Reborn As A Ghost: Time To Build My Undead Army!-Chapter 496 The Greedy Goldsand Confederation & Visiting Viscountess Ruby’s House
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"Greedy?" Wondered Lucifer.
"Well, you see… The Goldsand Confederation is made up of many merchant groups unified together they have a king which they decide every five years through the votes of nobles. Sometimes the government becomes nice and gentle, others times some asshole takes control over everything and gets pushy and greedy…" Sighed Ruby.
"They choose a king every five years?!" Asked Emeraldine. "I can't imagine such a country, it would constantly change so much… how can they keep it from turning into just chaos?"
"Well they have many rules and regulations they enforce." Said Ruby. "Nonetheless, the current king is corrupt and has been raising the taxes of products of our country exported there, and things sent here had also become incredible expensive, one kilogram of tomatoes costs five gold coins. They're insane." Said Ruby. "No commoner can afford to eat like this."
"Five gold coins?!" Asked Helga, the other dwarves answered the same.
"So that's why nobles can eat this and nobody else…"
"Man, I do remember I once ate a tomato, they're juicy and sweet."
"Yeah, they're rare here though…"
"As you can see, they're doing this because they know we have no other choice. Our country mostly produces items and barely any food, so we are forced to adjust to their demands or we'll starve. Eating only monster meat won't do." Sighed Ruby. "The last fifty years our population has tripled as well, demand for food is bigger than ever."
"So that's how it is…" I said. "Then let's do our best to make the biggest farm this continent has ever seen in the dungeon. There are two enormous floors there where we can plant all sorts of plants, and on the third floor there's an enormous underground world of caves where many ores and crystals are growing, and regrow at a steady pace due to being a dungeon."
"Eh? You never spoke about the third floor…!" Said Ruby.
"Because it will be our guild's secret! Aside from the surrounding mines where there's a lot of rich ores and crystals to extract, there will also be the third floor of this dungeon where we can get a nice and steady supply of ores. I doubt there are many varieties, but I saw at least five different ores while we walked around." I said.
"Yeah, it is an enormous third floor of just caves. There were ants living there which we exterminated." Said Lucifer. "It was a hard fight." f𝚛e𝗲𝔀e𝚋𝑛o𝘃𝒆𝗹.c𝗼𝒎
"Hm, yeah…" Emeraldine said.
"T-That's right…" Said Partner.
"Well, you must be tired. Let's quickly have a meal and then you can go back to Aquamarine's place. I don't want to bother you too much." Ruby said humbly.
"It's okay, don't worry about it, we are fine now." I said.
Like that, we quickly reached Ruby's enormous manor, which was painted bronze and red like her hair color. There was a large garden surrounding the entire house, which was made entirely out of different types of colorful mushrooms, they were the only things that progressively grew here without issue, plants simply can't grow easily in places without sunlight aside from some types of mold.
"Welcome to my house." Ruby said, as she gave us a small trip around.
She was apparently a "Mechanic Designed" or so was her Class, and she had several engineering skills and crafting skills which she uses to create new models for golems and magic items of her own. She's certainly more than just a noble dwarf lady. She showed us all sorts of golems she had been designing and creating, even showing some unreleased models.
One of them in specific resembled a large metallic dragon, with a large red core on its chest and several other cores around its body. It seemed unfinished though, but this was definitely an enormous, twenty-meter-tall mecha! I've seen dwarves using golems as mechas already, but this one in specific resembles a Lucifer's version of mecha Godzilla…
"This is what I've been working in my free time. It is a new model of fighting model golems that can be manually piloted. I call it Steel Dragon, and it is my pride and passion. I am still halfway through, but I am using the most high-quality materials I can find. One day this big boy will become one of our country's defenders. I am designing this as a part of a new generation of powerful piloted golems that can fight even monsters at B Rank or A Rank… It is only a dream for now, as golems cannot level up, adjusting their total power to reach the strength of such monsters is very hard." She said. "Using high quality materials from such monsters helps though, so I was thinking that if you've got any materials of B or A Rank Monsters, I can buy them from you. Scales, bones, and even their blood and internal organs all can be used, synthetized through alchemy to make stronger materials that can be used for the construction of golems. It is rather sad that we lack Alchemists in our country, I lack talent for it as well, and the only one left is too picky, he's already working for another viscount."
"Huh, I see… Well, me and Emeraldine are Alchemist." I said.
"Oh, I see- Eh? You are?!" She asked.
"Yeah don't you remember we sold potions we made? Emeraldine is the best here though, I am her humble apprentice, but we are slowly learning more. These mountains are awesome as they can offer a wide variety of materials and ores, and even monster materials, so we are excited about doing some more alchemy using these items." I said.
"Maybe we could give her our help, perhaps." Emeraldine said while narrowing her eyes. "Only if she behaves…"
"Behave?" Ruby wondered while raising an eyebrow. "I-I can pay you as much as you want if you can become my Company's Alchemists! Funds, materials, anything you want!" She said desperately.
"Sorry but we aren't compromising that hard." I said. "We want to do our own things as well, but I am willing to cooperate with you if you can also teach us the ways of creating Magic Cores, and other things such as Mechanical Engineering and so on."
"Ooh, I see, a fair exchange then… Sure thing!" Ruby said with a smile, as she suddenly showed a blazing passion in her red eyes.
This dwarf woman was more than we had expected, we might had made ourselves an amazing ally. Just imagining an army of golems at my disposal makes me laugh evilly!
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