While Haval the scholar—who was also an artificer and a retired knight with an obviously absurd amount of free time—talked his brother’s ear off with the specifics and the intricacies of how the Pawns were made, Reivan focused on their actual performance.

  In other words, he watched the ten-foot statues smash themselves into an incoming horde of nightmare spawns.

  After showing one of the pawns off, more of them filed into the Outlands through the portal and formed ranks to meet the swarm of rabid abominations. The pawns were identical, as if they all came from the same mold or something.

  Soon, the lines clashed and the pawns were drowned in a sea of monstrous abominations while their pilots were in a secure part of the palace back home. All of the Ascendant monsters were slain early on by stronger knights, so among the swarm, only the mortal-level ones remained.

  But there were still some strong ones in there, if Reivan’s eyes could be trusted. Some of the nightmares even had human faces, which was a very easy way to tell if they were more dangerous than their peers.

  Yet the small force of pawns held strong.

  Modeled after knights, they held marble shields of stone aloft to block and brandished sharpened weapons of the same material. They did not flinch nor were they affected by the horde’s treacherous attempt to shake their minds.

  Of course, they received more hits than they dished out. But being made of ultra-hardened stone had some perks, seeing how a lot of the monsters broke their claws and teeth trying to harm the men of stone.

  ‘Presumably, humans are controlling them, so I guess it makes sense that their movements are so… humane.’

  While it looked impressive, the pawns weren’t paragons of martial skill. They were simply swinging around massive clubs of stone. It lacked a lot of the finesse and refined ferocity that knights sacrificed their youth to learn.

  But for mortals, there was always one fundamental truth: everything would die if you swung at it hard enough.

  Reivan scratched his chin with slightly narrowed eyes, watching the horde get thinned out methodically while the pawns suffered no casualties past a few scratches.

  One thing was certain, those things were extremely durable.

  They might not be controlled by the most martially skilled pilots nor were they capable of unleashing the level of might that a Senior-grade knight could throw around, but these pawns could easily take some very hard punishment.

  “What do you think?” Roland nudged him on the shoulder.

  Apparently, Haval, who had been nerding out about his latest creation, also stopped talking to focus on the demonstration. As such, the two brothers could talk in private as they stood on an elevated part of the Outlands that allowed them to overlook the battlefield from afar.

  Reivan casually gestured at the faraway cluster of violence. “They’re durable, at least. There’s that.”

  “Yes, there’s no doubting that aspect, seeing as they're made of whitestone marble. But tell me honestly, do you think it would hurt if they hit you?”

  “Me? Hmm, lemme think…” he hummed in consideration for a few seconds.

  It was, he internally complained, annoying how he was incapable of numerically comparing the raw capabilities of these new pawns to Aizen's knights. His ability recognized the former as “objects” after all. They were objects, so it only made sense. But that meant [Supreme Insight] didn’t measure the thing’s Might.

  Instead, all he got was a lackluster description of how it was an animated statue made through the cooperation of sorcery and artificing. Since he already knew that from the start, he was understandably frustrated.

  Still, it wasn’t hard for Reivan to measure if the statue could hurt him or not.

  Unlike knights, imperial vanguards, and all sorts of other combatants, the pawns didn’t have qi or magic power application to rely on. It was just a mace that was capable of swinging itself around.

  Which meant its threat level depended on the meager force swinging it and its weight.

  ‘I’d probably survive if a statue that big landed on me from the sky.’

  Reivan couldn't calculate just how much gravity would exacerbate the force behind the fall—especially since this world might be different from his old world, and hence, would have a different gravitational intensity—but the result definitely wouldn't be less than the force the pawn used while fighting.

  So that meant it wasn’t a big deal for someone of Reivan’s caliber to endure its strikes.

  Finding his answer, Reivan turned to his brother and gave his honest opinion. “Probably not. They’re not that strong, honestly. Most of the force they exert comes from just how big and heavy they are, it seems.”

  “And you’re certain?”

  “Yes, I’m sure.” He waved noncommittally. “It doesn't even have any qi or mana to augment itself, so a junior-grade knight could take it out easily."

