The Former Alchemical Construct Master

Shien watched Garrick, who looked ready to fall apart, then rose from his desk and walked over to him.

The light mockery from moments ago vanished without a trace, replaced by a solemn air.

"You don't have to be so afraid." Shien looked down at him. "Judges may let pride cloud their minds, but the Most Holy won't."

Garrick gave a violent shudder and looked up.

Shien continued, "Last night, the Most Holy Flame Seed revealed your story to me in a dream. I saw the injustice you suffered, and I saw what you're capable of.

"You were never a Heretic who blasphemed against the divine. Your skill with gears and mechanisms should have been put to work holding back the Long Night."

Garrick knelt there in a daze, forgetting even to close his mouth.

A dream revelation? Huh?

As soon as the thought arose, things that had been a tangled mess somehow began fitting together on their own.

Who but a god could know what was under the bed?

Garrick swallowed, and his eyes slowly reddened.

Once the grievances he had buried for so long found an outlet, they came rushing out harder than anything else.

Shien took in his expression, but he knew perfectly well that Garrick had never been the sort of iron-willed man who would die for his ideals.

He was an old hand who had spent years scraping by in the Royal Capital. He liked comfort and respectability, and he feared death.

In that case, there was no need to preach lofty principles to him. Giving him what he wanted would be enough.

"I don't need you risking your life on the front line, taking up a sword and shield and crashing into Demonic Beasts in the mud. That's a warrior's job. It isn't where you belong."

He paused, then went on, "Your place is in the underground workshop, beside a warm furnace.

"Make those Alchemical Weapons for me. As long as what you build can kill Demonic Beasts, the Sacred Flame will cleanse you of your sins."

Garrick's breathing quickened at once.

Shien watched him, his expression still calm. "And once you've cleansed yourself of the Sin of Lust, I'll send your name to the Holy City with the battle reports. A Pardon Document, Holy Silver, permission to return Inland—I can give you all of it."

Garrick trembled all over at those words.

He could leave the Eternal Night Wall alive, clear his name, and never have to fight, throw his life into a trench, or repair Caltrops in a snowstorm with Demonic Beasts bearing down on him.

Every promise struck straight through Garrick's weakest points.

The next moment, the Mechanic scrambled forward on his knees, seized Shien's boot, and pressed his forehead hard against it. His voice choked.

"My lord... my great lord..."

He shook with excitement. Tears and snot streamed down his face, and he could barely get the words out.

"I'll do anything you ask. Just take me out of here alive, and my life is yours."

Shien looked down at him without speaking right away.

In his field of vision, the pale green above Garrick's head, once tinged with wariness and suspicion, was growing deeper bit by bit.

At a thought from Shien, the Canon of Grace and Righteousness in his sea of consciousness turned a page, and a command fell soundlessly.

Spend Reward Value to replicate [Lv. 2 Precision Mechanical Manufacturing].

The next instant, knowledge of precision gear ratios, sealing limits under steam pressure, errors in mechanical linkages, and changes in how metal bore stress after fatigue...

Vast amounts of intricate mechanical knowledge poured straight into his mind, where he rapidly digested and absorbed it.

Once Shien had fully absorbed that precision mechanical knowledge, he could not be bothered with another word. "Report to the Underground Alchemy Workshop. Someone there will show you around."

Garrick hurriedly bowed his head and answered, feeling a good deal of his tension ease.

At least they had not beheaded him on the spot. As long as he was alive, there would be room to negotiate what came next.

Following the guard out of the warm study, he found a little more spring in his step.

But as he walked, doubts began to stir in the Mechanic's mind.

Show me around? In this godforsaken hole, where would they find a Mechanic who actually knows his trade?

At best, there'll be a few crude Blacksmiths who only know how to swing a hammer. Once I get into that workshop and show them a thing or two, the chief engineer's position will be mine.

After all, he was a man whose talents the Most Holy had personally confirmed in a dream. Surely they would not make him an assistant to a pack of country bumpkins?

He followed the rough stone steps down, and the air grew stuffier around him.

Creak—

The guard shoved open the heavy Pig Iron door ahead, and a wave of heat rolled out, carrying the sharp smell of machine oil and something scorched.

Garrick crossed the threshold. His first reaction was distaste.

The place was far too crude.

There were no marble floors polished bright enough to reflect a face, like those in the Royal Workshop, nor neatly arranged precision measuring tools and gleaming workstations.

All he saw were unfinished dark-gray walls and rows of heavy Black Iron workbenches, almost brutally solid.

But before his distaste could gather force again, white steam billowing from deep within the workshop swallowed his view.

Garrick instinctively narrowed his puffy little eyes and strained to see through the haze.

Atop a tall wooden scaffold in the center of the workshop stood a painfully thin old man, watching apprentices work with his one eye.

Below the scaffold, several broad-shouldered Blacksmith apprentices hurried about at the old man's orders, sweat pouring off them.

Garrick had been sizing up the place with a Royal Mechanic's critical eye, but after only a few glances, his expression slowly froze.

The old man turned around. Garrick felt as if lightning had struck him, and his eyes nearly popped out of his head.

Twenty years ago, Garrick had been a lowly apprentice Mechanic, fresh to the trade. He had even had to fight for a chance to sweep the floors of a major workshop.

One day, after a desperate struggle, he had squeezed into the back row of the Holy Capital Royal Grand Hall. Standing on tiptoe with his neck stretched out, he had glimpsed the man on the dais over a sea of heads.

The man had cut a dashing figure that day in a gold-threaded ceremonial robe, with even a Bishop personally standing at his side.

He had ranked among the foremost masters of Alchemy and Mechanics on the entire continent.

Victor, an Alchemical Construct Prodigy the likes of whom appeared only once in a century.

Yet this shriveled old man missing an arm was Victor, the man who had once stood on that dais before countless upturned faces?

Garrick had always idolized the Victor of those days. He could not be mistaken.

His mind buzzed, and for a moment he could not decide which revelation shocked him more.

Was it that Victor was still alive, or that Victor was here?

The Church had branded this legendary figure a Heretic long ago, and he had vanished for more than a decade. Now he had been cast onto the Eternal Night Wall and reduced to this state.

The sound of the iron door opening caught the old man's attention atop the scaffold.

A stranger. Victor's body visibly tensed.

For an instant, the guarded look and instinctive terror in his one eye showed plainly—a reflex etched into his bones after too many years of torment at the hands of the Heretic Tribunal.

But when he made out the stranger's worn clothes and caught sight of the Lord's Order the guard held out, he forced his momentary lapse under control.

Over the past half month, Shien had given him apprentices, materials, a workshop where he could work without interference, and the authority to give orders.

Little by little, Victor's Master's Heart, once all but rotted away, had truly begun to grow back.

Victor pinned an oil-blackened rag against his neck, gave his left hand a rough wipe, then descended the wooden ladder step by step.

Once on the ground, he straightened his back, bent from years of stooping, and fixed his one eye on Garrick, who stood frozen in the doorway.

Garrick had yet to recover from the shock. He stood there, wooden and still.

Victor frowned. "You're the new one? What are you standing around for? We've got plenty to build here. Don't stand there like a post."