Re: Tales of the Rune-Tech Sage

Chapter 821: The Hive I

CH821 The Hive I

***

Zora led Alex out of the administrative building.

Alex helped her into the carriage before climbing in after her. Moments later, it set off, leaving the administrative district behind as it travelled through the town.

Alex gazed out of the window at the passing streets.

Each of the domain’s three towns possessed its own unique character and, to some extent, its own architectural style.

Fonterra was dominated by sprawling single-storey and two-storey wooden buildings, made possible by its abundant woodland resources.

Castin, benefiting from its close proximity to a natural quarry, favoured stone and masonry construction instead, particularly on its western side, where the town’s formerly powerful five clans had once held sway.

Ashwell, by comparison, gave the impression of a metal jungle.

It wasn’t that its buildings were made entirely of metal—though some came surprisingly close. Rather, almost every structure in sight incorporated metal frameworks, chimneys, workshops, or other ironworks, reflecting the town’s deeply rooted mining and metalworking culture.

If there was one thing Alex had to complain about in Ashwell, however…

It was the ash, the smoke, and soot.

The air throughout Ashwell was thick with smog billowing from its countless foundries, forges, and metalworking workshops.

‘Should we replace the existing fuel-burning forges with mana-powered ones?’ Alex wondered.

‘That alone could dramatically reduce the town’s air pollution… perhaps by as much as seventy to ninety percent.’

Orion immediately completed the thought, presenting him with a series of projections and performance statistics to evaluate the proposal.

“You are planning another sweeping reform already,” Zora remarked from beside him.

Alex smiled.

“Was I that obvious?”

“You had that look.”

“What look?”

“The one you always have whenever you’re about to change something everyone else considers common sense.” She shrugged. “So, what is it this time?”

“I’m thinking about converting the forges into mana forges,” Alex explained. “Not just the forges themselves. I want to overhaul the entire workshop and manufacturing process.”

“How?” Zora asked, raising an eyebrow.

“The obvious starting point is replacing manually operated equipment with Mana Motors. The bellows, hammers, presses, conveyors—anything that currently requires continuous manual labour can be motorised.”

Alex paused before continuing.

“Beyond that, I can design specialised rune arrays to regulate furnace temperatures, control airflow, automate slag removal, manage waste extraction, and optimise the entire forging process.”

“That all sounds well and good,” Zora said sceptically, “except for one problem.”

“And what’s that?” Alex inquired.

“Even if you design such a factory or workshop, you’ll still need to inscribe every rune yourself.”

She gave him a suspicious look.

“Unless you’ve somehow learned to inscribe Sigils… or discovered another method I don’t know about?”

“The latter,” Alex admitted. “I haven’t given the former any thought.”

Zora’s curiosity was immediately piqued.

“And what new method would that be?”

“You’ll see soon.”

Alex merely smiled mysteriously.

Zora shook her head with a resigned sigh, choosing not to press him any further.

Whatever this new method was, there was no harm in waiting for his grand reveal.

And even if it turned out to have flaws…

Since Alex had already made up his mind, she knew better than to waste her breath trying to dissuade him.

“You always end up doing whatever you’ve decided to do,” she muttered under her breath.

“What was that?” Alex asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Nothing.”

She casually shook her head before turning her attention to the Mana Carriage beneath them.

“I can understand now why you’ve been so insistent on these things. Not only are they comfortable, but they’re also remarkably stable and fast.”

She glanced through the window at the busy streets outside.

“If we can get enough of them operating throughout the towns, we’ll solve more than just the obvious shortage of mounts and beasts of burden.”

She smiled faintly.

“We’ll also solve the problem of animal waste covering the roads.”

Alex nodded in agreement.

Looking outside, he noticed something most people paid little attention to.

Groups of workers were quietly shovelling horse droppings from the streets into waiting haulers, which would transport the waste elsewhere.

It was one of the less glamorous problems associated with animal-drawn transport.

Large, developed cities generally possessed organised sanitation systems that dealt with such waste efficiently and almost invisibly.

Smaller and less prosperous settlements, however, were forced to rely on far more labour-intensive methods like the one before them.

Fortunately, thanks to the Frontier March’s close proximity to the Great Berserk Beast Forest—and the region’s relatively underdeveloped agricultural sector—horses, along with other mounts and beasts of burden, remained comparatively rare throughout the domain.

Without temples to regularly purify them, keeping mounts and beasts of burden so close to the Great Berserk Beast Forest simply wasn’t worth the risk.

Even the constant background contamination was troublesome enough. Bringing domesticated animals this close to the forest only increased the likelihood of them becoming fully contaminated and turning hostile.

As a result, the overwhelming majority of the beasts of burden currently found throughout the domain belonged to the domain administration.

That also meant the cost of cleaning the streets ultimately came from Alex’s personal coffers rather than the domain’s treasury, and thus never appearing on the official balance sheets.

A future where mana-powered automobiles replaced conventional carriages would therefore benefit both the civilians and the administration alike.

As the saying went, reading a thousand books could never compare to experiencing something firsthand.

Taking the time to observe the town while travelling through it allowed Alex to metaphorically step back and evaluate the effects of both his own policies and those of his administration upon one of the Frontier March’s major settlements.

It also revealed countless opportunities for further improvement.

As the Domain Lord and the Minister of Internal Affairs respectively, Alex and Zora had much to discuss while the Mana Carriage sped out of Ashwell.

It passed through the defensive outer gate…

Across the scarred landscape where Alex had once fought the Heavenly Tribulation’s lightning doppelgänger…

Before finally arriving at the makeshift fortifications erected along the edge of the Ashwell Mountain Range.

Beyond this point lay the territory of the Berserk Beasts.

For decades, humans had avoided crossing this unwritten border.

Only a few hundred kilometres farther lay the Frontier March’s true frontier—the outer sphere of influence of the Great Berserk Beast Forest itself.

To Alex’s surprise, the Nest Queen’s location appeared to lie beyond even this forward operating fort.

After revealing his identity to the soldiers stationed there and receiving an enthusiastic round of cheers, Alex and Zora continued deeper into the wilderness aboard the Mana Carriage.

Given that Berserk Beasts had roamed this region undisturbed for decades, Alex had expected to encounter dense concentrations of them, along with an increasingly oppressive Berserk Property miasma drifting from the distant Great Berserk Beast Forest.

Instead, he found neither.

***