Chapter 448: The New Order Is Complete

At the lord’s manor in Cecil City, a silver-white metal sphere about one and a third meters in diameter, its surface painted with a cheerful, comical smiley face, gently bumped against the grand entrance door. Floating just behind it was a metal box less than a meter long.

After two knocks, the door swung open from the inside. Betty, dressed in her maid’s uniform, appeared in the doorway. The young maid blinked in surprise at the iron ball before her, a hint of amazement on her face. “Mr. Egg? You’re here?”

Though this iron ball rarely left its “mechanical throne,” Betty was often dragged around the city by Rebecca, visiting various factories and research facilities. Naturally, she was familiar with the “Egg” standing before her.

“Is the lord in?” The silver sphere emitted a cheerful buzzing sound. “Or Miss Rebecca will do—I have something good to show them!”

Betty blinked, processing for a moment. “The lord and the missus aren’t here. They went to the Arcane Technology Research Institute, but they should be back soon.”

The round body of Nicholas Egg bobbed up and down. “Alright then, I’ll come in and wait.”

This oddly shaped “Mr. Egg” was the territory’s master of mechanical technology, someone the lord valued highly. Betty knew this well, so she followed previous instructions from Gawain and led Egg to the study on the manor’s second floor.

As the mechanical supervisor of the territory, Nicholas Egg rarely left the mechanical research lab, let alone the industrial district in the city’s east. But that didn’t mean he was unaware of what was happening around the territory. Upon entering Gawain’s study, his first glance fell on the map of the southern region hanging on the wall. He noticed that the location marked as Rockfort Fortress on the upper half of the map now bore the Cecil emblem.

“Well, at least I can sleep easy now,” the metal sphere buzzed lowly. “All those cannonballs weren’t wasted after all.”

Betty stood quietly in a corner of the study, not really understanding or caring about the lord’s battles. She seemed lost in thought, her small head tilted as if wandering far away. No one could tell what was going on inside that little mind.

After waiting a while, Nicholas Egg grew a bit bored and struck up a conversation with Betty. “By the way, little miss, can you read?”

Betty snapped out of her daze, blinking in surprise. She hesitated, then nodded uncertainly. “I can… though not very well.”

With that, the slow-witted maid seemed to finally get into gear, suddenly realizing she hadn’t offered any hospitality to her guest. She quickly picked up her large teapot and approached Nicholas Egg, who was still talking to himself. “Oh, you can read? That’s good. So, do you usually read… wait, why are you holding that teapot?”

Nicholas Egg “looked” at Betty with a comical expression—well, as comical as a metal sphere could manage—and then saw the earnest little maid open her mouth seriously: “Mr. Egg, would you like some black tea?”

Egg was stunned. “…You’ve never noticed I don’t have a mouth?!”

Betty seemed to finally examine the iron ball’s structure carefully, circling it twice as if searching for an opening to pour tea into. Finding none, she let out a drawn-out “Huh—” and said, “Huh… you really don’t have one!”

“Obviously. This face is just painted on, you know that,” Egg wobbled his body and continued, “So, since you can read, do you read newspapers?”

“Newspapers… I can understand them, and I do read them,” Betty nodded happily. “The lord even gave me a set of stationery—scissors and glue—and taught me to cut out interesting articles from the paper to make my own little book!”

After saying this, Betty started circling Nicholas Egg again. “…Mr. Egg, you really can’t drink tea, huh.”

Egg couldn’t understand why the maid was so fixated on serving tea to guests, but he was genuinely worried she might try to drill a hole in him to pour tea inside. So he patiently explained, “I’m different from you—I don’t usually eat or drink… or rather, I consume things differently.”

Betty finally stopped pacing, eyes wide with curiosity. “How do you eat, Mr. Egg?”

Egg answered casually, “Oh, usually by absorbing through my surface…”

As soon as the words left his mouth, he realized Betty might have misunderstood. She was eyeing his round body while shaking the teapot in her hands, looking eager to try something. He quickly added, “Hey, hold those thoughts—absorbing through my surface doesn’t mean you should pour water on me!”

Betty’s face fell a little. “…Oh.”

Egg floated a question mark. “By the way, why are you so obsessed with serving tea to guests?”

Betty gave her signature blank expression, paused for two seconds, then suddenly said, “Sister Ginny said the most important thing for a maid who receives guests is to always pour fresh tea for them…”

“Ginny…” Egg thought for a moment, realizing he’d never heard that name before. “Did the manor hire a new maid?”

