V10: Chapter 4

  …

  “Drink?”

  “No, thank you. But help yourself.”

  “My thanks, your majesty.” Erlan took a bottle filled with vodka, took off the cork, and took a swig. With the hardy constitution of the dwarves, vodka was basically a strong beer. We were in his home, which was richly furnished with carved statues of animals, furs, and a warm hearth. His wife and children scurried away from the kitchen after giving greetings. Erlan’s brow was heavy as he considered what he just found. “Are all those of the lower caste like this now?”

  “Unfortunately, I can’t verify. The Iterants have left the lands of the Forgers. I couldn’t ask them to remain there after my call for aid.” Rebecca handed me a cup of tea from a thermos before returning to her post by the door. All exits and entrances of Erlan’s house were now protected by shapeshifting terminator maids. Man, sometimes, I really appreciated finding the Iterants instead of all the other Ancient Wonders. Maybe they were actually the best… pfft. No, I could’ve literally gotten a giant robot that produced endless armies before getting repaired into producing more giant robots. Nothing beats that. “All that I know is that all the soldiers on the front line are as you’ve seen. Nothing more than control systems for armor and weapons at the beck and call of officers.”

  “But there were no such efforts being made when I was general. Not even a decade has passed. There just aren’t enough of the middle caste to achieve such a thing!” The middle caste of Forger society were their intellectuals. Most of them had weak bodies with their genetic development devoted only to their brains. Given their frail bodies and poor health, they were usually wheeled around, and the lower caste worked as their hands and feet. Little more than living computers, they led short, painful lives and were churned out in large numbers. Their short lifespans and poor health kept their numbers low, along with high chances of stillbirth. Babies aren’t meant to have brains the size of bowling balls. “How could they have done this?”

  “The Scholars moved. Possibility after I recruited you. This is pure postulation, of course, but I could see your king doing it.” Erlan’s eyes widened. I could see it. The gears are turning in his head. He is placing the blame of this on himself. I moved in to score some sweet, sweet loyalty points. Even if I’m ready to kill them all, I won’t if I don’t need to. People tend to be the most useful when they’re alive.“ No. None of that, Erlan. You were abandoned by the Forgers. Left to die without supplies, new equipment, and reinforcements against the Death Lord. Had you not chosen to take my offer, you would’ve perished. There was no choice in the matter for a general who valued the lives of his troops.”

  Erlan opened his mouth to disagree but instead bowed his head.

  “You think too highly of me, your majesty. I was entranced by the promises you gave. For those promises, I broke my vows.” Erlan insisted, but I shook my head. I was glad that he was giving me so many opportunities to convince him that he did the right thing.

  “What awaited you and your people if you had refused my offer? Nothing more than the dissolution of your company, the striking of your standard, and the end of your career. The upper castes of your people could’ve never given you the honors you deserved, let alone allowed you to persist after your victory without their aid.” I plucked at his heartstrings but mostly worked on his mind. He was aghast at the revelation of what was happening to the lower castes, but I was forcing him to face the truth. The higher castes of the Forgers would’ve lost immeasurable amounts of face if he returned after receiving no support, no assets, and no reinforcements. Hell, his return might’ve sparked an uprising. “The only thing that awaited you upon your return was your death and the deaths of all your soldiers. That is why I worked to bring you to my side.”

  “… You made no mention of such things when you were trying to convince me, your majesty.” He cast a low gaze my way with an unreadable expression beneath a heavy brow. The words were almost accusatory. Accusatory enough for Rebecca to take a step forward, until I signaled for her to stop. “Why speak of such things now?”

  “Because now, after seeing your revulsion at what your former king has done, I believe that you’re willing to hear the truth. Until that moment, I thought you had hidden aims to return to the Forgers; thus, I feared that I could not trust you in full.” I bluffed with a sad smile in response. It was a lie. I didn’t trust him at all. All these people have a gun at their head, and I was ready to pull the trigger the moment I suspected coordinated efforts to revolt. “I believe that now… you can truly work and fight alongside the rest of my people, Erlan.”

