"Dimitri!" Howard stormed inside Dimitri's room.
"Again? Why won't anyone give me a break and just let me finish my work?" Dimitri sighed.
"I just want to say that the lord has returned." Howard pointed at the back as if he were wondering if he wanted to go together.
Dimitri was shameless enough to turn into a shadow that instantly disappeared from the room. Even Howard was speechless that Dimitri escaped right after that complaint. "Is he serious?"
Outside, Noel and the others had finally reached the city. Instead of cheering for Noel, they were worried when they saw Noel was covered with bandages. Even Anna had a lot of injuries on her body, showing that they had a rough time when they left.
Of course, Khalid had arrived in this city a few days prior, telling all the pillars about Noel's current condition.
"My lord. What happened to you?!" Charlotte looked worried, even though she was just acting to make it more dramatic.
"I'm fine. It's just some injuries." Noel smiled wryly like he didn't want Charlotte to worry.
Dimitri appeared next to Noel. "Master."
"Oh, Dimitri?! I'm back. How is the situation over here?"
"Everything is progressing smoothly. But your body…"
"It's fine. I can't fight, but I can still work like normal. You don't have to worry about my condition. It will heal over time." Noel chuckled while looking around. "It seems that the progress has been quite massive in the past few days."
"Yes, Master. But you must be tired from your trip, so I believe you should get some rest first." Dimitri said those words so that the people knew that Noel was injured. And he would simply bring the matter to Noel after they dispersed.
"That's…" Noel scratched the back of his head.
"Please, I insist."
"Alright, alright." After agreeing to Dimitri's request, Noel waved his hands to the others while moving toward their house.
He had to discuss Anna's departure with Dimitri as well. Though, the most excited people were Roel and Douglas, fully knowing that they were going to have a lot of things to do, which was tiring but also exciting.
Aurelia took a look at the city. It was surprisingly nice. Even though it was barely constructed, the buildings had a nice design. The road was smooth and the main street was wide enough to make people cross it to feel the majestic atmosphere of the city.
But what made her confused was the wall in the north. The wall looked like a single corner of an ordinary city, but when she took another look at it, she realized that the width wasn't enough for the building. In other words, Noel was using a different design than what most nobles used.
"He is truly mysterious. I have heard that the city is only less than a month old, but I can feel the trust from the citizens. They don't seem to be treated badly here. What can you see, Aurelia?" Layla whispered.
"The city is good. Everything looks perfect on the surface. But I don't know if this will continue. After all, once the city grows, so does the slum. I'm afraid we'll see it in the future."
"We can't save everyone. So, the only thing we can do is provide help to the best of our abilities. No one is perfect anyway." Layla obviously understood that the more the city grew, the bigger the gap between people's social status. "Still, it's a quite nice city to live in, right?"
"Certainly," Aurelia admitted without hesitation. If the city were completed, she would love to live here, especially with the rumored rune technology.
They followed Noel to his house. Instead of going to bed, Noel dropped his act and just sat down in the living room, asking, "So, how is the progress?"
"There are some small problems, but we should be able to handle them. As for the migrants, we'll be finding them soon. Though… the others probably have more questions than me." Dimitri glanced to the back, seeing the hungry faces of Roel and Douglas. They seemed to be ready to devour Noel alive once Dimitri was done.
"Alright. Let me introduce you to them. She is Layla, the Saintess of the Moon Temple. I've made an agreement with the Moon Temple and will construct their headquarters here. The one next to her is Paladin Aurelia."
"I have heard about the report. Constructing the Moon Temple's headquarters might be good, but I have to warn them that if they dare to do anything funny, I will rally all the pillars to expel them out of this city." Dimitri looked at Layla and Aurelia coldly.
"Oh my. Mr. Dimitri is as strict as usual. Mr. Luke Ardagan was kind enough to work with us a lot in the past." Layla smirked. Since Luke helped a lot of people, it wasn't surprising to know that he had worked together with the Moon Temple. It was probably why the Moon Temple agreed so quickly to their demands and even sent their paladin to help right away.
"Do you mind sending them to their place?"
"Certainly." Dimitri turned to them and said, "Both ladies. We have prepared a place for you. I hope you can follow me."
Dimitri's tone was a bit strict as if he didn't take no for an answer. It seemed that Dimitri had quite a headache whenever he was working with the Moon Temple.
As soon as Dimitri left, both Roel and Douglas moved toward Noel and slammed the table, saying the same thing. "My lord. We need to discuss a lot of things."
"Roel! I'm first!" Douglas gritted his teeth.
"What did you say? I should be first."
"I have worked for the previous Ardagan Family, so I should go first."
"Shouldn't the seniors give way to their juniors first?"
