“Sigh…”
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Lord Angele let out a sigh first thing in the morning.
“Lord Angele…” The Commander-in-chief of the Stone Island infantry, navy, and airforce, General Uriage (★★★★), looked at Lord Angele worriedly.
“It is truly a shame. If the king of Proatine, Siegfried van Proa, had only agreed to act as an intermediary between the Nordic Tribe and us, then this war could have ended right there and then…” General Uriage muttered.
“I thought so as well, but I could see that he wouldn’t budge at all, so I had no choice but to just let it go… I thought of threatening him to hand over the speedboat at least, but…” Lord Angele trailed off.
Angele could not bring herself to do something so extreme to someone else just because they were in a difficult position. She made the decision as the leader of Stone Island, which had been a mining and trading city ever since it was first established.
“What if you ask him for help one more time…?” General Uriage suggested.
However, Lord Angele immediately shot her suggestion down, “He is not a fool. You saw how resolute he was, right? He is someone who knows how to differentiate personal and official matters, and he highly values his relationship with the Nordic Tribe…”
”He is not the type of person that will be swayed just because we appealed to his sympathetic side.”
“But… that is our only hope right now…”
“As unfortunate as it sounds, we will have to give it up.”
“…”
“Let’s forget about what happened with Siegfried van Proa.”
“Yes…”
“Let’s just hope that he will find an Entropy Stone and safely return to his kingdom.”
“But is that going to be easy? Restoring the mine is not going to be a simple matter of whether he’s strong or not…”
Before the conversation could continue, Lord Angele’s secretary came into the office and reported. “Lord Angele, King Siegfried has restored thirty percent of the mine.”
“R-really?”
“Is that true? He managed to restore thirty percent of the mine in just a day?”
Lord Angele and General Uriage jumped up from their seats in surprise.
It was unbelievable. How could it make sense for him to restore thirty percent of the collapsed mine in less than a day? The secretary’s report was so baffling that they could not help but suspect that she was lying.
“Are you speaking the truth?”
“Yes, Lord Angele.”
“Have you looked into how it was made possible?”
“Eighteen additional speedboats broke through the encirclement and arrived from the Proatine Kingdom last night, and the people who had arrived last night were the ones who are working on restoring the mine right now.”
“Are you telling me that a group of people in only eighteen speedboats managed to do all that? I’m afraid to say that I find it hard to believe what you’re saying.”
“But, Lord… I am telling the truth.”
“I guess I will have to see it with my own eyes.”
In the end, Lord Angele decided to personally rush to the mine and see for herself.
***
The Stellarlumen Mine in the northeastern region of Stone Island had more than thirteen different kinds of minerals that could be mined from it, so it became famous as a diverse mine in the mining industry. Of course, it had become nothing but a pile of rocks after the Adunyadet Kingdom’s shelling.
Lord Angele could not believe her eyes the moment she arrived at the Stellarlumen Mine.
“M-my god! How is this possible?!” Lord Angele exclaimed in surprise.
She was so surprised because the Stellarlumen Mine looked totally different from what she had been expecting it to look like on the way here.
The monsters infesting the mine’s entrance had vanished, and the only evidence of their presence was the traces of blood on the ground. In addition, the mountains of rocks had been cleared, and the mine could now be accessed from the entrance.
‘This is impossible! Even the dwarves couldn’t possibly work this fast!’ Lord Angele was shocked. She was especially aware of how fast the dwarves were when it came to their craft.
The people who had created this unbelievable sight in front of her were probably five times more efficient than the dwarves.
‘How is this possible…?’ she wondered.
“Listen up! Hurry up and get back to work if you have finished eating!” A large tanned man shouted at the hundreds of soldiers wielding shovels, pickaxes, and other tools.
‘T-The barbarians of the north?!’ she was stupefied upon recognizing the soldiers.
