Cornerstone (4)
“You there! To the side! A little more! No! Not that way!”
An unseasonable mega-construction project had erupted near the laboratory. Soldiers hustled about, hauling long lengths of steel frame.
“Here. Like this… Raise four pillars so they meet in the middle, then brace them with steel beams in an X between the columns…”
The reason for the chaos was simple: they were putting up transmission towers to carry electricity. Thanks to the hydroelectric generator they’d built mid-mountain using a waterfall, the whole area had to be turned into a power station.
Scritch. Scritch. Scritch.
Most of the Blædwin soldiers worked their saws hard, felling the trees nearby.
“Put up a palisade too! Nothing—absolutely nothing—from outside is allowed to wander in here whenever it likes! No trees either! If a forest fire starts, we’re finished!”
Even I put my research on hold for once and ran around directing the whole operation.
Chirp. Chirp. Chirp.
A bird that had been sleeping shot into the air, startled by the vibrating trunk.
Sorry, but you’re going to have to vacate the premises.
Was this what they meant by human tyranny? Watching animals flee after losing their nests left me feeling oddly guilty—but what could I do? I had to eat too.
“You there! That’s where the transformer goes, so leave it alone!”
“So. You’re going to charge for electricity?”
“Yes, Father.”
I laid out my goals to the family in earnest and walked him through the plan in detail.
“There will be pushback. That’s why I’ll designate a pilot district first and supply power only to volunteers.”
“Not a bad idea. Once they learn how useful light is, they won’t be able to keep opposing it.”
If we suddenly announced that on top of existing taxes we would also collect a fee for supplying electricity, resistance was guaranteed. The family could force it through, but that would only breed resentment among the territory’s people and inflame opposition.
We had to think long-term. In the end, even reforms like this needed persuasion. And if the results were undeniable, we wouldn’t have to work that hard at all. Let them feel it for themselves.
“It isn’t only light. Supplying electricity is going to be a critical cornerstone for developing Ironcliff Territory from here on.”
“How do you intend to set the rates? If they’re too high, no matter how useful it is, the people won’t accept it.”
“They wouldn’t if we charged a flat fee. But if they pay only for what they use, they won’t feel cheated or refuse.”
“Pay for what they use? Checking every household would be a colossal waste of manpower, wouldn’t it?”
“Heh… No. Install one simple device and it records everything on its own. We only need to send a meter reader once a month to check the numbers.”
Father tilted his head, unconvinced. He clearly couldn’t picture how that was possible. Fair enough.
Innovation was basically creating something from nothing—and ordinary people couldn’t even imagine that nothing.
“You’ll feel it yourself soon enough, Father. Just how important it is to advance technology.”
Until now it had all been foundation work. No—we were still only stacking the cornerstone, so progress felt slow. By my standards, at least.
But as time went on, the gap between places that invested in engineering and places that didn’t would become enormous.
Not just the Blædwin family—the duchy would become the continent’s foremost city of mana engineering within a few years.
The other nations beyond the Balchess Mountains probably can’t even imagine it. That this little backwater country could develop this far.
“I will discuss your proposal with the family’s senior officers and inform you of the result.”
“Understood.”
“You may go.”
“Yes.”
I left the family head’s residence and went to see Samuel.
The moment we started talking money, even Samuel—whose face almost never changed no matter what—developed a faint crease between his brows.
“If one of these ‘meters’ costs roughly thirty silver to make, and Iron Hall has about fifteen hundred households, that is forty-five thousand silver—two thousand two hundred fifty gold. Factor in production time, installation costs, and maintenance and repair, and you will need at least double that.”
“Yeah… that tracks?”
“Furthermore, wire production is already devouring an absurd amount of money, and then there are the support poles, the light bulbs, and the transmission towers—and the real problem is maintenance. You cannot simply send random laborers. They must be trained, training takes time, and even after all that, teaching the territory’s people how to use electricity also costs money. Money.”
In our entire family, Samuel was the only man who said “money, money” more than I did.
If any of it had been wrong, I might have argued. But every single point was correct, so I had nothing to say.
How did his brain spin that fast the second cash started flowing out?
“Still! Once all of this is solved, from then on we just rake in the money. And the people’s lives getting richer is a given.”
“……”
Samuel found that hard to refute. He tapped the desk with a finger, lost in thought.
He had experienced the light bulbs, so he knew how important this was. And with a head like his, he could feel how radical and innovative what I was proposing really was. Just as I said—over time, the fees the family collected would pile up like snow in a blizzard.
“Are you certain?”
“Of what?”
“Those light bulbs. That they will not simply wink out after an hour or two the way they do now. Frankly, at the current efficiency, we would be better off not doing this.”
I agreed with him there. A single bulb already ate a considerable amount of mana-stone powder just to compensate for the poor heat resistance.
But all of that would be solved the moment we produced tungsten. Not only that—we could replace every milling-machine cutting blade with tungsten alloy too.
“That’s why I’m preparing an alternative right now, remember?”
“Very well. Bring me that alternative, and I will review it favorably.”
“Great!”
I considered this a satisfying negotiation. Getting that money-grubbing Samuel to say even that much was no small feat.
“Just wait a little. I’ll make it work somehow.”
People arrived from the Lobel family with Erdin—a carriage loaded with an enormous amount of gold.
Lobel porters set bundles stuffed with gold down on the floor. Wendy dashed over at once, peeked at the glittering yellow lumps inside, and let out a delighted cry.
“Whoa. How much is all this?”
“Erdin Lobel said he would work with Robon, and it seems he meant it.”
Gain checked the sum as well and stiffened in surprise.
“Hmph. No need to look so shocked. Did you think I’d make that kind of offer without the ability to back it up?”
Erdin’s nose went sky-high as he watched their faces.
