strange if Derval saw that and didn’t get excited. Salt could be traded for provisions several dozen times its weight, so how could he not be astonished that such valuable salt could be made automatically in the enormous salt farm? The salt produced in the salt farm alone was probably enough to allow the people of Nerman to eat their fill and live like rich men.

“Bebeto, let’s go to the salt farm.”

Guooooooooooooo!

Bebeto, a commendable wyvern who could understand his master’s words perfectly, slowly turned and set his direction on the salt farm. As he did so, the sunshine of a drowsy afternoon hit my eyes, granting me the blessing of deep relaxation in coordination with the pleasantly swishing wind…

* * *

“My god…”

This was her first time in Nerman in several months. When she reached the skies above Denfors after following the long road that was so complete that it seemed to have always been there, Princess Rosiathe let out the exclamation she’d been suppressing.

Not long after she and twenty Skyknights of the Royal Guard crossed the border, twenty Nerman wyverns appeared as if they had arranged it all in advance. Then, recognizing that she was Havis royalty, a flight of five flanked them in an escort. Rosiathe and the Havis Skyknights followed those five deep into Nerman.

She had received reports, but she could not suppress her admiration at the extremely wide road that ran through the territory, and that wasn’t all. She saw a group of mounted soldiers moving swiftly along the road and merchant carriages passing by extremely quickly, and before she knew it, they had reached Denfors.

The moment they saw the city, everyone’s jaws dropped.

‘I can’t believe prisoners are being treated like that… and what in the world is that huge castle?!’

There were over ten thousand large military tents set up on the plains outside Denfors. In the camp, Rosiathe could see soldiers lying at their leisure or playing around, limbering up their bodies. Their clothes made it obvious at a single glance that they were the Laviter soldiers that were captured after attempting to invade Nerman.

But she didn’t have the time to be shocked by the soldiers that didn’t look at all like prisoners. There, in clear view, stood an enormous castle that made her heart thump wildly once again. The outer castle area looked more expansive and sturdier than the Havis Royal Castle, certainly no inferior to an empire’s castle. Her heart was still shocked by the splendorous scale of it when the wyverns passed over Denfors. The Nerman wyverns flew onwards, passing Denfors as if Lord Kyre was not in the city. As they flew, Rosiathe and the Havis Kingdom Skyknights had to keep their eyes wide open to stare at the buildings being constructed inside the huge castle.

‘A-A gold temple! And what’s with the huge number of hangars?!’

There were three groups of buildings situated right in the outer castle. On one side, a great temple that seemed to have simply popped up out of the ground was radiating a blinding light as if the entire surface was covered in gold, and on another side, a massive building that looked like an inner castle was standing unfinished. Next to that was a covert giving off an imposing aura, made up of a thousand evenly spaced hangars constructed out of stones that only imperial or royal hangars might use.

‘Kyre… just who are you?’

One person’s power could not achieve such a feat. Even an empire would require several years of effort to complete such enormous buildings.

Kyre had done it in just a few months.