After making his rounds in a bid to hire some miners, Ed found that word got out rather quickly. Before he knew it a proper system had to be put in place as volunteering had become something more akin to recruitment. With very loose requirements albeit.
Among these groups was a surprising visitor. Ed hadn't expected them at least.
"Shel?" He asked with surprise seeing Shel amidst the group of would-be miners.
Many strong-armed orcs came to volunteer themselves for recruitment. This was especially true for those that had participated in crystal mining and taken it as a sort of opportunity to show off strength. They were eager to boast once more about who could fill the largest cart and place bets on how long it would take them to pick the mine clean.
There were still some orcs unfamiliar with mining that decided to volunteer themselves, however. Shel was such an orc.
"Yes, I came to help" And she was proud to be one too. Lazing around wasn't her style.
"Well, glad to have you here" Ed flashed her a smile and said. He couldn't refuse her and he certainly had no reason to do so either. Shel had come in a drove alongside other wanting orcs and that expressed her willingness and sincerity as she hadn't come to him directly.
"Yeah… I just wanted to help in someway…" Shel said coyly in a way unbefitting of her muscle bound persona.
Ed said nothing. He could understand what Shel wanted to express with those words.
Although she wasn't much in combat… and she wasn't much in terms of appearance… and she didn't have much brain either… she still had the determination and willingness to help.
So... if that meant she would have to pick up a pickaxe and mine then she would do so. Even if helping meant throwing herself into danger, she would still be more than willing to do so. Shel was as such, and Ed was glad to know she hadn't been affected in any way by his actions.
After a bit of silence, Buldwud approached Ed and muttered to him that the mining spots had been filled. There were a limited number of pickaxes and there was also limited space inside of the mine, it was inevitable that the spots would become full.
"Oh, alright." Ed responded before turning to the other orcs who were still hoping to land a spot in mining.
"That's enough miners, anyone wanting to land this job can leave" Ed told the crowd of orcs. Immediately the smiling and cheerful atmosphere that the prospect of competition had brought was shattered and instead replaced with complete dejection.
"Does, does that include me?" Shel asked Ed with evident disappointment. Ed could only show an apologetic smile before suddenly remembering his secondary goal.
"Right, anyone who is willing to learn to smith can follow me to the smithy" Ed shifted his gaze towards the crowd and said, the dejection in the faces of many was replaced by confusion, smithing?
"It's the thing I was doing yesterday and how I made that pickaxe he has" Ed said and pointed at Bulwud who was holding one of the pickaxes he had made.
The pickaxe was naturally made of orc iron and the shaft was made from the wood of nearby trees. It looked hefty yet clean especially since it hadn't seen any use. Bulwud was only holding it for the sake of instructing the orcs who wanted to be miners and he had yet to try it out for himself after all.
Still, even after seeing the tool and hearing Ed's brief words the confusion in the faces of most had not dwindled. In fact, the ones that hadn't seen what Ed was doing were now even more confused.
"I'm willing!" Shel was also confused, but she was still willing. Learning wasn't something she was accustomed to but from what she had heard all Ed was doing was smacking a piece of iron, how hard could it be?
After the first volunteer, many of the other orcs shrugged away their worry and confusion and did the same. They all expressed their willingness to follow after Ed. The main reason being that they would be bored anyway so why not try and get a hobby?
There was only one forge at the moment however and there was an insufficient amount of Iron, Ed decided to stick with just ten. Obviously, Shel was among those ten, Ed couldn't refuse her enthusiasm.
With some orcs willing to become smiths and many willing to mine, Ed could finally say that the settlement was moving in the right direction. Metalworking was a big next step towards the advancement of any society.
Ed did some final instructions before leaving towards the smithy with ten orcs in tow. He had instructed Bulwud on where the mine was located and gave him a quick refresher on mining.
Mining the crystals was different from mining orc iron, the crystals were brittle and were clumps sticking out of the walls. For mining Iron however they would need to dig into the wall and worry about things like the roof falling on them,
"Ed, what are we going to make, more pickaxes?" As soon as the group made it into the dark smithy Shel decided to ask more details about the job she was applying for. The others who were engrossed in conversation were also interested and they all turned to face Ed.
"We'll start with teaching you all the basics" Ed didn't plan to have them make anything. There wasn't even enough iron to make anything in the first place. Most of it had already been spent on making the pickaxes and there was still not enough to supply all of the would-be miners with them. The entire purpose of that day would be training due to this.
"The basics?" One orc joined in and asked. Ed shot them a glance.
[Baghig (Sanctuary orc)]
The orc Baghig sported a firm frame and a stoic expression yet somehow Ed could see the orc had felt offended even if the system hadn't acknowledged it.
