Chapter 916 — A Ship from the North

Autumn's chill had set in. The brief warm season of the continent's northern reaches had long since ended, and as the constellation of Frost drew nearer the zenith, the vast northern continent of Loren was slowly being wrapped in cold winds. From the Northern Wastes that hugged the Endless Ocean to the wide plains held by the northern city-states, and on to the Mosswood where the grey elves had dwelt for generations, everyone was making ready for the winter that would soon arrive.

Stockpiling fuel for the winter, seizing the last days of bright sun to dry fish and pickle vegetables, patching houses damaged by the autumn rains, hauling out the cotton coats and quilts... Apart from the Cecil Empire, where magitek had already entered civilian life, most people in this world still lived much as they always had. Even though magitek from distant lands had begun to change the way some people lived, bringing a host of novelties to these ancient lands, such change would take time.

Rupert, newly moved into the city, pushed a cart of charcoal down the street. The wind was much colder than yesterday's, and some of it found its way down his collar, making the short grey elf man hunch his neck. He lifted his head and looked around at a place still so unfamiliar to him, and could not help but sniff.

He was still struggling to adjust to life in the city, and it was no easy thing.

Compared with the forest he had grown used to, this "great forest" built by people seemed far too vast, too cold and hard, too crowded, and too chaotic. Every day he dealt with countless strangers, did unfamiliar work, heard a great deal of news he could not make sense of, and finally returned to unfamiliar lodgings. His only comfort was his wife and their two children, who had moved here with him; they were the greatest reason he had been able to settle in this strange city at all, and the reason he had finally resolved to put down roots here.

After all, apart from the hard-to-adjust-to strangeness, life in the city was far more comfortable and convenient than in the forest. As a grey elf skilled in processing herbal ingredients, his wages at the distillation and curing plant were enough to provide his family with a warm place to live; his wife no longer had to worry about beasts and venomous insects that might appear at any moment in the forest; and as for the children...

They rather liked this big, bustling city.

Another gust of cold wind came, and Rupert could not help but sniff again. He looked at the cart of charcoal before him: this load had been bought from a charcoal yard in the south, and together with what he had purchased earlier, his family now had all the fuel they would need to get through the winter in the city. Life in the city was not like the forest; here you could not simply go out and gather firewood. Fuel for warmth had to be bought with money. The charcoal yard's proprietor was a grey elf merchant who looked very shrewd, and Rupert reckoned the man was probably the wealthiest person he had ever met in his life. Yet for some reason, whenever he recalled the details of their transaction, he always had the impression that the shrewd charcoal merchant had been wearing a worried frown...

Rupert pushed his cart through the city center, and a strain of sweet, gentle music suddenly reached his ears. He looked up instinctively and saw a great crystal device standing proudly in the square before the chief's longhouse. Runes flickered across the surface of that massive magical apparatus; a large crystal floated upon a base of some alloy, rotating slowly, and the soft music issued from some structure within the device.

He recalled the thing's name—it should be called a magitek obelisk. Since coming into the city, it was the thing that had astonished him most. Rupert did not know how those Cecil folk in the east had built such an incredible device, but he did know that this square, and the large district beyond it, all drew their energy from this device; those exceptionally bright streetlamps and the "machines" in certain factories were all driven by it.

And every day, when the sun rose, the device would begin playing traditional grey elf music, and go on playing until the sun went down.

This second function was said to have been ordered by the chief herself, and rigged up by the grey elves' own "magitek technicians." Rupert did not understand concepts like "technical exchange" or "guidance from foreign experts," but he knew the city's residents all welcomed the music in the square. It had made some citizens who had once resisted magitek lower their guard, and many more adaptable residents had organized themselves, often dancing in the square when the music played, or joining in with instruments—just as they did at festival celebrations.

A slightly hoarse, androgynous voice suddenly came from beside him, cutting short Rupert's thoughts about the "magitek obelisk": "Citizen, do you need help?"

Rupert started at the voice and turned his head in some alarm, only to see a very tall and powerfully built woman standing beside him—an orc, nearly three times the height of a grey elf, her fine soft fur covering firm, bulging muscle, and a fearsome battle-axe slung across her back. This lady guarding the square was looking at him, her gaze not unkind—but enough to make a country grey elf not yet used to city life nervous.

"N-no... nothing, I was just woolgathering, woolgathering..." Rupert said, waving his hand in some fluster.

"All right, then don't stand woolgathering too long," the orc lady said offhandedly, her gaze drifting casually to Rupert's cart of charcoal. She frowned. "Ah, I do hope we really won't need to burn charcoal in the future. That stuff is not kind to fur."

"Huh?" Rupert was somewhat surprised that a city guard was friendlier than he had imagined, and all the more curious because of her words. "Ma'am, what did you say? No more burning charcoal in the future?"

"I said there won't be any need to burn charcoal in the future," the orc lady said, glancing at this grey elf who seemed not quite to grasp the situation. "Haven't you heard? They're building magitek heating stations in the north and south of the city. According to those 'Cecil contractors,' once the heating stations are up, a whole street will only need a few heat conduits to stay warm—no fear of fire, no choking smoke, and no more unlucky orcs with their tails singed bald by charcoal. Of course, that won't be until next year at least..."

Rupert listened to the square guard's description as though hearing a tale from the heavens; those terms and concepts belonged to an entirely different world as far as he was concerned—and he believed that even people who had long lived in the cities of Xuanyuan could not necessarily make sense of things like "magitek heating stations" and "heat conduits." After all, in the past few days he had heard the locals boast of the principles of the "magitek engine" in eight different versions in the taverns. The things those Cecil merchants brought... were truly hard to figure out.

Rupert could be certain only that all those wondrous-looking machines were made by human hands, that taken apart they were just a pile of ordinary iron lumps and crystals, that no little devils lived inside them, and that they did not need to drain any souls—this the Cecil folk had stressed again and again, and even the chief herself had personally assured the citizens of it.

He shook his head and set aside for the moment his confusion over "how to keep warm without burning charcoal"—anyway, it sounded like something that would not happen until next year. At the same time he instinctively glanced at the tail of the tall orc lady before him—and that cautious glance clearly did not escape the eye of a professional warrior, for she at once whipped her tail behind her and glared at him.

Rupert promptly ducked his neck and hurriedly pushed his cart onward.