The barbarians of the north were hardy people that possessed outstanding physical capabilities compared to normal people, but they were apparently impossible to train as soldiers due to their aggressive and barbaric nature. However, these barbarians were currently wearing uniforms while working on the restoration of the mine…
Clang! Clang!
Puk! Puk! Puk!
In fact, the barbarian soldiers were working at a speed that far exceeded the dwarves’ working speed. However, what surprised Lord Angele the most was the sight of twenty large golems working as heavy machinery.
Whiiing… Clack!
A golem equipped with a crane the size of a house started putting away the large rocks piled on the ground.
Blood Golems, Stone Golems, Iron Golems, Mud Golems, Fire Golems, Ice Golems, and golems of various types were currently deployed and working on the site. Their job was to handle the larger debris that the barbarian soldiers couldn’t handle on their own.
“All right, get out of the way! The golems are about to start working!” shouted an Adventurer standing on top of one of the golems. He ordered the barbarian soldiers around while skilfully controlling the golems.
‘Soldiers made up of barbarians and an Adventurer who can control golems. So this was how they managed to do so much restoration work in just a day…’
Lord Angele could finally understand how the whole thing was made possible, and she couldn’t help but be amazed by the Proatine Kingdom’s workforce.
“King… Siegfried…?” muttered Lord Angele while approaching Siegfried.
Siegfried was currently sitting on a makeshift chair with Hamchi. For some reason, he was wearing a safety helmet.
“Ah, Lord Angele,” Siegfried replied.
“This is… surprising…”
“Huh? What is surprising?”
“I have worked with many dwarves before, but none of them can match the speed of your workers.”
“Ah, you mean our Labor Squad?”
“Labor Squad…?”
“They are previously living in the northern part of my territory, but I ended up conquering them. Back then, they were so poor and hungry that they would kill each other for food…”
”Anyway, they were a mess, so I took them in. It was a waste to kill all of them, so I turned some of them into soldiers…”
”I turned the strong ones into skilled laborers. It did take some training, but the Labor Squad is the fruit of all those training,” Siegfried explained with a shrug.
“…” Lord Angele didn’t know what to say.
“As you can see, they are really good workers. They are in charge of both small and big projects in my kingdom, and the Adventurer controlling the heavy machinery is a close brother of mine,” Siegfried said while pointing at the Golem Maker, Seung-Gu, who was using one of his golems as an excavator.
‘The Proatine Kingdom. We can’t look down on it just because it’s small. If their Labor Squad is already this amazing, then I can only imagine how strong their soldiers are…’
‘I’m certain of it, the Proatine Kingdom is small right now, but they’re definitely going to become a powerhouse in the future,’ Lord Angele misunderstood Siegfried as a sleeping tiger.
The Labor Squad and Seung-Gu’s working efficiency and speed had given her that deep of an impression.
Suddenly, she couldn’t help but ask herself. ‘I wonder how strong King Siegfried is…’
“We should be able to start the rescue operation this evening, judging by our current work in progress, so please don’t worry about here and focus on defending your territory from the Adunyadet Kingdom,” Siegfried said with a smile.
He naturally had no idea of her thoughts as he tried to assuage her by reassuring her that the rescue operations would begin soon enough.
‘Sigh… she’s definitely having a hard time right now. I mean, her country is being threatened, so it’s only natural… Anyway, I’ll take care of things here and mine the Entropy Stone myself, so don’t you worry about here,’ he thought.
Siegfried was a gamer, and Angele was an NPC, so they were completely different from each other by nature, but they had something in common. They were rulers of their own countries. Of course, this didn’t mean that Siegfried would be willing to involve the Nordic Tribe in their war or give their speedboats away just to help someone else out.
“I think what I have done here so far should be enough payment for an Entropy Stone, right?”
“Yes, you are correct.”
Lord Angele couldn’t deny Siegfried’s words.