  "You have a point..."

  "Yeah, so even if one of those slapped me, it would be like a newborn baby slapping their dad in the cheek. It’d surprise the dad if he wasn’t paying attention. But would it hurt? Unlikely.”

  “Hah." Roland grinned in amusement. "Did Arthur…?”

  “He did, a couple of times. But it’s not like your kids didn’t do it to me either, when they were small. Smaller, I mean.”

  For a very brief moment, they shared a sense of… fatherly camaraderie, likely because Roland had three children and had gotten accidentally slapped by them at some point. But they quickly returned to their serious conversation about Aizen's newest weapon.

  “I see. So it’s too weak for someone like you…” Roland cleared his throat and grunted in acknowledgement, clearly having expected the answer. “Thanks.”

  “No problem, I guess?” Reivan shrugged, peering at his brother in bemusement.

  ‘Why is he asking me that in the first place when he should be able to tell…?’

  Though Roland’s position didn’t allow him a lot of opportunities to put it to good use, he was also a half-ascendant just like Reivan.

  They didn’t talk much about that kind of thing, so Reivan didn’t know how well Roland could manipulate essence, but one couldn’t ignore the fact that Roland also had a very developed constitution. Reivan was, of course, quite a bit better in raw physical resilience because he was part warbeast. But that didn’t matter.

  It seemed Roland could somewhat tell what Reivan was thinking, because he shrugged and offered a casual excuse. “I’m rusty, so I'm not confident in my ability to gauge it properly.”

  “Ah, I suppose that makes sense.” Reivan nodded.

  Given how busy his brother was before and after the coronation, it wasn’t strange if he’d lost his edge. Not something to be proud of, for sure. Though it wasn’t necessarily worthy of shame either, since not everyone could run a kingdom properly right after being enthroned.

  In any case, the battle below was starting to die down. And the result seemed to fall greatly in the pawns’ favor. From what he could tell, none of them had any visible damage. Even when Reivan squinted as hard as he could to spot something, he didn’t find a single crack.

  “Haval,” Roland called out, immediately summoning the old man. “You did well with these. We filtered out all the truly strong nightmare spawns in that horde, but still. With this, we can deal with the empire's mundane forces without bothering our knights or sorcerers there.”

  “Thank you, Your Majesty.” The scholarly artificer bowed his head. “Time was short, but I also believe I’ve performed satisfactorily.”

  “Yes, yes. All well and good, but have you tested their durability?” Roland raised a brow as he gestured at the pawns in the distance.

  “I beg your pardon? Their durability…?”

  “That’s right. Given how they’re meant to be expendable, our enemies are presumably going to be hitting them a lot. We have to know just how strong someone has to be to break a pawn. And once we find out, we'll have to test how much force is needed to fell a rook.”

  Haval nodded slowly in understanding but still looked visibly against whatever was about to happen. “Theoretically, it would take a fairly advanced Junior-grade Knight to dent a pawn’s hardness, Your Majesty. They have been enchanted with the latest techniques, so their durability is assured.”

  “Theoretically?” Roland echoed inquisitively.

  “...Yes, Your Majesty. Theoretically… I have yet to truly test it.”

  When his brother turned to him, Reivan could only sigh, having expected this from the way the conversation had been progressing. “Should I hit it with full force?”

  “You can read my mind now? How quaint. And I had this entire speech prepared to convince you.”

  “Don’t bother.”

  “Suit yourself.” Roland chuckled softly before he shook his head. “Regarding your question, the answer is no. Please start things off slowly. We need to find the break point.”

  “Y-Your Majesty…” Haval nervously rubbed his palms together with his shoulders slumped. “This is a highly valuable prototype…”

  “Oh, I know how valuable each one is,” Roland waved him off. “Don’t forget who approves of your exorbitant research costs. And relax, we’ll only use one of them for testing. For now.”

  “F-For now…?”

  “Yes. For now.”

  The scholar groaned, unwilling to argue more against a king.

  “You can proceed, brother dearest,” Roland said as he turned to the battle below. “Remember, don’t do it too hard.”

