Chapter 173 – At the City Square.

‘A lot of people are here.’

Roland was walking towards the town square, even before reaching it he could see other people pouring in. A few days had passed since he returned from the dungeon where he had scored a lot of exotic resources.

He and Bernir spent some time organizing everything and working on the ore. There were a lot of large chunks that consisted of volcanic rocks that needed to be chiseled down. If they just threw everything into the smelter, the product would probably be worse than everyday iron.

Regretfully the golems were not smart enough to automate this process. While Roland was able to modify the regular golem runic programming that they came with, he was not able to make that many drastic changes.

To this day he mostly worked on a premade operating system that had been created by some other craftsmen. The amount of runic programming that he had to go through was staggering. Just as with modern-day software, a small change in the code could bring forth disastrous outcomes.

From time to time he found himself abandoning the altered runic code. It was easier to start from the beginning than to sweep through the code to find the correlating problem.

Even with his debugging skill working on the code, it wasn’t easy. It could recognize the problems but it did not work like modern-day debugging solutions. It did not give him any tooltips on what he could change the runic code into. It only lit up the faulty part of the code which could be quite long.

Then even when the implementation of the code was correct it didn’t mean that the golem was working fine. It just followed the programming as it was made, what that runic programming did was up to the runesmith.

He had to take everything into account. If he altered the golem design even by an inch he would require to alter a couple of values in the code for it to function correctly. His biggest desire would be to create something that could calculate these values automatically.

It was clear why other runesmiths didn’t bother with golem customization. It was just too much of a bother when there were working models already in circulation. They would rather spend five years working as an intern to get their hands on golem schematics, instead of coming up with their own.

Without the professor that he came to know through Lucille De Vere’s help, he might still be stuck on a prototype spider droid. The ones he had made were just a modification to an existing model. Adding weapons like hooks, magical cannons was at least bearable as long as he kept the chassis as close to the original as he could.

It was slowly becoming a problem even for him, but for now, he needed to concentrate on this strange new noble that arrived in his town. He required more information so he decided to lean against the side and listened to some of the people whispering about.

“It’s someone from the Valerian Household… but I never heard of anyone named Arthur from that house.”

“That’s right… it’s probably another bastard that Lord Alexander had brought into the world.”

“Don’t be so loud, if the guards hear you they will lynch you!”

“Hah, you think they care? He might be the lord but he is the leader only by name.”

As the conversations continued Roland got a somewhat good picture of the new lord that was about to appear and give an introductory speech to his people. It seemed that what he previously heard was the truth, most people never even heard about this noble’s son in the first place.

There could be a couple of reasons for something like this happening. One of them could be that he had only recently discovered this offspring and pushed him to the edges of this island. This would keep him away from the more important areas like Isgard and would show the other children that Arthur was not really competing for the Duke title.

Roland knew well that the battles for inheriting the titles could get bloody. This was the title of the Duke, it was only second to the royal family titles. An Archduke title was something only a member of the royal line could achieve.

This title was kind of special as it was given to one sibling of the current king. That is if there was a male sibling remaining after the war for the crown was over. Sometimes two princes would team up with the intent of getting one of them crowned and the second in command would be given this title.

Even though the title was called Archduke it didn’t mean that this forever prince had more power than a noble duke. The dukes were already powerful individuals that were at similar footing as the king. What the Archduke received at the end also depended on the king, sometimes they ended up with less than a count.

“What do we even need a noble for, Albrook has been fine for years now, why do those blasted nobles only show up after all the hard work is finished.”

“Damn bastards probably only want to tax us more, if that dungeon never appeared they would have let us starve.”

The various conversations continued as he noticed some older Albrook citizens that had gone through harsh times started talking. Roland heard some stories of the old town and how life was hard before the dungeon appeared.

The old residents still carried some grudges from the past. Probably if they received some aid from the nobles they would not have to starve through some droughts. While volcanic soil was normally quite fertile this didn’t account for magic.

With the close proximity to the dungeon, the soil could be altered in bizarre ways. Monstrous plants could start growing and crops could just die from oversaturation of the nutrients.

‘It will probably take a while until these people warm up to the noble, that is if he doesn’t turn out to be some kind of tyrant.’

What Roland feared was not the person called Arthur but the title that he was bringing with him. While he might have been some low-standing 6th son of a duke, he was still part of a prestigious family. If something happened to him, it would be surprising if the whole city didn’t get blamed for it.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

In these troubling times, the nobles were still law. If they for any reason hurt someone from a duke’s house there would be consequences, bloody ones. That is of course, only if the duke cared enough about this Arthur person.

Sometimes the high-nobles would distance themselves from their offsprings, even if they perished they would be considered real noble family members. In this case, there would be no repercussions and this noble would be relegated to nothing more than a figurehead with no actual power.

There were some cases where low nobles were even imprisoned in their mansions while the knights or servants kept everything running. As long as the noble was alive everything was fine, their family members abandoned them and without their approval, they could not leave.

This was something that Roland was afraid of as well. Now being a proper successful runesmith he somewhat feared getting hauled off to the old Arden estate. There he might be forced to work for the family like a mule without any say.

Though with his current strength he wasn’t sure if that option would be even possible anymore. With his armor on, there weren’t many high level tier 2 class holders that would be able to go against him.

His father on the other hand was the biggest threat as Roland didn’t think he was anywhere close to that battle maniac that spent most of his life out on the battlefield.

“Hey be quiet, someone is coming.”

Finally, it looked like the time for the audience with the new ‘lord’ of Albrook City. The city square had been created around an old well that existed here before the dungeon appeared. In its place a large fountain was placed, it looked like it was made from marble. It was of a woman with a large jug over her shoulder from which water streamed down.

Then before this fountain, they had built up a stage. On it they would present new laws and various other presentations. From Roland’s perspective, it was kind of a waste of space as they weren’t forthcoming enough to host any celebrations on it.