Volume-2: Chapter-43: The Last Tour
The Country of Eruchea:-
Wang Tian woke up in a dark place.
He was chained to the walls inside a dungeon.
And in front was a man sitting on a chair.
“Finally! I thought that I’ll have to smack you a few times before you’d wake up!”
This voice belonged to Harry.
“YOU!!”
“Yes, it’s-a me, Harrry!”
“What?”
“Haah…
I wish people understood references…
But, anyhow, why is it that you bad guys have to use the clichéd ‘YOU’ line in such situations?
I mean, I’m pretty sure that it’s basic courtesy everywhere that the ruler has to greet the prisoner if the prisoner is or was a part of the royalty, am I right?
What’s there to be so surprised about?”
Harry asked a valid question. If it’s one of the most natural courses of action, why react as if he was some hidden villain who had stabbed Wang Tian in the back.
Like, Harry had even personally gone to pick him from the battlefield. And it wasn’t like Wang Tian hadn’t seen him approach.
However, he didn’t receive a reply.
Instead, what he did get was spit in the face.
Yes, Wang Tian had chosen the old school methods of not replying to enemies.
If the enemy asks a question, just spit in their face instead of replying.
“I don’t talk to demons like you!”
Wiping the liquid on his face with a handkerchief, Harry continued his talk. Which, as it seemed would be more of a monologue.
“Sigh, I would like to point out that you just talked, but let’s keep that aside.
However, as for your remark just now, I find it funny that you call me a demon when you and your family have been doing business with literal demons for generations!
Like seriously!?
Dude!
Also, before you call me a hypocrite, yes, I am continuing the business with them.
But that’s because I know that trading with demons has become quite an essential part of the country’s economy thanks to all the effort that you guys put into setting it up in the first place!
Plus, Ma Liang is half as ‘demonic’ as people might think. She’s at least more humane than you, who decided to sacrifice his friend if it allowed you to be king!”
As it turned out, Harry had a lot of things that he wanted to say to Wang Tian.
And since the opportunity presented itself, he decided to use it.
Wang Tian, on the other hand, was quite shocked.
The plan he made was something that no one but him knew of.
How did this man of all people know?
“I might be the one doing deals with the demons.
But you, you are not only a demon but a demon king!”, screamed Wang Tian.
“Okay…
That’s quite the accusation you got there.
And why exactly do you say that I’m the devil?”
“You devil!
You have used such demonic weapons against me!
How could a mortal ever make such devilish things!?”
“Yeah, about that...”
“I’m sure that you knew of my plans through your demonic powers too!
Because there was no one other than me who knew of it!”
“Not exactly…”
“Hah! I knew it!
You just accepted!
I also know that you must be destroying this country like all you demons love to do!”
“Urgh!
This guy!”
Harry couldn’t stand talking with him any longer and decided to smack his head with a nearby metal pipe.
Seeing that Wang Tian was knocked unconscious due to the blow to his head, Harry decided to leave.
The next time Wang Tian managed to open his eyes, he was surrounded by his former servants.
These were the people he had left here when he ran away, namely, Harry’s current palace staff.
“What the f*** are you guys doing here?”, asked Wang Tian to one of the nearby maids.
“Oh, us?
We were ordered by His Majesty to escort you outside.
We heard of your accusations that you laid on His Majesty. That’s why we were asked to let you see the state of the kingdom before your public execution.”, replied the maid.
“Don’t think that we’re here to help you or anything.
We’re only doing this because of His Majesty.
Left to us, we wouldn’t waste even a second to kill you off!”, added another nearby servant with a smug expression.
This arrogant attitude pissed Wang Tian off instantly.
And Wang Tian tried lunging towards the man to try to strangle him.
But continuing his streak of bad luck, the servants he faced were all pseudo-military.
Harry’s entire palace staff used to participate in some of the military training every day.
There was no way that an overgrown teratoma could even touch them without their permission.
{A/N: Teratoma tumours are very, very gross things.
Those things look like something straight out of a horror movie and are usually just as alarming since I mean, having a tumour isn’t really all that great, no?.
Cancerous or not, they do need to be removed.
Thankfully they’re just as rare.
And in case you are getting curious, they are tumours with various other things like hair, teeth, eyes, bone etc… So, search at your own risk.}
So, before Wang Tian had even taken the second step, some of the nearby maids grabbed hold of him and slammed him into the ground.
It took a few maids since no one was neither big enough nor strong enough to do it all alone…
Quickly, cuffs and chains were brought for his hands and feet.
And before could Wang Tian could even process the fact that he had been beaten up by a couple of his former maids, he found his four limbs bound by thick cuffs tied to heavy chains, which were in turn tied to even heavier metal balls.
There was no way for him to make any sudden moves without causing heavy injury to himself.
“Don’t you dare try to pull off any of that stuff again.
It’s not difficult to deal with it. But if you do, we won’t be too keen on letting you live!”, warned yet another maid.