  “I know,” Reivan muttered as he looked around in search of a pebble or something to throw.

  “W-Wait, please!” Haval interrupted, waving his hand to produce a stiff knight statue of a similar size to the ones fighting below. “Please use this instead. It’s the same material composition. The only difference is that this one hasn’t been turned into a pawn yet because the sorcerer helping us ran out of magic power during the session.”

  “Uh…” Reivan glanced at his brother and received a nod of approval. “Alright then.”

  Haval and even the other scholars nearby breathed a collective sigh of relief.

  Amused by the attachment they clearly had for their creations, Reivan walked over to the real statue and was about to set it up, but a nearby Ascendant Knight did it for him. Given the gaping height difference, Reivan summoned Zouros to serve as a platform, placing him right in front of the statue's chestplate.

  “Start slow…” Reivan muttered before he casually threw a jab.

  Though it certainly looked relaxed and just about every human nearby was strong enough to see it, mundane people wouldn't have been able to react to what happened. By his estimation, though, that was about as strong as a 200 Might knight’s full power swing.

  ‘Yeah, there’s no way it would have scratched that.’

  There was no visible damage on the statue, though it did swing backward a little before falling back into place.

  From there, Reivan jabbed it harder and harder to no avail. It was a good thing his knuckles were also pretty hard because they’d be bloody, otherwise. After all, it was inadvisable to punch a rock.

  Normally, that is.

  People like Reivan kind of had to punch harder stuff than that. One could even say that it was an occupational hazard.

  There was a loud crash as the statue slammed into the ground after toppling over from the force of Reivan’s most recent punch. And yet there wasn’t even a single mark or dent anywhere near the point of impact.

  ‘Okay, this thing’s fucking hard.’

  Reivan had actually agreed with Haval’s estimation that a particularly strong Junior-grade Knight’s full-force attack would be enough.

  Yet here he was, just having used that force to no avail.

  Pawns, it seemed, were going to be a lot tougher. They wouldn’t be able to dish out significant force, but it was looking like there wouldn't be a lot of people strong enough to destroy one.

  ‘The fact that it’s not animated, meaning it’s not actually resisting my punch, is part of it. But…’

  In the end, Reivan fell into a proper punching stance, preparing to actually put some real power into his next one. From a young age, he’d been taught that in martial arts, a lot of the power actually came from below the waist rather than just the arms.

  A good punch had a good portion of the martial artist’s weight behind it.

  After learning that, it suddenly made so much sense how professional combat back in his old world always divided fighters up by weight class.

  Things weren’t much different even in this world, where supernatural power was available. Of course, if someone was powerful enough, even improper movements could produce enough force to level buildings. But while great strength was not meaningless without skill, the latter was essential in drawing out the former’s true potential.

  As such, the fundamentals of martial arts were still in use, even at the highest stages of close combat.

  With the strength that essence and special abilities granted, the advantages that good martial arts brought became more negligible the higher up the power hierarchy one went. But having it still provided an advantage, no matter how small. And in a fight between the pinnacle of power, a measly gap was all it took for victory.

  In any case, Reivan tried not to forget his fundamentals, no matter how strong he actually got. Even if one day, he could conjure skyscrapers of ice or eradicate an entire city with a single bolt of lightning.

  “Hoo…” Reivan inhaled as he slowly swept his right foot backward and lowered his stance. And then he bent his elbow as his fingers clenched into a fist. He spent a moment silently as his body tensed.

  Just as he was internally adjusting how much strength he would put into his punch, a suspiciously loud cawing broke him out of focus, and his body instinctively took over for him.

  If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  ‘Ah, fuck!’

  The sound of shattered stones echoed out as the statue was blown away, its upper torso turned into dust and debris. And only when Reivan opened his eyes did he realize that he’d made a bit of a mistake.

  ‘Shit. That was too strong…’

  “I said,” his brother called out with a grimace. “To do it slowly.”

  “Sorry.” Reivan laughed sheepishly as he jumped down from Zouros’ head, landing on a platform of essence just before he crashed into the somewhat muddy ground that would have sent dirt up everywhere. “What the hell was that anyway…?”

