“What in the bloody Purgatory is that?” Eoforwic shouted as his men also gasped at the sight of a large castle. Of course, he and his men had seen castles before, but there was something wrong with this castle in particular.

It was only a few hours away from Castle Marcoir!

“That is a castle,” Smith pointed out.

“Yes, but… when did you started building this?” Eoforwic asked.

“The foundations… maybe a few days ago. Construction delayed due to minor nuisance,” Smith said nonchalantly.

“Minor nuisance he says…” Eoforwic muttered.

As Smith had pointed out, neither the Rhanks nor the princess noticed this as it was barely built into anything. But once the battle was reaching its end, the drones continued its construction. As expected of an A.I. which specialized in manufacturing and industry, the castle’s interiors was already up within hours. All that was left was to build rings of walls around the keep, and it would be functional as a gatekeeper against outside forces.

“How long do you reckon it’ll take to finish this castle?” Eoforwic asked.

“A few weeks. Less than a month,” Smith answered with a shrug.

The old veteran stared at the castle for a while then snapped his fingers. “Lad, do you think you could build more in the coming months?”

“More what?”

“Castles, lad! Do you think you could get more up?”

“Depends on the location.”

“How much?”

“Human named Eoforwic. Must you bother me with those questions and not Weaver?” Smith grumbled.

“Ahahaha… right. Sorry, lad. I guess I should ask him,” Eoforwic laughed.

“But you know our price, human named Eoforwic. Wood, livestock, foodstuff, common metal.”

“Not silver?”

“No.”

“Bah, out of all the mercenaries in the world, the best ‘uns just doesn’t want silver,” Eoforwic complained. At first, he thought that he and his fellow Vyssians were getting a better deal, but as the demand for goods grew, he realized that it was getting harder to pay the drones.

“There are always alternative payment methods,” Smith said before he went ahead to take over the construction process of the castle.

“We’ll see about that, lad…” Eoforwic sighed and got onto a drone carriage headed for Sea’ax.

“This can’t be…” a drone overwatching the creation of Mount Varangia’s farms muttered. It was none other than Niner, Custodian’s Head Prospector. He walked through the farms he made and examined the dead plants scattered across the terraces. “So it doesn’t seem as simple as it would be…”

As the drone walked around, he was flanked by either a group of drones or a group of low troglodytes. After concluding that 90% of the farm was already dead, Niner started writing up his report.

Niner was so concentrated on writing up his analysis report that he didn’t realize some high troglodytes were sneaking up on him until they called to him. “Y-Your Divine Highness…”

“What? Oh. It’s you… people,” Niner spoke out in troglodyte tongue. “What do you want?”

“We’ve come to apologize for our incompetence in tending to the farms…”

Niner waved dismissively as he stated, “You are as proficient as we are in performing agriculture-related tasks. There’s nothing to it…”

“His Divine Highness is truly merciful!” one troglodyte hailed.

“Praise be the Iron Lords!” another high troglodyte added.

Although Custodian had hoped that the troglodytes would be better at producing food, it soon realized that these troglodytes weren’t familiar with the crops grown aboveground. Conversely, the food grown underground weren’t suitable for farming on the mountain terraces.

‘So? What will it be?’ Niner asked in hivespeak.

‘Bring some samples to Apoth,’ Custodian ordered.

‘Work, work…’ Niner muttered as he started ordering his drones to gather the dead crops. Once he had enough samples, he and his minions (both organic and otherwise) started moving out of the forest and into the open road.

The drones and the troglodytes waited for a few seconds before a large set of metal boxes appeared on the horizon, stopping just right in front of Niner and his entourage. The boxes opened their sides, revealing large open compartments.

“Train’s here, guys! Remember, tilapolas to the back, drones at the front!” Niner reminded loudly just before he got onto the train. The troglodytes who were already familiar with using the train got onto it without hesitation, while the new ones were still a bit cautious and wary about the ‘large metal worm’.

When Niner got a seat at the front of the train, he realized that Magus was sitting across from him. “Magus, my buddy! How’s the research going on?” Niner greeted.

