Athtar was not bothered by the lack of etiquette. He actually found it quite refreshing and he loved the idea. However, he was unsure what Eldrian's motivations could be. It was indeed a strange idea, at least for those native to the world, especially while the entire kingdom was in a crisis. "A memorial? For what end?"
"To give people a place to mourn and share their stories." Eldrian replied, "Too many lives have been lost, yet we couldn't even give their families and friends proper burials. Instead, we burned their loved ones-"
"Pyres are quite common." Athtar mentioned as Eldrian faltered.
"They might be, but it means they lost a place to go to mourn," Eldrian replied. Of course, this world's after-death arrangements were different from Earth and Eldrian wasn't well informed, however, he felt that having something to hold onto was important.
This wouldn't be the same as a grave or an urn, what he was envisioning was a place for people to come and show their respect while also sharing their stories. A place where everyone can come to listen to those stories and remember those they had lost. Be it alone or together. He wanted something that could not just help people grieve but also bring them closer.
His plan was actually quite ambitious and he had little to no strategy to see it realized. He had simply jumped the gun to get started.
"Alright. What do you want my help with?" Athtar asked as Eldrian realized that he didn't even know what he should ask for help on.
"I want to make a monument capable of recording and showing recordings." Eldrian wasn't sure if the recording was something that would be understood, but luckily it seems that Athtar followed.
"I see, and what are you planning to use to make this?"
"That..." Eldrian paused as he had nothing on hand. "I'll have to borrow it, if possible."
"Oh? Then let us not rush this, why don't you come up with a design and plan first?" Athtar suggested, realizing that Eldrian seemed to not even have a concrete concept in mind.
Nodding, Eldrian agreed. As he and Myropsis were about to leave, Athtar asked, "Aren't you going to ask for my help with anything else? You might not get such a chance again."
Eldrian paused, there was so much he could ask. However, for now, he didn't want to split his attention and forget what he was busy with. Too often had he done just that and lost his way.
"Maybe sometime later," Eldrian replied and left. Leaving a grinning Athtar and a stunned Itirea, along with a playful Mneme who was nudging her to scratch her head.
...
"What was that about?" Myropsis asked after they passed through the gate and entered the city proper.
"I'm not sure myself. I guess I got ahead of myself again, do you maybe have some spare materials?"
Myropsis nodded, "What are you looking for?"
"I think for what I want to do a Mov Crystal would be the best. Do you have one?"
"No. But Pelaros might."
"Then, let us go see him!" Eldrian declared and the two quickly went to his mansion where Pelaros was swamped in getting on top of everything. While they moved quickly, it still took nearly half an hour to reach the center of the city without sprinting and causing chaos in the streets.
As soon as Eldrian entered the study, a swamped Pelaros -still in centaur form clumsily fitting into his room filled with papers- asked if he didn't want to continue to be mayor.
"No, I really don't think that would be for the best." Eldrian replied, "I might have managed, but I'm not a good leader."
While Pelaros disagreed, he decided to not argue at this moment. Laughing it off he asked, "Then what did you come to ask?"
"Resources," Eldrian replied and quickly explained what he wanted to do. Pelaros quickly agreed to help and led the two to a special room in the mayor's mansion.
"So this is your personal stash?" Eldrian asked as Pelaros showed them the special vault-type room. To enter required a complicated process, or Pelaros's blood and magic signal. The latter made it impossible to use his blood if he was dead or unconscious/unwilling.
"Why does it sound so crass when you say it like that?" Pelaros asked while opening the door, "This is technically the city vault, though it hasn't been used as such since the outer walls were constructed." For the most part, this was due to the lack of strategic resources in the area, there weren't any truly valuable items that needed extra security.
"And I can take anything I want?" Eldrian asked, just to make sure.
"Well, no. You can take everything you need."
Eldrian laughed hearing the distinction, it was an important distinction but it basically meant the same thing in this scenario. "Then..." Realizing that he still did not have a plan Eldrian asked if Pelaros would teach him the way to access the vault.
Pelaros was more than happy too, after all, Eldrian had been handed the entire city and had managed so well without ever showing any greed or corruption. Pelaros had no doubt in Eldrian's character. While the elf made mistakes, his heart was in the right place.
After mastering the process of unlocking the room safely, Eldrian headed to the mage's association with Myropsis. The two took up her 'room', the public library, and started their research and planning.
The first part Eldrian and Myropsis quickly faltered at, as with all the following parts. With access to a bunch of Mithril, a Mov crystal, and a bunch of mana crystals, the two did not need to hold back and it should be easy. Hold back they planned not, but it turned out it was quite hard to even get a feasible plan that could be moved to experimentation.
A day quickly passed as they worked together on the blueprint and made little progress.
During this time Eldrian still dared not enter his soul or try to return to Earth. He hoped that Two was managing but could not risk trying to return to Earth. The journey was not as easy thanks to his unique method of entering and as such he did not know what would happen if he did so in his current condition.
Often he would need to take a break to let his mind relax, if he tried to push too hard then a massive headache would follow. This slowed down their progress significantly, but they still finished the rough basic overall idea by the end of the second day, plus some key functions.
"So that should do for recording sounds," Myropsis mumbled, unsure. This function she had basically plagiarised from the existing communication devices. Only, instead of sending the information somewhere, they planned to store it in the Mov Crystal.
This plagiarism saved them so much time as it turned out it was truly hard to come up with such a complex design from scratch. But they still had a long way ahead of them. Unfortunately, it seems that runes dealing with communication and such were very rare.
Heck, they had literally copied and deconstructed these off one of the communication devices that the city-owned.
The runes were naturally not something that was common knowledge, kept a tight secret by the family who produced them in the capital. There were even efforts made to hide the runes and how they functioned together, but the two had managed to get past them thanks to Eldrian's mana sense.
And of course, these devices had great limitations, else communication between cities would not be so lacking. A large limitation was naturally distance, the kingdom was simply too large.
AN: A big thanks to everyone who continues to support the story by simply reading on Webnovel, voting for the story, or sharing comments. It is all greatly appreciated.