Chapter 141: Greater Freedom and Happiness

Poouuuur.

Red wine over a century old from the Laviter Empire royal wine cellar bubbled as it splashed into a golden wine glass embossed with a Gold Wyvern with outstretched wings.

“Drink.”

“It is an honor, Your Majesty.”

Wine was exchanged in the office of the emperor, where he handled his paperwork, located within the Laviter Imperial Palace. The young Emperor Hadveria, who had curly blonde hair that suited him well, offered Duke Luvidium a glass of wine with a quiet, but smooth voice. That offering was carefully received by Duke Luvidium with both hands. Despite being a duke, one of the pillars of the empire, and despite his advanced age of over 70 years, Luvidium treated the Emperor with such restrained politeness that he seemed less like a duke and more like a knight having an audience with the Emperor for the first time.

“Was the business you went for concluded well?”

The rich fragrance of wine circled around the office. The Emperor asked a question off-handedly while bringing the glass to his lips.

“Y-Yes, Your Majesty. I safely completed the prisoner exchange negotiations.”

Because the Emperor had achieved Blade Master level, even though he was in his mid-forties, he didn’t look a day over his mid-thirties. Facing such a young-looking emperor, Duke Luvidium was as taut as a drawn bowstring. He knew. He knew that the moment you offended this emperor with such a calm and quiet demeanor, something as insignificant as the ducal house would disappear like the morning dew.

“Well done.”

The Emperor had taken a sip of his wine, and when his mouth opened, the sweet fragrance came spilling out.

“It is an honor.”

The Duke had received the glass of wine, but he dared not drink. Cold sweat had even beaded up on his forehead.

“Right, did you meet the Lord of Nerman?”

After meeting the Lord of Nerman, Duke Luvidium had flown to the palace without resting. He carefully responded to the Emperor’s query.

“I have, Your Majesty.”

Hadveria’s eyes gleamed brightly at those words. His eyes flashed for a moment like a passing meteor before disappearing, like a wolf in the darkness spotting prey.

“What manner of person is he?”

Pouuuur.

Having drunk one glass of wine, the Emperor refilled his glass. His actions were slow, but the deliberate movements made the watcher feel as if they were slowly suffocating. This was the invisible pressure created by the Emperor. Anyone other than Duke Luvidium would have already begun panting from shortness of breath.

‘To think he is on guard against that man…’

He had aided the Emperor for a long time, so Duke Luvidium knew him better than anyone. He could tell from the Emperor’s leisurely movements that Emperor Hadveria was concerned about Nerman’s lord.

“He is an impressive person.”

Duke Luvidium gave a short response.

“…..”

The Emperor’s hand paused for a moment in the middle of putting down the bottle of wine. The Emperor was also well aware that there were not many people on this continent who could cause Duke Luvidium to praise them as such.

“Hooh, so you say he is that noteworthy,” mused Hadveria, who had been bringing wine to his lips while sitting deeply in a chair made of Gold Wyvern leather.

“I could see why His Highness and Duke Yanovis suffered a defeat.”

What the Emperor wanted right now was honesty. Luvidium relayed the feeling he had gotten from the Lord of Nerman, Kyre, exactly as he had perceived it.

“Huhu…” Hadveria gave a short laugh as he brought another sip to his lips.

“I believe that he should be treated as the empire’s greatest enemy, and one that must be taken care of quickly.”

Luvidium evaluated the territory and lord he had personally seen as dangerous.

“By those words… do you mean to say that Nerman is more dangerous than Bajran on the continent right now?”

“In my eyes, yes, Your Majesty. If he is left like this, within just a few years, he will become someone we can no longer do anything about.”

“Mm…”

The Emperor made a sound of contemplation at Duke Luvidium’s words. Then, he closed his eyes. He thought this might be the case, but he hadn’t thought it would be this serious.

“Then we must prepare. The best thing to do with a weed is to uproot before it can grow,” the Emperor mumbled, his eyes still closed.

Gulp.

At that one sentence, Duke Luvidium swallowed nervously. He knew very well that this casual sentence from the Emperor were the words that would decide Nerman’s fate. He also knew that these words were a single sentence from the messenger of death that would destroy all life in Nerman.

‘Kyre… It seems we will meet again very soon.’

When the Emperor made his move, he would not march in clumsily like what the 2nd Prince and Duke Yanovis had done.

After finishing what he had to say, Duke Luvidium brought the wine to his lips. As he did so, he thought of Nerman’s lord, Kyre, who he would soon meet again…

* * *

“I will give a roasted pork haunch with plenty of meat on it in addition to bread and soup to the team that shows the most outstanding skills today. However, the team that comes dead last will only get hard barley bread made one week ago and water.”

