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“Wooowoong~!”

Fix welcomed his master whom he hadn’t seen in a while.

Created solely for his master, Fix carefully analyzed whether his master was alright through temperature checks and facial recognition.

His master was in great health!

“Hey there. You doing well?”

In a small lord’s cloak, Fix stuck closely to him.

Ed gently patted the head of the cute Fix who was welcoming him.

Then he asked about any issues in the territory during his absence, as well as the progress of tasks he had assigned.

“Wooowoong~!”

Before long, Fix showed off statistics and graphs on his screen, updating Ed on the achievements and issues that had occurred.

As Ed read through the details, he couldn’t help but smile.

He was quite pleased with the results that Fix and Adela had achieved.

“The smithy should be done soon. The construction robots are definitely effective.”

“Wooowoong~!”

A construction robot capable of heavy lifting, welding, and cutting with various arm modes.

Thanks to this, work efficiency and progress had remarkably improved.

Moreover, by employing dwarf artisans with accumulated engineering knowledge as foremen, work processes and movement could be organized without overlap, allowing optimal manpower allocation.

They were achieving maximum efficiency.

“Did Lord Elmar handle the personnel changes?”

“Wooowoong~”

While Fix was busy industrializing things.

Adela, Ed’s guardian, was working hard to strengthen the foundation.

She organized a ‘temporary police station’ to stabilize the city’s law enforcement and also operated a distribution committee to effectively allocate food supplies.

She focused on stabilizing the territory residents suffering from various crimes and famine.

As a result, the territory was gradually regaining stability day by day.

“Hmm. Things are going smoothly.”

With the territory running well even without his involvement.

However, that didn’t mean he could just sit back and relax.

Ed changed into work clothes and started going around the factory.

He was doing a mid-inspection.

Every factory, every piece of equipment, every device here was something he had personally designed, so he felt obligated to check if there were any issues with his designs.

Any deviation from his intended design could happen at any time.

“I need to refine the safety procedures. If safety checks are done this way, accidents could happen.”

“I-I’m sorry, my lord!”

“No need to be so formal. It’s all new for everyone.”

And indeed, Ed’s patrol was effective.

After inspecting the factory, he found some maintenance issues with the factories and equipment he had designed that were slightly off.

‘That’s to be expected.’

And in a way, this was to be expected.

Operating such a large-scale factory was unprecedented in history, and only a handful of dwarfs could fully understand his design intentions.

‘I need to patrol regularly.’

Thus, Ed decided to remain faithful to his role as designer and manager.

At least until the factories he established were running stably, it seemed periodic audits and retraining were necessary.

That was the duty of the company that originally developed the product, after all.

“Lord Fix!”

At that moment.

Someone called Ed with an angry voice.

Turning his head towards the voice, a group of dwarfs working as foremen approached with angry expressions.

Ed tilted his head and asked, “What’s going on?”

“I can’t understand this at all! It’s about the equipment you designed!”

The equipment I designed?

Ed looked at the plans the dwarf was holding out.

Seeing where he was pointing, it was a section made with modern mechanical engineering.

Then he spoke, his voice filled with dissatisfaction.

“Ahem. First of all, your design is excellent! I’m amazed every time I look at the blueprints! I sometimes feel a sense of inferiority because of humanity’s technological prowess, but at the same time, I have great respect for it. How can someone think of and create such structures?”

The dwarf complimented Ed first.

After all, he was the ‘Savior Blacksmith’ who saved the Dwarf Kingdom, so it wouldn’t do to criticize him unconditionally.

However, the following words were the dwarf’s true feelings.

“But how about changing the design to something I suggest? I just don’t understand why you pursue such a complicated and difficult approach. Look here.”

The dwarf pointed to the section Ed designed as he spoke.

He then began to explain what the problem was with this area.

In summary, it was said that something could be easily designed using ‘magic engineering,’ but Ed purposefully made it complicated to require more work.

“Now, if we insert a mana stone here and apply a control spell, would it not completely replace your complicated design?”

The dwarf said, grinning like, ‘What do you think? My suggestion is better, right?’

As expected of a dwarf conferred with the title of ‘artisan,’ he was confident and stubborn enough to directly challenge Ed’s designs.

“…That’s indeed a very intriguing opinion!”

However, Ed appeared to welcome that challenge.

No, he was looking at the dwarf with an excited gaze, like a seasoned player observing a newb in rags.

Finally, Ed took a deep breath filled with excitement and said to them,

“L-let’s not do this here! Let’s go to my temporary office. I-I’ll explain everything!”

“……”

The dwarfs swallowed hard, their faces tense.

***

Two hours.

Ed’s lecture had been going on for two hours already.

The dwarfs were nodding weakly, covered in cold sweat.