He didn’t assist her in her biggest problem, which was the ongoing war, but the fact that he was helping her with the mine when her nation was suffering from a manpower shortage was more than enough as payment for an Entropy Stone.
“We managed to catch a breather thanks to you.”
“That’s a relief. Then, I’m sure you are busy with the war, so please focus on that and leave this place to me. And I’ll have to excuse myself now because I have work to do,” said Siegfried.
He then replaced his cheap chair with a luxurious leather seat and put on an indifferent expression.
“Then, I’m going to start now,” said Gringore. Gringore was wearing a beret for some reason, and he was surrounded by all sorts of art materials, such as pallets, canvas, oil drums, etc.
He started painting a portrait of Siegfried sitting on a leather chair.
Gringore was tasked with not only recording everything Siegfried would do and had done, but he also had to paint portraits of the latter because he was also a royal painter of the Proatine Kingdom.
Siegfried couldn’t simply reject Gringore’s demand. After all, Gringore was a royal painter, so there wasn’t really any reason for Siegfried to reject Gringore’s demand.
‘This guy is pretty annoying to be with…’
Unfortunately, Siegfried still couldn’t help but feel annoyed by Gringore’s presence.
***
Shortly after Lord Angele left the mine, Gringore looked up and said, “Your Majesty, I’m done.”
“Huh? You’re already done? I thought it would take you at least a few hours…”
“I am a bit quick with my brush.”
“Huh? Are you sure you didn’t do it half-assed?”
“Not at all, Your Majesty.”
“Let me take a look,” Siegfried decided to check the portrait himself while being skeptical of Gringore’s working speed.
— His Majesty overseeing the restoration work of a mine.
It was the caption on the canvas.
The portrait looked quite artistic, and the portrait of Siegfried wearing a safety helmet with a green cross on it looked pretty high-quality.
“Did you really draw this in less than ten minutes?”
“As you have witnessed, Your Majesty.”
“How is the quality so great, even though you didn’t really spend that much time?”
“Hmm… It is not that difficult, actually. I did it like this…” Gringore said. He then started moving his brush on another empty canvas. Once he was done, he showed the canvas to Siegfried and said, “What do you think? It’s easy, right?”
“Y-you’re crazy…”
“What is the matter, Your Majesty?”
“Nothing… you really have it all,” Siegfried grumbled while glaring at Gringore.
‘Is he Mr. Bob Ross or what?’ he grumbled inwardly as well.
Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!
All of a sudden, explosions could be heard from the shore.
“What is that?” Siegfried immediately looked toward the shore and saw that the Adunyadet Kingdom’s troops were crawling all over the beach. It seemed that the artillery fire signaled the start of the large-scale beach landing invasion.
“All forces! Stop working!” Siegfried commanded.
Then, an official from Stone Island’s side rushed over to him and said, “Your Majesty, this area is no longer being targeted by the enemy after their previous shelling. They’re confident that they have already brought ruin to this place, so they are probably going to target other places. You can continue working without any worries.”
“Is that so?”
“Yes, Your Majesty. Most people won’t think about shelling the same place twice, so you can rest assured,” replied the official.
“I will stop the work nevertheless. I loathe the idea of one of my subordinates getting even a scratch on their bodies,” Siegfried said while shaking his head.
“…!”
“And they came all the way here to shovel dirt and pickaxe through boulders just to put food on the table for their foxy wives and cute children, so how can I expose them to danger? It is not something urgent, and I’m sure that the bombardment will be over in an hour or two, so we will just think of the shelling as recess.”
“But…!”
“Safety first. Haven’t you heard of that phrase before?”
The Stone Island official couldn’t retort.
‘To think that a ruler who cares so deeply about his subjects actually exists! Everything will definitely be turned upside down if even one of them died by accident…’ thought the official.
While the official was staring in amazement at Siegfried, a mortar shell from the Adunyadet Kingdom flew in an arc and landed on the worksite, causing an explosion that shook the surroundings.
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