The Former Alchemical Construct Master

Shien watched Garrick sway as though he might fall apart. He rose from his desk and walked over to him.

The faint teasing in his manner vanished, replaced by solemnity.

"You don't need to be so afraid." Shien looked down at him. "An inquisitor might let pride cloud his judgment, but the Most Holy One won't."

Garrick jerked and looked up.

Shien continued, "Last night, the Most Holy One's Flame Seed showed me your story in a dream. I saw the injustice you suffered, and I saw what you can do.

"You were never a Heretic who blasphemed against God. Your skill with gears and mechanisms should have been put to use against the Long Night all along."

Garrick knelt there in a daze, his mouth hanging open.

A dream visitation? What?

As soon as the thought arose, things that had been a hopeless tangle in his mind began, strangely, to fit together.

Who but God could have known what was under my bed?

Garrick swallowed. His eyes slowly reddened.

Once his long-buried grievances found an outlet, they came rushing out.

Shien saw the look on his face, but he knew perfectly well that Garrick had never been the sort to die for his ideals.

He was a seasoned operator who had spent years making his way through the Royal Capital. He liked comfort and respectability, and he was afraid of dying.

There was no need to lecture a man like that about some greater cause. Shien only had to offer him what he wanted.

"I don't need you risking your life on the front lines, carrying a sword and shield into the mud to fight Demon Beasts head-on. That's a warrior's job. It isn't yours."

He paused, then went on. "Your place is in the Underground Alchemy Workshop, beside a warm furnace.

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

Garrick's breathing quickened at once.

Shien watched him, his expression 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.

He could leave the Eternal Night Wall alive. Clear his name. Never have to go into battle, throw his life away in a trench, or repair Caltrops in the snow while Demon Beasts bore down on him.

Every promise struck precisely where Garrick was most vulnerable.

The next moment, the Mechanic scrambled forward two steps and seized Shien's boot. He pressed his forehead hard against it, his voice choking.

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

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

"I'll do anything you ask. If you'll just help me leave this place alive, my life is yours."

Shien lowered his eyes to him but said nothing.

In his vision, the pale green above Garrick's head, once tinged with wariness and doubt, was deepening bit by bit.

At a thought from Shien, the Canon of Grace and Righteousness opened to a page within his mind, and he silently issued a command.

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

The next instant, knowledge flooded into his mind: the meshing ratios of precision gears, the sealing limits under steam pressure, the tolerances in linked mechanisms, the changes in how fatigued metal bore a load...

A vast wealth of intricate mechanical knowledge poured in and was swiftly absorbed.

Once he had taken it all in, Shien could not be bothered with another word of explanation. "Report to the Underground Alchemy Workshop. Someone there will show you around."

Garrick hurriedly bowed his head and answered. Inside, he breathed a little easier.

At least he hadn't been beheaded on the spot. As long as he was alive, there was room to negotiate the rest.

He followed the guard out of the warm study, his legs feeling lighter.

But as they walked, doubts began to nag at the Mechanic.

Show me around? What Mechanic who actually knows his trade could they possibly find in this godforsaken place?

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

After all, he was a man the Most Holy One had personally endorsed through a dream visitation. Surely they wouldn't make him work under a bunch of country bumpkins?

They descended the rough stone stairs, and the air grew stuffier with every step.

Creak—

The guard shoved open a heavy Pig Iron door. A wave of heat rolled out, carrying the pungent smell of machine oil and something burning.

Garrick crossed the threshold and immediately turned up his nose.

The place was far too crude.

There were no marble floors polished brightly enough to reflect a face, like those in the Royal Workshop. No neatly arranged precision instruments or gleaming workbenches, either.

All he saw were dark gray walls that had yet to be smoothed and rows of heavy Black Iron worktables, almost brutal in their construction.

But before his disdain could take hold, billowing white steam from deep inside the Workshop swallowed his view.

Garrick instinctively narrowed his puffy little eyes, trying to see through the haze.

At the center of the Workshop, a gaunt old man stood high on a wooden scaffold, watching the apprentices work with his one eye.

Below him, several broad-shouldered Blacksmith apprentices hurried about at his orders, every one of them drenched in sweat.

Garrick had begun by inspecting the place with a Royal Mechanic's critical eye. After only a few glances, the expression on his face slowly froze.

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

Twenty years ago, he had been a lowly apprentice Mechanic just starting out. He'd had to fight for a chance to sweep the floors of a major Workshop.

One day, after a desperate struggle to get in, he had squeezed into the back row of the Holy Capital Royal Grand Hall. Standing on tiptoe and craning his neck past countless heads, he had seen the man on the dais.

Back then, the man had been in his prime, wearing a gold-threaded robe. Even a cardinal had stood beside him in person.

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

Victor. An Alchemical Construct Prodigy seen perhaps once in a century.

Yet this shriveled old man with one arm missing was Victor—the same man countless people had craned their necks to see on that dais?

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

His head buzzed. For a moment, he did not know 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, and he had vanished for more than a decade. Now he had been cast onto the Eternal Night Wall and reduced to this.

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

A stranger. Victor's body visibly tensed.

For an instant, wariness and instinctive fear showed plainly in his one eye—a reflex carved into his bones by years of torment at the hands of the Heretic Tribunal.

But when he recognized the old clothes the newcomer wore and glanced at the Lord's Order the guard handed him, he forced himself to regain his composure.

Over the past two weeks, 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 nearly rotted away, had truly begun to grow back.

Victor pinned an oil-blackened rag against his neck, gave his left hand a cursory wipe, then descended the scaffold one rung at a time.

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

Garrick still had not recovered from the shock. He stood there numb.

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