“Gulp…”

The prisoner mages drooled as they stared at the plump hind leg set as the prize for today, so captivated by the meat that their eyes seemed to be shooting lasers.

‘You guys should be grateful to me. Who else would engrave the preciousness of food in you this deeply?’

The mage squadron was reborn as 10 teams with 20 mages apiece. After becoming prisoners, they were forged by round-the-clock spear repair and various magic labor and now possessed mental fortitude that even a South Korean spy in North Korea would be jealous of. They were instilled with a level of cool-headedness that stopped at nothing when food was involved, sturdy cooperative spirit and teamwork that cared not a whit for the misfortune of other teams as long as their team succeeded, and even a ruthlessness that would resort to any method in order to achieve their goal.

I could bet that they would suffer quite the aftermath even after leaving the prisoner life behind. As soon as they heard the “Ner” in “Nerman,” they would pee their pants, infecting all the other mages in the magic towers with their fear, and this experience would become a lovely virus that would even make them unable to trust their fellow mages ever again.

“I’ll assign the goal today then. From this moment forth, every team will follow the orders of the knights and dwarves here and faithfully complete the hangar. You shall work from now to sunset. Knights, direct the prisoners!”

“As you command!”

I didn’t even bother putting mana bracelets on them.

In the last two weeks, the outer walls had been completed to perfection. The prisoner soldiers who returned from the monster subjugation were divided evenly to every production line. From sand and cement production, road construction, brick production and transport, to the construction of the new covert, and even the construction of the inner castle, they were used in all sorts of ways.

“Please move along!”

“Hurry and direct our team first, please!”

Their pride as mages, which had been flying high until just recently, had dissipated like smoke, leaving mages that were staring with bloodshot eyes at a single haunch of pig as they urged the knights in charge. There were even people among them who had quietly ratted out a mage that had been planning his escape a few days ago.

‘Human strength is truly mighty.’

I had created a 180,000-man laborer army where mages struggling in my manipulative trickery and Nerman soldiers were communicating without discrimination and working hard together. With the cooperation of the elves and dwarves added to that, Nerman was developing at a pace visible to the eye.

“Lighten!”

“Levitation!”

The planned area for the new covert was five times as big as Weyn Covert. The hangar walls were made with sturdy bricks, and prefabricated tiled roofs made with wood and roof tiles were lifted all at once by the mages as they controlled their mana.

‘Who else would have thought of this? Huhuhu.’

I had the bricks fired in the shape of roof tiles by giving special instruction. A basic framework was made with wood, and then the tiles were placed on top. Because the roofs were made by dwarven carpenters, they didn’t have a single gap. The magic roof tiles that only had 1/10 the weight of regular tiles after magic processing were fitted perfectly on the wooden frames, and floating into the air before settling down on their predetermined homes.

Clank clank clank.

Like that, the covert was quickly being completed, bit by bit. The hangars being constructed here were spic and span, unlike the old, rickety ones at the Weyn Covert. They didn’t fall short of the imperial hangar in the Bajran Empire’s Imperial Palace.

“My liege, it’s incredible. I didn’t even dream that a large castle could be constructed this quickly,” praised Derval, his voice full of admiration as usual.

“I trust that everything I instructed is progressing well?”

“Of course. Gold coins are being melted down to produce bricks. We must have completed the production of thousands of bricks by now.”

“Then put them to use in the temple construction at once. The temple shall enshrine Goddess Neran, so be sure to pay special care to its construction.”

“By your will.”

The outer walls formed an almost perfect square. We had managed the construction of a castle wall 4 kilometers long on each side and over 10 meters high. Even I found it an astonishing sight. Even 21st century technology wouldn’t have been able to complete a building of such size in less than one month. These walls were made by leveling the ground, piling bricks on top, and then pouring cement in between those bricks. 21st century technology would have found it difficult to maintain stability and strength with just cement and bricks and no steel rods or lumber in the cement.

However, there was a special art called magic and spirits here. The ground was prepared in mere moments using high earth spirits, dirt walls with exact measurements and angles were set up to stack the bricks, and then bricks were once again stacked inside and cement was poured. From a structural technical standpoint, it would be normal for the cement to crack or explode as it hardened, but gravel was added to increase stability, and several mithril-alloy wires were running all throughout the walls. Those wires were connected to a mana control room underground, which housed a defense magic array and strengthening magic array that I had cried while creating for the last ten days.

‘It would have been totally impossible without magic crystals.’