Both of them glared at each other.
Noel sighed. "Roel. You can talk to Anna first regarding the things we've created."
Although reluctant, he agreed with the arrangement. He was quite curious about the details of everything they had made, especially the automatic carriage.
Meanwhile, Douglas hurriedly opened the design of the city. "After hearing about the report, I have made a slight adjustment to the city's design. Please take a look at it."
Noel couldn't understand everything, but he could see the giant plaza in the middle of the city that was connected to each city's pointy tips of the star-shaped wall. His mansion was placed slightly to the north.
He could see several giant lands that had been changed like the main storage.
"Are you going to build the water storage in the center?" Noel asked while pointing at the plaza.
"No. I think we need to create two storage systems just for redundancy. The building might be targeted, so it's best to have a backup. However, I'm suggesting that we build underneath the ground."
"Huh? Aren't we supposed to use it to place it higher?" Noel frowned.
"That's what I think too, but this one is a backup, so if we place it above the ground, it will be targeted like the main facility. On the other hand, we can still supply the city with water as long as we use the same technique to pump the water up. It will be costly, but this will only be used during an emergency."
"Interesting. But I don't think that's the only reason, right?"
"Yes, Sir. We're thinking about camouflaging this facility with two giant freezer underground. This is mainly the city's storage. We'll supply the storage with ice during the winter, allowing us to preserve food. While we can kill demons for food, I'm still a bit concerned about the logistics. For example, what if the enemy uses the demons to blockade our paths? Even if we can kill some demons, it will be troublesome if they coordinate with them to lure us or anything. Hence, we're going to make an emergency supply underneath the city."
Noel frowned. "This is going to be a big burden for our budget."
"Not necessarily so. Right now, there are no buildings on top of these areas, so we can excavate the hole required for the facility easily. I understand that their creation will put some burden, but I believe it's not as big as you think."
"Hmm…" Noel thought for a moment.
"Ahem!" Roel suddenly coughed to grab their attention. "I happen to overhear your plan about the giant freezer. This is one of my questions. My lord, do you happen to have a rune that can preserve temperature? Maybe isolating things or something?"
"Why do you ask?" Noel was a bit confused. Roel seemed to have another plan in his mind that might take advantage of the giant freezer.
"In the past, my friend once said that the previous civilization was very mysterious. They had a weird gadget and things like that, but what made me curious the most was actually the technology in their houses.
"According to my friend, every house seemed to have a weird lamp that would provide the house with the necessary light during the night. When I heard the concept of the Rune Lamp, I thought about providing the lamp to everyone. The people could do their work during the night this way.
"Then, there is also a thin fan that seems to be attached to the ceiling or walls. It seems to be used to cool down the house.
"And one last thing... It's about a weird item near the kitchen. According to my friends, it stores spices or any organic things like food. So, when Douglas mentioned a giant freezer, I thought about preserving the coldness to re-invent these technologies."
Roel didn't know that he was just talking about a bulb, a fan, and a refrigerator. But it seemed that he wanted to apply the concept to make an even better living environment.
"Well…" Noel closed his eyes for a moment, recalling all the information about the runes.
Of course, there was no way he had any rune that could be useful in his current repertoire, so he directly accessed all the information planted in his head.
"I actually wanted to ask something, which might need to be done while we're building the water facility." Douglas raised his hand. "When you look at the previous civilization, it seems that they had another form of energy that was used to power every item inside.
"On the other hand, we're currently taking advantage of the rune system to provide us with anything. However, I believe that this is extremely inefficient. In the future, I believe that not all citizens will have the money to afford demon crystals. After all, they might use that money to give their children an education or things for survival.
"Hence, Balott asked me for a way to reduce the cost significantly. Instead of letting them buy the Demon Crystals, why don't we manage the facility that provides them with Spiritual Energy needed to supply those rune technologies?
"When I asked Roel about it…" Douglas stopped, letting Roel be the one to answer that question.
"We're thinking about whether we should grind the Demon Crystals. The demon crystals turned gray after we absorbed all the energy, making them look like normal rocks. So, we're wondering if you can embed a rune to restore the energy back, maybe from the air or another demon crystal. If it's possible, we might be able to transport the Spiritual Energy by grinding these crystals and turn them into a cable or conductive rod.
"This way, we only need to generate all that energy inside one facility and distribute that energy to all the buildings. This way, citizens only have to pay taxes to have access to all the available technologies.
"Though, there is a problem since there might be people who don't want the rune technology. While we don't have the solution for it yet, I think the people's curiosity about rune technology will make them not mind having their houses powered by Spiritual Energy, for now."
Noel looked down, falling into deep thought. "That's quite an interesting idea, albeit extremely complicated."
