Chapter 353: Chapter 351 – Odd Chief.

‘Could it be someone from my ‘family’? No that makes no sense, Robert should be nowhere near here and my name shouldn’t have leaked. Could it be someone from the Arden house? Maybe someone that he trusts?’

Roland was making his way down the street while wondering about Arthur’s visitor. From the short conversation he had with him, this individual was somehow interested in his runic items. This didn’t help much, even the city lord himself was pretty fond of the magical creations and so would other people.

‘I guess I’ll find out when I get there, he sounded more perplexed than afraid so it should be fine…’

After racking his head a bit he decided not to worry too much. From the tone, it didn’t seem that it was anything that urgent. The situation was probably not that grave as Arthur never mentioned an adversary. However, just to make things less troublesome he decided to peek at the runic camera’s that he installed throughout the Valerian vila. While the image quality was still not the best it would answer a few questions.

‘Hm, are those the dwarves? Why are there so many of them… There is someone in the middle but it’s too blurry to make out the face.’

Roland started squinting while trying to examine the footage. The recording showed a group of dwarves arriving at the front gate. Two of the faces were easily recognizable as he had multiple run-ins with the union.

‘Dunan and Bamur are in the front, by the way, they are acting… the person in the middle must be the master craftsman the Union sent here…’

It didn’t take him long to figure out what the situation was. His theory was confirmed after passing some carriages that had the Union’s symbol on them. It was clear that his competition had finally sent out someone to truly compete with him. This person had probably arrived at the Villa to voice their complaints and the entourage they brought along was probably there to back them up.

‘What do those dwarves want? Hope they won’t try to use blackmail again…’

His history with the Union was long and tiresome. They had tried to price him out of the city and also forced all the shop owners to ghost him. Only thanks to Arthur and the thieves guild was it possible for him to make it through that period of his life. Now he had some semblance of power but the Union was still a big player here. Even if he wanted nothing more than to send them packing, they had a lot of money and were not easily replaced.

‘Ugh, I’m already getting a headache just thinking about this…’

At this stage, the city wasn’t there yet. There were many streets that needed to be laid out with wires to power the street lights. Then he also needed to create various runic items that could use the supplied mana. The mining area needed to be secured as they needed a steady supply of mana crystals from it. Before they created more wind generators or went geothermal, they needed to subsidize it through the mine.

Getting into another war with the dwarven Union could waste a lot of money. Arthur could of course throw them out of the city but it would set them back by at least half a year. The tax revenue that they were receiving from their shops was immense and replacing them with other craftsmen would take a while. With the influx of new adventurers, they needed to supply all the demand for magical weaponry.

“Greetings, Knight Commander!”

“At ease.”

He was greeted by the guards at the gate that saluted almost instantly when they saw him. Even now he was still getting used to how they treated him. In their eyes, he was some mysterious knight that had been hiding out in plain sight. Some even worried that he would seek vengeance for the times they gave him the stink eye. Such things didn’t really bother him as he had no pride concerning his noble heritage or being a knight.

“Why are these people here?”

“They arrived along with the new master craftsman, Commander!”

His newfound position at least made it easy for him to get information. To the side, there were about twenty dwarves that clearly belonged to the union. They had created a little spot for themselves on the side of the road and were probably waiting for their leader to return from the Villa.

‘Those two aren’t there so they must have gone inside along with the new guy…’

Roland could already see himself getting shouted out by an old dwarf with more experience than him. While he was a full-fledged runesmith his work mostly focused on the runes. This person that arrived could be his senior and superior in the way of runes. Yet, he was no slouch either and was also interested in some input.

‘It wouldn’t be bad to have someone to bounce my ideas off… but considering that this is the union that we are speaking about, they might demand that I hand over all of my schematics…’

In the past, all of his runes came from using his debugging skill. After copying and analyzing pre-existing runic structures he was able to reverse engineer the designs. These of course originated somewhere, it was worrisome if he had some angry dwarf accusing him of plagiarizing. Yet, laws against this didn’t exist so it was unlikely that such accusations would amount to anything.

“Did you see this master craftsman? How did they seem to you?”

“No Sir, they were behind all the dwarves, I didn’t really take a good look…”

“Hmm… Try to get a better look next time.”

“Y-yes sir! My apologies, Commander. Miss Mary received the guests so I…”

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The soldier looked a bit frightened by his response and started bowing to the point of his helmet falling down. Roland was taken aback by this reaction but soon realized that it wasn’t so strange. This man’s life could be taken away in an instant if he was deemed useless by someone of his position.

“It’s fine if Mary was there.”

After scaring the poor guard at the entrance he headed in. The dwarves that were there he remembered from within the city. His intelligence stat allowed him to remember faces quite well. These were not any normal craftsmen, they were all in higher positions and were even allowed to have apprentices.

‘There are even some shop owners here, they really cherish their master craftsmen, don’t they?’

This reminded him a bit of the time he tried informing his father about his goal of becoming a runesmith. His old man didn’t want to have any of it but his attempt at teaching him a lesson backfired. Now he was there and already a tier 3 class holder in his early twenties.

The human race that he was part of didn’t treat their workers as well as the dwarven race did. To them, they were just a means to an end. The people wielding the weapons were far more important than the ones making them. It was easier to replace a craftsman or buy something from the union than to train a soldier.

“Hm? One of the turrets just went offline. What are they doing there?”

Roland mumbled to himself while glancing at his small display screen. Due to this being an unforeseen trip, he decided to wear his full bulky armor. Through its mapping device, he could see the layout of the whole villa and the turrets placed on the walls. One of them just went offline while he was walking.

‘Could this person have similar skills to me or did they use something like the anti-magical powder?

Normally, no one should have been able to access his runic device but it was shut down by an external force. When he tried to access the golemic eyes in the vicinity, there also was no signal. His steps became slightly faster as he needed to get to the bottom of this. Could this person be actually planning to cause some trouble and would he be there in time before something happened to Arthur?

If the city lord perished, his father could hold him accountable. Under this assumption, he started rushing over to the back of the villa where Arthur’s and Mary’s dots were still visible. When he arrived there the dwarves that went by the names Bamur and Dunan were there. They were not alone as a third member from their race was with them. 

‘Is that the master craftsman?’

To his surprise, there was something different about this person. First of all, they were tinkering with his turret while standing up on a ladder that was being held up by the Enchantsmith, Bamur. The person on top of the ladder had the height of a dwarf but they didn’t look as bulky and their figure was slightly off.

“Awright, wha made this? th' outside looks like 'twas shat out by a donkey bit th' runes aren't half bad.”

‘It’s a woman?’

The voice was a bit lower but it sounded like it belonged to a woman. She was also smaller than the other dwarven craftsmen with her arms also not being as thick. Compared to a human she looked quite gruff and stocky but her figure belonged to that of a woman.

It was quite a surprising turn of events. Roland didn’t expect to see a woman be the new chief of the union branch here. Society in this world was mostly patriarchal in nature, it wasn’t forbidden but there were some roadblocks set up for people like this woman here. If she managed to gain this spot, then it meant that she either worked extra hard or had ties to some people that could pull strings.

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