What Did We Come Here for in the First Place?

"What did we come here for?"

"Uh... Frederick made Maria sad, so we came to teach him a lesson."

"Did we teach him one?"

"..."

The air inside the carriage suddenly fell silent.

Dalberg gazed out the window, watching cargo ships clustered in the middle of the Main River, carefully making their way upstream.

"What do you think of Wessen?" he asked.

Philip replied gravely, "He's terrifying."

"At first, I thought someone was pulling the strings behind him. But the people I had helping at the camp discovered that he's always handled every problem himself—and almost flawlessly."

"He seemed to have just lost 500 Florins, but a machine like that probably cost at least 50 Florins to make. With Patent Law protecting it, he'll earn that money back in no time, and then some. That kind of decisiveness is beyond most people."

Dalberg gave a soft "hmm" and continued looking out the window.

"The year after next," he said suddenly, "in late autumn of 1026, we'll hold a grand hunting expedition to celebrate my eightieth birthday."

"Two years should be enough to see what he's made of."

Philip immediately understood what the Grand Duke of Mainz meant.

Everyone was licking their wounds right now. A grand hunt with the character of a paramilitary operation would be the most direct way to announce that their strength had recovered.

If Wessen Territory showed enough strength by then, the Duchy of Mainz would offer an olive branch.

"William is getting old, too," Dalberg said quietly. "And old age makes people anxious."

"Rudolf is a good boy. He's a little soft from growing up deep in the palace, but at least he doesn't rub us the wrong way."

"If we want to broaden his horizons and help him establish his authority, fine. But there was no need to drag us into it."

"And now look at us—we've even lost the Lowlands. Rudolf was so scared... Slimes are braver than he is."

"Philip, you'll need to make frequent visits next year."

"There's no need to do much right now. Just maintain our friendship."

"Take the young ones with you. Let them get out and see more of the world."

Philip immediately acknowledged the order.

Dalberg sighed. "If that useless Rudolf hasn't changed by the time William dies, the Rhine Alliance will be a name in nothing but name once William is gone. We Germans won't have an independent country of our own."

Philip fell silent. As a senior court official, he understood the Grand Duke's thinking very well. The Grand Duke of Mainz had devoted his life to building a country of their own for the Germans.

But in this era, the feudal system meant that people identified more with their hometowns and regions. "Nation" was just what outsiders called people from a certain area who spoke the same or similar languages and shared similar customs. They rarely described themselves that way.

Dalberg had only the faintest seed of nationalism in his thoughts, and even he didn't know how to bring the scattered Germans to some kind of consensus.

"Hm?" Dalberg suddenly noticed something. "Your carriage doesn't jostle at all, and it's quite fast, too."

Philip answered at once, "This used to be Frederick's carriage. When he learned Sophia was unwell and couldn't stand the bumps, and rarely went out, he gave it to us."

Dalberg mused, "How did he make the carriage so comfortable?"

The sun was sinking in the west when Frederick arrived at the castle in Lohr Town and witnessed an extraordinary sight.

Baron Ertal stood beside the carriage with a helpless look on his face. A thick carpet had been spread beneath it, and the Grand Duke of Mainz was crouched under the carriage, examining a bearing on the axle.

"You, come over here!" Dalberg beckoned to Frederick from beneath the carriage. "Tell me, what's this thing on the axle?"

Frederick naturally didn't crawl under the carriage with him. Instead, he opened the trunk and took out a wooden box containing two spare bearings wrapped in oilcloth.

Dalberg crawled out from under the carriage and glared fiercely at Philip before picking up the greasy bearings to examine them.

Philip looked completely innocent. He only rode in the carriage—how was he supposed to know anything about repairing it, let alone that it had spare parts?

"These are bearings," Frederick explained from the side. "The little balls inside are like wheels. They reduce friction, so the horses don't have to work as hard."

Dalberg held the inner ring of a bearing in one hand and played with the outer ring, spinning it with the other.

"Very clever," the Grand Duke of Mainz exclaimed. "The principle is simple, but why did nobody think of it before?"

