Iron Rush (3)

I'd thought the North was just Chulwon. Turns out it was Alaska.

The moment that fact hit me, my heart started hammering in my chest.

"Is this for real...."

There was no shortage of variety, either. Iron mines, copper mines, silver mines—hell, there were even gold mines.

And yet the North was still this poor for one simple reason.

"They're all stuck in the absolute boonies."

Every last deposit sat in some thoroughly unreasonable place. According to the records, most of them were buried deep in remote mountain hollows, where monsters had already set up as permanent residents—or where you had to punch straight through those monsters just to get there.

The gold mine, for its part, was nestled in the heart of Jangbaek Mountain.

Finding these in the first place is the real achievement.

Knights and soldiers forcing their way into monster country was one thing. Getting a surveyor with the skills to actually locate a vein into the same place was a completely different story.

Northerners might all be exceptional warriors, but the North was, at base, a high-level zone. Even seasoned high-levels could drop a tombstone and respawn back in town if they got careless—and yet production-class people had still managed to reach these places. That said everything about the sheer will of the ancestors.

The proof was right there in the opening lines of the volume that compiled all these mineral records.

I didn't know exactly who had written it, but it was almost certainly one of the successive heads of the Grand Ducal House. The other lords had clearly read that preface often enough—that single page was worn far thinner than ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the rest, which left quite an impression.

And the moment I saw it, I understood.

"This was their bitterness."

Not lottery tickets or scratch-offs. This was the long-held bitterness left behind by generations of Northern Grand Dukes.

"Rest easy, wherever you are. I'll put the records you left behind to good use."

A solemn feeling came ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠over me, so I bowed my head and offered a brief moment of silence. It didn't last long. They would have wanted me focused on the present and preparing for the future, not wallowing in the past.

"All right then. Let's get to it."

The mourning was over. What remained was to inherit the legacy the ancestors had left behind.

Mining development began in earnest.

Truth be told, there wasn't all that much for me to do personally. The Cat Tribe opened the roads to the veins, Sir Bearwolf commanded the escorts, and the Engineer Battalion handled barbed wire production and transport without needing to be told twice.

That didn't mean I could sit in the back, watch the show, and wait for free rice cakes. An ace finds work to do.

Once the shafts started going in, I started thinking about what the miners and pit crews would need—and realized the supply situation needed a proper overhaul. So the first thing I did was this:

"You want us to gather tough canvas for tents, my lord?"

"Yes. I'm going to make pants for the miners out of it."

Pants made from tent canvas—I was going to invent jeans.

Even during the Gold Rush, the ones who got rich weren't the miners digging gold. It was the clothing company selling jeans.

These days jeans were just a regular fashion item, but originally they were pure workwear—tough, coarse fabric that wouldn't tear while you worked a claim.

And they don't actually have to be blue, either.

Fun bit of trivia: jeans were blue because some clerk accidentally dyed an order indigo when nobody had asked for it. It didn't make them any more durable.

"I hear pants getting shredded is basically routine in mining work. So I want to take tent canvas that's already worn out enough for scrap and reuse it as cloth."

"Hah, excellent idea. Tent fabric is extremely sturdy, and dirt barely shows on it."

"Exactly."

Think of them as a three-hundred-dollar Matiz for the daily grind—cheap, disposable, and built to be used hard.

"And when you make the pants, have them set copper rivets into the corners of the pockets."

"Rivets? What are those?"

Ah. So I had to start from there.

"Hmm... Think of them as soft, mushroom-headed nails. Roughly speaking..."

I explained to Old Man Max how rivets made a join far sturdier than ordinary sewing. At first he looked baffled at the idea of driving nails into clothing, but once he'd heard the short version, he grasped the effect and let out an admiring breath.

"There's no need to limit this fabric to pants alone. Clothes, hats, wallets, shoes—we could use it for all sorts of things!"

Well, of course. At one point it had even been used for book covers.

Clothes can wait at this level. I need to make sure food and general supplies don't fall behind.

Mine development moved at a blistering pace. Sir Bearwolf had originally planned to simply reassign Engineer Battalion troops for the work—but the moment I announced my intention to mobilize the North's displaced people and build a proper mining town, he came flying over and demanded to know whether I was serious. When I nodded yes, Bearwolf looked thoroughly moved and declared, "I shall stake my life on fulfilling the mission Young Master has bestowed."

Staking your life might be a bit much... but a resolve to work yourself to the bone never goes out of style. I threw a modest encouragement feast with some meat, and he led his knights straight for the mine site we'd already scouted.

The Cat Tribe pitched in with equal enthusiasm.

Living off free meals as freeloaders must have been uncomfortable. Having actual work makes that feeling a lot lighter.

