Chapter 294 – On with the scheme.

‘They do work fast here, just a day ago they were fighting for their lives and now it’s like nothing happened at all.’

Roland had to give it to the people living in this world. They quickly recovered after the potential life-ending incident and were back to their daily lives. However, he wasn’t sure if it was because of their nerves of steel or just because otherwise they would starve. The nobles didn’t usually offer any aid to the commoners, if they stopped working their money would quickly vanish and so would their food.

‘It’s not that they are brave but they don’t have any other choice.’

Guards were everywhere but they didn’t look that mindful of monster attacks, probably the adventurers that he saw outside were patrolling for monsters instead. There were a lot of people going out of the main gate but not that many inside. However, a line was forming as the soldiers were frisking people for monster bones. Just as he expected, some kind of agreement was made between the city and adventurers as they were actually giving small amounts of coin to people with skeletal bones on them.

‘I guess they’ll buy them for a smaller price and sell them later for a profit, sounds like something the Guild Master came up with.’

His turrets just like he expected were melted down due to someone overusing and ignoring their specs. He would need to perhaps make a written manual while also improving on the design further. This just meant more work for him but at least they had taken a lot of skeletons down with them. Perhaps they had no value for prolonged sieges but they could be used to push the initial enemy advance.

‘With a Runesmith included in the defense they would be able to last through a lot longer, perhaps a more modular design would be better if the operators won’t follow the instructions?’

While thinking of a different turret design that would allow certain parts to be replaced on the fly he heard someone calling out to him.

“Hey you, stop!”

“Hm?”

“Hey what are you doing?”

“Huh?”

“Please go through sir, forgive him he is new here.”

“Ah alright…”

Roland without thinking about it much just attempted to cut in line. One of the soldiers that looked quite young started shouting his way but was instantly stopped by a gate guard that he recognized. While walking past the two he could hear the older guard reprimanding the new one about it.

“Are you stupid or something? That’s the city lord’s runesmith. Do you want us to get a pay cut or something? Or even worse, if he brought it up with the Lord you could lose your head!”

The older guard made a head-slicing motion with his thumb and followed it up with quite a good impression of a head being torn apart. The younger soldier recoiled in fear as his face got pale.

“That is? I’m sorry, I didn’t know.”

After receiving a couple of smacks to his head the young soldier ran off to the main line while Roland continued on his way. He could see that people were looking at him with more interest than usual. He had told Arthur to keep him out of the rumors but perhaps making a trap strong enough to kill a Lich was enough to earn the people’s favor. Some of them whispered while others bowed in respect slightly while he passed.

‘If this was a game, would my approval rating with the city have risen to favorable or something?’

He wasn’t sure if he liked this, his face was somewhat exposed as he wasn’t wearing his helmet but just covering it with a dark robe. When he came here a few years ago he wanted to lay low and just live a simple life of a craftsman. Involving himself with the nobles and being sent to war to fight was something he wanted to avoid.

With his current array of skills, he would probably be safe from that fate as making good weapons was usually more important than becoming a soldier. The situation at the borders was finicky with small skirmishes breaking out every so often. It was like a powder keg waiting to explode, each kingdom and empire was eager to gain more lands and power. Getting involved with that world was a given if he remained in the Arden estate and it was still a possibility if his father actually found his new residence.

‘He hasn’t found me for over ten years now so he probably won’t ever unless Robert talks.’

Too much time had passed since his disappearance and it was more than likely that everyone had come to terms that he was dead. That is with the exception of one person which was his youngest sister who was apparently getting some oracle-like dreams from time to time.

‘But even an Oracles has limits, as long as I keep away from the royalist territories she shouldn’t be able to tell that I’m here, at least not until she gets to tier 3 perhaps? But perhaps I should stop worrying about things I have no control over, I can only prepare and minimize the damage when the time comes.’

In reality, Roland’s fears of his family had mellowed out substantially, even one of his brothers knew about his location, and nothing ever happened. It wouldn’t be strange if his Father knew about his location already and just chose to ignore his existence entirely. The old man felt quite distant, perhaps having one bastard out of the way just made things easier for him as Roland’s current status as a Runesmith gave him little value as a prospect. Without a knight class that was considered noble and just, there wouldn’t be any marriage partners that were willing.

‘Marriage huh…’

One way of making himself truly undesirable in the noble world would be to take a common woman as his first wife. When going by the traditions of this world, this choice was the most important one of them all. No noble lady of status would be willing to be a second wife of a husband with a common first, it was something none were willing to stomach.

There was already one person in his mind but considering that he was putting himself in constant danger he didn’t want to take the plunge down that road. Then there was the fact that he was practically already in one as many kids were wandering around his compound while he was also sharing the bed with the woman taking care of them.

Bringing more of them under his roof would just be a new headache, thus he wanted to still wait a bit more. The age of his new body was quite low and with his vitality stat constantly increasing his longevity was becoming enhanced. It wouldn’t be strange for him to remain at the appearance of an early twenty-year-old even when he arrived into his mid-thirties like this. This was kind of what happened to humans that leveled up fast, reaching the tier 3 class would only enhance this effect further.

Stray thoughts continued to enter his mind while he headed towards a secondary location, the Church of Solaria. Before moving to Arthurs’s estate he needed to get his hands checked by one of the priests. Luckily the person he was most familiar with here was there, Sister Kassia.

“May the Lady bless you on your journey.”

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“Thank you.”

It was a mostly uneventful encounter as there weren’t that many people that were injured during the siege. The only noteworthy event was when one of the tier 3 monsters flew inside the city. However, the guild master made quick work of the skeletal gargoyle before it could even injure anyone else.

Though Roland did use this opportunity to activate his runic eye and get a better feel on the divine spell Sister Kassia was using. His hands were cured as he expected and now he would be even able to show them to Elodai when he returned. His research concerning these spells was close to a breakthrough and with his higher level, his eyes weren’t even hurting that much when he was examining this radiant effect.

Soon he continued on his way and finally arrived at the Valerian Villa. At first glance, it was clear that a lot fewer men were guarding it. Some of them were probably patrolling the city or outside of it to see if it was really safe. This didn’t stop them from letting people out, everyone was free to go outside and had to decide for themselves if it was worth the risk.

Things like shelters didn’t really exist and some people actually had to beg for temporary stay in other people’s houses. This whole siege was a good wake-up call for the missing infrastructure that this city required. To not have a similar mess happen like in the city attacked by the cultists Arthur would need to think about updating everything and perhaps Roland would be part of this enhancement plan. Being able to produce golems and turrets for protection was already something that had proven its worth.

“Master Runesmith, the Lord is awaiting you please come in.”

‘Master Runesmith?’