"That's right, smithing isn't as simple as hitting things after letting them melt for a while" Ed only made it seem easy due to his craftsmanship skill. It was otherwise unthinkable for any of these orcs to succeed in their first try.
To demonstrate this, Ed brought out the remaining orc iron as well as some of the crappy iron shafts he made. He would smelt those for Iron and use the crowd one for an example of the slag removing process.
"I'll begin by showing you all so make sure to pay close attention" With these words as the trigger, the crash course on smithing begun.
Ed went through the entire process of roasting, smelting, and refining. The refining process was done rather hastily but this hadn't been done out of inexperience. Ed knew the importance of refining but he also knew that it was still possible to smith without this important step, even if the result would be less than exemplary. Ed didn't want to overload the orcs with information, things could be done one step at a time.
As soon as Ed's info dump and the demonstration ended, the orcs looked more confused than when they all walked in.
"Let me show you again" Maybe Ed wasn't a great a teacher as he thought. Instruction would be rather handy but the instruction skill had yet to be acquired through the system link's skill perk. Ed had to assume it required him to teach the orcs successfully first.
'I wonder why it's easier to teach the skeletons…' Ed didn't really understand why the skeletons were able to capture everything so quickly while the orcs could barely follow through with anything slightly technical.
Ed didn't think that the skeletons' empty consciousnesses were entirely at fault. It was simply an odd point that Ed might have to revisit in the future if he hoped to create a proper civilization. The current lack of talent in the orc plains was appalling.
Before Ed knew it time flew by and all of his materials had been expended. Fortunately, that was also when the first batch of mined iron came by.
"Just leave it right there for now" Ed told the orc in charge of moving the wares. This orc was a close acquaintance of Bulwud the contractor. They called him the assistant Yerghug.
"Ok, see ya later then Ed" Yerghug replied before leaving back towards the mine with an empty cart. With the sudden influx of iron, Ed was able to leave the orcs to experiment with what he taught them. There was no better teacher than a personal experience.
Of course, Ed still had to stay and oversee things. It would be seriously bad news for him to return only to discover that his smithy had somehow caught on fire and burned down everything in the vicinity.
***
Under the barracks was the cold secret tunnel that once led to the secrets of the orc ancestors. Now, however, the path was blocked by thick layers of ice. There, Vorgarag was sitting calmly next to an unlit red array.
This was his flamethrower spell turned into an array. He planned on having it point towards the dense wall of ice as Ed had suggested. It was simply the most effective method.
Vorgarag was however for some reason struggling to put his knowledge into practice.
"Aaargh! What the hell is wrong with me?!" It was bringing him endless frustration since no matter how much he scratched his head and pondered deeply on the matter his skills would fail to shine through the murky memories in his head.
Vorgarag did eventually get a hang of the array, this was thanks to the muscle memory Herewaruk's body had formed from the many years of creating arrays.
"It feels like I'm going mad…" Vorgarag muttered while gazing around the dark environment. It was very well possible that it was to blame for his current mental affairs.
"Sigh…" He had no choice but to hide his anxiety as rose-red flames finally shot out of his array and beamed onto the thick wall of ice melting it slowly.
CHAPTER 223.5: CLEANSING1
This perspective can be skipped but I'd advise against it as it does provide some small bits of dungeon knowledge and is overall just interesting. You also did pay for it so...
Following Mite Volcan's conquest of the alpine fortress that was the empire's palace, the young prince, now king, had the freedom to deal with the remaining dregs of the Volcan family.
Overseeing this was the tired dragon Pyre, his large head rested simply on the ground but the way it broke through the wall and snorted heat with its breathing made for an intimidating creature.
Aside from this overbearing dragon, Mite also had his team of covert assassins hidden and at his disposal. The hiding didn't only reach that far however as even knights of the empire were subordinates that he personally groomed and allowed to go up and infiltrate the ranks of his father's empire.
It was safe to say that Mite had long since planned this all out and that nothing could shake his position as king. Yet, it wouldn't hurt to remove any risks, right?
With that in mind, Mite originally intended to simply kill his siblings and be done with it but after being irritated by his father's words of taunt he couldn't help but double back on this decision. Would he be able to sleep at night if he didn't let his brothers see at least some form of despair?
For Mite, the answer was no. He sat on the kingdom's velvet gold throne looking down at the red carpet that led towards it where one such dreg was laying begging pitifully for their life.
"B- Brother! Please spare me!" He was Ardalion Volcan. The mere fact that he was part of the Volcan family irritated Mite. He was labeled as a forsaken child but all he ever did was be born to the wrong mother. In contrast, Ardalion's existence was a smear on the royal bloodline that they supposedly carried.
"Great job shade" Mite didn't even cast his brother a glance as he ignored his words and instead praised his trustworthy covert assassin Shade.
