One month later:
POV The Mysterious Fiance:
Two horses with riders in mantles and hoods rode down the empty, abandoned road through a forest. The mud splashed under their horses’ hooves, with the leaves rustling above their heads.
“Where are we going, Tan? And why all of this secrecy?” the bigger rider asked while shaking his head.
‘Is she part of some cult? It wouldn’t be so surprising.’
“Don’t call me like that! And I already told you that if you want me to be with you, then there is something that we must do.” A tree branch cracked and fell down, falling towards the bigger rider.
However, he just casually swung his palm, winds swishing around it as he smacked the branch from the air, sending it flying into the distance, where it crashed against a tree.
They rode the rest of their journey quietly, and soon, a black cave appeared before them, with a thick grove of bushes growing around it, making it look like it had been abandoned for years.
The sound of metal hitting against the stone came from the darkness, with heavy steps closing towards the exit.
He unsheeted his sword with its blade glowing in an aura of his life force, the air vibrating along its sharp edges.
“No! They are with me.” Tanya jumped down from her horse, and her hood fell as she stepped into his path, revealing her long black hair.
Soon two shadows appeared from the cave. Each was so tall they loomed over the two horses. Their whole bodies were hidden under the thick, rough-looking plate armour made of glossy black metal. Spikes grew from their shoulder pauldrons, giving them aggressive and evil looks.
Red and white glowing runes covered their armour, slightly glowing in the cave’s darkness.
Then he noticed something, ‘They are not humans.’
Golden light burned in the eyeholes of their sharp-looking helmets shaped like lizards’ heads with horns. Long tails covered in metal plates with blades waved behind them.
They held long halberds with massive axe-like blades covered in runes. They were so large and heavy that they looked like they could split a horse in half.
“Who are they?” he looked at his fiance, still keeping his guard up, ready to cut the monstrous soldiers down.
He could feel the heat radiating out of the two armoured monsters all the way towards him, ‘They should have been cooked alive in their armour, yet they are fine.’
Suddenly the air around her changed, and a dangerous aura spread out, the light around her bending as if some illusion had just vanished.
The light around her soon stabilised, revealing long horns growing on her head, poking from between her beautiful silky hair. Her eyes also changed. They looked almost reptilian except for their red colour.
“Haha, now it makes sense! You have drunk the blood of that wyrm…”
She didn’t even let him continue, “And now you will too. But you’re mistaken… he is not a wyrm but a true dragon and a noble one on top of that.”
She looked straight into his eyes with her red reverse-slitted eyes.
However, he felt no repulsion, “If it is the price to pay to be with you! Then I accept!” both he himself and his fiance froze, both of them surprised by his eagerness.
‘Haha, a beautiful wife and eternal youth to enjoy her forever, what more a man could want.’
To his surprise, his fiance looked kinda let down, “Ohh, and I hoped that you would fight and get a beating. Aren’t you afraid that you will die? You must feel that there will be a conflict.”
“Huh, if I was scared of dying, I would never try to woo you. Also, I will accept any beating from you, my love!” a grin formed on his face, his eyes glued on every curve of his fiance.
Three years Later:
POV Chief of Workshop:
The hissing of hot metal and hammering of hammers resounded through a large long hallway with a high vaulted ceiling held up by large circular pillars.
Dozens of kobolds constantly hammered plates of black metal, shaping them into aggressively-looking pieces of matte black armour.
Large high furnaces stood along the chamber’s walls, the yellow light of heat radiating from them with hot molten metal pouring out into casts.
The air in the forge was blazing hot, but none of the kobolds cared, their black scales already glowing from the heat with magma flowing in the cracks between them.
A tall horned kobold stood in the middle of it, his golden eyes carefully observing the work of his subordinates as they finished the hammering and poured a red liquid out of the bottles all over the shaped plates, giving them shiny lustre. He scribbled something with his long claw dipped in atrament onto a parchment.𝚘𝓥𝐥xt.𝐜𝔬𝑚
Steam rose up from the plates as the liquid poured on them got absorbed, with a portion of it evaporating, carrying a strong odour of wyvern blood and alchemical reagents.
“Haha, how is it going, chief? Are the armours for wyvern knights ready?” A rough voice came from behind his back, making him turn towards its source.
A short yet muscular figure with long horns on his bald head walked amid the working kobolds, a strong smell of alcohol, blood and smoke striking the chief’s nose.
He immediately bowed with reverence, “Master, everything is going by the schedule. We are just making the last batch before we send them for enchanting. Ehhh? Also, what happened to your hair?”
POV Alesia:
The young elf sat in her cushioned chair, reading through a map on a table before her, carefully studying it. It was a map of the city that she was building.
She was slightly taller than the last time, with her face slowly losing her childish look and gaining and elegance of a young maiden.
The city on the map was built in a circular shape around the massive volcano in its centre, split into two rings by tall and thick walls.
The interior of the first one was painted green, marking it all as arable land for fields to feed the city’s future population.
Alesia looked through the map nodding in approval, ‘The first ring is too big to be effectively protected during a siege with our current manpower. But that is alright. It just needs to repel smaller raids with the inner much smaller and more defendable walls used to resist any serious siege.’
Multiple blue lines were drawn over the green of the fields in a grid pattern. They were irrigation channels using the mineral-rich water from underground springs.
Alesia again nodded in approval and moved her sight towards the inner circle, split into multiple subsections by smaller walls, preventing enemies from overrunning their defences in case of a breach.
Each section had its purpose. There was a commercial one with large squares painted on the map. They were massive storage facilities and sprawling squares for merchants to sell their goods.
Her heterochromatic eyes glinted in greed when thinking about the taxes and tariffs they would collect. She knew that most of it would end in the claws of her Master and state treasury. But she was sure that at least some small, minuscule part of it would get into her own pockets.
‘Well, kobolds are not very commercial, so for now, this part will be mostly used as a storage and distribution place for rations. But gold will flow here in rivers once we expand.’
Her gaze shifted towards another section, namely the massive manufacturing one that was her favourite one.
She looked out of the window from her office high on the volcano, her eyes falling at part of the city fully submerged in the clouds of steam that rose from the few operational workshops that drew upon the natural heat from the magma under them, saving mana and fuel while keeping the air clear.
On the map, it was mostly empty, with only a few large workshops built around the wide streets, ‘It will fill itself up in the future. There is simply not enough qualified workforce to man them nor need for so much production.’
She shook her head, her long blonde hair in ponytails shaking with her, ‘We are simply too far behind schedule. The governmental part, a military fortress, wyvern stables, they are all empty.’
“I still don’t think that it is a good idea to split the city in this way, lady regent. It will be too inconvenient for citizens to walk all from housing districts to commercial to shop.” suddenly, an old voice spoke from behind her, making her jump up.
Alesia turned, spotting the old count standing right behind her, “I still don’t know how you always manage to sneak up on me… But I believe that you have misunderstood me. There are no plans to forbid small stores from existing in housing districts. This rule is only for large ones and noisy industries.”