  Cursing in his mind, Reivan looked around for the culprit and found a flock of monstrous house-sized crows diving in and fighting the pawns.

  It had been their cawing that disturbed him. For some reason, they had sounded as if they were right next to him, which was why he was alarmed enough to be broken out of focus at all. From the looks of it, the other knights had been affected as well because they were looking in the same direction.

  A brief inspection with [Supreme Insight] showed him that they had an extra skill that allowed their cawing to sound much closer than they actually were to deceive pursuers or prey.

  There had been powerful knights all around, but no number of them could protect him against the skill. Especially since these were weak nightmare spawns and were intentionally lured here to face the pawns.

  Reivan sighed. Sometimes, he just got unlucky. Turning to his brother, he scratched his head with a troubled smile. “You can’t blame me, right?”

  Roland sighed before nodding. “Yes. The Outlands certainly is a breeding ground for strange creatures with strange abilities. I’m wearing artifacts to ward off psychic attacks, and that still hit me.”

  “That’s probably because it wasn’t a psychic attack.” Reivan shrugged as he gestured at the devastated statue. “Still, my bad.”

  “Don’t worry about it. Luckily, only the upper part was destroyed. Just keep punching the other areas.”

  ‘He has a point.’

  And so, Reivan resumed testing the statue and surmised that it could just barely tank the full-strength attack of a knight with around 650 Might.

  Which was incredible to think about, because most of the older buildings in the capital were made of the same material as the statue. Even the hardening and durability enchantments were similar. Meaning the capital of Aizen had some pretty sturdy buildings.

  Even the palace’s castle walls were made of the same material. Only, the enchantments were a lot more… robust.

  Not to mention how it was a well-kept secret that while normal artifacts degraded over time, a genius artificer of the past managed to imbue the capital’s main walls and the palace’s infrastructure with an enchantment that grew stronger over time instead.

  ‘No sense using those formulas on these things because the effects started off negligible and only became noticeable after a century or so.’

  In any case, these pawns were basically walking buildings—if buildings just so happened to have arms and were prone to swinging weapons around. Rooks, which is to say the version much bigger than this one, were going to be walking castles instead.

  Given the thing’s massive weight, Reivan surmised that it would have to be made with multiple legs. Though this was more so for the stability, rather than the worry of the rook’s legs giving out.

  ‘Giant crab knights. Hah.’

  Gun turrets were presumably going to stick out from undetermined places, though Reivan was willing to bet that the crotch and chest were not among the possible spots.

  “These are excellent, Sir Haval,” Reivan praised with a smile, patting himself down to shake off all the dust that got on him.

  Haval bowed deeply, which was very unknight-like of him. “Thank you, Your Highness. This humble servant aims to please. But I do need to clarify that these prototype pawns are intentionally made bigger than agreed upon so they're more visible during the testing.”

  "Huh?" Reivan's brows creased as his gaze wandered over to the statue he'd jsut destroyed. "Then why was I testing the prototype-sized one?"

  Roland shook his head. "It's enough of a test. Size doesn't mean something is more durable, once we start getting into supernatural levels. The test would have had similar results even with a person-sized one. And this wasn't even an official test anyway."

  Haval bobbed his head in agreement. "We will still need to run some combat tests with warriors to identify weaknesses. That way, we can reinforce them and gradually make them better."

  "I see..." Reivan crossed his arms and sat down on a particularly large piece of shattered marble.

  “You’re going to be remembered for this," Roland told Haval. "Your name’s going to be in the history books.”

  The old scholar laughed. “Then may I have permission to write it myself?”

  Roland smiled before clearing his throat. “In light of your success, I would like you to begin perfecting an alpha version for pawns and begin mass production as soon as possible. Rooks as well. I know rooks cannot be produced en masse, however, so just take your time with them while focusing on pawns. Do not sacrifice quality in exchange for speed, however.”

  “As you wish. But how many pawns should I make?”

  “As many as you can. We already have a place to put them in."