It seemed to Wang Tian that his knights and servants had been replaced by demons.
Otherwise, how could a woman defeat a man?
There was no way in hell that such a thing was possible.
While Wang Tian had such thoughts racing through his brain, he was finally taken outside.
But since he was being held in the palace dungeons, the outsides weren’t too different from his memory.
All the development that had occurred in Eruchea always started from the outer regions. The inner regions of the country already had much better facilities than the insides.
So there was no need to put too much effort here so early on.
As the saying went, “A chain is only as strong as its weakest link.”
What good would it do if the inner regions had futuristic skyscrapers but people didn’t even have mud houses in the outer regions?
Some people were waiting outside.
These included some of the Eruchea soldiers, a few of the palace staff and Harry along with his family.
“Oh? You’re finally out!
I thought that these guys will need to drag you outside or something!”, exclaimed Harry (sarcastically, of course) when he saw Wang Tian approaching all chained up.
This caused everyone nearby to let out a giggle.
Wang Tian was like a huge ball of fat with torn clothes (it was really difficult to transport someone as large as him while he was unconscious) and metal chains.
The mental scene of people rolling him around to transport him was too funny to think.
Especially since he was their king around just a year ago!
“I hope you like the arrangements we made for your little tour…”, said Harry as he pointed towards the vehicles parked nearby.
“And also the stuff your limbs are bound with.
These are specially made cuffs just for you! Made with 100% stainless steel!”
Wang Tian looked over the stuff Harry mentioned.
Those were some very strange looking carriages.
And what was this “stenles steal” thing?
But whatever it was, Wang Tian couldn’t help but appreciate the high quality of the material used for his chains.
This stuff looked better than the metal used for the armour worn by his elite knights!
“You know, looking at the expression on your face, I almost feel sorry for having to execute you later on!
If I didn’t know you better, I might have even thought of letting you off with life imprisonment or something. You know, to let you enjoy all the new and exciting things that we make for Eruchea…”
Saying this, Harry ushered Wang Tian towards the trucks.
The guy’s face really made him look like a little child at a toy store when he was looking at all the new things around him.
Too bad that he was a horrible person in reality!
A little part of Harry’s conscience did feel somewhat hurt by this. On one hand, the guy was pretty horrible and on the other hand, he was just being really curious.
Everyone else got in their usual vehicles but Harry chose to climb onto one of the open trailer trucks with Wang Tian.
That guy was too big to fit in the cabins. And Harry wanted to be there with him to answer any questions that he might get.
[The system feels that the host is not being completely honest…]
‘Okay, fine! I just thought that it suits the mood more if I gave such reasoning!
I’m sure that it’s no secret that I also want to watch this guy’s mouth hang as he sees how much his former territory has changed in such a short while!’
[Now that sounds like the complete truth!]
And so, the tour of the place started.
And Wang Tian’s mouth kept falling lower and lower as new wonders kept appearing in front of his eyes.
The first time his eyes popped was naturally when the trucks began to move!
Who the heck had even heard of carriages on the entire Etheldor!?
Sure, the cultivators and mana users had their own crazy stuff. But they had qi or magic powering it.
It was way more believable when it was known that there was mana or qi that was making the thing work.
Those energies could do all sorts of craziness. So it wasn’t anything surprising when they were used to move inanimate things around.
Cultivators had their qi powered flying swords.
And if a person knows that it’s possible to FLY on a FREAKIN’ SWORD, the mana powered carriages seem somewhat normal, even if the carriage was made of metal.
But how the heck do you power so many metal carriages in a place with such negligible mystical energy?
It would take decades of energy concentration to get enough for such a task!
As for how Wang Tian knew all this even though he was a third-generation king (emphasis on “was”, lol), it was simply because of old records from the time of his grandfather and also from new pieces of information he obtained from the immigrants who managed to survive until they reached any one of the kingdoms.
Harry, on the other hand, was getting excited when he saw Wang Tian’s initial reaction.
If he was making this face on just seeing th trucks move, what would he do when he sees the rest of the country?
The guy might die of a heart attack before Harry could officially execute him!
Because everything outside of the innermost region had been almost fully modernised.
No more of those useless mud houses.
And even the ones made of stone were now replaced with better ones.
Since the stone houses were made of just stone. They didn’t have the concept of mortal or any other binding agent for construction purposes until Harry made cement.
All houses were made of mud, wood, or stone.
Naturally, the stone was the most expensive building material since they had to ensure that every single piece of stone was perfectly cut before it could be used.
But with the designs and sizes of the building that had been constructed using stones only, Harry couldn’t help but pity the destruction.
That was also one of the biggest reasons why he had kept the inner districts for last.
The deeper one went into a kingdom, the richer the citizens got. And with increased money came better-looking houses.
That’s why Harry had decided to keep a few of the houses from the inner regions intact.
Of course, they had to be removed to make space for the better houses. But the selected ones would be carefully disassembled by hand rather than having a bulldozer drive right through them.