  I extended my hand his way, halfway expecting a scoff and a snort at my horrible act, but instead my practice in private seemed to pay off.

  Erlan took my offered hand in two of his own and bowed his head in thanks, as his body shook.

  When he raised his head, tears fell from his eyes.

  “They are… they are truly the vilest of our people! They demand so much of us, yet give nothing in return! They took our bodies, and now… they’re taking our souls so that they can use broken minds to pilot machines!” More emotion than I was prepared for surged out of Erlan, especially as he got out of his seat and knelt by my side while holding my hand to his forehead. It was uncomfortable. I didn’t like it at all. However, I bore with it and glued sad smile number 14 on my face. Damn, this makes me feel really bad. “Please, my lord, there must be some way to help more of my people reach your lands!”

  Damn, he wants me to do something in exchange for his loyalty and trust.

  Time to spin up the bullshit machine.

  “In this very region, there have been signs of attempted infiltration by what remains of the Scholars of the Skies. They are taking over the bodies of other mortals to infiltrate our lands. That technology seems to be just a few steps removed from placing mortal brains into mechanical bodies.” Pure speculation left my lips, but this was a world where killing enough people lets you face-tank cannonballs, and certain people can cast heat rays after reading enough books. I would be surprised if I wasn’t close enough to the mark. “They are wary of those I’ve sent to hunt them, and they make use of old caverns and tunnels throughout the land. I would like to ask for a few of your warriors to help hunt and bring them in alive for interrogation while I search for a method to begin smuggling people out of the Forger’s lands.”

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  Thankfully, my bluff worked, and Erlan grasped onto my offer like it was his only hope of salvation.

  Hm?

  How will I steal population from a bunch of isolationists lodged up in underground cities without Iterants?

  Dunno.

  Figuring things like that out is Khanrow’s job, and if he can’t figure something out, we’ll still have tried our best!

  …

  Anyway, after Erlan got what he was promised, I decided it was time to bring out why I really came over here.

  To talk about engines.

  In the coming wars, horses of both the flying and non-flying varieties were unsuitable. I’ll have them work as reconnaissance, messages, and skirmishers, but mechanized cavalry was essential. My faction was supposed to have them in the late game and be fully mechanized in the endgame with late WW1 tanks armed with magic weapons being the heaviest form of cavalry. Biplanes armed with arcane heat rays and airships with loads of bombs, machine guns, and strong arcane shields were set to be my fliers.

  But the Forgers, with their advanced material sciences and the correct quest chains, received the best anti-air unit in the game.

  A fucking jet fighter armed with heat rays.

  Yeah, as if being autocratic eugenicists that saw other races as inferior wasn’t on the nose enough, they’re also the first to mass-produce jet fighters.

  But I’m getting lost in the funny lore.

  If there’s anything I want out from the Forgers at my disposal, it’s that jet fighter. As incredible as it is to have biplanes shooting and killing flying demons and harpies, as well as strafing rampant AI and eldritch swarms, I prefer to not have to constantly replace them. They’re slow glass cannons, so even if they’re relatively cheap for their cost, they’ll cost too much in manpower to effectively field. Sure, it’s awesome to see biplanes tear apart demons and harpies, but the casualties involved are just way too high.

  Dwarves would get destroyed if they didn’t have the best fighters in the game, so that’s why they have it.

  “This is… this is ancient technology!” I gave Erlan and the craftsmen in the Forger village the schematics from the wreckage we found several months ago. Most of the space station was a write-off, but we still received key samples of incredible materials, and one of the engine modules for the Ancient Transport was in decent condition. With the parts from the other three, we were able to make a good enough series of repairs that a Citadel could fill in the gaps, so we were able to get an engine… to take apart and meticulously take notes on before putting it back together. “Where did you find it, my lord?”

