The Alchemist Chapter 18

Chapter 18

Wait, if Miliapolis was watching Mythbusters and such in his realm, does that mean I can connect to the internet if I tried?

This thought ran through my head constantly during the time it took to set up production in the warehouse district. Though I still had lots of ideas left in storage that I could execute alone, there were many things that I didn’t know enough about to be able to create in this world. For example: steam engines and the Bessemer process. Those both would require years of research if I didn’t have access to my world’s knowledge.

I decided to pay a visit to the church to see if I could contact my patron. I took a day off in the late fall to do this. The trees around the city were dropping their leaves and the cold front had just arrived over the city. I was wrapped in a coat, pulled tight to keep out the chill.

I arrived at the cathedral just after the third afternoon bell. Pushing my way through the large oak doors, I found myself again in the luxurious chamber.

Fey Grimes approached me from the altar. “Child, you have returned,” he said. “What do you desire?”

“I want to contact the Lord of Darkness,” I said.

Fey Grimes looked a bit pale. “Are you aware?” he said.

“Um, I don’t think so,” I said.

Fey Grimes frowned. “The séance procedure is dangerous. Many have died trying to contact their god in this way.”

“I need to,” I said. “I’m willing to risk it.”

I need a connection to my world’s internet.

Fey Grimes nodded and turned around. “Follow me. Since you are a special case, I will be performing this ritual to you free of charge.”

I followed Fey Grimes into a small chamber at the end of an empty hallway. The chamber featured a large stone alter at its center, and books lining the shelves along the walls.

A bin of coal sat at the bottom of the altar. Fey Grimes took a piece of coal and held it out to me.

I took it. “What do you want me to do with this?” I said.

“Consume it,” said Fey Grimes.

I took the coal and popped it into my mouth.

Whup.

I stood before Miliapolis, God of Darkness. The transition was quick enough to give me mental whiplash.

Miliapolis was playing Super Mario 64 on an N64. He paused the game and turned to me.

“You want to be able to connect to the internet, right?” he said.

I nodded. “As expected of a god. I don’t even have to tell you.”

Meliapolis sighed. He snapped his fingers and a non-branded smartphone popped into my hands. “It’s about time I rewarded you for your hard work, anyways,” he said. “You’ll be on Read Only. You won’t be able to access the phone for any reason other than to research.”

I turned the phone on. It appeared to be running a clone of Android.

“What about the battery?” I asked.

“It’s powered by your own latent energy,” said Meliapolis. He picked his teeth with a toothpick. “Don’t worry about how it works.” He flicked the toothpick away and returned to his game.

A sound like the ripping of plastic played. I popped back into existence in front of Fey Grimes. I held the same smartphone in my hands.

Fey Grimes seemed to jump out of his shoes. “Oh, oh my,” he said. He shivered. “I was not expecting such a strong backlash.”

I turned away. “I got what I came here for,” I said. “Thanks.”

“Of course, of course,” said Fey Grimes. His eyes turned to what I was holding. “You were granted an artifact?”

“Um, yeah, if you want to call it that,” I said. I put the phone in my pocket. “I get to keep it, right?”

Fey Grimes looked a bit scared. “I’ve never seen it happen before,” he said. “I suppose you get to keep it. Do you know what it does?”

“It’s an information transference device,” I said. “Is there anything else I need to take care of?”

“That’s it,” said Fey Grimes. “That’s everything. Please take care and put in a word with the Lord of Darkness for us.”

I nodded. “I’ll do as much as possible,” I said.

If they knew the Lord of Darkness was the kind of person to play video games and watch Netflix, what would they think?

I chuckled to myself as I left the cathedral. It was time to return to work.

During the week after the demonstration, we had fitted out a warehouse next to the city wall with assembly lines and production facilities. We put up a notice on the city billboard asking for workers. Anyone could join, no matter their qualifications. It was menial factory labor, after all.

We had about two hundred applicants, and we only needed seventy. It took some effort to slim the number down, and it felt bad, but I had to do what I took to run an efficient company.

Next we needed engineers and managers and HR reps.

I hired three engineers from the Royal Society directly, even though Moray had connections all throughout. We needed some smart minds to dedicate towards making my company work. I also hired two merchants to work with middle management, including support staff for each. I also put Rachel in charge of Human Resources and contract management.

The company was set to run without me. I could now perform my favorite job—putting new ideas into practice.

Two weeks after the demonstration, we received a huge order for painkillers of the type that I had given the red-haired official. With the amount they were ordering an entire war effort could be supported.

They’re going to freak when they see penicillin, I thought.

Operation “Lightning rod” was a success. Normally, about once every two months a building would burn down due to lightning. Once rods were installed, that went down to zero.

Though we would have to wait years for the effects to really show themselves.