In response, Magus slapped the metal crate next to him. He opened it, revealing several sets of parchment and some gems. While Niner was uninterested in whatever was written on the parchment, he took a keen interest in the gems. Without even asking Magus, the prospector grabbed one of the gems and started studying it.

“Where did this come from?” Niner asked.

Magus flashed a few pictures directly into Niner’s mind while pointing at the bundles of parchment.

“What? Some of them are from the Great Republic? Fascinating! The quality of these gems… they’re almost like the gems dropped by the iron golems in the dungeon!” Niner exclaimed. “So, your studies have bore fruit?” Niner asked to which Magus nodded to.

[Announcement: The train is now arriving at Mount Varangia Village.]

The train stopped at the newly built train station in the troglodyte village, dropping off the troglodytes. Afterwards, the train went straight towards the dungeon complex entrance. From there, Niner and Magus used a series of elevators and escalators to move within the ever-growing dungeon until the two separated ways. While Niner had to go straight to Apoth’s labs, Magus went into the core room.

“Good, you are here,” Custodian greeted. “You’re finally progressing in your research?”

Magus nodded and handed the box over to Custodian’s crane arms. It was obvious that the material was written by the human archmage cooperating with the drones, and Custodian had to carefully read through the reports as it struggled to read through the ugly handwriting.

‘The mana is consumed by the Varangian body and turned directly into, shall we say, excessive energy, not magic! As much as we tried, Magus could not make rock float nor could he make water spells even if I tried to teach him. On the other hand, he could always flawlessly make pure, raw fire and lightning. The end process is always the same: the mana consumed is gone. This simply proves my theory that mana cannot be connected to the celestial realm above our mortal realm!’

The report briefly mentioned some more details about the theory, but then the archmage also went on to blabber about some nonsense such as ‘spirits’ and ‘gods’. Magus probably had trouble understanding such things so he went directly to Custodian instead of reporting it over hivespeak.

“We will have to study this idea closely. Go and continue working with the human. I have prepared more iron golem gems for you to barter with.”

[Protocol 5 progressed. Perhaps your magic isn’t magic at all? 5% increase in drone efficiency.]

‘It seemed that researching anti-magic does have some merits!’ Custodian exclaimed to itself. Now that it knew that there were some benefits, it wouldn’t think that diverting precious resources to this endeavour would be a huge waste.

After Magus had left, Niner entered the core room.

“What is it, Niner?” Custodian asked.

“So, you already know about the failed food production, what now?”

“What do you mean?”

“We’ll run out of food in a few weeks!” Niner exclaimed.

“Are you aware of the new revised deal with the human princess?” Custodian asked.

Niner pondered for a minute what his master was talking about until he realized, “Ah! So the deal’s completed then!”

“Indeed, though, the princess will finalize the deal in Sea’ax first with Weaver. Other than that, it seems that the humans have readily agreed to hand over their precious matter to us without a fuss.”

“And I’ll get more workers, right?”

“First, we need to transfer the goods back from Rhankia to here. It’ll be a long journey. The infrastructure in the human territories are abysmal,” Custodian noted.

“It took one whole day for the Rhankish princess to get from Sea’ax to Castle Marcoir, but that was thanks to her… what was that? Relay posts? Such inefficiency!” Niner mocked. “So? Are we going to improve transportation around?”

“Negative. We have other priorities. First, we need to improve the troglodyte village and secure our holding. Once that’s done, we also need to make sure our secondary bases are set up. Only then would we be able to modernize the surrounding territories,” Custodian explained. “Speaking of secondary bases…”

Custodian gave a quick ping to the leaders of the two expeditions in order to get their responses.

‘Exarchi here. We’re close to the Kojan Wall, but we’re stopping by a nearby fortress first.’

‘Report received. Continue with your mission. I want those kojans located.’

‘No problem,’ Exarchi replied before leaving.

‘Slayer present. Currently located at Hetten capital. Heading south to set up a base soon.’

‘Did you encounter any problems?’ Custodian asked.

‘Negative. Just minor inquiries from the humans, but no definite answers given.’

‘Good. Get that base running so that Arcturus could make his way down south,’ Custodian ordered.