  “Huh?” Haval’s brows furrowed in bewilderment. “But as you know, these are quite expensive…”

  Roland waved the concerns away. “The whitestone marble is produced by the royal family anyway. We’ll provide the gold dust as well as all the other premium materials. And beside me is the Hierarch of Samsara, a hive of mages. I’m sure we can rely on them to source the prisma crystals required. Right, brother?”

  Reivan nodded. “It just so happened that we were a bit lacking in trade. Leave it to me. A lot of my mages are idle anyway.”

  Prisma crystals, as Reivan understood it, were artificial gems that magitech craftsmen made to replace the functions of true precious gems. Reivan naturally didn’t know the hows and the whys, but in ancient sorcery, the use of polished gemstones was apparently paramount.

  But they were also incredibly valuable because they looked considerably nice as jewelry, and everybody in power wanted to have the prettiest things.

  Somewhere down the line, a group of sorcerers invented a spell that could make gemstones out of glass that would function just as well as any other real gemstone. Prisma crystals were transparent and way more fragile than a true gem, so mundane people found no value in them at all. They didn’t even glow, so one couldn’t even show it off and boast about how it was magical.

  Prisma crystals were now essential in the creation of magitechnology, though—unless you grew rubies and sapphires out of your armpits every day.

  ‘The problem is how skilled you have to be to make them…’

  It would have been great if the many Ascendant battlemages that were rescued from the Argonian witch hunts could help out instead.

  But doing so would be a breach of the treaty. Of course, Argonia might not find out about it even if Aizen went ahead and did it. With the Sword Star as the guarantor, however, nobody was willing to risk the first knight’s health for such a relatively minor convenience.

  Hence, Aizen would have to rely on mortal sorcerers to make the prisma crystals used for pawns and rooks.

  “I see! So there won’t be any problems…” Haval sighed in relief and beamed. “I’ll get to it right away, Your Majesty!”

  “Thank you. I’m looking forward to it.”

  And with that, Haval and the other scholars left to retrieve the prototype pawns while Reivan and Roland made their way through the portal.

  “War truly brings about rapid advancement, hm?” Roland sighed as they walked side-by-side. “I’m somewhat afraid of how all this new technology will affect the kingdom.”

  Reivan frowned. “Are the golems really that big of a deal? They don’t seem much, in the grand scheme of things.”

  Sure, they were useful in this proxy war where only mortals could participate. But when the time came for the kiddie gloves to come off, these golems, pawns, and rooks would be glorified paperweights. Only the number and skills of Ascendants and Transcendents would matter.

  “I’m assuming,” Roland raised a brow and gave his younger brother a side glance. “That you weren’t listening to the entire conversation.”

  Reivan chuckled sheepishly. He wasn’t shameless enough to try to lie out of this one. And besides, he’d get found out too quickly. “I only caught a few words here and there. In my defense, I was too busy watching how the pawns performed.”

  Roland snorted, but didn’t comment on it further. “Did you listen to the part Haval said about how the remote puppeteering actually worked?”

  “Oh, that? Yes. I was still paying attention during that part.”

  Apparently, it wasn’t actually some kind of “possession” or something.

  In actuality, the crux of Golem Creation was a spell called “Twin Spirit Creation” which did exactly what the name implied: it created two identical spirits. The two were, for the sake of classification, called the Alpha Spirit and the Beta Spirit.

  The word could have been interpreted in a lot of ways, but the “spirit” in this case, were akin to little motes of light that had a joint consciousness. It was actually easier to say that the two spirits were the same entity controlling two spiritual bodies.

  Anyway, with a bit of sorcerous fuckery, the Alpha Spirit was implanted into a golem while the Beta Spirit was imbued into a control artifact. By ordering the Beta Spirit in the artifact to do something, they would also order the Alpha Spirit, which would then move the golem it was inhabiting.

  It was all very roundabout, but it really did work.

  If it was only that, then just about anyone could boss some pitiful artificial spirit around. But that wasn't the case, was it?

  The problem lay in the nature of the conjured spirits that sorcerers of previous generations have been trying to remedy.

  Simply put, the articiail spirits were dumb as bricks.

