Sword of Dawnbreaker

Chapter 449 - 448: New Order Completed

At the Cecil Castle feudal lord’s mansion, a silver-white metal sphere with a delightful comical smile drawn on its surface, about 1.3 meters in diameter, was knocking on the mansion’s door with moderate force. Behind this metal ball floated a metal box less than a meter long.

After two knocks, the door opened from the inside, revealing Betty in her maid dress at the entrance. This little maid blinked as she looked at the metal-ball alien outside the door, with a hint of surprise on her face: "Mr. Egg? You’ve arrived?"

Although this metal-ball alien rarely left his "Mechanical Throne," Betty often got dragged around the city by Rebecca, frequently visiting several factories and research facilities, thus she was naturally familiar with "Mr. Egg" in front of her.

"Is the leader in?" A joyful buzzing sounded from the silver-white metal ball, "Or Miss Rebecca would do—I have something good to show them!"

Betty blinked, took a second to react: "The leader and the young miss aren’t here; they’ve gone to the Magic Guide Technology Research Institute, but they should be back soon."

Nicholas Egg bobbed his round body up and down slightly: "Okay, I’ll come in and wait then."

The oddly-shaped "Mr. Egg" was the mechanical technology master of the territory, someone the leader valued greatly, something Betty was aware of, so she followed Gawain’s previous instructions and took Mr. Egg to the study on the second floor of the mansion.

As the mechanical overseer of the territory, Nicholas Egg rarely left the mechanical research station, let alone the eastern industrial area of the city. However, this didn’t mean he was unaware of the happenings in the territory. Upon entering Gawain’s study, the first thing he noticed was the southern borders map hanging on the study’s wall. He noticed that the position marked as the rocky ridges Fortress had already been tagged with the Cecil symbol.

"At least I can sleep peacefully now," a deep buzzing echoed from the metal sphere, "All those shells weren’t wasted after all."

The little maid Betty stood in a corner of the study; she didn’t quite understand the leader’s affairs of war and wasn’t interested. She just stood there quietly, appearing lost in her thoughts, with no telling what was going through her little head.

Nicholas Egg waited in the study for a while and, feeling a little bored, couldn’t help but strike up a conversation with Betty: "Speaking of which, little girl, can you read?"

Betty snapped out of her daze, blinked, and then somewhat uncertainly nodded: "I know a bit... though not all."

Having said this, the slightly slow-witted little maid seemed to finally get into the swing of things, belatedly realizing she hadn’t yet entertained the guest, so she hurriedly picked up her large teapot from the side and walked towards Nicholas Egg, while the latter continued to speak to himself: "Oh, as long as you can read, that’ll do. Do you usually read... Hey, wait, what are you doing with that teapot?"

Nicholas Egg "looked" at Betty with a comical (he really didn’t have any other expression to use) glance, and saw the dazed little maid earnest as she opened her mouth: "Mr. Egg, would you like some black tea?"

Nicholas Egg was instantly taken aback: "...Have you never noticed I don’t have a mouth?!"

Betty seemed to finally take a serious look at the structure of the metal-ball alien in front of her, and even circled around twice as if looking for an opening to pour tea into. Realizing she couldn’t find one, she elongated her voice with an "Eh—": "Eh... really none!"

"Of course, my face is painted on, you should know that," Nicholas Egg wobbled his body, continuing the previous topic, "If you can read, do you read newspapers?"

"Newspapers... I can understand them, I usually read," Betty nodded, with a hint of happiness on her face, "The leader even gave me a set of stationary, with scissors and glue—he even taught me to cut out parts I like from the newspapers to make a book!"

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

Nicholas Egg couldn’t understand why this little maid was so insistent on guests drinking tea, but he was genuinely worried she’d try to poke a hole in him to pour tea, so he patiently explained: "I’m different from you all; I don’t usually need to eat or drink... or rather, the way I eat is different..."

Betty finally stopped circling, widened her eyes, and looked at the metal ball with curiosity: "How does Mr. Egg usually eat?"

Nicholas Egg casually replied: "Oh, normally it’s by absorbing through the surface..."

No sooner had he said this than he realized the little maid beside him must have misunderstood, as she was eying his round body while jiggling the large teapot in her hand, her face full of eagerness. He quickly said, "Hey, curb those thoughts—when I say absorb through the surface, I don’t mean you should water me!"

Betty’s face suddenly showed a hint of disappointment: "...Oh."

Nicholas Egg burst forth with a barrage of question marks: "Why are you so fixated on having guests drink tea?"

Betty showed her signature dazed expression, took two seconds to respond, and then suddenly said: "Sister Ginny said, she said the most important duty of a maid is to promptly serve fresh tea to the guests..."

