Even though Nelson had a lot of things on his plate, it doesn’t compare to the amount of work Engr. Yamato has to deal with. After the meeting with the King he was now tasked with three things; the Mining operations, the Ore processing operations, and finally the construction of Orbital launcher platform.

Since he was the only engineer, barring the military hardware engineers of course, it was his responsibility to conduct the preliminary operations prior to the implementation of the planned projects. Not only that but because he is a member of the Global Engineering guild it was expected for him to handle these gargantuan tasks while juggling his other duties. Thankfully once the process has started he will shift to a more managerial role once more personnel from the guild arrive.

Yamato estimated that they would need to field in about 3000 more personnel to complete the projects; 1500 for the mining operations, 500 for the metal processing, and 1000 for the launcher construction.

He printed out a copy of his request and gave it to Nelson and sent an advanced email to the guild so they could start preparing even though the official “go” signal hasn’t been given yet. Yamato wanted to waste no time in getting prepared.

Because the locations of the mines were unknown at this point and the fact that it is obviously very far away from Fort Spearhead, he focused on the launcher first.

The Orbital Launcher was in essence a large rail gun that fired objects into space. It is basically a gun barrel dug deep into the earth as supposed to the outdated rocket launching towers of old.

He first needed to map out an area of interest and examine the soil quality of the area then they would have to drill a 50mX200m cylindrical hole in the ground. If it is too loose then they have to reinforce it with living concrete, a type of concrete that can repair itself due to limestone producing bacteria embedded in it. It was first introduced during the 21st century and was now the most basic of construction materials.

This current model had a barrel length that was only 150m and the excess 50m was used for the foundation of the structure. The 50m diameter would then be reduced to 30m once the electromagnetic launching system was in place.

All in all the orbital launcher reduced the cost of space launches and greatly improved space related industries.

Funnily enough one is being built in another world despite it being created to help them explore other worlds. Fate just loves to mess with humanity sometimes.

Sadly because of the planned mining projects, it looked like Yamato would be busy moving around the Alerian country side. Yamato cherished his last few days of being able to stay in a more “familiar” setting.

Yamato then returned to his temporary workplace at fort Spearhead. Other than managing the projects he was still busy studying the ores from Nelithea, and while Adamantite and Mithril were obviously the most useful, the other ores weren’t completely snubbed out. It was just a matter finding out how to use them.

Yamato was now busy studying a strange orange rock the locals call Orihalcum.

He finds this rock very strange since it doesn’t have anything special about. The metal extracted from it was barely stronger than Iron and aside from the orange color, nothing else about it is even worth mentioning.

Early in the morning he had put a sample of Orihalcum through an oxidation testing machine and left it there until after lunch. He excitedly returned to the “lab” eagerly waiting for the results.

“Hmm I left it there for a few hours now, it should be covered in rust” Yamato said to himself

However the results were rather surprising.

“Huh, it didn’t rust one bit” Yamato exclaimed

“I guess Orihalcum doesn’t react to oxygen. I wonder if this can be used as an anti-rust layer” Yamato immediately thinking of an application.

Yamato then looked to the side and found several more ores waiting to be studied. He then stretched his arms sighed.

“No matter where I look there’s always stuff for me to do” Yamato said as he resigned himself to his fate.

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Dr. Susan was now in her own temporary lab also conducting her own tests. She’s currently studying microbe specimens found from this world.

What was strange is that they found a lot of the same bacteria and viruses found back on earth like the common cold and even Malaria. Still she did find hundreds of new microbial species most of them appear to be harmless.

One particular waterborne bacteria caused boils to appear all over a person’s face and was called by the locals as the witch’s curse. Locals believed that a person afflicted with the disease is cursed by a vengeful spirit and or witch and sadly, until the Outsiders arrived, its mortality rate was 100%.

Aside from the disgusting boils forming only on the face, the victim would also experience high fever and eating disorders. The later stages would involve the victim vomiting uncontrollably and ultimately die from organ failure.

Before she arrived there were about 4 cases of the Witch’s curse recorded by the pioneer outreach workers one of which was in the later stages of the disease. Miraculously the antibiotic resistance of the disease was almost non-existent since the patient recovered after receiving treatment, though because they were greatly weakened by the affliction they still needed to rest for at least a week while being injected with IV fluid.

Dr. Susan found it quite laughable since the bacteria even died to something as weak as Penicillin when she tested it against different antibiotics.

“Hm I guess since the medical science of this world is so underdeveloped the micro-organisms haven’t evolved a resistance yet. This is a good starting point.” Dr. Susan said to herself as she recorded the results of the tests.

“Wait, didn’t this world have something called Alchemy? Why don’t they have medicine for something as simple as this then?” She asked herself feeling very confused.

She then remembered the King mentioning that Alchemic elixirs were mostly used for battle, something she found to be very stupid.

“Oh well, different worlds different priorities I guess. Not my problem though” She said to herself as she moved to examine another culture of local microbes.