And then, they would be reassembled as showpieces once Harry got around to building a museum.
Some of the houses had already been disassembled and stored similarly.
Artists had also been commissioned to draw the insides (the furniture and stuff) so that it could be replicated later on.
Naturally, all sorts of required permissions had been taken from everyone occupying houses, whether for plain old demolition or to be converted to museum pieces.
And the ones who were given a choice to get a new house as compensation, get some amount of the house’s price subsidised or even take part in the designing of the house being made for them.
These choices were given based on the income of the people involved.
If the person/family was really poor, they were shifted for free.
But as the financial conditions of the ones involved improved, they were supposed to pay for a certain amount of the houses actual price, which increased along with their income.
Better the income, the more the money that you would have to dish out.
And for the really rich ones or even the ones who were just interested, they were offered a chance to help with designing the houses they were to stay in.
They could either choose from the options given to them or suggest some ideas of their own, as per how expensive of a house they wanted/could afford.
Some of the designs were pretty innovative and ended up being officially adopted/bought by the construction teams.
Some of the people were even offered jobs as architects if they wanted to join.
The construction industry of Eruchea wasn’t all that developed yet but they had a huge project on their hands.
Naturally, they would be desperate to hire more and more workers for anything that could ease their work.
So, Erucheans ended up discovering several hidden talents during this time.
Coming back to the present, Harry and co. arrived at the wall that separated the inner district from the outer one, aka, the wall separating the noble district and the common district.
But they were forced to make a quick stop here.
Because here, the construction workers were coming in.
They were majorly done with the outer districts and had decided to start off with the next/inner one.
And so, while everyone waited for all the workers and vehicles to come in, some of the construction workers already started with their job.
So, right in front of poor (not so) little Wang Tian, a few bulldozers built for the task rammed themselves into a few nearby buildings and utterly obliterated them.
Since these houses didn’t have any binding agents holding them together, Harry didn’t find the need to introduce explosives or any advanced hydraulic machinery yet.
All he did was cobble together a few basic bulldozers and a few dump trucks with a movable bed.
These had pistons in the cabin that the drivers had to manually push or pull to manipulate the hydraulic sections of the vehicle.
Wang Tian could only watch as one of the many beautiful houses got reduced to rubble.
This was one of the nobility houses. Even though only baronets (the lowest rank of nobles) lived in these houses, it was obvious that eventually, all the other houses would be similarly destroyed.
“Oh, don’t you worry!
I plan on doing the same to this country’s palace too!”, said Harry to spice up the situation when he saw Wang Tian’s horrified expression.
It was really enjoyable for Harry to watch the living meatball take up more and more mental damage.
Because either it would increase Harry’s enjoyment until the time for execution came or Wang Wian would die of a stroke or something before he got executed and that would save Harry some of the expenses of holding a public execution.
Plus, the sight of a person being hanged to death was not something that he wanted the young children of his country to see. (Plus the rope would be freakin’ expensive!)
It just didn’t feel correct since his morals were still somewhat affected by the ones he was taught back on Earth.
And even though he didn’t have too much of a problem actually killing people, it was just too much for him to let little children watch a person die.
Because even on Earth, the death row prisoners were killed away from the public’s eye. Only the ones who gave their consent could watch the actual execution. And the ones allowed are usually the family of the prisoner and the family of the victim(s).
But Wang Tian’s shocks weren’t over yet!
As the group moved towards the outer regions, the construction kept getting better.
This was because Harry had put up a policy that new things were to begin from the outer regions unless he were to ever say otherwise.
So, as construction moved on, some teams stayed back and kept improving all the unused houses.
There was no one living in them. So, the construction teams had decided to take up many of them as their playhouses where they kept trying new things.
And until the construction of the other places is fully finished, people might change their minds and might want to switch houses. Some might want to live in the inner districts if they thought that those houses were better than their current ones.
So, if the construction workers could improve their skills and make better houses at the same time, they were happy to do so.
Harry had given them this much freedom.
Aside from all these crazy construction activities that were going on, what shocked Wang Tian more was how friendly everyone was behaving.
He even saw some of the slaves that he had formerly employed dressed nicely and chatting with Harry when they came nearby.
Of course, their expressions and actions did a 180 when they saw him.
Once this tour was over, the entourage headed back to the palace.
It was decided that Wang Tian would wear some proper clothing when he went for the execution.
It was just too much to kill him in the rags that he was wearing.
But unfortunately (or fortunately for Harry), it turned out that all that sightseeing was too much for Wang Tian, who had a fatal stroke not long after he dismounted his vehicle.
‘Phew! So much money saved!
Thank the gods that I never bothered doing an announcement about this execution!’
“All right guys!
I know that this is somewhat tragic. But not because he died. But because you guys wanted a public execution and feel that he was let off too easy.
But nothing can be done now!
So, I suggest that you prep up for the funeral quickly!
I don’t want the palace driveway to stink like a graveyard!”