Their village was still under construction. As part of the recruitment terms we'd promised each of them a personal hearth, and I'd insisted on building it properly from the start, so a large labor force was already committed—which naturally stretched the completion date. Stuck inside the lord's castle eating through stores, they'd been sitting around rolling their eyes and enduring side-eye from everyone else. The second they heard there was work to help with, they bolted out gladly.

Before long they were crossing the ravines that led into the remote mountain hollows, throwing up bridges as they went.

Calling them bridges is generous. They're suspension bridges.

A basic design—planks forming the deck, ropes holding the shape. Cheap to install, sure, but durability was always the problem. Dangerous in wind, and liable to snap even if you left them alone. In the modern world, even the best-built ones were considered unfit for vehicles—footbridges or tourist attractions at best.

Then an unexpected variable showed up. A positive one, thankfully.

"If you need something with exceptional durability, we can braid Iron Spider silk into the cables."

"...Iron what?"

"Iron Spiders. The silk they spin carries a peculiar mana—tougher than steel of the same weight. Rare on the continent proper, but in the North, deep in Jangbaek Mountain, they're not that hard to find. Let's see—I believe we have stock on hand."

Where modernity had high technology, medieval fantasy had biotech.

I'd been regretting the absence of steel cable twisted from wire—and then it turned out this place had something better. We used it for the suspension bridges, and the result could handle carriages without breaking a sweat.

And then they went one step further.

"Hmm. These suspension bridges sway too much for carriages. It's genuinely inconvenient."

"What if we use them as a base and build bamboo-reinforced concrete bridges instead?"

"Pardon? Won't the wind just snap those too?"

"Haha. Then we simply make them sturdier."

The Engineer Battalion huddled up, made a great deal of noise, and somehow produced an actual massive roadway across the ravine. In fairness, they only designed the structure—the Cat Tribe did the actual building, scrambling back and forth across the gorge—but the end result was a road that hadn't existed before.

Call it unofficial Toll Road Guild Unit One.

Once that broad road was finished, supplies started moving fast. We pulled up the barbed wire that had been set at the entrance to Jangbaek Mountain, laid it out in a wide perimeter, and inside it stacked prefabricated concrete-block walls. The displaced people who'd been locked in a village headman's warehouse after causing trouble jumped at the chance when I offered them a new town and real jobs. With a workforce of several hundred—large-scale by Northern standards—the whole project finished in under a month.

Running shaft work and town construction at the same time made everything go faster.

In no time a brand-new village had been slapped together, and the people who had lost their country—no, their villages—were simply, openly happy to have a place of their own again. Especially when that place was a newly built apartment complex that put wherever they'd lived before to shame.

"This is our house?!"

"It's hot!! My ass is going to cook!!"

"Ondol?! I've been living half my life wrong!!!"

Watching them belt out cheers, I glanced sideways and found Sir Bearwolf looking thoroughly satisfied after completing yet another objective. I stepped over, put on a mild smile, and asked,

"Well, Sir Bearwolf? Does it meet with your approval?"

"Hahahaha!! Don't even ask, Young Master!! According to the survey I sent, the iron ore deposits in this mine alone are enough to rearm three full knight orders within a month!"

Well, that was good news. Most of the knight orders and soldiers were stationed out at the Great Wall, so I didn't feel the shortage as keenly—but Bearwolf, an active knight, looked as happy as a man who'd just bought a ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠new car.

Then he bellowed in that booming voice of his.

"Young Master, this is no time to stand about! You must give a speech!"

"Excuse me?"

"Whose village is this? Did you not design it yourself and take full command of its construction? Speak a word for those who will live here—and for those who will live by the iron this place produces!"

Suddenly I was supposed to give a speech?

I froze for a second—but by then the displaced people, the Cat Tribe, the Engineer Battalion, and the soldiers were all staring at me.

This is way too abrupt.

Even in my previous life I'd only ever been the social type. Someone else always handled the formal addresses.

Got anything?

I thought it over. This was the glorious first shovel-turn of the grand plan—I couldn't just wing some throwaway line. Whatever I left behind had to sound good enough to become a lasting legend.

Then a solid idea hit me.

No need to force a half-dead brain into inventing something impressive from scratch.

If I just lifted a famous line from the modern world, it would be brand new to everyone here, wouldn't it?

The perfect speech came to mind at once.

"Everyone!!!"

I threw my arms wide and shouted.

"Waaaaaaaah!!"

"Long live House Wintershield!!! Long ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠live the North!!"

"North, endure forever!!"

The response was, as expected, electric.

Perfect.

Nothing beats a New Village Movement speech for a moment like this.