My next project was to create a working steam engine. A parallel project was to create abundant steel by making the Bessemer process widespread.

I studied up on the process for a week using my smartphone and then gave a presentation to the engineering division of the Royal Society. Within two weeks a new metalworks was up and running. It took some ironing out of difficulties, and a lot of smart people, but eventually the price of steel was slashed in half.

I could, of course, just create steel with my alchemy power, but I didn’t want to create a supply chain that relied on one lynchpin—that being myself.

Speaking of which, the oil and plastic production was another industry that I had to, in this case, create from scratch. I looked up the easiest way to extract oil from oil fields using the tech I had and sold the design to a firm of merchants. They bought the oil field outside the city from me and set up two rigs, each of which produced about a hundred barrels a day. Not much by the standards of my world, but it was a start.

The actual conversion from oil to its derivatives was performed by chemister mages. Cracking oil with technology was a little bit too complicated to manage with this world’s tech. Thankfully, even a weak chemister mage could crack oil at a reasonable pace and turn it into plastic.

In what felt like no time, the Guardians’ incursion was ready to start. Our soldiers were equipped with Fiber Steel armor and had one musket per five soldiers. We also brough with us thirty cannons.

The demon king’s influence could be seen from the walls of Brownfield. The entire atmosphere to the east was consumed by clouds of darkness.

If the evidence of the demon king is so obvious, why does no one care? I asked myself, many times.

On a day close to winter, when the chill was biting through my cloak, Claude gathered the incursion forces outside the walls of Brownfield. Even though I knew the number was paltry compared to the forces of the demon king, it still looked impressive. And a bit stupid. The fiber steel had been colored bright red with blue lacing.

Since this wasn’t a battle where camouflage mattered, I was okay with this cacophonous color scheme. It reminded me a bit of the movies of the American Revolutionary War.

The army set off at Claude’s signal. We marched, in a column half a kilometer long, down the road straight towards the Demon King’s domain.

We met our first adversaries about ten kilometers out from the city.

A forward raiding party had devastated a small village. Our army surrounded it and smoked them out—only about a hundred orcs and one mountain troll.

Blood flowed, mostly from monsters. The clash of battle was epic even at this scale. My fiber steel armor did its job admirably. Each crack of a musket reminded me of how hard I had worked for this.

The orcs were massacred in under half an hour. It was too late for the villagers. We searched the whole town and found five people who had managed to hide somewhere and stay alive.

The rest of the people were buried in graves not far from the village border. The orcs were burned in a pile that sent a plume of horrible smoke into the sky.

Claude personally buried a man whom she had known for years. Her face did not show any hint of emotion, but I could tell that she was roiling inside. She knelt beside his grave for a long time, as the rest of the army secured the surrounding area.

Itrim put his hand on Claude’s shoulder. “Commander,” he said. “You’re needed.”

Claude stood up. “As always.” She turned away from the grave.

I climbed onto a rooftop and watched the army from above. The clouds were minimal, floating past with the breeze, which was cold enough to force me to wrap my cloak tighter.

Blasé climbed up to the rooftop and approached me.

“Thanks to you, casualties were minimal,” she said. She sat down next to me. “But that probably won’t console Claude.”

“Who was the person she lost?” I asked.

Blasé shook her head. “Just a longtime friend,” she said. “You can ask Claude if you want to know more.”

“I don’t think I’ll be comfortable doing that,” I said.

Blasé shrugged. “I probably wouldn’t be either.” She picked up a small roof nail and spun it around her fingers. “We’re going to encounter a lot of death on this trail,” she said. “You have to be prepared.”

“Most people aren’t familiar with this kind of death in my world,” I said. “My world is very peaceful.”

“Then you’re one of the lucky ones,” said Blasé. “This kind of tragedy happens in any world, regardless of their technological development.”

“I guess, yeah,” I said. I supported my chin with my hands. “If I can make it just a little bit better,” I said, “I’ll believe that I came here for a reason.”

“You have made it better,” said Blasé. “The soldiers are all raving about how amazing your armor is, not to mention the cannons and muskets.”

“I don’t feel that way,” I said. “I’m just facilitating more conflict.”

Blasé seemed to think for a minute. “Think of it this way,” she said. “The conflict was already going to happen. As harsh as this may sound, people were going to die anyways. And while your gunpowder weapons have probably killed thousands by now, your armor has saved tens of thousands.”

“I don’t think it comes down to numbers,” I said. “It’s just the feeling I have. I want this world to experience the technology that was common in my world. Antibiotics, painkillers, and trashy romance novels.”

“You’ll get there,” said Blasé. “But first you have to establish yourself. Then you’ll get the resources you need to make this world a better place.”

“Thanks, Blasé,” I said. “I’ll remember that.”

And so the incursion continued.