Burnout Reincarnation [SLOW BURN COZY 'MAGIC CRAFTING' KINGDOM BUILDING PROGRESSION] (LitRPG elements) [3 arcs done!]

130 - The Real Fight Starts Now…



"So!"

"So."

"How are you feeling?" Mary said as she stood by Archmund's table.

"I should be asking you that," Archmund said. "You were the one unconscious. Being infested with the Dungeon's power. That sort of thing."

"I'm fine."

"Fine."

"Yes, fine."

Archmund held up his tablet. "If I scanned you with this, would I see any lingering status ailments?"

"Scan? Status ailments?"

He sighed. That was absolutely video game jargon that she didn't have the context to understand. "Would it say you're sick, but hiding it from me for some reason?"

"…I don't think so."

"No lingering nightmares? Feelings of being called back to the Dungeon? A feeling of being constantly watched by a demonic being?"

"No," she said. "Those are your thoughts. You're the one who wants to keep going back there."

Archmud smiled. "I'm not going to say you're wrong or anything," he said. "But I'm done with there for now. It'll be a routine harvest for materials from here on out."

"I'm not sure you understand," Mary said. "The fact we all made it out alive and whole was a miracle. I wrote a message to Raehel and she said usually even teams of full Second Awakening end up with some injuries. We were lucky."

She shuddered and sighed. "Of course I'm grateful you put so much into training us up… but it was a miracle that shouldn't have worked."

Archmund leaned back in his chair and faced her.

"No more, then," he said.

"Can you honestly tell me you don't have a reason to go back down there?"

Archmund squirmed. "…I kind of had a plan for how we could use those tankards."

"I see," Mary said. She clearly didn't approve, mostly out of concern for his own good.

"But! The guard should be good enough to collect and curtail the Dungeon's power. So we can still get wealth out of it."

"Do you want to try it? Me casting spells through your Gems?" Archmund said.

Mary drew her Handfan. "Using your full power would be risky, wouldn't it?"

It would. But he had three spells. Infrared Lance was his most disproportionately powerful, but he had others basic powers.

Heat and Light.

And it really was that easy. He didn't have to try. He could make her fan glow with all colors of the rainbow, and he could make it hot like a radiator.

"That still feels odd," she said. "Like it tickles."

"One of these days we'll realize why this was actually a horrible idea," he said.

Mary snorted. "I don't think it would be that hard for you to cut me off if you really wanted to. We would have figured out something eventually, but now that you have that Suppression power, I'm sure you can figure something out."

Archmund whistled. "We've got a lot of new toys to play with."

"Mmmmhmmm."

"And I've got a big choice to make. I can either play with all of these awesome toys… or I can try to make the world a better place."

"You say that like you're not going to figure out something that lets you do both."

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The next matter on the agenda was taking care of their guests.

"So," Archmund said. "Trade deals."

Rory, Beatrice, and Gelias all gave him slight smiles. His father sat in attendance as well. While they could negotiate, and they could discuss matters of commerce, ultimately their parents would have to finalize the matters of trade.

Well, except for Gelias. Archmund had come to realize that although he looked somewhere between 10 and 15, within the age range set for the Granavale Tournament, Gelias was probably whatever the equivalent age for elves was.

Archmund sighed.

"I understand that all things considered, your lands have far more raw resources than Granavale," he said. "In fact, our major economic advantage is the Dungeon, but I've promised Mary that I wouldn't be delving into it myself. And the Omnio keep a very tight control over the distribution and use of Gems. So with that out of the way — not to mention the fact that things went sour the first and only time we went in ourselves — what can I offer you in exchange for coal, iron, and elven lumber?"

"What do you need coal for?" Beatrice said.

"Who are your usual customers?"

He hadn't come into this completely unprepared, of course. Coal was used almost solely for heating. The steam engine didn't seem to exist, and neither did locomotives with it. As far as he could tell, nobles traveled great distances using magical carriage or their own power, and the common people were not allowed to travel at all. He wasn't sure whether it was a matter of demand, or if there wasn't any good way to make consistent steel.