  Both of them. It wasn’t a case of a pair of twins where one was smarter than the other. Or rather, maybe they were dumb because of their joint consciousness.

  Their stupidity made sense when one really thought about it.

  Two spirits conjured out of thin air, knowing nothing of the world. It wasn’t much different from a baby born into a world where everyone else was different from them.

  How would they learn a language they didn’t have the vocal cords to speak? They didn’t even have any damned ears to hear speech. Nor eyes to see anything written out for them. As spirits, they didn’t have limbs to feel around with, so braille also wasn’t a viable mode of communication, even if it existed.

  Rather than stupidity, the spirits simply couldn’t be taught.

  Because of this, the creator of the spell had been mocked as a moron for inventing such a useless spell. It was only two thousand years later that the spell would find a use through golem creation.

  A spell called “Empathic Link” changed everything because it allowed someone to resonate with someone else—even an infantile spiritual being. This spell was then imbued into a magic item, which would then house the Beta Spirit.

  Any old sap could then attempt to link with the Beta Spirit, allowing some strange form of communication that didn’t involve language, just pure thought.

  Reivan, upon hearing of it, had initially believed that it would be similar to how he and Zouros communicated, but he was very wrong. When he tried to do it with the artifact, he certainly linked up with a spirit, but the feeling was so alien that he quickly cut it off.

  It wasn’t anything like the stable and comfortable mental bond he had with his favorite snake.

  To describe the feeling, it's like there was a pit of live worms, then Reivan and the Beta Spirit would be thrown into it together. In that state—while countless worms were wriggling about all over them, threatening to enter their orifices—the two of them would communicate.

  Reivan saw himself as someone with quite a high tolerance of disgusting things, but that was a bit too much. He supposed that was why the ability to pilot a golem required a unique aptitude, one that he did not have. Though he wouldn’t particularly mourn the fact.

  After Reivan was done explaining what he’d heard, his older brother was left momentarily surprised.

  “Well, would you look at that? You were listening,” Roland said as he clapped a hand on Reivan’s shoulder. “I’m sorry I doubted you. I was sure your attention had truly left us, but I guess I don’t know you as much as I think I do.”

  “Don’t worry about it." Reivan chuckled guiltily. "My mind truly did wander away at some point. So you're not entirely wrong.”

  ‘I’m sorry. I wasn’t listening! The only reason I know all this is because I asked beforehand out of curiosity!’

  Roland smiled, warmly gripped his younger brother’s shoulder before letting go and continuing. “Is that the extent of what you heard?”

  Reivan nodded, feigning nonchalance. “Yes.”

  “Alright, then you must have missed the part where I informed Haval about those pearls of wisdom.”

  “The pearls?” Reivan echoed in confusion before it dawned on him. “You plan to use it to teach atificial spirits…”

  Roland chuckled. “Exactly.”

  “That’s actually genius…” Reivan praised, though there was a caveat. “If it works, that is. A person needs to hold the pearl. Spirits can’t hold anything, though.”

  Aguru’s gift, the pearls of wisdom, had been in the kingdom’s hands for a long time now. More than a year, even. And in that year, a lot of tests were done.

  One result was how animals could be taught the human language. Oh, they wouldn’t be able to speak it, because they simply didn’t have the vocal cords to do so. But they could come very close. And it would at least allow them to understand humans.

  In any case, that was only possible because animals had a body capable of touching one of the pearls. Spirits weren’t the same.

  “I’m not exactly sure either,” Roland shrugged. “But theoretically, we could just have a pilot use the pearl while linked with the spirit.”

  Reivan’s eyes widened. “Holy crap…”

  “This would remove the need for pilots entirely. Now the pilots would just be teaching tools. And we can have the spirits control the golems on their own.”

  ‘Holy shit! Robot maids are actually starting to become possible…’

  “Now do you see why I’m worrying about this?” Roland raised a brow with a snort. “This is a very big deal.”