"Ginny..." Nicholas Egg racked his brain and realized he hadn’t heard the name before, "Has the mansion hired new maids?"

Betty shook her head vigorously, "No, Sister Ginny was a maid in the previous castle. She was responsible for entertaining guests and was the best among us."

After saying this, she paused, seemingly recalling something, then continued, "Sometimes she would secretly bring leftovers from the guests to the kitchen for us to eat..."

"The previous castle..." Nicholas Egg muttered softly, realizing what was going on.

He noticed Betty’s mood had dropped, realizing he had said something stupid earlier, which led to this awkward topic.

However, he didn’t know how to comfort a human being—these complex creatures with their sophisticated thoughts and emotions, far harder to understand than simple metal and machinery. He could only mimic what he heard from humans comforting each other, saying clumsily, "Don’t be sad, everything will get better."

"I’m not sad, everything is better now," Betty shook her head, seemingly spirited up, "Mrs. Vincent said that being alive is the happiest thing."

Nicholas Egg floated quietly next to Betty, once again realizing that human beings are truly complex and fascinating creatures.

And soon, the person he knew to be the most complex and interesting among all humans finally arrived.

Gawain pushed open the door to the study. As soon as he entered the room, he saw Betty holding a teapot and the large metal sphere standing next to her. He smiled faintly, "Nicholas, I heard you brought something ’good’ for me to see?"

A head peeked out from behind Gawain, and Rebecca squeezed into the study, "I’m here, I’m here—Mr. Egg, what did you come up with?! A car engine or a bearing for a ship?"

Within the entire "Cecil R&D production system," the Mechanical Manufacturing Facility managed by Nicholas Egg is most closely linked to the Magic Guide Technology Research Institute overseen by Rebecca, the latter being the main research department for practical technology. It often entrusts blueprints, which have completed theoretical verification, to the mechanical research station for realization, and these orders usually exceed the processing ability of ordinary "Mechanical Scholars," commonly handled personally by Nicholas Egg. Normally, Nicholas Egg would always have a few of Rebecca’s orders on hand.

So upon hearing that Nicholas Egg had brought "something good" to the feudal lord’s mansion, the most excited one was not Gawain, but Rebecca.

On the other side, after greeting Nicholas Egg, Gawain looked at Betty with the teapot in hand and couldn’t help but smile, "You haven’t forced our craftsman master to drink tea, have you?"

"Mr. Egg doesn’t have a mouth," Betty shook her head, "He can’t drink."

"...You," Gawain shook his head helplessly, rubbing the young girl’s hair, "Go and rest."

Betty left the room, while Saint Nicholas Egg came up to Rebecca and gently placed a metal box that had been floating beside him on the ground, "Those two things are almost done, but today I brought the finished product of another order,"

The lock on the metal box automatically opened, the lid popped up, and a metal cylinder device about eighty centimeters long, with visible magic symbol interfaces at both ends and finely patterned silver-white surface, floated out.

Inside Nicholas Egg came a proud voice, "Realizing its function wasn’t easy—even though the principle and structural diagram were clear, mastering the right alloy ratio for Mithril was no simple task. Even I tested for a long time to make it work steadily. Miss Rebecca, inspect your order."

"This..." Rebecca looked at the metal cylinder in surprise, "You finally succeeded!?"

Gawain, after seeing the shape of the metal cylinder, vaguely guessed what it was but still turned to Rebecca for confirmation, "Is this—"

"This is the key structure you mentioned for the new printing press!" Rebecca beamed with joy, "A lot of effort was spent designing this in the Magic Guide Technology Research Institute. I call it the ’Arcane Transcription Cylinder.’ With this, the printing machine that can quickly make plates, facilitate editing, continuously print, and be reusable is essentially created."

"Arcane Transcription Cylinder?" Gawain hadn’t expected Rebecca to create a new term following his habit. He repeated the phrase, intrigued by the metal cylinder before him, "Can you demonstrate it now? How does it work?"

"It needs an input unit to function, but if you just want to see what it’s like when activated, directly injecting magic power into this part will do..." Rebecca said while placing her hand on one end of the metal cylinder, "Carefully infuse some magic into it, input the test symbols—Hey ancestor, what are you doing—"

Gawain didn’t wait for the young lady to "infuse magic power," pushing her hand aside, "Let me do it—don’t blow up the house again."

After saying this, he ignored Rebecca’s pouting sulk and, under Nicholas Egg’s guidance, placed his hand on one end of the metal device.

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

Mere moments later, neat lines and symbols emitting a faint blue light surfaced on the silver-white metal cylinder.