Betty shook her head vigorously. “No, Sister Ginny was a maid at the old castle. She was in charge of entertaining guests and was the best among us.”

She paused, as if recalling something, then added, “Sometimes she’d sneak leftover pastries from guests into the kitchen for us to eat…”

“The old castle…” Egg muttered softly, finally understanding.

He noticed Betty’s mood darken and realized his earlier question had been a foolish one, stirring up an awkward topic.

But he didn’t know how to comfort a human—these upright creatures were far too complex in thought and emotion, much harder to understand than metal and machinery. So he resorted to what he’d heard humans say to each other in times of comfort, and dryly said, “Don’t be sad. Everything will get better.”

“I’m not sad. It already has,” Betty shook her head, seeming to have cheered up. “Mrs. Vincent said that being alive is the happiest thing.”

Nicholas Egg floated silently beside her, once again realizing just how complicated and fascinating humans truly were.

Soon enough, the most complex and interesting human he knew arrived.

Gawain pushed open the study door and immediately saw Betty holding the teapot and the large metal sphere beside her. A smile crept across his face. “Nicholas, I heard you brought something ‘good’ to show me?”

Behind Gawain, Rebecca poked her head in and squeezed into the room. “I’m here, I’m here! Mr. Egg, what did you bring? A car engine? Or a ship’s bearing?”

Within the entire “Cecil R&D and Production System,” the department most closely connected to Nicholas Egg’s mechanical workshop was the Arcane Technology Research Institute, managed by Rebecca. As the main research branch for practical technology, they often commissioned the mechanical workshop to build blueprints that had passed theoretical verification. These orders usually exceeded the capabilities of ordinary “mechanical bachelors” and were personally handled by Nicholas Egg. Normally, he always had several orders from Rebecca on hand.

So when word got out that Nicholas Egg had brought a “good thing” to the manor, the most excited wasn’t Gawain—it was Rebecca.

Meanwhile, after greeting Nicholas Egg, Gawain looked at Betty and the teapot in her hands, unable to suppress a smile. “You didn’t force our master craftsman to drink tea, did you?”

“Mr. Egg has no mouth,” Betty shook her head. “He can’t drink.”

“…You,” Gawain shook his head helplessly and ruffled the little girl’s hair. “Go get some rest.”

Betty left the room, and Nicholas Egg floated over to Rebecca, carefully setting the metal box that had been hovering nearby onto the floor.

“The other two items are almost done, but today I brought the finished product of another order,” he said.

The box’s locks clicked open automatically, and the lid popped up. Inside floated an eighty-centimeter-long metal cylinder, its ends fitted with rune interfaces, its silver-white surface faintly etched with delicate patterns.

A proud voice echoed inside Nicholas Egg. “Making this work wasn’t easy—though the principles and blueprints were clear, mastering the right alloy mix of mythril was tricky. Even I had to test for a long time before it could run stably. Miss Rebecca, please inspect your order.”

Rebecca’s eyes lit up as she looked at the metal cylinder. “You finally succeeded!?”

Gawain, seeing the shape of the cylinder, had a vague idea of what it was but turned to Rebecca for confirmation. “This is—”

“This is the most important component of the new printing press you mentioned!” Rebecca beamed. “I call it the ‘Arcane Transfer Drum.’ With this, the printing press you wanted—fast plate-making, easy editing, continuous printing, and reusable—can finally be built.”

“Arcane Transfer Drum?” Gawain was surprised Rebecca had coined a new term after his habit. He repeated the phrase, curious about the metal cylinder. “Can you demonstrate it now? How does it work?”

“It still needs an input unit to operate, but if you just want to see what it looks like when it starts, you can inject magic directly into this part…” Rebecca said, placing her hand carefully on one end of the cylinder. “I’ll gently pour some mana in to imprint the test symbols… Hey, ancestor, what are you—”

Before Rebecca could finish, Gawain pulled her hand away. “Let me do it—you’re not blowing up the house again.”

Ignoring Rebecca’s pout, Gawain followed Nicholas Egg’s guidance and placed his hand on one end of the device.

A faint trickle of magic was carefully infused into the metal cylinder.

Moments later, neat rows of softly glowing blue lines and symbols appeared on the silver-white surface of the cylinder.

(End of chapter)