  Without highly advanced fly-by-wire software and incredible computing power, ancient transports are just ungainly, hollow metal coffins with large thrusters.

  “The Academy kept it a secret. A method to deploy powerful artifacts and champions across the continent in a single night. Most of the vehicle has been destroyed, along with its hangar, but we were able to recover one of the engines.” Mostly truth, but with a few lies spread across it to make life a bit easier. He didn’t need to know that we got a lot of material from the space station. Just finding examples of circuits and electricity was amazing, but access to the weapons used by the security system? We’ve got ridiculously low computing power, but we still had several tons of destroyed future materials to work backwards from. “According to my own researchers, this machine sucks in air, injects it with a combustible compound, and then spews out a great amount of air. It is effectively a machine that rides on off-constant, controlled explosive combustion.”

  Erlan’s hands drifted over the design, while all the craftsmen present peered over his shoulder to look at it as well.

  There was nothing short of wonder in their eyes.

  Why wouldn’t there be?

  This was the kind of technology that they’d been meaning to maintain and protect. Right in front of them, here and now, was the reason why they existed.

  “I… I do not know how to make this, but I will do my utmost to try, your majesty.”

  “We do not need those machines specifically. Engines a tenth of their estimated power will suffice for the craft we plan to build.” This was the biggest gambit I could throw. I gave them the schematics for the Forger’s twin-engine, multi-role jet aircraft. It unfurled beautifully across the table, made with standardized units of measurement, weight, and advancements in practically every freaking field from physics to mathematics. There’s a reason why I’m pumping money into my research districts, guarding them jealously, and sparing no expense when it comes to research. “With an engine of that power, using fuels we’re now working on refining, we will dominate the skies against any threat.”

  We had trains now, so we’re capable of moving vast quantities of goods across the land. Vast enough to support mining and drilling operations away from population centers. While the Academy’s lands were meant to be the breadbasket, all the other regions were cultivated and terraformed to be rich in material resources. This whole continent is a giant staging ground for the Ancients’ vengeance, as if the fact that making super soldiers is easy with the right fruits and a basic chemistry set. This whole continent was built to take on the rest of the planet and win once the defenses went down.

  It’s just horrid luck that everyone decided to fight each other because of physical appearances instead and that enough time passed that cultures diverged.

  But now?

  Now, I was doing my best to gather everyone to work under me and grasp at an inkling of what the Ancients believed this land should be.

  And, if it didn’t work out?

  At worst, we’ll get biplanes.

  Maybe we’ll fall in the middle and get WW2 piston-based aircraft. That’d be neat, honestly.

  But I’ll aim for the stars, anyway.

  “My lord, I will gather the finest minds of my people and turn them towards this singular purpose. We had wondered why you had us search for so many metals and their alloys, but this answers that perfectly.” I had no clue what Erlan was talking about, but I just deployed a tactical nod in response. Sure, yep. That was exactly my plan. Why would I correct him about doing something perfectly in his eyes? I’m paranoid, not stupid. “To create metals that need an engine a tenth of the strength of the Ancients’ is within reason. We simply need time and resources.”

  “Dorms are ready at our newest university wing. You’ll have all the access and funding you require. I will ensure the safety of your families here in this refuge.” Erlan bowed in thanks. Not even thinking that I’ll have his family and all the other craftsmen’s families as hostages if they fuck me over. No, for him, this was me extending my trust to him and his people. There was no need to disabuse him of this notion. I smiled and gave him a nod before placing a hand on his shoulder in a show of trust. “I’m relying on you, Erlan. Speak to me candidly. Report to me the truth. I will do my utmost to support you and decide our goals together. If they are not met, we shall wash our hands of this business and find another path for your people to walk.”

  It wasn’t exactly lying.

  I’m a fair and just employer, as long as you do your job properly and tell me the truth.

  It’s when people decide to stop working, take advantage of me, or try to revolt that things get complicated.