  Reivan licked his chin in thought. “It is a big deal. I know that now. Just thinking about how we can essentially mass produce expendable super soldiers is amazing—though I’ll feel bad for the spirits controlling the pawns. We can even use these spirits as our eyes when we explore the Outlands. One goes out and the other stays here to tell us if something happened to their twin.”

  The creation of these autonomous golems—or rather, these Automata—was going to revolutionize mortal warfare. Maybe it would influence the real war too, with a bit more improvement.

  But still…

  “It’s a big deal, I know.” Reivan scratched his head. “But I still don’t know why you’re worried.”

  “Because objects of war rarely stay as objects of war.” Roland shook his head. “Guns were weapons of warfare, now they’ve bled into civilian life. They’re used for sport to compete in marksmanship. Or for hunting.”

  “And?”

  “And our newest weapons will likely make it to everyday life eventually.”

  Reivan frowned. “What’s so bad about that?”

  Roland also grimaced, stopping in the middle of the hall and leaning in close. “Think about it, brother. Artificial life, essentially. One that can tirelessly labor for their master. It needs no upkeep, no food, no water, no salary, no holidays, and no hazard pay. You won’t even need to pay its family if it gets crushed under a crate at work. The only expense is the initial cost. Afterward? Nothing else.”

  His brother’s ominous tone whispered visions of a dystopian future. Where the rich forgo hiring human workers and prefer to slowly replace every employee with automata. That created unemployment, which would then reduce public order and give rise to a whole host of other national problems.

  “Oh, shit…” Reivan murmured.

  “The first king warned us about things like this,” Roland hissed. “You read that part of his notes, right?”

  “Yes…”

  It was part of why the royal family took it upon itself to intentionally hinder technological development in the country. Automation was a very dangerous thing if a king let it run amok, and the royal family took the matter very seriously. Of course, not all forms of automation were killed in the cradle.

  As long as the crown could feasibly monopolize and control it, then it was fine.

  Manual labor was archaic—slow, wasteful, a relic of a less enlightened age. But for now, it endured, propped up by royal decree. The crown feared the chaos that would follow its end: millions idle, restless, and hungry for purpose.

  And actually, Reivan kind of agreed.

  He was from Modern Earth, after all. And he was vaguely aware of how corporations cut costs by replacing what employees they could with automation—be it a machine replacing factory workers or AI replacing creators.

  The worst part for Reivan wasn't how he would have to live in such a world, considering how long his lifespan would be.

  It was the fact that his children. They would have to grow up in such bleakness.

  'Arthur...'

  His newborn child and his unborn one. And all the ones that were yet to be conceived. They would have to live in such a world. While he and his progeny would surely be in the part of society that ruled rather than suffered, did he really want his children to look out the window and see a country in despair staring back at them?

  “We have to make sure that we regulate the uses for these Automata,” Reivan somberly said.

  “Automata…?” Roland echoed, but he seemed to like the name. “Huh. Because they're automated...?"

  "Well, yeah..."

  "Alright. We’ll call them that from now on. That’s a nice name, by the way. Why do you insist you’re bad at naming things? You’re amazing.”

  “Shut up. I thought we were trying to be serious?”

  “You dare tell your king to be silent? Insolence. Off with your head,” His Majesty, the Paragon of Maturity and King of Aizen, smirked as he teased his younger brother. “In any case, that is the plan. Well, it won’t be too hard because we’re the only people who have pearls for now.”

  “ACtually, Aguru might have given other people pearls.” Reivan bit his lip. “Also, what’s to say the Automata that have learned won’t just teach other Automata? It’ll be slower than using a pearl. But it’s viable.”

  Roland’s eyes widened. “Merciful God… I didn’t even think of that.”

  ‘Yeah, I only thought of it because I read a two-thousand-chapter web novel with a self-aware AI teaching other AI to be self-aware too, before they quietly started taking over the world by making everyone dependent on them…’

  Clearly, the Automata was going to be very useful. But if the royal family wasn't careful about how they handled everything, the kingdom was going to suffer. Not instantly or violently, but they would suffer.

  And the worst part was that it would come quietly, and most people would be none the wiser.

  yet.

  did write a web novel with that plot. It would be crazy, though.