Frederick replied, "People did, but because of the difficulty of making them, they could only produce wooden balls. Those couldn't be used on carriages; they'd get crushed. They could only be fitted to door hinges to make opening and closing doors easier, so they never came into widespread use."

Dalberg nodded, still playing with the bearing in his hand. He walked to the carriage and pointed at the black rubber on the wheels. "What's this black stuff?"

Frederick took a flat wooden chest from a compartment beneath the carriage and opened the oilcloth inside. It held two solid tires made of black Slime Gel.

"These are the tires," he said. "This material is elastic and wear-resistant, like shoes for the wheels."

"But wheel sizes differ, so tires usually have to be custom-made. It's very inconvenient."

"Now all the carriages in Wessen Territory are being modified to use standardized axles and wheels. Replacing parts will be much easier from now on."

Then he pointed to the place where the axle connected to the carriage body. "There's some of this material between the wooden boards here, too. That way, you don't feel the bumps when you're sitting inside."

Dalberg looked over the carriage again and said, "Make one for me, too."

Frederick thought it over. "I can only sell you the carriage frame. I can't afford to make the decorations."

An ordinary four-wheeled carriage cost only 10 Florins, but the carriages of these great nobles were extravagantly luxurious, with no upper limit on the price. They said the King's carriage had cost 2,000 Florins, making it the finest luxury carriage around.

Dalberg realized that, too, and said, "No problem. But I have one requirement: reduce the bumps as much as possible. We old folks can't take that kind of punishment anymore."

"Very well," Frederick agreed. "But it'll have to wait until next year. Our master carriage builder is busy building a new factory."

Just as Dalberg agreed, laughter rang out. After hearing Frederick had arrived, Maria had waited for ages in the playroom without seeing him, so she had come out to look for him.

"You're here!" Maria said with a smile. "Come play chess with me!"

As she spoke, the little girl tugged Frederick by the sleeve and led him toward the castle.

Frederick didn't have time to worry about the two men whose faces had turned frighteningly dark. He followed Maria into the castle, detouring halfway to change in the room reserved for him.

He'd spent all day running around the camp and was drenched in sweat.

Tarot had returned earlier. She had soaked a cotton towel in warm water, wiped the sweat from his body and face, then helped him put on clean clothes.

Dalberg had reached the playroom first. With a kindly smile, he listened as Maria showed him the checkers, Wooden Dragonfly, Flying Chess, and other toys Frederick had given her.

Pouting, Maria handed Dalberg a Rubik's Cube made of mammoth ivory and six-colored gems. "Godfather, I can't solve this cube."

Dalberg took the cube and looked it over. After asking how it worked, he tried to restore its scrambled sides.

When Frederick appeared, the Grand Duke of Mainz glared at him and demanded, "Did you give Maria a broken toy to fool her?!"

Frederick's mouth twitched. He reached out for the cube and began solving it as he said, "I wouldn't dare! A lot of these toys were originally meant for your great-grandchild. But you went off to soak in the hot springs, so I gave them all to Maria instead."

The cube had been painstakingly hand-crafted by skilled jewelers who had once worked for Aumert. With mammoth ivory from the Weissen Family's stores and cheap gemstones on its six faces, it could already be sold as a luxury item among the nobility. It would fetch enough to buy several ordinary carriages.

As he spoke, he solved the cube. After showing it to Maria and Dalberg, he suddenly turned around and scrambled it again.

Dalberg glared fiercely at Frederick, then spoke gently to Maria. "Would you give this toy to me?"

Maria thought for a moment, then pointed to the dagger at his waist. "Sure, but I want to trade it for this."

The dagger had a golden sheath set with high-quality magic crystals rather than gemstones. The dagger itself was also a Magic Weapon, and could easily sell for dozens of Florin Gold Coins.

Dalberg coaxed her gently. "Oh dear, this dagger is too dangerous. Could we trade for something else?"

Maria started acting coy.

Maria got the dagger.

Maria gave the dagger to Frederick.

Frederick's reputation with Dalberg became "No qualms about beating him up."