Word that Erdin had brought ten thousand gold to Robon spread through the entire family in an instant.
“Erdin Lobel brought ten thousand gold? That guy? How?”
“Maybe he’s more trusted than Arnold Lobel?”
“Come on, no way.”
“No—think about it. He’s been racking up achievements one after another.”
“Huh? Yeah, I guess he has.”
To anyone who didn’t know the Lobels’ internal politics, Erdin simply looked like someone the family held in high regard. Even those who had looked unfavorably on Robon’s choice to partner with Erdin found their opinions starting to shift.
The Council of Elders in particular treated the matter as quite serious.
“What do you believe is Alfred Lobel’s reason for backing Erdin with ten thousand gold?”
Council Chairman Liam Blædwin convened the elders and put the question to them.
“He may be testing Erdin Lobel.”
“Nonsense. What is Erdin Lobel worth? It’s a brush-off—take this and get lost.”
“I disagree. With Arnold already there, why bother with Erdin? This is an opportunity to give Erdin the strength to compete with Arnold.”
“Perhaps Alfred Lobel secretly wants to cooperate with the Blædwin as well. He simply can’t, because of the old men above him.”
“Aren’t we those same old men?”
“Are we the same as those Lobel bastards?!”
Arguments flew back and forth among the elders. At first they had all opposed Robon’s partnership with Erdin—but that atmosphere was beginning to waver.
“Enough. Let us watch a little longer. As the administrative advisor says, we old men in the back room should take a step back.”
The council’s administrative advisor, flushed with triumph, pointed at the other elders as if to say, See? These old men. You have to know when to step forward and when to stay out of the way. Tsk tsk.
The elders made no secret of their irritation, but none of them voiced open opposition.
The chairman of the council thought to himself that the Council of Elders must not stand in the way of the change that had begun to blow through the Blædwin family of late.
I will have to manage this carefully.
The wolframite refining project had begun.
The one solution that could break this whole frustrating situation open at once—that was wolframite.
“The problem is that refining the stuff is insanely hard.”
You solved one problem only for another to appear, and solving that one spawned yet another. You solved, and solved, and solved again—and a harder stage waited beyond.
Even so, I was going to try.
Because it feels like I can do it somehow.
First of all, discovering tungsten-bearing ore—the most fundamental problem—was already half the victory.
That lovely Miner kid.
Without him, I wouldn’t even have been able to attempt this.
Wolframite was a mineral of tungsten oxide mixed with manganese and iron. Separate the iron and manganese from the tungsten oxide, then reduce the tungsten oxide to tungsten metal, and you were done.
Crush the ore fine… remove the impurities with gravity separation…
I threw myself fully into the high-difficulty work of refining tungsten.
Construction near the waterfall where the power station would rise was still underway, and at the forge they were hammering like madmen, building frames for the transmission towers.
Erdin, who had come to deliver the subsidy funds to Robon, watched the scene with his eyes darting nonstop.
“Insane. What is all this?”
How long had it been since he left, and it had already changed this much? Looking at a Blædwin that transformed day by day, the recent arguments back in Lobel flashed through his mind.
This place is different every single day… and Lobel…
The phrase “frog in a well” existed for a reason.
Ironcliff Territory. Blædwin Castle. RMEL inside it. You couldn’t understand without coming here—how trapped you were in old frames, how much you feared change.
Screeeeeeech!!
A machine with a blue chassis the size of a man’s torso spun a blade at tremendous speed, shearing through rebar.
Clack. Clack. Clack.
On one side, engineers with iron masks over their faces melted and fused steel plates. Deeper inside the laboratory, a bald mage worked a mechanical apparatus, engraving circuits.
A sight you would never see in Lobel territory.
Just watching it was enough to leave him staring blankly. Everyone looked so busy that he couldn’t even find a way to speak up; he simply stood there, gawking and turning his head.
“Erdin? When did you get here?”
Robon appeared at just the right moment and took charge of him like a shepherd reclaiming a lost lamb.
“Just now. Ah—I brought the subsidy.”
“I heard. Thanks. See? I’ve got a good eye for people.”
When Robon praised him, Erdin felt his spirits lift before he could stop them.
What? Why am I happy? Who does this guy think he is?
He shook his head, pulled himself together, and pointed curiously toward the mage.
“But what’s that?”
“Ah, that?”
Robon led him over to Andersen. Sensing their approach, Andersen paused his work.
“Sir Erdin has come as well?”
“What is that thing?”
“This is the Mana Circuit Machine developed by our laboratory director. Think of it as a device that engraves mana circuits with precision.”
“…That’s possible?”
Erdin looked at Robon as he asked.
“I modified a milling machine. The biggest problems with engraving mana circuits are uniformity and accuracy. Swap out the milling machine’s spindle and it feeds mana liquid into the circuit as it cuts.”
“Oh…”
Erdin had no idea what any of that meant, but it looked impressive all the same.
“Can’t you make one of these for our territory too?”
Robon sighed at the absurd request. He almost said something, then the image of ten thousand gold floated up over Erdin’s face and he held his tongue.
Wearing a kindly smile, Robon spoke instead.
“You probably couldn’t use this one in Lobel. Without someone as skilled as Magic Advisor Andersen, it’s hard to operate. Hmm. I just thought of something really good, though. Want to hear it?”
“What is it?”
“When you farm, you do everything by hand, right?”
“Yeah?”
“Covering all that land takes a ridiculous amount of labor?”
“Yeah. It’s no joke.”
“Want me to cut that down to a quarter?”
Erdin stared at him as if he’d said something completely insane, but Robon only smiled as if the reaction were adorable.
If anyone else had said it, Erdin would have dismissed it as nonsense on the spot. But the other party was Robon Blædwin—so he couldn’t.
“……Does that actually work?”