In order to make the last-minute castle walls as grand and durable as castle walls created by empires and kingdoms over anywhere between several years to decades, I unsparingly invested my magic knowledge and magic crystals. The Grade 2 magic crystal and twenty Grade 3 magic crystals Chrisia had left me two weeks ago were all used up.

Those magic crystals were exchanged for a big time expedient. I didn’t regret it at all. In any case, castle walls were a bragging point in and outside of the territory. There was no need to cry over a few magic crystals when they were used to bring Nerman and I repute.

‘The problem is the personal castle where I’ll be living.’

We were almost entirely out of magic crystals. Most of the Grade 4 magic crystals were used to make the Mark II Blessed Spears, and the miscellaneous Grade 3 magic crystals were distributed for the repair of the broken bridges and for the defense of the forts.

‘In order to make a personal castle that doesn’t lose out to 21st century 7-star resorts, I will absolutely need top-grade magic crystals. For 24-hour warm water magic array and bathroom facilities with purification and dehumidifying magic arrays, a temperature control magic facility that maintains the interior temperature, as well as lighting and a state-of-the-art kitchen with a magic furnace… Magic crystals, they’re the problem.’

The headquarters building in Weyn Covert was one of the most up-to-date in Denfors, but it was a pathetic building that even a rural lord of an imperial territory would not deign to live in. I was planning on building an inner castle that came close to any royal castle, one that could draw admiration from every guest who came calling, a transformation that mirrored the rebirth of Nerman. A beautiful garden blooming with flowers all year round, a pond and fountain slightly bigger than most gyms, my paradise, a little piece of heaven on earth made with a tiny bit(?) of greed. And then, there would be me, surrounded by a plethora of beauties and contemplatively drinking like in the famous poem ‘A Rocking Horse and a Lady’ written by the poet Park In-Hwan, except instead of alcohol, it would be tea.

‘Huhuhu…’

The mere thought of it had my heart thumping with glee.

“My liege, the salt farm will be fully completed by this afternoon.”

“Is that so?”

‘It’ll be going into operation now.’

Salt was, along with grain, something the continent could not do without. Once the salt farm went into operation, we would be able to take the continental salt market by storm in a short amount of time.

‘I should establish a glass factory right away, too.’

Glass was considered a very precious product on the continent. Thanks to magic, glass as clear as the ones on 21st century Earth was being produced, but because production necessitated special magic treatment, the price was astronomical. According to what I found out from the Rubis Merchant’s Jamir, one sheet of glass used for a window demanded a whopping 10 Gold at least.

‘Silicic acid made from sand, sodium carbonate, replace the calcium constituent with lime; for crystal glass, use lead oxide; for borosilicate glass, boric oxide. Also, in order to control the properties, things like potassium, aluminum, and manganese can be added… And all of the ingredients can be acquired here.’

Magic was an interdisciplinary field. I knew the ins and outs of all sorts of fields, ranging from alchemy to minerals. And within the knowledge that Master Bumdalf had transferred to me, there was a glass production factory capable of modern mass production.

Master truly had a vast, seemingly boundless library of knowledge. His personality aside, it was impossible to not admire him. 

‘It’ll be really impressive when it’s done.’

I imagined the completed castle in my head. There would be a gold-gilded temple to one side, a huge mansion no inferior to the Forbidden City where I would live to another side, and hangars that could house a thousand wyverns as well. Just thinking about it gave me a flush of satisfaction.

‘Well then, shall we take a look around?’

If the salt farm was finished, sea water would have to be drawn in. Also, I had to check the road once. Thanks to the proactive cooperation of the elves, Nerman’s road stretched uninterrupted from the Havis Kingdom’s borders to Orakk Castle. Now, more roads were being constructed to extend to the eastern barrier where we had herded the monsters.

By virtue of the Lovent River, the territory was divided into 4 sections. Once roads were completed, uniting the separate parts into one whole, territory development would be as easy as taking candy from a child. The long-lived elves weren’t going anywhere, and it wasn’t as if the dwarves, who could no longer live without me, would go on strike either.

“Bebeto!”

Guooooooooooooo!

Bebeto, who was standing in front of his hangar, the one that was obviously the biggest and took up the most space among all the hangars in the new covert, gave an energetic response to my call.

‘You lucky brat. I’ve prepared a bedroom for you that’s so large two wyverns can easily fit with space to space.’

Bebeto probably understood my feelings. He grunted with satisfaction as he ran one lap around his hangar before flapping his wings and flying to my side.

This was a reward that only those who worked hard could enjoy. Be it people or wyverns, they would be treated on the same footing. Only those who did their best could enjoy greater freedom and happiness.

That was my policy as the ruler of Nerman.