“Uh, so the part I mentioned is made by replacing CNC with spells, right? But before that, what is CNC? It stands for ‘Computerized Numerical Control,’ which refers to controlling the entire machine or partial positions, angles, distances, or speeds of the machine by numerical control based on data. Are you listening?”

“Uh… yeah, I’m listening.”

“What did I just say? What is CNC?”

“Um… it’s, uh, machine numerical… control? Measuring distance for machine tools…”

“Haa… If you don’t understand CNC, you’ll struggle to comprehend my design. I’ll say it once more, so please listen carefully.”

Ed started explaining the concept of CNC again.

He continued his lecture enthusiastically, even drawing on the teaching board.

However, the dwarfs’ heads were nearing the point of bursting.

-Tap, tap.

At that moment, someone knocked and entered Ed’s temporary office.

It was David, Ed’s second assistant.

With his crown going bald, he chuckled at the sight of the dwarfs, who were tearing their hair out.

Then, he bowed respectfully to Ed and reported,

“I’ve brought eight glasses of refreshing soda as per your command.”

“Master? Just call me by name.”

“No way. I’ve decided to regard Ed Fix as my master. He is my master after all.”

David said that as he served the eight glasses of soda to the dwarfs.

Then, he gave another respectful bow to Ed and looked at the gloomy dwarfs.

He smirked and muttered to himself.

‘Is this all it takes to make them suffer? That doesn’t even compare to my master’s difficulties. He’s excited to teach after such a long time.’

Ed, a true fanatic of mechanical engineering.

Because of that, he was always hungry.

Hungry for someone knowledgeable enough to have engaging debates on engineering knowledge comparable to his own.

“Okay then, let’s start while you sip the drinks slowly. The next term I’ll explain is DLC, which refers to a substance that is harder than steel in its amorphous form of carbon. To understand that we need to have a grasp on amorphous matter, which is…”

But in this world, there was no one who could compare to Ed.

There was no one available to show off his academic prowess.

“…Defining it in academic terms means a state where multiple atoms or molecules lack periodic regularity, forming a somewhat unstable state. However, the concepts of atoms and molecules may be unfamiliar, right? It seems I need to explain atoms and molecules first!”

Thus, Ed was overly excited.

With club members’ questions drying up, he hardly had a chance to show off his academic knowledge. But thanks to the dwarfs gathering and protesting, an opportunity had presented itself.

For the first time in ages, he could unleash a plethora of old knowledge.

“…Ahhh…”

Thus, the lecture continued for a long five hours.

***

One week later.

Now, no one dared to question or rebut Ed.

Even dwarfs who took pride in their designs and productions would clear their throats and avoid eye contact whenever Ed’s shadow loomed nearby.

“Results are certain.”

After a week of rigorous training through factory inspections, solid achievements had been made.

Most of the members began working according to his design intentions.

There were no visible errors or tricks to be found.

Ed smiled contentedly as he observed the factory and equipment being operated per his standards.

“Only two weeks until the end of the semester…”

And the end of the Academy semester was approaching.

After the eventful first semester, a personal training period known as vacation was about to begin.

However, Ed decided to visit the Academy at least minimally over the remaining two weeks.

Since the ‘dreadnought project’ had been approved by the royal family, he was granted permission to miss classes at any time, and his grades were already top-tier, allowing him to skip classes without issue.

“I guess I’ll have to forfeit the evaluation competition as well.”

He also decided to skip the evaluation competition held in the last week entirely.

With the Academy’s strongest cadet being either him or Isabella, there was no necessity to compete just to maintain rankings.

Rankings were merely numbers, and what truly mattered was the actual gain.

“Dreadnought.”

Thus, Ed decided to focus on the Dreadnought.

If he were to conquer the ‘Sea Wall’—a mystical territory that had never been explored in dozens of iterations—he’d need at least a warship.

Since it would be his first challenge in a magical specialty area, he thought it wise to prepare properly.

After all, he had no idea what kind of dangers lay in wait there, or what rewards awaited him upon conquest.

***

One week later.

While the semester-end evaluations were in full swing at the Academy, Ed was still in his territory.

He was too busy supervising the 38 machine robots working in an orderly fashion to construct the steel mill.

“Montes! Move back! No, further back! Keep going!”

Ed was fervently leading elite and standard engineer teams on the construction of the steel mill.

To build a Dreadnought, with a displacement of 18,410 tons, a steel mill capable of producing large quantities of high-quality steel was essential.

Fortunately, Ed had 38 construction robots, allowing the mill to be established at a much faster rate than modern times.

Originally set to take years to set up, they were now compressing it into months.

All of this was due to the labor revolution that had surged forth.

“In three weeks…”

Thus, Ed projected that the steel mill would be completed in three weeks.

Considering the continuous addition of construction robots over the next three weeks, it seemed quite feasible to complete it in that timeframe.

“Gardner! Align with Tom!”

The finish line was just around the corner.

 

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