So the biggest customers of coal, to the best of his knowledge, were the far northern and southern provinces, where the land was cold but trees were sparse.

There weren't even great foundries, great engines of war, factories that turned things to good use.

"Coldlanders," Beatrice said, confirming his thoughts. "This winter didn't seem too bad here. Was it unseasonably warm?"

"It was about what we'd expect. Rory, what about you?"

Rory frowned. His lands had iron.

Iron, as far as Archmund could tell, was far less used in Omnio than on Earth.

No matter how well-forged the steel, iron just couldn't measure up to Gemstone. Sending an army clad in steel against one wielding Gem was suicide. There was no way around it. Given that nobles kept tight control over access to Gemstone and the inherent danger of harvesting Gem, the only people who could possibly have a need for mass-produced steel weapons and armor were the common people seeking rebellion. And no one wanted that.

So iron instead was relegated to heavily mundane but essential uses. Nails, horseshoes, hinges, utensils. All useful things, but not for war. And not demanding the attention of small workshops of blacksmiths, each trained in any iron-steel trinket that might be useful.

Without great industrialization, this would not change.

It was the paradox of Gem. Why bother developing an electric kettle when you could just heat up the water with your mind? Why bother with a CNC machine when you could reshape matter with a thought?

Why, for the comfort of the peasantry. For the common man.

Who were poor, and not paying customers; and politically impotent, which meant they could be ignored.

Unless things were changing in the wake of the Crylaxan Plague. But he would never have the context of the world before.

"You're just putting us in an interesting spot," Rory said slowly. "The most valuable export you have is the Gems of the Dungeon. Even the really weak stuff that you picked up and ignored. If we could pay half the Gem-tax in raw resources, even that would be worth a lot."

"Honestly, yeah," Beatrice said. "Times like these are what make me think you're an idiot. You don't get the value of what you're sitting on."

"Tunnel vision comes for us all," said Gelias. "Especially those with brilliance beyond our years."

"Oh, shut up, elf boy."

Gelias smirked. "Of course, for me and mine, raw Gem is not so useful. Useful for the monetary equivalent, yes, and the trade we can have with the rest of the empire. But I was hoping for…"

He let the words linger in the air. When it became clear he wasn't going to actually say what he wanted, Archmund cut in.

"I've only heard rumors and stories about the properties of elven lumber," he said. "What makes it so different from normal, human-cut lumber?"

"It remains alive," Gelias said. "Structural lumber can be shaped as if it were alive. Utensils and implements can be grown from living wood without shaping."

"What manner of magic is that?"

Gelias paused. "Secret magic. Which I suspect I should keep away from your prying eyes."

Archmund scoffed. They were no longer magically connected, but in a stressful combat situation those bonds could be reignited. It felt like a dry riverbed, but Gelias had dammed his. It was very clear that Gelias trusted him to have his back in a fight but not in socioeconomic matters. Which was fair. "You give me too much credit."

"I saw you reach a Second Awakening," Gelias said. "And then use a Skill from an Unawakened piece of Gear—one that lets you bend space —through other peoples' Gems. That's not normal."

"How about I throw keeping that secret in with whatever deals with strike?" Archmund said, ignoring his father's shocked pride in the background.

"Sounds like a great idea to me," Beatrice said. "You can be our trump card if we ever need magical muscle at the Imperial Academy."

This, Archmund reminded himself, was the nature of negotiation. Both parties had something the other wanted, both had things they would not give up, and they had to come to a compromise that gave both what they wanted yet also left them unsatisfied. That just made sense.

"Is it really that simple? I let you send your people to get Gems, and in return you give me raw materials at a fair market rate?"

"Why are you expecting this to be complicated?"

Archmund sighed. It really was just too easy, wasn't it? There had to be some nuances he wasn't getting — but later.

They'd won. They'd survived. And yet the real conflicts — the levers of power in the living world, in the great Omnio Empire — grew clearer to his eyes by the day.

But not today. Today was a day of rest and celebration.


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