Henry POV

This damned forge! The new, makeshift forge was giving me trouble.

It wasn’t really supposed to go like this. Initially the plan was to gather only the friends and families, to shelter them, but it didn’t end up that way. One guardsman told his friends, and that friend told his friends. Before we knew, expedition of 40 had ballooned to double that, and it was only the beginning. When the designated time arrived, instead of the 80, there was 130 waiting for us, outside the town. Still, we couldn’t leave them be, so we took them with us. When we reached the port town where the 3 ships were waiting for us, even more tried to join us. When I tried to deny them, as there was no space on the ship, couple of them turned out to be fisherman with their own boats.

And now we were left to deal with the mess. Originally, the supplies we had bough should have been more than enough, but with the numbers more than doubling, it simply wasn’t going to cut it. The food won’t last us till the end of winter. We also have to build houses, so the poor folk won’t die to the rains of the late autumn, or the cold of the winter. Lumber was still okay, but we didn’t have enough iron to make nails to hold them together. Don’t even get me started with the workload.

Originally, Daniel, who was my senior apprentice, was supposed to come with us, but he chickened out at the last day. Now I was left with my younger apprentice, Brian, whom I couldn’t trust to set up the forge. He could work with normal materials and steel, but with his speed, it would be winter before he managed to complete the nails. It wasn’t supposed to be like this!

And that “hyuman”. I still couldn’t believe what I saw there. The metals that the construct contained were nothing like I had seen before. There was not even a speck of rust or dirt on them, as if it didn’t allow itself to be touched by any imperfections. It would be impossible to keep a metal thing of that size rust free, unless it was made out of adamantium or mythril. But his world was supposed to lack such materials. And that’s not even talking about the craftsmanship. The aft of the construct was as smooth as a mirror, lacking even a single hammer mark. Small things, such as weapons or armor was one thing, but it would be impractical for a piece of metal almost 50 meters long. Only way I could think of was that, it could be casted and polished afterwards, but it would take years to finish it even with a small army of apprentices.

As I was about to finish setting up the forge with the help of Brian, a polite cough drew me out of my thoughts.

“How is it going, Henry?”

It was Galdwin. I didn’t trust him when he had said that it was a man that came crashing down. I truly thought that he had lied, wanting to sell the stone for the highest bidder. Oh, how wrong I was.

“It’s not good kiddo. We won’t have enough iron or coal to last till next year. Did you talk with Milan about food? That’s not good either. But you didn’t come here to talk about that, did you? Go on, what is it that you want?”

“It’s Lloyd. He is inviting you to a dinner in that castle of his.”

My hands were still shaking when thinking of that feeling. It was death. As simple as that. It felt as if nothing I could do would matter. As if nothing in the world could save me. Yet, I had to go. I wanted to go, so I stood up to get something better than the thick work clothes to wear.

“He is also inviting your assistant.”

Now, I knew why he wanted me to come, but Brian? What possibly could an assistant know that would interest him? But I didn’t question it. Brian was my student and helper, not my child. It was up to him to decide.

Brian accepted the invitation with a passion. He had overheard when Galdwin was telling us more about the short-ear, back on the ships.

The trek to the hyuman was not too long, as the village was only 7km away from his dwelling. We had decided to settle here because of the mana tree, which was 50 meters away from the tent village. It was a boon for us to find that tree. While neither the lumber was valuable, nor did it have an alchemical use, it was extremely valuable for the common folk. It would draw mana into itself from earth, increasing the mana density around it. It would help with mana regeneration of mages, and also would help the cultivation of warriors who were below Tier 2 by a small margin.

“How did he find you anyway? I haven’t seen him outside the metal airship. Also, why didn’t he come to find me, but you?”

He shrugged.

“He came when I was patrolling around the village. He just told me to invite and guide you. He didn’t seem to enjoy his walk outside that much. I think he didn’t want to come all the way to the village.”

When we arrived at the castle, the drawbridge-like-doors lowered themselves once again, and come out a man. There was a small neutral smile on his face, but to me, most relaxing part was that he was unarmed. He was wearing some kind of suit that covered him neck to toe, but as with almost everything I had seen from the short-ear, it was novel to me. It looked like some kind of leather, but it was matt black and stretchy. It stuck to him as if a second skin. What kind of thing was this? If it really was leather, what kind of beast could such a thing belong to? If it was fabric, what manners of workmanship could do this? Thankfully, Brian managed to nudge of out of my thought with a sharp elbow.

“So, please come in, Mr. Henry and his assistant, Brian.”

His accent was horrible, nothing like when I heard him talk when we first met. Then it clicked me. He wasn’t using a soul link! He managed to learn the language from spending a single day with Galdwin?! It would take at least a Tier 5 mage to accomplish that! And the closest one was the capital of the duchy.

But then, he said something to Galdwin in his native tongue, and he turned to us.

“I will be going back to patrol now. I am breaking the soul link on him, so you can use it.”

I obeyed, and cast a soul link. He explained to us that, while he could speak the common language; some of the words were still alien to him. Thus, soul link was required. So Brian could understand, he was speaking in common as much as his limited vocabulary allowed, leaving Brian to puzzle the pieces he couldn’t understand, either by the context, or from my replies.

“The food is ready, so, shall we?”

As he ushered us in, my mind might as well gone blank. To my left, there were hundreds of metal boxes, each identical in shape, design and size. Why would anyone use precious metal for such a thing?! It was much more surprising when I guided my eyes towards the right. Cubes. Cubes upon cubes. Each half a cube meter, stacked upon top of each other as if they were common trash. There were hundreds! I could barely recognize few of them. A dozen cubes of iron or steel, 5 cubes of copper, 3 led ones, even a silver and gold one! Just the silver one was worth thousands of pieces! And the gold cube… It was more than the annual budget of a county! Perhaps even more than duchy’s.

I still continued to take shock after shock. Until we reached the dining room. No, even then, it continued. Why were the doors made out of metal, thicker than a man at that? Where from did the lights come? Why did the doors open and close by themselves? What kind of lunatic would go to trouble of hammering a giant 1cm thick sheet of steel, only to use it as a dining table? What kind of metal was this fork and knife made out of? It felt like steel, but any cutlery made out of it would rust too soon.

And these were the thing that I could understand. Glowing glass with moving pictures in them, the metal panels near doors with 12 buttons on them, the omnipresent music that was playing…

When I looked to my left, Brian was not doing any better.

“So, I wanted to talk about metals that could interact with mana.”

Owner of the magic mansion exclaimed, as he stabbed some kind of red vegetable with his fork.