Ardalion was a well-known womanizer and just an overall douchebag. That wasn't enough for him to become a black mark on the Volcan family line however it took more than just a bad attitude for that as not all kings are known to be benevolent.
"You are a traitor, that's a crime punishable by death so why should I spare you?" The Volcan kingdom did not always hold enmity for the Galeburst dynasty but what mattered was that they did now.
It was illegal to have any sort of interaction with the gale burst dynasty. It was excessive to the point where you were expected to fight any citizen from the dynasty on sight. Not doing so would be shaming the empire.
"That... No! I haven't done anything like that! I swear!" Ardalion who was caught off guard by the words of his bastard brother was forced to pause his thoughts momentarily before instantly denying the claims.
"Haven't done a thing? Shade, if you could" The young prince said to Shade who appeared next to Mite and passed him a neat stack of paper. Mite grabbed these papers and threw them decisively at his brother.
"Wha- How!?" As the papers rained down on him, Ardalion could clearly read the transactions that went down between the dynasty and himself. Most of the papers jotted down the prices and dates at which he had traded ores and furs exclusive to the Volcan Empire.
These were valuables that couldn't be found anywhere else except for maybe dungeons. Dungeons were usually still affected by their environment however making it unlikely. A desert dungeon was twice as likely to appear in a desert or somewhere close to it than it was in the snowy north for example.
It was unthinkable for a dungeon to have environments uncommon to the area, even having multiple different environments was a rarity. That did mean that there were cases in which one dungeon had many floors with distinct characteristics but more often than not those environments could still be found in the vicinity.
"It was quite simple actually. I just had to give those greedy merchants a large enough incentive" Their life was a large enough incentive, no?
But Mite's words were intentionally misleading. These words led to an instant misunderstanding.
"Yo- You hypocrite! Traitor! It's only illegal if I do it huh?!?" Ardalion believed that Mite had traded with gold for these official papers. But…! Mite smiled, he grinned widely from ear to ear as if he had heard the world's single best compliment.
"That's right" Mite said still smiling widely. He paused briefly before adding a cheeky comment.
"I'm the king now after all" Mite's earlier dissatisfaction for his father's words was instantly lessened as Ardalion's expression collapsed bordering despair.
"Execute him" Mite then turned to a knight who also stood next to him and said.
"Of course your majesty" This knight was a nobody. Or at least he had been until the forsaken prince took him in. At first, he had been skeptical due to his reputation but was ultimately bought over by the prince's benevolence.
Anyone's first reaction to this praise might be disbelief but the prince was indeed benevolent. All of his subordinates had been taught using the wisdom of Pyre, a dragon that had lived for many centuries.
Thanks to these teachings he was now in the A-class and could confidently say he had made the world's single best decision. So what if now had to do some dirty work, if it was for the prince it was worth it in the end!
"No! No! Broth- Brother! I- We are brothers right!? Yeah! We are brothers! Please! I- I promise not to tell anyone about your dealings! Thi- this never even happened!" Ardalion instantly doubled back and continued to spout nonsense as the knight, Egon, made his way over with slow yet intimidating steps.
Egon drew his red blade from its sheath and it immediately became lit with a hot violent flame. Ardalion froze as he peered into this flame, this flame which was reflected vividly by his despairing bright yellow eyes.
"I'm sorry…" Running out of words, Ardalion gave in and threw out an apology. This single apology, which had taken him great courage to mutter, fell on deaf ears however as Egon's blade instantly darted straight towards his neck!
"Wait!" Mite suddenly yelled stopping the blade right at Ardalion's neck. The hot flames were scarring his skin but the pain Ardalion felt could not be compared to the happiness he felt from his brother's words.
"Yes! I won't tell any-" Before he could spout the same nonsense, Mite had appeared in front of Ardelion with a cold expression. He unsheathed a regular iron blade and looked at it calmly.
"Beheading him is too nice don't you think?"Mite said as he inspected the regular blade with one eye. Ardelion's happy expression crumpled.
"Urgh…!" That was because the blade that his younger brother had been inspecting was suddenly lodged into his chest.
"And now for the twist" Mite said softly as he slowly turned the blade.
"Aaah! Aaaaah! Aaargh- Urgh-!" Ardalion felt the blade turn his insides and he could feel the cold metal permeate across his entire body as he slowly turned into a cold corpse.
Ardalion's body ultimately fell to the ground looking aghast and pained after Mite took out the plain old iron blade. Ardalion was not worthy of dying by the blade of a magic weapon.
"Clean this up and bring in the next one" Mite said before burning the body and blade he used to slay his brother. That poor blade deserved better, Mite could only appease it by giving it a swift death.
"""Yes, your majesty""" Some new assassins showed up from the shadows and said in unison.
"Bring in the next one" Mite returned to his throne and said. He had many brothers, there was much cleaning to be done.
So here is an extra chapter.